ems January 2005 International Round Robin (Part I)

Although I have been cross stitching since my teens, it was never on a regular basis. I would lay off for a couple of years before I pick up the needle again. My interest in cross stitching rekindled when I discovered the adorable animal babies by Ellen Maurer-Stroh. I was so taken by Ellen's designs that I'd immediately signed on as a member of her EMS Cross Stitch Board when she started it.

The Board organised a round robin late last year and without any hesitance, I put my name down as one of the participants. I'd even roped in my colleague, Gina, to join in. I knew it would be a fun way to get to know other stitchers that are all bound with a common love - cross stitching. My second reason was a bit warped - I wanted to see the back of other's stitchings (not stitchers, lol). Lastly, it would take the mundane out of stitching for I could get to stitch a different theme on each square. Variety is the spice of life, so they said!

Joining this RR was not without its trepidations. I was worried that I had bitten off more than I can chew. I wasn't sure if I could meet deadlines or if I could stitch as well as my partners or my choice of design agrees with my partners. However, once the RR got going, I was too caught up with it to care.

It was easy to select my theme for this RR. Since I love teapots, Mary Engelbreit's teapot coasters was the obvious choice due to its vibrancy. Here is the square that was stitched by me.

My square
Theme: teapots
Designer: Mary Engelbreit

The second square came from Laura, Italy. Laura's theme is tea/coffee. I opted for tea since its my favourite drink. Mum came to my rescue by providing me with this design - very Chinese. This teapot looks somewhat like the one I'd used during my wedding tea ceremony! It was quite a difficult square to stitch due to the frequent floss changings. The result was well worthed the effort. It turned out beautifully if I may say so myself.

Laura's square
Theme: tea/coffee
Extracted from a chart of 6 oriental teapots (designer unknown)

Next came Sabine's, Belgium, square. Her theme is mice. For her, I'd chosen the stitcher from the Tailor of Gloucester. This square gave me the goose bumps each time I put in a stitch for my imagination ran wild. The mouse was so realistic that I was afraid it would jump right out of the cloth onto me. Many a time I was tempted to frog it and start anew with another design but since time was of the essence, I just plogged on. The good thing was, once the floral background was stitched on, the mouse was softened by the whole effect and she looks so adorable.

Sabine's square
Theme: mice
Design: Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter

Karen, UK, chose delfts as her theme. The design came from Cross Stitch Collection July 1996. It has two rows of three squares each and each square is about 48 x 48. A pretty fast square to stitch due to its size and 2-colour change. Since I'm the fourth stitcher for this round, I was to choose one from the remaining three. I chose this:

Karen's square
Theme: Delfts
Design: Cross Stitch Collection July 1996

I have Patty's RR in hand now and her theme is "Friends Across the Miles". We're to stitch anything that's related to our own country; flowers, animals, buildings, etc. Right from the start of this RR, I knew this would be the most challenging square. There are no available charts I could rely on. I have been agonising over the design and finally settled on one that's borrowed from our Malaysian stamps. Progress has been real real slow as, being the perfectionist that I am, I had stitched and frogged it many times just to get it the way I want it to be. Now you know where I got my blogname from. Deadline is 20 October and that's a month from now. Laura has just informed me that she has posted out Oggi's, Australia, RR to me. A week from now, I'll be hanging on to two RRs. Arrghhhh!!!

(to be continued)

Category: [cross stitch]