This week, I pulled out a piece I hadn’t worked on for over a year. Pretty by Nene Thomas. I really like this one, and I am not entirely sure why I stopped working on it (I only got 300 stitches in it in the first place). Well, in the four days I worked on it, I got to a total of 1600 stitches completed. So I definitely made a bit of progress. I am only .5% complete with the chart, so not a lot of progress.
I haven’t had a lot of stitching time in the last several months. In about October I told my sisters I would crochet them afghan’s for Christmas. Well, I only got one complete. I have half of another done, and a bit of the third. I have to have the second one done by February 7th and the third done by three weeks after that. So basically all of my time between now and the end of February will be dedicated to crochet. I sure do miss my stitching time. I need to improve my ability to not become too ambitious with my gifts. It obviously does not work out well!
Pretty by Nene Thomas:
Sorry for the bad quality of the picture. I don’t have a digital camera, so all pictures are taken with my phone. Additionally, the colors are all dark and similar right now, so the picture is hard to see!
Well, I am a part and a half away from being all caught up with Around the World in 80 stitches. I am really enjoying stitching this and I can’t wait to be caught up. Upon finishing my weekly allotment of Mini So Many Books So Little Time, I will continue working on this. When I am finally caught up, it will be the first time I will have been caught up since I started this whole project. I am really liking the colors I picked and they end up going together a lot better than I originally thought they would.
This week while stitching, I finished Part three and got about half way done with Part four. Below is this weeks progress:
While stitching on this, I watched the following: Little House on the Prairie – Season 1 and Glee – Season 1. I have concluded that I watch way too much tv. But what is a girl to do when there is so much stitching to be done?!? I don’t trust myself to be left to the quiet of my own mind.
Well, it is mid week and I already finished this weeks allotted amount of stitching on the Mini So Many Books So Little Time project. I am rather proud of myself, though I do worry a bit about burning out. I tend to have really good stitchy phases and then, at the drop of a hat, I will enter a major slump that will last for a while. I can only hope and pray that my mojo continues… at least until the 2014 Olympics. hahaha, like that isn’t asking too much. For now, though, I am determined to not worry about it too much.
This is what it will look like when finished (less the watermark):
Here is what it looked like when I picked it up this week:
8/17/12
And here is what it looks like now that I have added another 1,200 stitches:
While working on this project, I watched some of Season 2 of 7th Heaven and Season 1 of Little House on the Prairie. I don’t know why I am still watching these ridiculously lame shows. I never watched Little House on the Prairie growing up, but my mom used to sit down with my sisters and I every night before we went to bed and she would read us a chapter out of the books. It is a great memory that I have and one I plan on repeating when I have my own children. As a matter of fact, I have the books sitting on my bookshelf right now and I have been thinking that I should read it again. Transport myself back in time to a time when things were really different than how they are now. I won’t say a simpler time, because in some ways that is true but in other ways it isn’t.
For the rest of the week, I will be working on Around the World in 80 Stitches. I am almost finished with Part 3 and then I will only have two more parts until I am caught up. I am really enjoying it. Except that I (1) hate putting on beads. I decided that I have to do it as I go along with the project or I will never go back through each of the parts and put on the beads when I am done. I do admit that it adds a lot of embellishment and so glitz, but it is a paid to do. (2) I hate working with metallic thread. I hate it with a passion. And (3) I hate lazy daisy stitches. I never feel like mine look that great. And unfortunately, this time, I have to combine two of my hates… lazy daisy stitches in metallic thread. Oh the joy!
I won’t be getting much stitching done on Saturday because I have a reading date with my best friend. Essentially we get online and read the same thing at the same time for 12 hours. I know it probably sounds lame, but she lives in Virginia and I live in California and so it is a way to spend time together. We usually Skype chat/call for a couple hours. It is a great bonding experience and it helps us stay close… like sisters. We used to do this in High School as well (though it wasn’t for 12 hours and we were actually in the same room when this went down) so it is also a way to remember the good times. I have been looking forward to this for weeks. We try to do it once every month or two, but I have to admit that I bailed the last time by accidentally sleeping through pretty much the entire thing.
On Monday I will be starting the next 1200 in the challenge. Can’t wait. I have been printing off the pattern with a weeks worth of stitching at a time. It helps keep me motivated because I can see it coming closer and closer to being finished instead of just seeing how much there is left to do. I use the snapshot tool on the pdf files and blow it up 275%. That is a pretty good amount because it is the perfect size for my highlighter. Not too big, not too small, but just right!
About five months ago I joined a Stitch-A-Long called Around the World in 80 Stitches by Papillon. It is through the newsletter feature on the website. You pay 2 dollars and then every month for two years you get access to a new part of the pattern. It is a mystery pattern so I have no clue what the finished product will look like. But I am enjoying learning all of these specialty stitches. I never even knew about specialty stitches until I found this. I know, I know, what rock have I been hiding under. But I was taught cross stitches and so that is all that I have done. That is all I knew existed.
Since I finished working on the weekly allotment of Mini Books, I have been working on this. Probably spent over 20 hours working on it. After finishing my weekly allotment of Mini So Many Books, I will continue working on this until I am caught up. I am nearly done with Part 3. I have to finish the lazy daisy stitches and put the beads on it. Part 5 was released this past week so I am about half way there. I am really enjoying working on it. And the concept of stitches from 80 different places. It is a really brilliant idea.
Here is my progress pic. I don’t remember what fabric I stitched it on. I think 28 ct white evenweave.
Colors used (all DMC):
Dark Green: 890
Medium Green: 909
Pale Green: 905
Floral 1: 552
Floral 2: 209
Floral 3: 321
Floral 4: 666
Floral 5: 741
Floral 6: 727
Floral 7: 820
Floral 8: 799
Metallic Thread: Silver
Bead 1: Red
Bead 2: Yellow
While stitching I have been watching: Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman – Season 2; The Hunger Games (twice); Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
You all, I suck! I know this to be the truth. Why? Because it has been over a year and a half since I have updated this blog. No, it hasn’t been a year and a half since I stitched. I have stitched and acquired many charts since then, but I just didn’t update because… well, there really isn’t an excuse. It isn’t like I haven’t been on the computer.
Anyway, in one of the stitching groups I belong to (One Over One), a few members started up a Stitching Challenge that I decided to take part in. It is called The Olympics 2014 Challenge. Essentially, for this challenge, you pick a chart that you want to stitch and you work on it over the course of the year and a half the goal is to finish it by the start of the 2014 Olympic games. I am a big fan of designs by Heaven and Earth Designs but I have never completed one. So I decided to Mini So Many Books So Little Time by Robert Spangler:
I calculated that if I completed 1200 stitches a week, I could finish this by the 2014 Olympics. So this week, I became the challenge. I decided that I would start off each week (week beginning on Mondays) with my challenge piece, and then when I finished that, I would work on another random piece until the start of the next week.
So here is my first piece. It is stitched on 18 ct evenweave. The color is oatmeal. I spent hours working on this and completed 1200 stitches.
While working on this project, I watched some of Season 1 of 7th Heaven and Season 2 of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I don’t know why I have been watching these ridiculously lame shows. I guess I have been trying to get back in touch with my childhood. But seriously, if I hear Sully say “As the Cheyenne say…” or “The Cheyenne say…” one more time, I am going to teleport myself in the show just to kill him. I know I am definitely in the minority (possibly utterly alone in this) but I find Sully one of the most annoying characters in any show ever. He is way to stubborn and unyielding. My way or the highway. It drives me insane.
For the rest of the week, I will probably be working on Around the World in 80 Stitches. I am only on Part 2 and Part 5 was released this week so I have a lot to catch up on. On Monday I will be starting the next 1200 in the challenge. Can’t wait. I am really enjoying this project so far!
I have finished page 1 on my HAED patter Lovers by Nene Thomas. This is stitched 1 over 1 on 28 ct evenweave, full x’s. I do not like stitching with half stitches so mine will always be full stitches if I can help it. I got a beautiful new chart, Three Graces by Josephine wall, from a fabulous stitcher, The Crafty Princess. I will post a new update as soon as I have something worth updating!
Now that I have one page done on this one, I am going to try to finish a first page on a couple of my other charts.
Okay, so I know I have only completed three columns of the first page (2940 stitches), but I am a slow stitcher and there is so much confetti and you can already see some of the ornaments so I just had to share it. I am stitching this on 28 ct laguna evenweave (I think) and it is Mushroom color. It is 1 over 1 full xs.
It has been awhile since I last updated my blog. I have abandoned my rotation because I wasn’t feeling it anymore. Plus I joined a weekend stitch-a-thon. With that, I decided that I would just work on Passion Flower Angel from Dimensions on the weekend. I am working on this for my youngest sister (she will be 10 in September). I hope to have this done by her birthday. During the week, I have been working on Christmas Dreams by Dona Gelsinger. I will post an update pic on that one once I finish a page. For now, here is a picture of my work on Passion Flower Angel:
Before:
After:
I finished the first page so I am halfway through. I have one more page of stitching and then the backstitching (I despise backstitching so I estimate that that will take awhile). Anyway, I am really liking how this is turning out and I think my sister will be happy with it. Sorry that the lighting on the picture sucks. I don’t have a camera so I take the pictures on my phone, but that means that I don’t have the greatest quality pics.
If you have a cross stitch blog, please link me to it so I can see your crafts.
Today I worked on Let it Snow by Ursula Michael. This is another one I usually reserve for the Christmas season but I decided to incorporate it into my rotation and I am glad that I did. It was fun to work on it again. I am really glad that I am doing the rotation because it forces me to work on things that I normally push aside in light of my preferred projects. This is one such project. Today I worked on the mittens on the left side. I am quite proud of the progress that I made. Here is a picture of my progress thus far:
In this project, I do one item at a time and then I do the backstitching on that item. This lessons how demanding the backstitching is at the end of a project.
The next project I will be working on is Mother and Child by Bucilla. I might not get to this for a couple days because on Friday I have a test for a job and I will probably spend tomorrow studying for it.
Yesterday I worked on Christmas Countdown by Dimensions. I have been working on this one off and on for approximately 4 years. I usually only work on it during the Christmas season but I decided that since I only have the back stitching and the ornaments left to do, I want to have it finished by December so that I can use it next Christmas. I am so excited. I have a feeling that the backstitching is going to take forever to do, however. Here is a picture of where I am at thus far:
Today I am working on Let it Snow by Ursula Michael. It is another Christmas one and I added it to my rotation so that I can have it for next Christmas as well.
Kate's Crafting Corner 