April IHSW

I can't believe it's already April! Time flies when you're busy... especially when you're behind on your stitching. :) My stitchy mojo is gradually returning, but I don't seem to have time to indulge. I did make an exception for IHSW tho. I made sure to stitch all three days, though it was only about half as much time as I usually spend stitching. That brings my monthly tally up to... seven days spent stitching? (Pavo and Luna are not very happy with me.)

For this weekend, I spent all my time on Scale, which has been poorly neglected this year. I had hoped to have another page finish by now (my second) but after the Frogging Incident last month, plus starting Euphoria, I'm not quite half way through the page. Still, I managed 829 stitches this weekend, which reminded me of just how quickly she works up. Here's before and after pics:

Where I left off in March

After IHSW

The subtlety of the color changes really amazes me. I never knew DMC made so many shades of light blue and teal. Even when the color jumps to an odd shade of green and I think, no way that will look right, the result is beautiful. Kudos to both the artist and HAED on this one. :)

By the way, this whole page is her eye, from brow to lashes. I'm working on the upper eyelid now and it seems huuuge. I can't wait to see it finished. Hopefully by the end of next month...? After that, the next page sparks things up with a bright red fish. (But that is far in the future...)

Until next time. Happy stitching!

April WIPocalypse

Hi all! March was a really slow stitching month for me, and as of right now, I don't have a single stitch in for April. Not a good sign. But I do have something to show for my WIPocalypse darlings, which I didn't neglect too much...

First up is Pavonia, who is filling in a little bit.

Pavonia, March 31

I've been trying to balance the confetti with the filler colors, and it's working nicely so far.
March Goal: 1,550 stitches. Actual progress: 1,309 stitches.
Target Total: 4,030 stitches. Actual total: 4,018 stitches.
Didn't meet my goal this month, but I'll blame that on my new start. Still, I'm only 12 stitches down for the year so far, so that's not so bad.

As for my Lovely Luna (aka Moon Indigo) I've changed things up a bit. Instead of stitching my usual columns, I'm stitching page 4 in pieces. The page is divided neatly into thirds for sky, moon, sky, so that's kind of the way I'm sewing it. It's hard to explain with words. Here's a pic!

Moon Indigo, March 28

I think it's helped speed things up a little to focus on one set of colors at a time, but I doubt I'll continue this method beyond this page. But who knows. I tend to adapt my sewing method to the situation at hand.
March Goal: 2,616 stitches. Actual progress: 2,870 stitches.
Target Total: 8,502 stitches. Actual total: 7,795 stitches.
Still 700 stitches away from my year to date goal, but again, I'll blame that on my new start. :)

And now for the troublemaker herself, here's my progress on Euphoria.

Euphoria, March 28

This was my special new start to celebrate Spring. I had hoped to get in 10 days of stitching before the end of the month, but only managed 7. Since I've started at the bottom right, there won't be anything but skin for a while, but if you squint a bit, you might see a darker patch at the top of the second page. That's the shadow of one of the leaves on the row above, and it's the only bit of variance until I hit a flower two pages further on. Though I had hoped for more progress, I think this monotony is one reason why I didn't pick her up so much. She doesn't have a yearly goal, but for the short time I worked on her, I managed 3,510 stitches! I suppose that makes up a little bit for my other shortages.

And yes, that's my weird sideways parking technique I use when tent stitching. I never said I made sense to anyone besides myself, but it does tend to help keep page and column separations from being noticeable.

And of course, here's this month's question: Which specialty stitches do you love doing on projects? Which do you dread?

Unfortunately, I haven't done many special stitches beyond the basics. (I have a Chatelaine planned, but that's far in the future.) There was one project I did several years ago that had a handful of specialty bands with smyrnas and wheat stitches (also called partial rhodes stitch), and I loved every bit of it, though I thought the thread consumption was appalling. Still, it's fun to use the grid of fabric in new ways, and the end result was fabulous.

When I was in high school, I used to dread french knots and lazy daisy stitches, and avoided them at all cost. In fact, there's a project I made for my mother with a little poem in the center, and none of the I's are dotted because I just knew I'd mess up those french knots. Then I did a project that had lazy daisies, and it just wouldn't look right without them, so I forced myself to practice. I found they weren't so bad afterall, and could even get them to lay just the way I wanted them. Then I thought, if I can master these, surely I can conquer the dreaded french knots! So I practiced, realized I'd been reading the instructions wrong (those pesky days before the internet) and soon got the hang of them. Now they're not trouble at all. So I guess you could say I love all specialty stitches (so far) and have learned not to dread any of them, as they just require patience and practice. :)

I guess that's all for now. Hopefully things will settle down for me soon so I can get back to my full stitching schedule. Wishing everyone good progress! Until next time!