Queen of Autumn

Well, no bonus points earned this round. I'd hoped to get a third of this chart done this rotation, but all those color changes proved too much for me. Still, I got the bird and basket done, and isn't that just the sweetest motif! I have half an inkling to stitch that as a little pin cushion pillow, even though I've never done that before. Anyway, here's my progress:

Not too shabby, though those acorns take a lot of stitching. The one I managed to finish is stitched with Apple Cider for the bottom part, but I'm not sure it's dark enough for my liking. It's even a little darker in the picture than in real life, which is still not as dark as the model. I'll wait 'til I pick it up again to decide, but I might do a bit of color swapping. We'll see. Otherwise, I'm really loving this chart.

Next week, I'll be pulling out my old Riolis kit, French Lavender. I can't believe how close we are to December! Usually I spend December stitching on whatever I want, usually picking up things I've neglected during the year. But there's so much stuff I've neglected and want to stitch on this year, I'm having trouble deciding. Lately, Pavonia has been calling to me, but I should also work on my untouched Chatelaine, plus a few other projects I need to pick up. Meanwhile, I'm busy kitting up one of my supersized HAEDs. Alas, so little time, so much stitching...

Hope you are all having fun with your end of the year plans. Christmas is only one month away! Hope you can reach all your stitchy goals by then. Until next time! :)

Year of Starts #11

Guess I have a bit of catching up to do since I was too lazy to post last week, so I'll start with last week's project. I worked on Blood, which is never exciting to look at, and made a good bit of progress on page 3:

I'd hoped for a page finish, but I knew I wouldn't manage it. Just not enough time! But I'm working on my plans for next year, and I should be able to catch up. :)

This week I pulled out Frosty Forest and started a new block. This one is the third in the series (I think). Anyway, this sits in the top right corner of the block of 9:

All that snow really takes a long time to stitch! But I'm happy with my progress. I'm making this a sort of focus piece next year, so I should have this block finished relatively soon.

And of course today I had a new start for the Year of Starts. This is one I've wanted stitch for a few years now. (I feel like I say that about everything.) This is Queen of Autumn by With Thy Needle & Thread, stitched on 40ct Sand from Picture This Plus:

I am really loving this so far! There is a ton of floss for this one, so I actually started kitting it up early last year. But the color palette is nice and soft, perfect for a cozy fall day. And since Thanksgiving is this week, it seemed a perfect choice. I'm hoping to get the left third done this week, so we'll see how it goes. (Bonus points if I get to the lady!)

As I mentioned, I'm already deep into my plans for next year, and I do plan to change things up a little bit. After agonizing over which chart to start on Jan 1st, I kind of had the idea to not start anything, but instead to finish up the project I started last year on the 1st, my very much neglected haven't-touched-it-since-January Morning Glory. Sounds good, right? I really hate to break my tradition, but sometimes you gotta go with what makes sense. (Doesen't mean that will happen this time.)

I do know I won't be doing the year of starts next year. Much as I love putting stitches into new charts every month, it's time to start finishing what I've got going. 63 wips is kind of too much for me, even though they aren't all active wips. So the goal is to finish more than I start, though at the moment, I'm not planning any starts next year. Yup, you read that right. No planned starts. Of course, I have been known to be impetuous. :)

Okay, enough rambling for now. Hope you all are having a great stitchy month! Until next time!

October Wrap Up

Hi guys! Got a lot to share this week, I almost don't know where to begin. Guess I'll start with last week's focus piece, which was Autumn Fraktur by Plum Street:

My, how that little plant did grow! :) I feel like this has sort of been a year of Plum Street for me, but I really love her designs. The only thing "bad" about them (not that I would change it) is that they take a little longer to stitch because of all the little details that require stop and start stitching. Like those little dark bits on the acorns, for example. I do a pin stitch for all of those because I don't like to carry thread (unless it's full coverage) so they took a while to complete, but I love the end result. I was happy to get the bird started as well. It feels like I'm stitching him a nice fair isle vest. I'm stitching this with one thread on 36ct, so the coverage is a little sparse, but not too bad.

Now for my full coverage pieces. As always, I stitched two more columns on Moon Indigo, so I was able to complete the moon (at least for the time being):

I'm definitely going to finish the row this year, but I'm going to try and push myself and see if I can get a start on the next row this year as well. Three more pages and I'll get to start on her wings! It's a ways off, but I can't wait to see what they look like stitched up.

My other focus piece for October was supposed to be Crystals and Crows, but you probably already know about my little distraction that interrupted that plan. Nevertheless, I was able to get a good bit done, about 2,000 stitches altogether:

You might notice I started page 3 stitching cross country, but decided to try out diagonal stitching on this project as well. I wasn't sure if I would like it since there's quite a bit more confetti in this chart, but I liked it much more than expected, and over all, I think I'm a little faster at stitching this way (at least on this chart) although the EZPdf app is helping a lot, too. I've already got a wing done of that pale green butterfly, and it keeps calling for me to finish it. So maybe I'll get in a few more stitches in November.

As for my distraction, aka the Marquise, I managed to reach the bottom of page 1, though I am halfway across the top of page 2:

I'm going to stop these diagonals with the first row of pages, otherwise it would be too difficult to stitch, but I like the way it's shaping up so far. Each diagonal will have 670 stitches now until the end of the row, and I really like just working my way down them. It's kind of addictive, actually. I'm hoping to finish off page 1 completely this month, which means 4 diagonals. I hope nothing else comes along to distract me. :)

Last but not least, here are my Temperature charts, all done through October:

You can see we're cooling down quite a bit, with lots of green (finally!) and a little blue. I think this is how April should have looked, but it just kept snowing! On the ornament chart, I've finished off the alphabet round, and now I'm on a round of diamonds. There's only one round after this one, but each side will represent one day, for the last four days of the year. It's strange to think I've only got two months left on these projects, but I'm looking forward to seeing them completed. The average temperature for October was 65.8°F, which is 704, the lime green which is hard to see in these pictures.

Whew! That's all for now. I'm hoping I can stay this productive through the end of the year -- it's a good distraction from online shopping. :) Happy stitching everyone!