Quarantine Stitching

Hello everyone! I managed to settle in and do some focus stitching this past week, so I'm back with some finishes!

First, I finished another block on Sheep Virtues:

That half finished border on block #5 kept taunting me, so I had to pick this up again. Also, it's the only block with a black sheep and a little house, so I really wanted to stitch it. Isn't it so cute? :)

Kingbird by Tellin Emblem is a fairly small chart, but somehow I dragged it out for 2 years. But now he's finally done!

I stitched this on 32ct Raw Belfast with the called for DMC. There are a ton of colors, but they're also used in the companion piece, Grosbeak. (I'll be stitching that at some point, but not this year.) These charts come with a button that goes inside a stitched outline, but I chose to stitch my initials there instead. I didn't really take the time to chart them out so they're very close together, but I kind of like the way they flow into each other.

I'm still playing catch up with Moon Indigo, but I'm making progress. This week I finished off page 18 and stitched the first column on page 19:

Her chest and arms are finally complete! There was so much confetti in these two columns it really slowed me down, but I love the results. I particularly like the lace edging on her dress. I can actually see the pattern in there. Now I have lots of her hair to stitch as well as her other wing.

I found out last week that my work will be closed until further notice, which will likely be 3 more weeks (but who knows). I've been buying so much stuff while I've been off, I have enough kitted up to do a proper Maynia. I don't think I'll be doing that, but I do have several new starts planned in May (cuz it's my birthday month!). I'm starting another HAED soon, plus two huge samplers. I figure I've got to start all the baps now so maybe I can finish some of them in my lifetime. And besides, it's fun!

Hope you are are staying healthy and well. Keep stitching! Until next time!

Year of Starts #6

Yes, this is my second new start in as many weeks, but whatever. I'll reform next year. ;)

On June 18th, I started a cute little bird chart from Tellin Emblem. It's from their Birdies & Glories series (I think there's just two) called Kingbird. I'm stitching on 32ct Raw Natural Belfast, and managed just over 1600 stitches last week:

I really like this design, and definitely plan to stitch the second one, called Grosbeak. It's fairly small, about 5.5 by 8 inches on 32ct, but I can't say it's stitching up quickly. It takes me about an hour to get two leaves done. They're small, but it's a lot of stitches. I won't be adding the pink heart button, but I might attach the emblem on the lower right. There is an alternate chart to stitch my initials there though, so I'm still thinking about it.

If you want to stitch this design, I've got two warnings for you. First, it takes a lot of colors for such a small design, 32 colors total. Most of the leaves are different greens, and all the morning glories are different as well. The good news is that the same colors are used in the second design. Second, I had to do a bit of unstitching as the chart does not match the model picture. On the chart, the lattice in the background is stitched in a grid that also crosses the space where the worm is, just under the bird's beak. I had stitched it in according to the chart, but when I saw the discrepancy, I unstitched it, thinking I would also like a gap there. It's really irritating when the charts don't match the picture, but as least it was a small fix.

I also made a tiny bit of progress on Stitcher's Prayer, which I started back in May. I just had a little bit left to do to finish off the first half of the design, so I pulled it out and got it over with. Mainly, I wanted to finish off the details on the lady, who now has her needle and thread and a pair of eyes to see what she's stiching:

It took me four tries to get those french knots right, but I think I'm getting the hang of them on linen. The chart said to do them with just one wrap around the needle, but they were much to fine to see like that, so I did two wraps. I was also supposed to use two strands for the red thread, but she's doing extra fine work, so she only required one strand. ;)

Here's a close up of the lady. I think the stitches in her apron turned out really well. (yes, I'm bragging.)

Last, I have my temperature charts for the week. We had some clouds and rain move in mid-week, so there was a nice cool down. Typical for Kansas City weather, our first day of summer was the coolest it's been all month:

I got another round done on the ornament chart, but now it's back to boxes and squares. At least it's really easy stitching.

Well that's all for this week. Hope you all have some awesome stitchy progress! Until next time!