Year of Starts #10

Hi all! Back with another update and another new start. At least you knew this one was coming. :)

First, I'll show you my progress on Hillside Travelers, which I worked on for six days over the last two weeks. Here's where I left off:

The lake was originally charted to be stitched in a gray-green color, the same color as that gentleman's jacket. I know lakes can be murky at times, but I wanted a nice blue color. I couldn't decide what to pick, so I just grabbed a color at random and went with it. I ended up with 3752, which seems like a nice gray-blue on the bobbin, but looks kind of bright in this piece. Here's the full view out of the qsnap:

After that, I spent several days filling in the bottom portion. I like to stitch in all the background before I do letters when it's full coverage like this. I think when you do the letters first, the threads kind of get sucked back into the fabric and end up looking sparse. I haven't gotten to the letters yet, but I think you can see what it says:

And of course, on the 18th, I had a new start. This time it was on Jack's Bash, by Plum Street. I went way out of my comfort zone with this fabric color. I had originally thought to stitch this on a light tan color, but I had this fabric in my stash, and when I saw the colors against this fabric, it just seemed to click. I've only worked on it for two days, so I don't have many colors in yet, but here it is:

The fabric is 40ct Cedar Plank by Lakeside Linens. It's a nice warm mottled gray, and some of the darker spots have almost a purple hue. I thought it would end up looking like an eerie, foggy night, perfect for a Halloween party. :) It's a bit more difficult to stitch on gray 40ct than tan, but I think I can manage.

Well, that's all for now. I'm still obsessed with my Marquise, so I won't have too much progress on Crystals and Crows this month. But there's always next month. :) Hope you all are getting in some good stitching! Until next time!

A Minor Distraction...

This wasn't planned. This was a totally spur of the moment thing. I've been fighting the urge for a new start for a while -- after all, I'm starting something on the 18th, right? -- but I wanted something large. I know it's crazy, but I was even contemplating starting one of my supersized HAEDs. But I resisted, for a while. Now I guess my willpower finally failed me, or maybe this chart was just too irresistible. In any case, I've got a new project to show you.

This is the Marquise de Caumont La Force, charted by Golden Kite:

Isn't she lovely? I've had this chart for a few years now, and I always told myself this would be one I'd like to finish in my lifetime. But I kept putting off starting her, probably because I'm too lazy to set up all those blended threads. But I've been doing a lot of thinking about my stash and the way I stitch, and which charts I want to work on in the future. So last week I printed out her thread list and put her in my "to be kitted" pile.

I couldn't stop thinking about her though, so I started to look at her more closely. Her first two pages have only five symbols, and all the colors were in my stash. I had the fabric, too. And plenty of needles. See where this is going?

I was home Friday, taking an unexpected sick day, but I wasn't too sick to stitch. And that was when I caved in completely. Stitching was about all I did that day, but not on my focus projects for this month, Crystals and Crows or Moon Indigo. Nope, I threw all that planning out the door and went for my Marquise. And not just on Friday, either. This affair has lasted all weekend, and I really don't want to stop! We are having too much fun together. :)

I'm trying out a new style of stitching with her, the "diagonal" method. I've kind of made up my own way of doing it, but I am stitching rows of 10, with each row offset by 1 stitch. So here's what she looks like:

I started in the top left corner, which is mostly green with bits of black and brown. Pretty boring so far, but it really has been difficult to put my needles down. I've done 1275 stitches so far, and have just touched into page 2 at the top. My plan is to stitch across the top row of pages in this diagonal fashion, then drop down to the second row, so I won't be stitching diagonally across all the pages from corner to corner. She's got 72 pages, after all. :) Of course, that plan might change once I get to the heaviest confetti, but I'll work it out when I get there.

Usually I like to set up Golden Kite charts with those cool Pako organizers. It takes maybe two for the floss and 3 or 4 for the needles, but they really are a life saver. Since I just threw this project together, I'm going the cheap route for now, putting all my blends onto bobbins. If you've never tried this before, here's how it looks:

I just cut equal lengths of thread from both colors and wrap them together around the bobbin, and mark each one with both colors and the symbol for reference. I like long lengths of thread, so I cut all mine to 31 inches. There are 313 inches of thread in a skein of DMC, so this means 10 lengths from each skein. Just a little fyi in case you want to start a blended project, too. :)

I don't know how long I'll keep going on her, but I'll probably keep her in the rotation for the next several weeks. I'll try not to neglect my other projects too much. (Now I'm feeling guilty...)

If you'd like to learn more about diagonal stitching, check out Blitstitch on YouTube. He is very technical, but it's good info. There are other tutorials out there, though. I think the one that made it click for me  is this one from Needle Bugg. Don't be afraid to try new things! You might find a method that is perfect for you. :)

That's all I have for now. I should be back with a more normal update next week. Until then, happy stitching!

Hocus Pocus, and Other Musings

Hello again! It's finally October, so I have officially started my Fall stitching, because there are some projects that just begged to be worked on this time of year. Unfortunately, we've had almost non stop rain for several days now, so my pictures aren't very vibrant. But if you ever drop by Kansas City, I'll be happy to show them to you in person. :)

First up, I worked on Hocus Pocus by Prairie Schooler. I started this one last October, but my stitching was off that week and I didn't get very far. I'm happy to say that was not the case this year, and I'm pleased with my bit of progress:

That moon took a fair bit of stitching to finish off, but I love the result. He's so jovial! That's the start of the cat on the right, but at the moment it looks more like a sort of demon. Which I like. :) The only thing I may change about this pattern is the orange. On the model, it's a bright, lovely orange, but the called for color just fades into the background, not bright at all. Definitely have to do something about that.

I'm also happy to show off a page finish on Crystals and Crows, so have a look at a crow's tail:

It took about 3 hours to finish off those last 400 or so stitches. To say that this chart is confettilicious is almost an understatement. But I really love the end result. This photo is really washed out, but I think I stared at all the blues in that crow's tail for 10 minutes once it was done. :) I'm still hoping to make it halfway through page 3 by month's end, but it's definitely slow going.

I didn't show my Temperature charts last time because I wanted to finish off September. It's done now, so let's have a look:

September was kind of a funny month. At first, it started to cool down quite a bit, and I thought I'd get into some nice greens for a while. Then it's like Mother Nature heard everyone complaining about the end of summer and decided to give it one last go. Then the day before Autumn, summer abruptly relented, and we eventually got into the 60s, which is that light green at the bottom. But now you see October's antics? It was 91° on the 3rd, 65° on the 4th. We'll just see how the month goes. :) The average for September was 80.3°, which is about the same as May.

Some of you may remember there's a SAL for all the Hawk Run Hollow charts going on this month. I had originally planned on joining in with Christmas, but I wanted to tweak some of the colors first, and I'm still not sure how I want to go about it. I'd like to do it in silks, but I can only afford a few at a time, so it takes a while to kit up that way. But I just wasn't happy with some of the DMC colors.

Anyway, I really want to start another project on the 18th: Jack's Bash by Plum Street. I've seen a lot of people stitching it recently, and it was one of the first Plum Street charts I bought. So I'm really looking forward to it. If anyone else has this chart, you should stitch it with me! That would be fun! :)

Well, I think I've rambled enough for today. Hope you are all enjoying stitching in the new season. Until next time!

Jack's Bash by Plum Street Samplers

September Wrap Up

Hi guys! Back with some good progress this week. :)

I kept stitching on Ann Barson Loughbro, and I got a good chunk of the verse in:

It looks weird with those half sentences, but that's the direction my needle wanted to go, and my qsnaps really aren't very big (I use 8x11). So next time I pick this up, I'll finish off the right side. But I'm really loving this so far. I have no idea what that golden motif at the bottom is supposed to be, but I've decided it's a deformed apple. I don't think it's grapes, but maybe? Or a leaf? I dunno. Let me know if you have a better suggestion. :)

In the evenings, I focused mainly on Luna because I wanted to knock out page 13. And I did!

I am so thrilled with my progress on her. I just hope I can keep it up and finish off this row by the end of the year. (I think I can...) The night I finished this page there was an odd coincidence with numbers. This was day 303 of the project; I had to finish off the last 33 rows to finish page 13; and it took me 33 days to stitch this page. That's a lot of 3s! But I had fun stitching this page, and I'm almost done with the moon. Page 14 changes to a slightly lighter sky, so I'm looking forward to some new colors too. :)

For October, I'll be pulling out Crystals and Crows for the monthly challenge in Full Coverage Fanatics. I was just shy of a page finish last year. While I'd love to finish off pages 2 and 3, that's probably totally unrealistic. So we'll just see how far I get. Until next time, happy stitching!

Year of Starts #9

The year is just flying by, isn't it? Welcome to Fall (for the northern hemisphere)! :)

Last week I continued working on Jinn, yet another neglected HAED, but also one of my favorites. I just love the colors in this one! I could stitch those background swirls forever, which is probably a good thing since it's most of the design. This session was a little challenging with the confetti, but I think I made some decent progress on page 2:

It just looks so cool! I love the way those colors blend into one another, and how the same gray can look purple or green or brown depending on the colors surrounding it. I think I'm through the worst of the confetti, so I should make better progress next time around.

For the year of starts, I picked up a new to me chart from Plum Street. This is one of her reproduction samplers called Ann Barson Loughbro 1837. I've only spent four days on it so far, but here's my start:

This is on 40ct Light Exemplar, stitched with a mix of Classic Colorworks and GAST. I really enjoyed stitching those little motifs. They stitched up pretty quickly. I thought that third motif was a crown, but since it was asymmetrical, I determined it was a lamp (like, for genies?). Then I noticed there's another one farther down the row, and yes, it's supposed to be a -symmetrical- crown. But I already had the stitches in and I like the variegation, so I left it. It's one of those instances where the original stitcher made a little mistake, and the designer chose to chart it in. I think that's cool, but I wish I had noticed it sooner.

I also loved stitching that border. I vacillated for the longest time, wondering if I should stitch it in the called for white or a darker color. At the bottom, the border actually switches to gold (I guess Ann ran out of thread) and I thought that might look nice. But then I thought It might be too heavy for such a small design, and I'm liking the lacy look of the white. (It shows up better in person.) The design is super simple and beautiful, so I didn't need to look at the chart to stitch.

My favorite part about this chart, though, is the verse. It might be a bit morbid, but I like that it speaks of death as a great equalizer. If you can't read it from the image, I'll copy it here:

Hark from the tomb a doleful sound
My ear attend the cry
Ye living men come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie
Princes this clay must be your bed
In spite of all your towrs
The tall the wise the revrend head
Must lie as low as ours

Nice, huh? And she was 11 when she stitched that.

Well, that's all I got for this time. Hope you're enjoying the transitioning seasons without too may allergies. Happy stitching!

Nantucket Girl

Oh my gosh you guys! I was so busy last weekend, I completely forgot to post! Not that what I post here is earth shattering information or anything; it's just been a while since I've been so busy.

So what did I work on? One of my dozens of wips crying out for attention? Nah! New Start! :)

Seriously though, I'd been looking forward to this one all year, a planned start for September 2nd. And here it is, Nantucket Girl's Sampler by Plum Street:

I absolutely love the verse on this! And those motifs are so charming. This is a fairly big chart, but I think it will stitch up relatively quickly. I've already moved the qsnaps, so here's the first and second bits of progress:

I'm stitching this on Lakeside Linens 40ct Porcelain with DMC, though it's charted for NPI silks. I so wish I could splurge on the silks for everything! (Maybe when I win the lottery...) I worked for six days on this and managed just over 2,000 stitches, though I wasn't able to complete the first part of the verse. Those letters take along time to stitch, even though they look so quick. Still, I'm happy with how it's looking so far. The only thing I might have changed would be the lightest green on the plant. The conversion calls for 3013, but I think 3053 would look a bit better (slightly darker). I just didn't feel like ripping.

It's also interesting that the model picture differs from the chart a little. For one thing, the model left out those two fish by the title (accidentally on purpose?). Second, I don't think the model stitcher put in that "V" accent in the plant holder. That might have been the chart's fault; it's pretty small print, and those symbols really blend together. I had to frog a bit of the black flowers due to a misreading of symbols, so this chart definitely calls for attention to detail.

That's all I got for this week. At the moment I'm working on Jinn (from HAED), but I'm also planning another new start on the 18th. Glutton for punishment? That would be me. Until next time!

August Wrap Up

August has been kind of a tough month for me. There's been a lot of pressure at work and a lot of rain that makes my joints ache and stitching difficult. But I'm glad we're into September now, and I'm looking forward to working on some of my Fall projects.

Last week I pulled out one of my HAEDs, an newer start called Mini Dandelion. I just fell in love with this chart when it was released last year, so when it was released as a mini, I snapped it up. Here's the full pic:

And here's my progress for the week (nevermind the messy threads):

This was a total impulse start in December last year when I knew the last thing I needed was a new start, but it felt good at the time, so I went with it. I'm doing this in tent stitch on 28ct Monaco, which is not my favorite fabric. It seems really stiff, which is better for avoiding tent stitch lines (that weird warp your fabric can sometimes get) but harder to get needle and thread through. But he's just so cute! For now I'm just enjoying stitching all those blues.

I've been so tired this month I barely managed my two columns on Moon Indigo, but finished off the second one on the last day of August:

I have officially hit the sky on the other side of the moon, so that makes me feel like I'm really making progress even if it doesn't look like it. I won't be done with the moon for a few more columns, but then I'll just have one partial page of sky to get through and the row will be done! I'm thinking I may keep her as my focus for this month so I can finish off this page. :)

Have you been missing my Temperature charts? I've got August all done, so here's how they look:

The yellow shows the days of heavy rain, which came as a relief after all the heat of the first half of the month. The ornament chart has begun the round of alphabets, which is quite fun to stitch after all those squares. We've already begun the downward slide into fall temperatures, and I'm hoping to see some greens by the end of September. We'll see. The average temperature for August was 87.4, which was almost the same as June's average.

That's all I've got for this week. Next week I'll be working on yet another new start (yes, I'm a glutton for punishment). I'm also thinking hard about what I want my New Years start to be -- a sampler? a HAED? something old or brand new? I've got a list of candidates, but I'm having trouble narrowing them down. Anyone else thinking about next year?