One Down, 13 to Go...

Hello again! Just a quick post to show a bit of progress and my first goal met for the year!

This week I've concentrated on two of my older projects, Mädchen Am Strand and Kabuki. Mädchen had about a page and a half done last time you saw her. Now I've finished page 2! My goal was to add 4,200 stitches. I've added 4,400, for a total of 8,800 stitches, or 5% done.

It's really difficult to capture the subtle colors in this one. In reality, there's a really nice blend from the blue to the gray, and from across the room it looks like nice ombre fabric. I'm actually really sad to be putting her away, but I have so many other projects wanting attention. But she may be out again later this year...

I've also been giving time to Kabuki, although the confetti on this one is really taking its toll. One night I labored for over an hour to fill in 39 stitches. Yup, confetti is fun. But can't wait for the end result. :)

Stitching those bright oranges has been the most fun. Those colors are just so bright! And I don't really stitch those very often. As it fills in, they will gradually look more red, but I will always remember those Pumpkins and Burnt Oranges.

I am also happy to say that I'm continuing to heal from surgery, and can now use my scroll frames and floor stand! I'm sooo excited to finally be able to sit properly and stitch again. I've got Luna on the stand now, so hopefully I'll be able to share some more progress soon. Until then, keep stitching!

January WIPocalypse and Goals

Hello and welcome! Can't believe January is almost over already, and here is our first WIPocalypse. This month's topic: Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year! 

So I'm Angela (hi!) and I've had this blog for just over a year now. I stitch mainly large projects like HAEDs and Golden Kite designs. The IMP in IMP Stitcher is actually an acronym for Insanely Massive Projects, which is what it feels like I'm stitching sometimes. I wish I could sew faster, but I work full time and have lots of other crafts going, but cross stitch is still my fav. I don't have many finishes, as I'm more about the process of stitching than completed projects, but hopefully I'll have some massive FFOs to hang up one day. Thanks to all for reading and watching my meager progress! :)

Now it's time to set down in writing all the things I want to accomplish this year (at least as far as stitching goes). I'm the type that sets goals every year, knowing I'll miss a few, but setting high goals usually motivates me more than setting reasonable ones. So here goes.

I've got 14 projects lined up for this year, including 2 planned new starts (and 3 or 4 more whining to be next). This is the first time I've had more wips than months of the year, and it feels a little strange. Not too long ago, I was still a one-at-a-time girl. But I figure as long as I'm enjoying what I'm stitching, I can't go wrong. Right? Pictures and more detailed info are on my Wips page, so I'll try to keep this short and sweet. :)

• Moon Indigo: At least 3 pages. This is my main focus piece this year, so I'll be working on her as much as possible.
• Pavonia: 3 pages. My other focus piece, though I kinda fell behind last year.
• Scale: 2 pages.
• The Favorite Bird: 2 pages, though I'll try for 3.
• Euphoria: 1 and 1/2 pages.
• Wisdom: 1 and 1/2 pages.
• White Queen: 1 page.
• Flora: 2 pages, though I'll try for 3.
• Mädchen Am Strand: Add 4200 stitches.
• Cassiopeia: Add 6,000 stitches.
• Kabuki: Add 5,600 stitches.
• Tigers: Finish!
• New Starts: 1 page each.

All told, this is about 90,000 stitches, which is feasible for me, however unlikely. ;) Fingers crossed that I can at least work on all of these this year. Good luck in reaching your goals as well. Happy stitching!

UFO Attack!

Hello everyone! Happy 2016! (I know I'm a bit late with that, but better late than never...)

First off, I want to say Thank You so much for the well wishes ahead of my surgery. Everything went well, and hopefully I'll be back to normal in another few weeks. I had hoped to post this much earlier, but those pain meds kinda put me in a fog. I have been stitching though, even if my abilities are still a bit limited.

Since my normal stitching posture -- sitting forward over a scroll frame -- is still very uncomfortable, I've been relegated to hoop stitching, as I can manage that reclining. In one of those happy coincidences, I had already decided that this year, I would get back to a few of my more neglected wips, some of which are still being sewn with hoops, including some which have now become (dare I admit it) UFOs. So far I've got 3 wips in a sort of rotation, though really I'm just picking up whichever I want in the moment. It is a bit embarrassing showing these to you, not only because they are so old, but because I have so many other wips going, with more starts planned in the near future. But hopefully this will help me focus a bit, and show all my projects a bit of love this year. :)

First up is Mädchen Am Strand, from Golden Kite. I started this March 7, 2014, so it's not that old. However, my attempts to work on her last year were cut short by other projects, so now I'm trying to catch up. I had almost one page finished; now I have almost two.

I really love all the soft colors in this one (blue and gray is one of my absolute favorite combinations). It's a very calming picture, I think, and lots of easy sewing. I'm working this on 20ct Aida, which now seems very stiff compared to the Jobelan I'm used to. She's also one of my smaller BAPs, just 300x543, so hopefully I'll finish her some day.

Next is Kabuki, from Mystic Stitch. This was actually the first large chart I'd ever purchased, and I was daunted by so many pages -- 16 to be exact. I had never encountered full coverage stitching before, and at first wondered if she were sewn on red fabric. Ah, such naiveté. This was began Sept. 22, 2008 on 18ct Aida, though I haven't stitched on her since 2012.

This is another favorite color scheme of mine (I love anything with gray actually, an odd choice, I know). Those big chunks of color make for quick stitching, but the confetti is awful. Mystic Stitch charts, as you might know, have a terrible use of symbols, and some of them overlap the grid lines, so I have to look very carefully to know what I'm stitching. Still, I love this design, and the end result is amazing (like with those sparkly things in her hair). Bit of trivia for you: as this piece is called "Kabuki," I'm unsure as to the gender for this piece. Traditional Kabuki theatre was performed solely by men. ;)

Last is a very old wip I started in high school. And again, at the time, this thing seemed huge. But as I have been "almost done" for over a decade, I thought it time to bring out my Tigers kit, a gift from my mother in 1998. That's right, this one is now 18 years old. Unbelievable.

I thought I had a "before" pic, but I guess not. So far, all I've done this month are the leaves around mama tiger's head. I think I stopped working on this because it was getting so complicated. Their faces are gonna be the most difficult, not just for confetti, but there are backstitching lines everywhere. A lot of the symbols are impossible to read, so it'll be a lot of guess work. But I think I'm ready to plunge forward. I'm hoping to make this my finish for this year, though there's close to 5,000 stitches to go, plus the backstitching. (gulp!) But I think I can do it. :)

Wow, seems I've rambled on quite a bit here. Hoping all of you are meeting your stitching goals (and your resolutions!). Hopefully I'll be back with my regular rotation soon. (I'm really missing Luna!) Thanks for reading. Happy stitching!

Year End Review

Hello lovely readers! Time for that super awesome post where I tally up all my accomplishments (and failures) for the year with lots of pictures! I've worked on six wips plus four new starts this year, with one finish. And because I keep track of these things, my stitching total for the year is: 74,801 stitches! (For me, this is a record, so I'm quite pleased.) Now on with the pics!

Pavonia,by Frederick Leighton:

 

This was supposed to be my focus piece for this month, but unfortunately I've had some medical issues pop up (more on that below) so not much got done. My goal was to finish the 3rd page set, but I only made it halfway through. (I blame the confetti.) The worst of it is done for now, so I should have much better luck next year. Total stitches this year: 14,117 in 52 days.

Moon Indigo by Nene Thomas (retired):

This is where I've made the most progress this year. My goal was to finish pages 3-5, which I did, and also began page 6 for a total of 23,825 stitches in 86 days.

Scale, by Anna Dittman:

This might be my favorite wip, as far as colors go. I met my goal of finishing one page this year, managing 5,721 stitches in 22 days.

The Favorite Bird, by Charles Hue:

I had hoped to get a lot more done on this one, but I fell in love with knitting late last spring, and somehow all my stitching time disappeared. ;) But I did manage one more page, 2,582 stitches in 8 days.

Flora, by Jasmine Beckett-Griffith:

I met my goal of finishing three pages (though two were itty bitty partials) and got a good start on a fourth page. For the year, 7,311 stitches in 38 days.

Wisdom, by Babette Vandenberg:

I haven't had this one on the blog before, as she became a bit of a UFO this year. But a few days ago I fished her out of hiding and started stitching away again. I really love this piece, so neglecting her didn't seem right. She doesn't have a goal. For now she is my therapeutic stitching. So far this year: 1700 stitches in 5 days.

Now for new starts! First up is my Green Fern Fairy, which is also my finish for this year. This was my first time working a Mirabilia, first time stitching over 2, first time working with kreinik, and first time beading. Lotta firsts packed into one little project, but she was a lot of fun to stitch. She had 6,673 stitches by my count (including beads) which I finished in 20 days.

Euphoria by Melanie Delon: My Spring start. Haven't gotten serious about this one yet, but I'll get there eventually. The goal was to finish one partial page (starting from the bottom) which I've done, plus a start on the second. So far, I've done 5,488 stitches in 10 days.

Cassiopeia by Mirabilia: My Autumn start. I am still in love with this project. She is so easy to work on, I get lost in all those big sweeps of color. I was too busy trying to catch up on other things to give her proper attention this year, but next year should be better. So far I've managed 4,117 stitches in 12 days.

Now for a surprise: I've got another new start! She is White Queen by Chris Ortega. Unfortunately I had to put the brakes on this one (for reason, see below if you care to read it) so it's almost a false start. For a change, I've started toward the middle of the top row rather than the end. The idea is that I want to stitch her face first, except I didn't want just a face floating in mid fabric. So I'm starting at the window and working left, stitching any pages containing bits of her head, and will progress from there. For this page, it's just the tiny bit of hair showing at the lower left corner. (See that odd bit there? Yup, that's her!) So far I have 3,257 stitches in 6 days.

Now, about my "issues." (You don't have to read this if you don't want to, no hard feelings.) I started White Queen Dec. 4th on a long weekend when I was supposed to have oodles of time for stitching. Unfortunately, the day I started her... well, lets just say I became quite ill. Long story short, I've got a tumor in my abdomen (totally benign) that has grown quite large and needs to come out. I've waited all month for surgery, which will finally happen on New Years Eve. (Lovely way to spend a holiday, isn't it?) December has been a little rough, as sometimes I can't sit at all to stitch, but there have been days when I've managed pretty well. So fair warning, I don't know what my abilities will be this January, but hopefully I'll be back to stitching within a couple weeks. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing all of your lovely progress posts, as they always cheer me up and inspire me to stitch even more. :)

Guess that's all for now. I've got lots of plans for next year, but I'll save those for another post. Thanks for reading! May your thread flow smooth and your needle be swift in the coming year. :)

New Stash and a Page Finish!

Hello again! Well, seems I've managed to miss WIPocalypse yet again, but at least I've been stitching a bit. Here at last I can show off my lovely Luna (Moon Indigo) with a completed page 5!

I'm so happy to have this done. I've already put in a few stitched on page 6, and hopefully I can get a bit more done before the end of the year. I was hoping to have a row finish for this year, but I guess that's what happens when you don't stitch for a few months... (fuming silently)

I didn't buy as much stash as I wanted during the holiday sales, mostly because I spent a good deal on art sales instead, but I was also a bit disappointed by the meager discounts. (I'm still waiting on HAED's 50% off sale.) But Golden Kite had two 75% off sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so I indulged just a bit.

Some of these have been on my list for quite some time, but the last, "Amour," was kind of an impulse buy. I remember seeing it when it was first released, and fell in love with the color scheme. The blue, the dark blue, and that bit of bright green against a creamy backdrop just makes it so romantic and sweet, I couldn't resist. :) The "Oriental Woman" has been staring at me for some six years, and finally convinced my to buy her. "Daedalus and Icarus" is another of Frederic Leighton's works, and reminds me of Pavonia. But I've always liked that story, and have Draper's "Icarus" as well. As for the conservatory... I've never thought of stitching a room before, but I think it was those vines climbing along the walls, and that arched glass ceiling that drew me in. This one will definitely be a challenge if I ever start it, but fun as well.

One last thing I would like to brag about share with you. Those that have been following my blog for a while may have heard me grumbling about a quilt project that's been taking up too much of my time lately. I've been working on a quilt for a friend since March, and have finally gotten the top completed. I still have to do the backing, quilting and binding, but the top is all done, and deserves some showing off. So here goes:

Mind you, the colors are not represented very accurately, but you get the gist. My mother and best friend are holding it up for you, though they are both short and their arms were getting tired. It's for a full size bed, 96x76. I have never been happy with this color scheme (most of the fabrics were bundled in a kit) but I think I did okay with what I had. And my friend is very happy with it, so that's what counts. I'm taking a break on this for the rest of the year, but will post again when it's done.

Well, that's all for now. Back to stitching. :)

IHSW?

Hi all! I do hope everyone is having a lovely November so far. It seems I have finally hit my stride again with stitching, and have a small update on Pavonia to show off. :)

This weekend was supposed to be the IHSW sal, but unfortunately our beloved hostess seems to be missing. (I do hope she is okay...) But in the spirit of my favorite weekend of the month, I've hermited as much as possible and managed to knockout of big chunk of stitching. She still doesn't look like much, and she is getting very dark (I'm stitching the shadow side of her face, which is further shading the feathers behind her) but it won't be too long before she begins to look like something. Here's the before and after:

 I want to say I'm more than half done with the worst of the confetti stitches. The shadows have three main colors, and I did two this weekend, so hopefully next weekend I can fill her in a bit more. I'm saving her forehead for last, as my reward (and something to look forward to!). It will be so nice to stitch some nice light colors for a change.

I'm hoping I can finish this part by the end of the year. I'm also hoping I can resist buying too much stash during any holiday sales this weekend. That's going to be tricky...

Until next time!

Because Sharing is Caring

Hi everyone! Just thought I would take a moment to share something, as I have no idea how many people know about it. But for those who were once fans of Nene Thomas charts on HAED, this might be of some interest.

If you've seen my stash, you might've noticed I was a little bit peeved when Nene pulled all her charts  from HAED. I liked quite a few of them. Well, there was a reason for that. It seems Nene has decided to get into charting designs herself. While she's not charting all her designs -- only a very select few -- it's still worth mentioning that they are available, and the mock-ups are gorgeous! She offers two sizes: regular, which are usually 356x577 stitches, and "epic," which are around 554x898 stitches. They are kinda pricey, at $20 and $40 respectively, but might make a nice Christmas gift... Here are a few to tease you:

 

Unfortunately, I have not purchased one of these yet, but when I do, I'll let you know my thoughts on the charting. And of course, if you want to check them out yourself, look here.

And yes, I am making progress on my current wips, still working on Pavonia at the moment, but nothing worth showing. Instead, I'll leave you with another crochet finish, as these are quite popular this time of year.

Twin Kitties

Happy stitching!