April WIPocalypse

Hi all!

I know I'm a day late with my WIPocalypse post, but it has been a hectic week and a stressful day (car trouble! ugh!). But on with stitching!

Still can't cross off any more goals this month, but I have made good progress on a few projects. Since last month, I've worked on Flora:

Got a few more leaves on my Tigers:

Finished up two confettilicious pages on Kabuki and got a start on her face:

Finished another page on Favorite Bird (there's 3 now!):

And I've got a good start on Crystals and Crows (yet another new start):

I think I'm up to 42 colors done on the first page (out of 95) but honestly, I think I've lost count. :)

I'm also happy to say I again exceeded my stitching goal for March with 12,098 stitches! For anyone that's curious, that was 63 hours of stitching (it's practically all I do outside of work). For the year, I'm up to 41,473 stitches, which was close to my yearly total just a couple years ago. Still really mind boggling (for me, at least).

This month's question is: What do you listen to while stitching?
Mostly, I only listen to music. I'm a bit of a music fiend. I listen to just about any genre, and I love finding new artists. I've got a good eclectic radio station, The Bridge, that rarely gets old (listen online, it's awesome!). I also pay for Rhapsody, so I've got endless options when I want to hear something specific, or Google Music (which stole Songza, drat it) for neat playlists when I want variety. (Pandora has too many commercials these days.)

In the evenings, when my mother is home, we watch the news while I stitch, though it can be distracting. I'm the type of person who has to give my full attention to anything I watch for entertainment, so I usually stick to music. I have done audiobooks in the past, but now I can listen to those at work, which is much better. :)

Again, music is a topic I could discuss ad nauseum. If anyone has suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them (I really love listening to new stuff). For me, I think my three favorite artists this week have been Hey Marseilles, Shearwater, and Nathaniel Rateliff (though that is the tip of a very large, gargantuan iceberg).

That's all I got for now. Until next time!

April IHSW

IHSW! Yay! My favorite excuse for stitching all weekend. :)

Since I just started Crystals and Crows last weekend, I figured I'd keep working on it for IHSW. Most of the larger blocks of color have been filled in (though there are a couple more toward the bottom right) so the color changes are really starting to slow me down. Still, it is slowly filling in and trying to look like something. I seem to be outlining more leaves and stems, but it will be a while before I get through all those colors. Here's before, with 12 colors done, and after, with 29 colors done (out of 95!):

Somehow even with my tablet helping me, I'm still being plagued by ninja stitches. Must be a special talent of mine. :) But it is coming along, and I'm happy with the progress. Now to check in on my fellow hermiters!

Until next time!

Flowers, Birds, and a bit of Sky

Hi all! Hope everyone is having an awesome stitchy week. Spring is definitely in the air around here, so I could not resist a Spring-y title, though it also describes my projects this last week! :)

Finally, I've returned to Flora, my smallest HAED. The plan is to work this one in conjunction with the HAED BB Mini SAL, so hopefully you'll be seeing her once a month from now on. This week I managed 1362 stitches in a little over 5 hours:

For the most part, I just need to work on the berry, the large red flower (tiger lily?) and a bit of her hair, and this page is done! I was actually surprised to get so much done this week, but I've finally started using EzPDF to help me stitch, and it truly is a time saver. I'm still highlighting with pen and paper though, as highlighting on the tablet takes for-ev-er! But at least I don't have to hunt through a whole page of symbols anymore. I just follow the little orange dots on the screen. :)

I didn't do much other stitching during the week, but I did manage a page finish on Favorite Bird, which, visually speaking, has the honor of being my most boring wip now that Euphoria has her flower. Anyway, here's a bit more brown:

That poor table leg will have to stand on its own for quite a while yet. The page I just finished was only 2600 stitches, and mostly 2 colors, so it actually only took three days. I've already put a few stitches in on the next page, but have set this one aside for now, because...

I have a new start! I know, I always have new starts, but they're still exciting. :) This is one I've been wanting to start since last November. But first I had to sort through all my floss, then there was endless bobbinating, plus I was having medical issues at the time... So finally, Finally, I have begun Crystals and Crows, a max color chart from HAED. You may have seen my post rambling about my indecision over fabric? Well, I actually didn't fully decide 'til after I started it! Yes, I actually did the first few stitches on 18 and 25ct, but in the end, 18ct won. I just felt like the 25ct was swallowing the stitches too much -- probably my own sewing tension is to blame. But if I'm going to go to the trouble of stitching 237 colors, I'd like all of those colors to be visible!

I just started Friday night, but I've already got about 1400 stitches (enthusiasm anyone?). So here it is so far, starting on page 1 (sorry it's kind of a bad picture):

I'm not participating in the HAED challenge, but I'm kind of joining in spirit. :) This is seven colors done so far, out of 95 on the first page (yes, I counted). It's all bits of sky at the moment, though there is a fair bit of foliage on this page as well. I can already see the gradient from earthy beiges in the top left corner down to what will be a warm golden glow toward the bottom right. Absolutely love all the colors in this one!

237 colors = 2 boxes, plus a baggie

Again, EzPDF has been a life saver for finding stitches. With everything highlighted, I can now carry threads across page lines and sew a color until my thread runs out instead of stopping to highlight more, or park, or cut the thread for next time. And since it's 2 threads on Aida, I can use the loop method to start, and a pin stitch to stop, a technique I just recently learned from this video (I love Flosstube!). It really is a neat way to end stitches, and I don't have to flip the frame at all. It's on my heavy, awkward 36 inch Millennium, so that really helps, but I'll probably try it on other projects too; it's just that tidy!

Well, that's all I've got for this week. Gonna be working on C&C for a while, so I'll try not to ramble on too much about it. :) Until next time! Happy stitching!

A Bit of Progress

Hello again! Just a quick update to show last week's stitching. :)

First, Kabuki was dragged out of hiding so I could torture myself with more confetti. (Honestly, it wouldn't be so bad if the chart were more legible.) Happy to say I pushed through said confetti and finished the upper portion of her kimono sleeve! Here's before and after:

 As you can see, I've got a pretty good start on her face as well, with a hint of eyebrow. I am also happy to say that this completes the first row, so I have a second row finish for the year! Not as impressive as Luna's, I know, but I will celebrate where I can. :)

I also got a few days work on my Tigers, only about 850 stitches. But I'll take what I can get.

The "plan" is to finish all the greenery before I go back to the tigers (even though they look kinda weird with no faces). I've got pretty much the upper half done, so hopefully just a couple more weeks of stitching will get it done.

That's all for this week. As for Crystals & Crows, I am still debating my fabric choice, but I think I'll go with 18ct. Thanks again for offering opinions! Official start date is this Friday (can't wait!!) so I'll know for sure by then. :)

Until next time! Happy stitching to all~

Crystals and Crows and Confetti (Oh My!)

Hi y'all! :)

Fair warning: this is a long, rambling post in which I'm begging for your opinion, if you've one to venture.

Well, I'm having a bit of trouble deciding which fabric to use for an upcoming new start, so I figured I'd write about it and get some input, if you're willing. :) The chart in question is called Crystals and Crows, by Omar Rayyan, an artist whom I adore! HAED has already been charting his wife's work, and I thought if he ever submitted work to be charted, I would definitely pick one to stitch. So here we are!

I must confess, I'm actually surprised by my own choice. I thought I might wait for Contessa with Squid to be charted (a personal favorite) or perhaps something like The Favorite. Instead, I chose the more whimsical fantasy piece, Crystals and Crows:

I fell in love with this piece gradually. The more I looked, the more I saw, and of course, I love the color range. I'm doing the max color version of this chart, which is a bit daunting, but there was a definite difference in the mock ups, and max color was the clear winner. It has 237 colors! Even Golden Kites only have 200, so this will be a definite challenge.

My quandary is choosing which fabric count to use: 18, or 25? Ordinarily, I would stitch my usual columns on 25ct. However, a chart with this much confetti does not lend itself toward column stitching at all, as I've found with Pavonia. It's not impossible, but cross country is much easier, as I don't like having too many parked threads, and each 10x10 block can easily contain over 50 colors. (I counted one with 78 colors on Pavonia once.)

I've never done cross country on 25ct, and as I'm getting older (new glasses again this year) I thought maybe it's time to switch to 18ct. (I've decided I don't like 20ct very much anymore; it gets too bulky with a lot of confetti.) I know this project will take several years, and all that confetti can be hard to see sometimes, as I've learned with Pavonia. However, I am resisting the commitment to 18ct! It's a matter of pixelation: I want the details to be as defined as possible, but I also need to see when I'm missing a stitch. Normally I don't mind the difference between different fabric counts, but for some reason, this one is bothering me.

To help with my decision, I did a small test swatch on 25ct and 18ct fabric. I wish I had chosen something specific to test for detail, but I was more interested in testing the confetti factor. So I stitched a bit of random background leaves, and not even well defined ones at that, from the middle of the pattern in a 3 square grid, so 900 stitches. I did meander a bit, but it's mostly the same between the two:

18ct on the left; 25ct on the right

These were laid next to each other for the picture, so actual relative size is shown. So what do you think? Which would you choose? Can you even tell the difference? Again, I apologize for the fact that it looks like nothing but smoosh, but trust me, they are leaves. Believe it or not, there are 110 colors in this sample, so it was an excellent test for confetti. It really wasn't bad on either swatch, but I think the 18ct got a bit bulkier, probably because I stitched with 2 strands rather than 1, as I did on the 25ct.

For those that are interested, here are the backsides to each swatch:

As you can see, I'm not really concerned with making the back look neat. I find stitching this way gives an even coverage across the back, so it's not really lumpy at all, just a bit thicker than usual. I do use the loop start for 2 strands, and the pin stitch start for 1 strand.

Every time I think I've made up my mind, I change it again. Non-stitchy friends have claimed the colors are easier to see on the 18ct, and it looks brighter. I agree, but I don't know if the brightness is a side effect of the white fabric (didn't have ivory in my stash).

I think I may know which way I'm leaning, but I thought I'd fish for opinions from fellow stitchers before I decide for sure. :) Thanks in advance for any comments or opinions!

March WIPocalypse

Hello again!

This will be a rather iterative post as I've just posted progress for IHSW this weekend, but more pictures can't be a bad thing, I think. :)

This month, I've managed a page (and row) finish on Moon Indigo . . .

Another page finish on Euphoria (featuring part of a flower) . . .

And some progress on Cassiopeia (almost to the edge of her dress).

The decision to stitch another page on Euphoria was a bit impulsive, but I'm glad I did it. Now I finally have more than a pink blob to show as progress! :) Since February is over, I can now report that my total stitches for that month was a staggering 16,327! Half of that was on Euphoria, as those tent stitches go really quick (especially when two of those pages only had 3 colors). I forgot to mention it last post, but January was also a good stitching month (since I was lounging around in my jammies the whole time) with 13,048 stitches. So I'm already a third of the way toward my yearly stitching goal! Now let's hope I can keep it up. :)

This month's question is: Do you use hoops, stretcher bars, lap stands or Q snap frames and why?
First: yes, no, yes and yes.
Second: I use whatever tools make it easier to stitch, which varies depending on my project and my mood. When I first started Luna (and Scale, and Wisdom) I used a hoop so I could stitch in my room at my desk. For a while, I switched Scale to Q snaps, along with a floor stand to hold her. When I stitch on Favorite Bird, that is also done in my Q snap, because the fabric is too large for anything else. But my preferred method by far is stitching on scroll frames. I like having the whole project neatly rolled onto the bars, not bunched up like on my Q snaps or hoops. I also like having a whole section of my piece visible and easy to work on, so I can range across a whole row if I want without having to stop and readjust. And, because I generally work strait across, there is that special moment when you get to roll the fabric further. :)

I haven't used stretcher bars because I'm too lazy to deal with all the pins, and I don't like square pointy frames. I've never stitched in hand either, as I'm too worried I'll mess up the tension. But I would encourage everyone to try different methods, and stick with what works for you.

I'm going to stop there, as I could wax on about stitching styles for days, and that would be tedious to read, I think. Can't wait to see what everyone else is stitching! Until next time. :)

March IHSW

It felt so good to be hermiting again this weekend! Many thanks to our wonderful hostess at Random Ramblings for continuing this happy sal. :)

I worked on two projects this weekend, Luna and Euphoria. I don't think I got a whole lot done, but I did manage to reach a milestone on each. First, I'm doing a mini happy dance for Luna, as I've managed to complete the first row! So happy about this. Here's before and after:

It was just the last 1000 stitches or so, but it did seem to take forever. Probably because I was a little sick this week (but ok now). Sad to say, but in 8 years of stitching BAPs, this is only the second project I have with a complete row finish. Guess that shows what a serial starter I am. :)

It was hard not to continue to the next row immediately, but I was determined to finish the next page of Euphoria, which was also close to being done. Here's the (messy) before and after:

Not just solid pink anymore! That bit of white is the tip of the first flower hanging over her shoulder. Surprising just how long that flower really is; I don't think this bit is even half of it. But it does help to break up the monotony.

This next bit isn't exactly stitching related, but I think it's pretty, so I'm gonna share. As I am finally well enough to sit at my sewing machine again, I've been practicing quilting designs to finish off a quilt I'm making for a friend. I'm still debating, but I might have settled on this design:

This was my first attempt, which did get easier as I found my rhythm. (Can you tell which half I did first?) I found a tutorial for this here if you want to try it. I have never done a branching pattern before, but it's a lot of fun, and I love the results. I'm trying a larger sample now to see if I can really do this on a full size quilt. It's tricky (especially seeing where I'm going with all those branches) but I might be able to pull it off.

Well, that's all for now. Hope everyone else has had a lovely stitchy weekend. Until next time!