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!