Every Stitch Counts

Hi all! Can't believe it is March already!

I know I just showed Luna last week, but today I managed to finish page 9, so I had to share. :)

I am so looking forward to starting page 10. (double digits!) There is a real motivation to keep stitching, no matter how slow my progress, because the last column on page 10 contains a few tantalizing blocks of her hair! I don't plan on getting there until June, but I love seeing how close I am every time I stitch. :)

For my morning stitching last week, I worked on Red Riding Hood by Prairie Schooler:

This is one I plan to finish this year, but it will probably take me another couple weeks to get there. I've really been enjoying this one though. It's simple and quick, and I love the sort of spiral to the design.

And of course, I was bad and started something completely unexpected. But I am really glad I did. Things are still kind of rough at home (too much family drama) and I didn't get any evening stitching done for an entire week prior to starting this. So, it was kind of a special treat to lift my spirits. And I think it worked! I stitched on this for 9 days straight, though during the week it's usually less than an hour a night. Still, the stitches are adding up, and I've loved every stitch. This is Hoity Toity, where I left it on Saturday night:

There is so much more I want to stitch on this before I put it down, I'm actually debating giving this another week. My stitching rotation has kind of fallen apart this year, but I figure as long as I'm still stitching something, I'm happy. I don't want to abandon my other projects though, so we'll just have to wait and see which I choose. :)

Think that's all I have this week. Crazy as things have been, I'm still working on getting everything ready for my next Golden Kite project. I've just gotten my necessary floss bobbinated, so next I'll be cutting lengths and organizing colors. And I do hope to post pics of my process, so hopefully I can give you ideas about starting your own blended thread project. :)

Until next time! Happy stitching!

It's a Finish!!

Hello again! It's been a while since I've updated (very sorry about that) but I'm back with a finish! It took 18 years, but finally my oldest wip is complete! Here are my Tigers, captured in full:

I finished them on Tuesday the 6th. The backstitching took a little over three hours, not including the other little baby's face near the tail. That bit was done somewhere around a decade ago, I really can't remember. (Sad, isn't it?) Close ups!

Two little darlings, curled up under Mama's tail

So cute! Those lazy daisy stitches turned out really well.

Tiger luv! :3

Perhaps this one shows just how much the whiskers interfered with proper chart reading. All those lines were just in the way! But I'm so glad it's done. :) I haven't signed it yet, though I plan to. It'll be my first, as I always seem to forget that part. Haven't decided just where to stitch my initials; probably around mama's right paw. Eventually, this will be washed and framed. (My mother insists.)

I haven't been stitching a whole lot lately, but I'll share a few things. First, I'm up to 10 days on Paris from Stitchery Stitch, and made some good progress last weekend:

I actually did all that green in one day. It kinda felt like I was stitching the emerald city for a while, but I just kept stitching. It's kind of hard to stop when it's all big chunks of color, and I kept thinking, "oh, just this one little bit here." Totally addictive stitching.

Another addictive one is Red Riding Hood from Prairie Schooler, which I worked on the last week of August. This is only 5 days of work, but it's coming along really well:

Just started on the house in the middle. Those trees have a nice rhythm to them, it makes for a very relaxing stitch.

And, because I can't resist, here's day 3's progress on Sampler Game Board from The Drawn Thread:

The first two houses are complete, three motifs are done, and the third house just needs the sky. This is such an awesome design. I'm really looking forward to stitching all the different little houses, each with a different landscape. There's a lot of detail packed into those little squares, so it's a lot of fun. All the motifs are upside down, for the "gameboard" effect. It's kind of strange to stitch things in that orientation, but I like it. :)

I am still stitching on Scale, trying for a page finish this month. I'm about halfway there. I'm also working on He Holds Tomorrow from My Big Toe Designs as a gift for a friend. That's about halfway done (why don't I have a picture of this?) and should be finished by the end of the month. (Pics then, I promise.) 

In other news, Life is about to get really hectic for me (though last month was no picnic). We are planning on moving later this year, hopefully late November if we find a good place. So I'm super busy cleaning, organizing, pretending to pack (why do I have so much stuff?). But to make it fun, my Aunt is moving in with us at the end of this month, so my craft room (aka the spare bedroom) needs cleaning out now. So, stitchy time is getting shorter, and I haven't been as good about reading and commenting on blogs (sorry about that!) but I'll keep trying. I don't know how the rest of the year will pan out, but hopefully I can keep stitching at work if nothing else. :)

As always, thanks for reading. Until next time!

August WIPocalypse/Challenge #5

Hello everyone! Time again for WIPocalypse and a recap for the Olympic Challenge. I signed up for both the Rotation and Distance challenges, and I think both were a success! :) I've been updating bits of each challenge all month long, so if you'd like more detailed info on all my wips, you can look back at earlier posts. For now, I'll update with the last four days of the rotation challenge, and reveal my overall progress for distance.

Thursday was another new start. This wasn't a start originally planned on, but more of a backup piece just in case. But it is really cute, so I'm glad I was able to incorporate it into the challenge. This is called Cats in Winter, a kit by Riolis:

The colors are a bit off in my pic (should be brown and gray) but you get the idea. Started in the upper right with a bit of building and sky, then managed to get one of the cats done! He's kind of hiding in the background, and I didn't even see him when I first bought the kit. This is going to be pretty small, just under 5 inches square. It uses the wool blend, and came with 16ct Aida. But it was a good Zweigart Aida, I was really surprised! I wish it were 14ct though, as the wool makes it a bit bulky. But not bad enough to start over. :)

Friday I went back to my Tigers, since they need all the love they can get. Didn't make much progress, but perhaps you can tell I got their noses in:

Aren't they so cute together? The chart is still proving vexing, as all the backstitch lines are covering up the symbols. Even using a magnifying glass, I've been missing symbols. But I'll get there eventually.

Saturday I went back to a recent favorite. I started this last month and found I couldn't put it down. It's been a regular fixture weekend mornings (until the challenge started) so I was glad to pull it out again. This is Paris from the Etsy shop Stitchery Stitch:

 I really love the colors in this chart, even though it's not my usual style. It's all bright jewel tones that just scream with vibrancy. And I also like the faceted effect, similar to my Geometric Bunny from Day 2. I've started in the middle, with the Eiffel Tower, of course:

Didn't get a whole lot done this time round, but I'll probably continue my weekend sessions with this for a while. It's actually very relaxing to stitch on, and easy to do while I'm watching flosstube. :) I'm stitching this on 18ct Aida.

Today I splurged on another new start. (This is what I'd hoped to start Thursday, but it didn't happen.) A while ago, I finally gave in to the "Prairie Schooler Apocalypse" and started stashing their charts. This is one that was on my list even before that, because I really love the design. This is Little Red Riding Hood:

So there's the first corner tree, and the first wolf lurking behind it, starting in the upper left. The whole design is only three colors, but so far it is lots of fun. I just love how she's running along the outside of the center image, and the wolf is always hiding ahead or stalking just behind her. I'm stitching this on 32ct Antique White Lugana, 2 over 2. I have a couple more of these story themed designs I also plan to stitch, Three Little Pigs and Tortoise and the Hare:

I also bought a few of their Halloween charts (a first for me), their alphabet series, and the months of the year. So you might be seeing more Prairie Schooler lurking around here in the future. :)

So that's it for my Rotation Challenge! I had a ton of fun doing it, but I'm also glad it's over. I'm looking forward to spending more time with each of my lovlies, except I really don't know which one to pick up first! Actually, the one I'm stitching as a gift will be first, but after that...

Okay, now for the second part of the challenge, Distance. I've been stitching on Scale every day since the 5th, trying for at least an hour a day, and I think I averaged that. There was one really rough day where I spent 10 minutes on 11 stitches, but that's life. (Had a migraine. Still tried to stitch. Yes, I'm crazy.) I've been posting little updates all month, but here is the full progress comparison:

To be honest, I had hoped to get much more done, but I'm not totally disappointed. I did manage to finish page 7, and I've got a good start on page 8, which is mostly white. I do love how she's looking though, and I will probably stick with her for the rest of the week. For the challenge, I managed 3,367 stitches, so not too bad.

This month's question is: Have you ever read any fictional books that involve embroidery?  If so, give us some recommendations?
Short answer is No, but there is a mystery series on my radar that begins with a woman opening up her very own cross stitch shop. The first one is called The Quick and the Thread by Amanda Lee. I know there are a couple more stitchy themed books out there, so I'm looking forward to seeing what others recommend. :)

That's all I have for now. Looking forward to getting back to a longer stitching rotation. Hope you all have fantastic progress on all your stitchy endeavors. Until next time!