Year of Starts #12

Hello all! It's been a while, but I've been feeling the holiday crunch. For those who celebrate, I hope you're enjoying the holiday festivities. I think my favorite part of the Christmas season is seeing all the pretty lights that decorate people's houses. :)

So, let me catch you up on some stitching. Last week I worked on Jinn, another HAED. I worked on page 2, and didn't quite manage a page finish:

I think two more days might do it, but I'll just leave it for next year. :) Still, I love how that giant green swirl is looking.

On the 18th, I started my last project for the Year of Starts. I finally decided to start the Little Sheep Virtues by Little House Needleworks. I've been holding this back for about two years, so I'm glad to finally have some stitches into this project. I'm doing all 12 on one piece of 32ct Lugana in Taupe and I started with Hope:

I really didn't manage very much this week. Unfortunately, my sciatica has flared up again, so it was hard to sit and stitch for a couple days. But I'll get there. My back is slowly getting better. I haven't decided if I want to attach the buttons or not. They're really cute, but it does make framing trickier.

And then... Yeah, I couldn't help myself. This is the problem with making plans. I want to implement them now! I mean, why wait, right?

Far in the future, I'm thinking of starting a certain Golden Kite pattern that is pretty huge. I want to tent stitch that pattern on a small count because it's cheaper and faster. I also want to use diagonal stitching because it's totally addictive and fun. The problem is, I don't know if tent stitch would work with diagonal stitching, because it might pull the fabric into discernible rows. Solution: test it!

Next thing you know, I'm searching through my full coverage charts looking for something "small" and I hit upon QS Summer by Sarah Butcher from HAED. This chart is on my "definitely start this" list, but I hadn't gotten to it yet. It's "only" 150 x 211 stitches. I had fabric and enough threads in my stash to make a start. So I did! Here she is so far:

Since this is tent stitch, 2 strands over 1 on 25ct Lugana, I decided to start in the top right corner rather than the top left. That's because I like to do continental tent stitches from bottom left to top right. Starting each row on the right lets me do just that.

From this little bit I've stitched so far, I can say that yes, doing tent stitch diagonally does pull the fabric, but only a little. I can't really tell by looking at it, but I can feel it with my fingers. I also think the pulling is worse where there is less confetti. The fourth diagonal had about 300 stitches of mainly one color, with one or two others mixed in occasionaly, and that row has developed a slight hump; but again, I can't really tell just by looking at it.

I'm going to wait until I complete the page to make any decisions about how to stitch the Golden Kite piece. Like I said, that's far in the future. But Summer is stitching up nice and quick: this is about 5.3 hours so far.

Well, that's all for now. At some point, I'll post a review and plans for next year. I can't believe it's almost next year! I am super excited. I think I've been planning for next year for most of this year. (I like making plans.) Hope you all find time for stitching amid the holiday rush. Merry Christmas! Until next time!

Year of Starts #11

Guess I have a bit of catching up to do since I was too lazy to post last week, so I'll start with last week's project. I worked on Blood, which is never exciting to look at, and made a good bit of progress on page 3:

I'd hoped for a page finish, but I knew I wouldn't manage it. Just not enough time! But I'm working on my plans for next year, and I should be able to catch up. :)

This week I pulled out Frosty Forest and started a new block. This one is the third in the series (I think). Anyway, this sits in the top right corner of the block of 9:

All that snow really takes a long time to stitch! But I'm happy with my progress. I'm making this a sort of focus piece next year, so I should have this block finished relatively soon.

And of course today I had a new start for the Year of Starts. This is one I've wanted stitch for a few years now. (I feel like I say that about everything.) This is Queen of Autumn by With Thy Needle & Thread, stitched on 40ct Sand from Picture This Plus:

I am really loving this so far! There is a ton of floss for this one, so I actually started kitting it up early last year. But the color palette is nice and soft, perfect for a cozy fall day. And since Thanksgiving is this week, it seemed a perfect choice. I'm hoping to get the left third done this week, so we'll see how it goes. (Bonus points if I get to the lady!)

As I mentioned, I'm already deep into my plans for next year, and I do plan to change things up a little bit. After agonizing over which chart to start on Jan 1st, I kind of had the idea to not start anything, but instead to finish up the project I started last year on the 1st, my very much neglected haven't-touched-it-since-January Morning Glory. Sounds good, right? I really hate to break my tradition, but sometimes you gotta go with what makes sense. (Doesen't mean that will happen this time.)

I do know I won't be doing the year of starts next year. Much as I love putting stitches into new charts every month, it's time to start finishing what I've got going. 63 wips is kind of too much for me, even though they aren't all active wips. So the goal is to finish more than I start, though at the moment, I'm not planning any starts next year. Yup, you read that right. No planned starts. Of course, I have been known to be impetuous. :)

Okay, enough rambling for now. Hope you all are having a great stitchy month! Until next time!

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!

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!

Summer at Cherry Hill

Hi all! Back again with meager progress to show from last week. :)

This time I worked on Summer at Cherry Hill by With Thy Needle and Thread. I fell in love with this pattern a couple years ago, so it's a shame I don't have much done on it. This was my first project on 40ct, which took some getting used to, but I think I'm starting to hit my stride with this piece. Here's a reminder of what the pattern looks like and where I left off last year:

There was a lot of stopping and starting some days, so I don't feel like I made a ton of progress, but I counted 1,111 stitches added. That was enough to finish off the top portion and move the qsnaps down a bit. Here's where I ended up:

This really is a fun project to stitch, even if progress is slow. Next time I pick this up, I'll tackle all those bees floating around.

Since Saturday was the 18th, I started something new: Sarah Spurr, by Kathy Barrick. I've had this in my stash for a while now, so I'm glad to finally have started it. I'm working on the very boring to look at border for now, which is coming along nicely:

I'm stitching this on 40ct Burch linen, which is a nice color, but apparently not dark enough for all the DMC. The conversion for the white is 712, which is a nice cream, but invisible on this fabric. I actually have some stitched in the top left corner. (Really, I do!) I had planned to use 3865 instead, but it looked so glaringly white when I picked it up I thought I'd give 712 a try. Now looks like I'll be frogging a bit. Oh well. :)

Guess that's all for now. Next week I'll keep working on Sarah, and hopefully stitch a border you can see. Until next time!

Year of Starts #7

Hi all! Back again with a quick update. I didn't post last week 'cuz I really didn't have much to show. It was a weird in-between week for my projects, but I was stitching! :)

I pulled out an older project from The Drawn Thread, called Sampler Game Board, and worked on it for six days. I don't know when I last showed it here, but here is my progress:

I really love this piece, but progress does not show on it very quickly, probably because those houses are solid blocks of 400 stitches. But I finished the red house plus two motifs, and got a good start on three more houses. I didn't make room for this again in my official rotation, but I might squeeze in a few more days on this to try and finish out this top portion before the end of the year. We'll see.

Of course, on the 18th I had a new start, though I switched up my plans a bit. I was going to start My Stash by Waxing Moon, but instead I went with 7 Virtues by La D Da, stitched on 32ct Fresco by Picture This Plus:

I had planned to start this one earlier this year, but started another project instead. I guess I couldn't overlook it any longer. This is only 3 days progress so far, but I'll keep working on it next week. This one is very relaxing to stitch on since it only has 4 colors, so it's perfect to do while listening to my audiobooks. :)

I did make a change to the red in this chart. I'm stitching with DMC, and the called for color was 3857, which is a very nice brown. I didn't want a very nice brown, I wanted red like the photo shows, which is part of the charm of this piece for me. So I changed it to 815, which is a little brighter than the image in my head, but very close. I also considered 814, but at a distance, it also looked brown. It's times like these I wish I could afford all those special hand dyed thread clubs and have my own stash of awesome one-of-a-kind threads, but I have a bad habit of spending all my money on charts instead. But I do have a DMC thread chart, and I know how to use it. :)

Well, that's all I got for now. It feels weird not showing my Temperature Charts, but at least I'm keeping up with them. Until next time!

The End of Maynia, Year of Starts #5

Maynia is officially over for me, but I did have a lot of fun doing it. It seems stitching on one project for a long time is actually something I enjoy, and I should probably do that more often. I had originally intended to stitch on my Permin 1826 sampler for 15 days, but it ended up being 17. I was so close to finishing that first giant mandala, I just had to continue:

I would have liked to stitch on this even longer; there are a few little motifs hovering around that were begging to be stitched, at least to fill in the area before I move the qsnaps again, but I have moved on to another project. I still look at this one a lot though. I might have to change how I do things because switching around so much is starting to make me sad rather than happy to be switching. But I'll think on that later. For this project, I managed a total of 4,638 stitches in 20.5 hours. I've already used up two skeins of floss and started the third. I left the bobbin in for scale. This motif isn't quite square, but it's about 5.25 inches across. :)

My next project was the next in my Year of Starts, which I begin on the 18th of every month. This one is a reproduction sampler called Elizabeth Oliver by Moira Blackburn:

I fell in love with this sampler sometime last year, and finally bought it for my Christmas present. I wanted to start it right away but it kept getting put off, so I'm very happy to finally get some stitches in. I know the current mode is to stitch old samplers on brown fabrics for that old look, but I wanted this one to look shiny and new, so I'm stitching it on 32ct Antique White Lugana (because I had it in my stash) with the called for DMC. There is a lot of that green though (3012) so I kind of wish I had used an overdyed for that, but it's ok. I'm just not fond of that shade of green. :)

I've only stitched on this for 2 days, but last night I really couldn't put it down. I was determined to get at least one of the flowers done -- I think they are honeysuckle? -- and I was really surprised by that dark pink. I had to double check the number! But I think that will look really interesting. And I like how the effect of that pink changes once I put in the yellow. The blue border is actually long arm cross stitch, which is a lot of fun but can only be stitched in one direction, so I may have to turn my stitching as I work my way around. There are lots of little things I like about this chart, but I'll stop rambling on for now. This will be my morning project next week, so we'll see how far I get.

Well, the heat wave has shown no signs of leaving, so my Temperature charts have lots and lots of orange for May. I even have my first red in this week:

We are 10-15 degrees too warm this month, which stinks since we were 10-15 degrees too cold last month. Someone stole our Spring! I'm starting to wonder how our true Summer months will look. I think last year would have been a lot more colorful. Oh well. Guess I'll just get back to stitching. :)

Year of Starts #4

Hi all! This week has been sort of a hodgepodge of things. I worked on a bunch of projects, but didn't make any significant progress on any of them. But I'll still show some pictures. :)

I spent another couple mornings on the Quotes SAL, and I do feel like I made a good start on the next quote:

There's a lot of backstitch in this one, so it doesn't look like much yet, but I'll get there.

Wednesday, I began the next project in my Year of Starts lineup. This is A Stitcher's Prayer by Little House Needleworks:

That leafy border is pretty, but it's a lot of stopping and starting, so I didn't get very far. Still, you can see where things are going to be. I've started the lady's dress, and got one whole word in! I'm taking a few days off work, but this will be my morning project for the rest of the month, so maybe I can get half of it done? That's the goal anyway.

My evening stitching has not been very orderly this week. I only stitched for three days, and had a different project each day. And I didn't stitch on Pastoral at all! But I did get some stitching done on a newer start, so I thought I'd share. This is Cirque des Coeurs, by Ink Circles (I know you all know this one) which I started on March 3rd. I've worked on this for 4 days now, and managed to complete my first full heart:

I'm stitching this on 36ct Smoky White Edinburgh. It's one of those painted fabrics, so it's only shaded on one side. I have another painted fabric that's really stiff and icky, but this one isn't bad. It's actually pretty soft. I've had this kitted for maybe 5 years at least, and I was just tired of putting it off. I tend to pick it up when I'm really tired but still want to stitch. The one color thing really helps. I'm using GAST Espresso Bean, which probably isn't what I'd pick to stitch with now (it's not variegated enough) but it's what I bought 5 or so years ago so I'm going with it.

And somehow, I'm still managing to keep up with my Temperature SAL:

This has been such an unusual April! But we finally seem to be free of the snow (only rain this Sunday). They're forecasting all greens next week (60s) but I'm hoping to see some yellow again soon. :)

Year of Starts #3

Last week I decided to carry on with Unusual Specimens since four days really doesn't satisfy for a rotation. I'm actually using this piece for the Stitch by the Numbers SAL in Full Coverage Fanatics on facebook, so I need to get to 2400 stitches this month. I haven't made an exact count, but I know I'm still a couple hundred short. But I am making some good progress:

Those wings are a confetti nightmare! I'm probably making it harder on myself trying to stitch pages one and two together, but page one is like 500 stitches, so whatever. I think I just started getting the hang of things on Friday, but now I'm putting it away for a while. I think I'll bring it out again in a week though, we'll see. It is kind of addictive. :)

I had a lot going on this week, including some cooking I did for a party at work (my first time doing that!) so I didn't give as much attention to Cassiopeia as I would have liked, but then I never do. I might have gotten more done, but stitching when I was too tired resulted in frogging about 50 stitches, and after that I had to go to bed. But here's my progress for this week:

Her dress (in this quadrant at least) is almost done. I've just got one more darker green and a little black motif, and voila! All those other gaps are for beads. Seriously. I've also gotten more done on the couch; that's the dark brown and the vertical part. It seems there's still so much to do on her, but I'm still hoping to finish this section this month. Wish me luck!

And yes, today is the 18th, so here is my new start for March:

This is the Virtue Sampler by Little House Needleworks. I think this chart is adorable! I like stitching houses, and trees, and words, and it's not too big, so maybe I can finish it this decade. I'm working on Limestone Belfast with all the called for threads, and there's only 9 colors. Just simple and sweet. :)

Okay, it's that time again:

This week we had our warmest day so far, 76°, so I got to stitch with my darker yellow, 742. That's just one shade away from my first orange. *sigh* I'll get there soon enough I suppose, and then I'll be whining for those greens again. :)

Next week  I'll keep working on my Virtue Sampler in the mornings and Luna in the evenings. I want to make some good progress on her this year, so that means working on her more than just on Sundays. So until next time, happy stitching! :)