Seeing Red

So I had another unscheduled break with very little stitching. *sigh*

At least Cirque des Triangles is still looking pretty. It also looks strangely orange in places but it's actually all shades of red.


Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115

Plodding On

I missed posting last week, but sadly it didn't make much difference. I've had a bit more progress and am so close to getting the skirt of her dress finished. Next up is that bouquet of confetti.


Spring Queen
32 ct White Lugana
I've realized with the last few Mirabilia mermaids that I love their tails and not much else. Siren and Merchant's hairpieces bore me and I care less and less for all the "treasures" in their hair. I adore the mermaid in Gypsy (her hair!) but the rest of the design just bores me.

Half Done

I'm not a big fan of abstract-type art. I don't really understand it. But I 'll make exception for things like Aaron Art's Iris B. The original is in metallics and rayons and is just unbelivably shiny, but I'm sticking with good old DMC.


Iris B
18ct black aida
I'm stitching it on 18ct black aida. I just love how the colours pop. I switched out the metallic gold in the middle for a light blue because I really don't want to deal with metallic on 18 ct!

Finger-sized Fruit

Well, technically first two knuckles of my finger but why be so persnickety*?

It's been a while since I stitched something over one. My lighting changed and isn't conducive to over one or stitching on black. I really should get a good lamp.

This is Pineapple Sampler and was stitched as part of the Sticklounge group over on Yahoo (tragically closing in June). The year is supposed to be under the butterfly but I thought it looked fine without it so I left it off. I have vague plans of a scissor fob, but as with all my finishing plans it's anyone's guess when that will happen!

Title	Pineapple Sampler
Designer	Cloudberry Samplings
Start date	January 18, 2013
Finish date	March 20, 2013
Total time	5 hours
Fabric	28 ct bayleaf linen

*my word of the day

Almost A Dress

I took a look to see when was the last time I posted about Spring Queen and was shocked to realize that it was back in April 2011, just a couple of months after I first started her!

Here's what she looks like at 90 hours:


Spring Queen
32 ct White Lugana
I'm close to getting the dress finished and really enjoying her, so fingers crossed for a finish.

ETA: I'd like to thank everyone who suggested I simply rethink Byzantine Ornie as a St.Patrick's Day ornie. That made me feel so much better because at least I was early for something!

First Finish of the Year

No, I don't believe it either. Both the fact that it took me until March to finish something and that I actually did finish something. My triumphant return didn't turn out so well considering I haven't posted for a month aha ha ha so apparently that was almost two months I didn't post!

I started this in October as a Christmas finish and did all the stitching in two days and then didn't bead until this morning. It took me 45 minutes to do all the beading. I can't even remember why I didn't just finish it off.

This is Teresa Wenztler's Byzantine Ornament I from The Best of Teresa Wentzler Christmas Collection, which was a very generous gift from Kim when she was de-stashing a while back.


There are quite a few specialty stitches but none that were new to me.

Title	Byzantine Ornament I
Designer	TWDesignworks
Start date	October 12, 2012
Finish date	March 10, 2013
Total time	11.5 hours
Fabric	32 ct opalescent white lugana

In an effort to actually post I've decided that I will post at least once a week. *raises fist to the sky and shakes it*

Third Time's The Charm

I think I've finally got the hang of how to do a HAED. And it only took me my third start.

This is one of this year's freebie SALs on the HAED yuku board. I narrowed my list to two and then went with the one that looked like it had less confetti: Heather



I finished half a page; which I think is the most I've done on a HAED.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I resisted block-by-block stitching and parking because I thought that my usual way of cross country by colour in large patches would be fine. And it's a method that works very well for me. But not on HAEDs. Even using multiple highlighters I would miss stitches and it never seemed like I was making any progress which was disheartening. So I finally sucked up my pride, read up on how multiple HAED finishers do and it and went block by block with parking. Because this pattern has so much black I switched to column by column after the first column. I'm not sure if it's faster, but there's progress that I can see, and I want to keep going. That alone means that this method is clearly the only way I can do a HAED.

So the lesson for the day is: don't be too proud to try something new if your old method doesn't work. Yes, you may have to eat some silent crow, but at the end of the day it might just work out better :)

That said: I'm still sticking with my usual haphazard way for everything else!