Music to My Ears

I ended up taking a short break from Cirque des Triangles to finish Here Comes Treble and First Bass by Ink Circles. There is a third design called Alto Gether Now which I won't be stitching because I'm not familiar with that particular clef.
I'm not a musical person. I think I have a tin ear. I like listening to music, but it's mostly a matter of "I like how that sounds". I had to take music or art as a humanities elective in high school. I was highly encouraged to do music since the art teacher thought I had no aptitude for it. However I wasn't a particularly good music student either. I never did any of the work or practiced. I "played" the violin for two years because I needed to make my high school transcript look "well-rounded". It was mostly a matter of memorizing where my fingers were supposed to be in what order. I could never tell if my violin was in tune or not. I was the despair of my music teacher! I put my violin into storage as soon as I got my university acceptance and haven't touched it since. Despite this I still have a fondness for listening to the violin (even though classical music puts me to sleep). I thought I'd stitch the two clefs I knew as a tribute to that grumpy teenager who'd have much rather been reading a book and the poor teacher who had to suffer!

They are stitched over one on 25 count and I was going to post as soon as I finished, but in a fit of optimism I thought I'd finish-finish them over the weekend. That didn't happen, so I'll throwing in the towel and posting them anyway.

Fans of Cirque des Triangles fear not! I picked it back up and am zipping along.

Title	Here Comes Treble	First Bass
Designer	Ink Circles
Start date	September 22,2013	September 23,2013
Finish date	September 26,2013	September 27,2013
Total time	6.75 hours	7.25 hours
Fabric	25 ct antique white lugana
Floss	DMC as charted

More Red, More Triangles

I'm about 75% done with Cirque des Triangles and it's been pretty easy going. I'm debating between taking a break from it to stitch something small or pushing for a finish. It feels like I've been on a finishing streak lately, which is always good. But I feel like I haven't started anything new in forever.

Decisions, decisions.


Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115

Bow to the Queen

As promised Spring Queen:

It took me 10 hours to get all the beads on her, so you get all the close ups in their glory.
There were quite a few beads in her hair but I think Winter Queen had more. I vaguely remember having to leave out several beads in Her Winteriness' tiara to get it to sit properly. Or maybe I'm better at getting beads to sit now? I love how snooty her face looks.
Most of the beading was the detail on the border. At times it was a nightmare to get it to fit in the right place, especially the bits where it's a solid block of beads. These are the medium-ish beads. There's a smaller size that Nora uses that sits better but is more expensive. I think back when this chart was released Mill Hill didn't have that type available. I could have probably switched to it but they're a bit more expensive (and I used the medium ones on Winter Queen, so I had to maintain symmetry).
Fancy sleeve! I couched the necklace. I actually find it easier to couch metallics than backstitch them and there's no broken line effect so it's prettier!
While all the baby's breath (that's what those flowers are, right?) have beads there actually aren't any in the flowers themselves. It's a bit weird because the leaves on the dress have beads. I think the flowers are the biggest patch without beads. I could've swapped some in but that would involve too much work ;)
The brooch/pin/ribbon holding thing. When I was first stitching it I thought the whole thing was beaded and wasn't looking forward to trying to fit the beads in such a block, but it's actually half-beads half-metallic so it was easy. I had to look twice because I was expecting to use only red beads to fit the pink ribbon so I was thrown off by the blue and purple.
The ribbon is actually pretty interesting: there are beads on one side and the side where it's twisted around are metallic. I didn't realize this when I started beading because I thought it was all beads and I had to break out my Kreinik again every time I got to another bit of ribbon because I hadn't stitched it.
A shot of her upper body because I think the first picture shows off the dress but reduces the impact of the upper portion.

And finally, with her fellow Queen:
In a weird coincidence it took me about 170.5 hours for each queen. I always planned on stitching both of them, so I mirror imaged Spring so they'd be facing each other. I have no plans to stitch Autumn and Summer. Summer because she doesn't have the same pose and Autumn because I really don't like the colours.

I know the fabrics look very different but they are actually both white lugana. Oh well, if they aren't it's far too late now!

Title	Spring Queen
Designer	Mirabilia
Start date	January 1, 2011
Finish date	September 11, 2013
Total time	170.5 hours
Fabric	32 ct white lugana
Floss	DMC and beads as charted
	Kreinik 002 instead of DMC 5832

No Queen, Just Red-Faced

So um. I finished Spring Queen. Except that the pictures I took are very blurry and out of focus and my batteries just died when I went to try again so I can't take any better ones. So have a picture of Cirque des Triangles instead? I'll pick up some more batteries and have tons of pictures tomorrow, with close ups of all the beads (there were a lot of beads!)

Also the red fluff left behind after frogging red floss is an non-removable nightmare.

Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115

Ready For Bling

There was a lot of great advice about what to do regarding Misaki and the skewing and I'm still deciding what to do, so I switched gears and tackled more of Spring Queen.

Here she is all ready for beading. And there is a ton!

Spring Queen
32 ct White LuganaI'm hoping for a mid-week finish.

Admire the Hair

I never thought this day would come. I have actually finished a HAED! I'm rather insufferably pleased with myself.



I stitched QS Heather as part of this year's HAED freebie SAL. She's stitched in tent stitch with two strands on 25ct. This is the full version of Heather. I was under the impression that she was a mermaid, but apparently she's from a steampunk world. Which explains that green bit in the lower right (I thought it was part of a tail).

This is the third HAED I've started (sort of) and the first I've finished. My first start was Autumn Winds which is still floating around; my second (which I re-started) was Blue Moon which I've given up on.

I'm pretty sure the only reason I finished Heather is because I parked and went column by column. She took a whopping 115.5 hours but it didn't feel like I stitched for all that long. I think that's because I did it as a SAL and so it was only a page every few months. Apparently I can stick with projects if other people break them down and hold my hand along the way :)

Title	QS Heather
Designer	Heaven and Earth Designs
Start date	January 4, 2013
Finish date	August 31, 2013
Total time	115.5 hours
Fabric	25 ct antique white lugana