June Smalls

This month I finished off the last of the Harmonic Holidays series. They've all been cut out and only need to have the drumsticks and bow attached and then have a cord attached.
I also started the Hearts of Canada series and finished off Canada and Ontario. I wasn't planning on stitching Ontario but I was enjoying Canada so much that I started the next one :D

Trumpet Call

Celebrate with me! I've finished the last of the Harmonic Holiday series. Here is Trumpet, fresh off the needle and not yet cut out.
I had to leave the greenery on the upper left off since I ran out of beads and I'm not buying another pack for ten beads. It sort of defeats the purpose of using up leftover beads if you end up with more beads than you start out with XD

In other news: I've joined Instagram. I'm therapy_by_thread there too. I found a couple of people so far, but I have no idea where everyone is. Come find me!

So far it's just a picture of Mediterranean Mermaid right before I started to add the beads (yes, I'm at that point already!) I took a short break to finish off the Mill Hill series, but I expect to have MM finished by the end of the week.

Title	Trumpet
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	June 4, 2015
Finish date	June 6, 2015
Total time	3 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	MH 2001, 2011, 2055, 3043

Voila! Violin!

I didn't post this yesterday because I had the faint hope that I would have time to cut it before the end of the night. Alas, no. I still haven't cut it out, so here it is in all it's finished but not finish-finished glory.

This month was the violin. Like the mandolin, I couched the "strings" instead of backstitching them. The one of the bow was nerve-wracking because I wanted it to be tight but not so tight that it was bending the paper. But it came out well, so it's all good.
Next month is the last of this series: Trumpet

Title	Violin
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	May 5, 2015
Finish date	May 9, 2015
Total time	5.5 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	MH 330, 2011, 2022, 2055, 3043

Merry Mandolin

This month's Mill Hill is Mandolin. I had a brief pause when I had to go pick up the gold beads but otherwise it was an easy stitch. And then it took me a week to get around to cutting it out.

The strings are supposed to be backstitched but I was lazy and just did them as long stitches. They might slacken over time, but that would look a little natural (don't the strings of stringed instruments loosen if they aren't used?) and it would look better than the dips from couching.
There are a few gaps in the greenery where the kit had tiny bells. Since I'm stitching from just the chart I haven't gone looking for any replacements. If I come across them on my random shopping trips I'll add them in, but otherwise they look fine as is.

Title	Mandolin
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	April 5, 2015
Finish date	April 7, 2015
Total time	3.75 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	MH 2001, 2011, 2014, 3043

Third Instrument

I still haven't figured out how to take good pictures with my phone, so it's a truly terrible picture of French Horn for the Smalls SAL.

Title	French Horn
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	March 2, 2015
Finish date	March 25, 2015
Total time	3.75 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	MH 252, 2011, 2055, 3043

Harping On

I stitched Harp from Mill Hill's Harmonic Holiday series. Unlike last month, I actually cut it out this month. It's missing the harp-strings, but that's because I ran out of the gold Kreinik. Maybe next month I'll have something completely stitched and cut out and ready to hang? One can only hope!

Title	Harp
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	January 31, 2015
Finish date	February 1, 2015
Total time	4.25hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	MH 2011, 2022, 2055, 3043

January Smalls SAL

I'm not taking part in many SALs this year, mostly because I'm getting too lazy. But I am sticking with Smalls SAL since it encourages me to dig out my smaller projects that I could normally ignore.

This month's finish is Mill Hill's Drum. This is a series of six and I'm planning on stitching all of them. Hopefully by July I'll have some idea of what to stitch for the second half of the year.

Beat The Drums

First start and finish of the year!
I'd been mentioning here and there that my New Year's Start was going to be Alphabetissimo by Papillon-Creations. I hadn't bought the fabric or floss because I was waiting for the Stitch From Stash break week. Due to various reasons I didn't get to the store in 2014. And when I saw that I had worked on only one WIP last year I couldn't start something huge. I felt too guilty.

So I started and finished one of the Mill Hill kits I was planning on stitching. I actually have only the charts which were generously donated by someone whose name I've forgotten because I'm forgetful like that. That lovely angel sent me all six charts in this series because she was done with it. (If that was you please speak up so that I can feel less ashamed!)

ETA: While randomly clicking though my blog I've discovered that these were gifted to me by Berit (who sadly is not blogging anymore) five years ago! And that I had planned to finish them as a cube. I can't believe I've had these charts for five years!

The kits use DMC so the floss wasn't an issue. As for the beads, I only had the gold, so I substituted a random green, blue and red. I'm going to wait until I can't fit any more on the paper before I start cutting. And yes, I stitched it way too close to the edge. My miserly tendencies caused me to briefly lose my mind :)

Title	Drum
Designer	Mill Hill
Start date	January 1, 2015
Finish date	January 2, 2015
Total time	6.5 hours
Fabric	14 ct white perforated paper
Floss	As charted
Beads	2011, 2055, 3002, 3043