Modifying WIPocalypse Plans

*Scrolls over the last month to see what happened since the last

*

As far as WIPs from last year go, apparently I managed to finish Namaste.
And that was it. So I'm making the executive decision to count anything that was started before the previous WIPocalypse as an applicable WIP (that makes a lot more sense in my head).

Taking that into account, I finished off Lily of the Valley's head. Explanation about that: when I was trying to convert Lily to a brunette I couldn't visualize how the shading flowed. So I went ahead and stitched the head and then made the conversion. Instead of frogging I added the beads and I now have her head and shoulders (and headpiece) as originally charted. No idea what I'm going to do with it. Possibly a needlebook. I'll add that to the growing list of finishes that I plan and just can't be bothered to do.
Lily of the Valley
32ct White Lugana

One Down, ? To Go

Since the last

update, I've managed to finish Lily of the Valley! Yay!

Lily of the Valley
32ct Waterlily Jobelan
I put a few stitches into some other projects but I just want to celebrate the slaying of a WIP a bit more XD

In Full Bloom

First finish of the year! And it's almost the end of the month!

Nora Corbett's Lily of the Valley, without wings, with the skin and hair converted and a modified headpiece. Original here.
The skin was easy, but the hair gave me some trouble. Details of the exact changes below, but there's a giant blue streak in her hair ;).

Originally the beads in her hair were yellow, but with the dye job that just looked weird so I changed them to blue and I truncated the headpiece ruthlessly.

The beads at the bottom of the flowers were a pale yellow, but all the pictures of the actual flower online seem to be pure white so I changed the beads. (I've never seen a lily of the valley in real life, but they seem really pretty). Of course, the white beads are from a previously unopened package, which means they are being cannibalized from some other project (no idea which), so it should be fun seeing if I have enough when that project rolls around XD.

Her toes! The back of my mind asks exactly what those beads are meant to be and how they stay in position, but the rest of me screams "Pretty!" and ignores that part of me.

Giant beads are really giant!

And some more pics:

Title	Lily of the Valley
Designer	Nora Corbett
Start date	October 7, 2011
Finish date	January 29, 2012
Total time	36.75 hours
Fabric	32ct Waterlily Jobelan
Floss	Skin: 754-->435; 948-->436; 779-->433
	Hair: 767-->939; 782-->3371; 869-->838; 3823-->823; 3852-->310
Beads	3046,10049-->10104; 2002-->60479

Blooming

The plan for this month was to work on Palm. In typical fashion, I have not touched that. Instead I've continued to work on Lily, who has flowers in her skirt and therefore counts.


Lily of the Valley
32ct Waterlily Jobelan

The End Is Not Nigh

I started this sometime last year, October maybe?. I had a mad yen to work on her over the new yearand since she's a pre-existing WIP, she counts as fair game for the WIPocalypse.

Took her all the way to this, before I switched to something else for the weekend.
Lily of the Valley
32ct Waterlily Jobelan
I plan on stitching her without the wings, and have to figure out how to change a pale blonde to a tanned brunette..

A Day Late

Why be on time when you can be (un)fashionably late?

Begin with a pot:

Add a somewhat nontraditional tree topper:

Go crazy with the decorations:


End with a sparkly tree:

Start date December 20, 2010
Finish date December 26, 2010
Designer Nora Corbett
Fabric 32 ct opalescent white lugana
Total time 18.75 hours

For anyone planning on stitching this: The urn is most definitely not symmetrical. The entire middle bead portion is not symmetrical and the base is off a bit here and there. Many of the ornaments are not round/oval/any symmetrical shape.

I made lots of little changes here and there to make the urn and some of the ornaments symmetrical. I moved branches around so that ornaments wouldn't be floating at random. The vertical strands of beads are not in the charted colours since that would have red strands with a giant pink bead and I preferred it as a pink strand with a giant pink bead. By the end I was randomly placing beads since I didn't like where they were charted. BUT it's pretty and that's all that matters.

Pretty in blue

Finished off the beading on Bluebell last night. The beads on her are crazy! There's microscopic ones (teal) and monsters (clear & blue). It was annoying getting the clear ones to stand up instead of flopping around.



Some closeups of the beads:




Start date October 2, 2009
Finish date February 20, 2010
Total time 43.5 hours
Fabric 32ct Waterlily Jobelan

Changes:
DMC 730 instead of Caron Waterlilies 204
Kreinik 9300 instead of 093
Kreinik 093 instead of 1223
Kreinik 001 instead of 1432
Kreinik 26V instead of 080HL
Kreinik 22 instead of DMC 838

This takes care of all the Pixies I've been called to stitch (so far). I can hear Lady Hera calling to me, but I'm ignoring her because I already have a ton of new starts with less than 10 hours stitched and I shouldn't start another one.

So close...

Tomorrow is Louis Riel Day and this week is spring break. Although considering the amount of snow outside the "spring" part is a joke! Since I'm actually caught up on all my assignments, there will hopefully be lots of stitching progress this week.

Yesterday I dug up Bluebell with the intent of finishing her. And I could have too. However the curly vines are actually backstitched with DMC. Odd considering Nora's love of sparkly bling! So I've decided to swap it out for a metallic, and since I don't have a brown one I have to dash to the LNS during the week.


Bluebell
32ct Waterlily Jobelan

I found her wings to be too eyecatching, if that makes any sense. I want Bluebell and the dress to be the focus, so I switched around the colours in the wings. I'm not sure that worked out. It was fine before the outlining purple which seems to be a bit too dark. And I think the paler purple is too pale. But it's pretty and I hate frogging Kreinik, so it will stay.

I don't have the required Caron Waterlily and my LNS would've taken ages to order it, so after staring at the model, finishes online and squinting at the Caron website, I swapped it out for DMC 730, and am pleased.

And if anyone is planning on stitching her, the backstitch around the flowers had no code on my chart. (Not sure if it's been changed for newer prints.) It's apparently 800 according to Wichelt. Just a heads up.

Today was spent on the Legends' border, so just imagine the border growing. Not worth a picture~

Blowing my own trumpet, patting my own back

and other acts of egoism.

I had quite a few people ask me why Christmas Angel was going into storage (because I lack the funds to get her framed right now), and I decided to take the opportunity to show off some of my stuff.

Warning: Lots of bragging and photos to follow!

First the explanation: I love stitching large pieces, which means that I have to get them framed, because honestly, how else can you do justice to some of them?

As of right now these are in my "To Frame" pile. I frame stuff about twice a year, usually when my framer has a special going on. The way I work it out is that I have two massive expenses but I only have to feel horrified by the expense twice a year. (It works and I'm not messing with it.)

Christmas Angel	Holly	When Witches Go Riding
Trick or Treat	Poppy	Winter Queen

Hmmm. I didn't realize that I had so many finished Nora Corbetts/Mirabilias.

Not pictured are pieces destined for non-framing, like Think on These Things (bellpull), Out for Coffee (cushion), Scheherazade (table topper) and assorted undecideds.

Now for the ones around the house:

Mermaids of the Deep Blue	In Harmony	Part of Fantasy Sampler
Buddah and Bonsai	Four Animals Silhouette	Dragon Ride
Butterflies Among Bamboo	Tiger

Stretch, Coffee Chocolate & Men, Coffin Buzz, Book of Ink Circles, Garden Friend aren't shown, because I haven't gotten around to taking semi-decent pictures of them framed.

And no pictures of my smalls/other finishes. Well, no pictures on this post. Everything has pictures in various photogenic degrees in my sidebar.

An unforeseen finish

I only had the beads to finish, so I did that today.



Start date December 29, 2009
Finish date January 1, 2010
Fabric 32 count waterlily Jobelan
Total time 29.5 hours

Now if you've just said "Hang on, I don't remember any previous pictures of this!" you're right. Take a look at the start date.

When I fell of my "no new starts December" I did on the 29th with this. And then stitched madly everyday. I thought that I might be able to squeeze it in before the new year! Insane, but at certain times it seemed doable. However I slept in very late on the 31st, and ended up just a bit short. 3.5 hours today and she's done.

Keeping with the uniform fabric colour, she's on Waterlily like my other two pixies. I couched the metallics, but left out the red beads near her berries because they looked a bit odd. If I change my mind I can always just add them in (I doubt it, but the option is there).

She was fun to stitch and very very quick. My fastest pixie so far! This takes care of all the pixies that I like enough to stitch. (Unless I like Nora's next one...)

Goal!

Well, the Pixie Couture competition one anyway.
I finished off all the DMC. Since I actually managed to get my hands on all the metallics I'm going to do those too. Two of the beads are on order, so I'll have to wait to bead.

Somehow it doesn't seem all that different from yesterday's picture...



Now the pattern calls for Caron Waterlilies 204, which I don't have and keep forgetting to pick up at the LNS. I wonder if I should just sub in a random green DMC...

Hooray for long weekends!

Thanksgiving being something my family doesn't do, I spent the weekend stitching. I feel like I had a good bit of progress on Bluebell.



I'm almost done the DMC. I was originally going to stitch her without the wings because I thought they were too dragonfly-ish. But now that I've seen a few finishes with them...I'm leaning towards stitching them too. I'll admit that she looks like she has a really weird tanline!

I also picked up a few pieces from my framer. Pictures eventually. Since I live in a pretty small apartment, and there really isn't any wall space I can put them without being tacky...they're under my bed. Until I figure out what to do: move somewhere with more wall space, or give up and have all my walls covered in cross stitch. Very little of which goes with everything else.

More bluebell

I got most of her skirt done. There's a large patch of #800 that was just boring to stitch.



I also started The Sweetheart Tree's Baby Shamrock Biscornu, but there isn't enough progress to warrant a picture.

And, when I was coming home yesterday it was snowing! Giant clumps of snowflakes. And the roads were icy. It's still the middle of October! Where's my nice fall weather? *grumble grumble*

Bluebell

I'm stitching Nora Corbett's Bluebell for a contest on a board. Just the DMC. My LNS lady is on vacation, so I can't get the beads or metallics . I think her wings are too bright and if I can make them paler I will, or I might just leave them out.

I didn't get much time on her. I'm just been tired with midterms and assignments.
She's on 32 count Waterlily. As always, the picture is weird...

TOT finish

Yay! She's done! Well, she was done a couple of days ago...
I enjoyed working on her, but somehow she wasn't as much fun as I thought she'd be when I started. I think it's because of the spelling thing. (Mixing capitals and simples in the "Trick or Treat" part).

Start date Aug 20, 2009
Finish date Sept 2, 2009
Total time 43.5 hours



The fabric is 32 count Peach Whisper. The beads have been changed due to the following epic saga:
My LNS didn't have the requested orange beads, so I used a different one
The replacement orange beads were too similar to the required red beads
I replaced the reds with a darker red
I didn't have enough of the darker red
I used the darker red where they are near the orange at the top, and used the original reds at the skirt and the shoes.
WHEW!

Instead of backstitching with the Kreinik, I couched all of it. A habit I picked up after I couched the Winter Queen's hair and adored it way more than backstitching.

I think I'm going to take a break from Nora Corbett/Mirabilia. I feel slightly ODed on them.

The Promenade finish

This piece finished a lot faster than I thought it would. It only took 17.5 hours.
Start date August 24, 2009
Finish date August 30, 2009
Total hours 17.5
Fabric 28 count opalescent white

And yes, the picture makes the fabric look grey. The light was gone when I took the picture and the flash simply washes everything out, so this is the current horrible picture until I figure out how to take a better one.



I then went back to TOT. Apparently my ability to stay away is pathetic. I finished all the crosses and most of the back stitch. Then I ran out of one of the flosses so I have to wait. I started the beads... but the red and orange beads are far too similar and I really can't tell any difference between them. I'll try seeing how they look in the sun, but I have a feeling that I'm going to try switching the red for something else.

New Start

Trick or Treat coming along nicely, but I got a little bit tired of the relentless purple-brown. And then I realized that the words "Trick or Treat" are a mixture of capitals and simples. The grammarian in me shuddered. I have put her away until I can deal with this travesty of the English language. (ok, that was a bit overblown, but it's bugging me and I need a break from her).

SO!
I started Ty Wilson's "The Promenade" in cross stitch. Over one on 28 count opalescent white it'll be about 5"x6". Colourwise it's just black and red. So a set of very nice and contrasting colours.

I decided to do it as my travel piece and an hour into it, I lost my needle and was without a spare. So that's on hold too.

I am going to take several deep breaths and thank my lucky stars I don't have any frogs right now.

New start: Trick or Treat

Technically named the Trick or Treat Fairy by Nora Corbett. The name has started to bug me after someone pointed out that the lack of wings means that she isn't a fairy. The black dress, pumpkins and the owl as a familiar have me convinced that she's a witch. But Trick or Treat Witch sounds a bit odd...or maybe not...

Anyway, started yesterday, on Peach Whisper which is a splotchy pale pink and white. The crosses are going fast but the beads will be what slows me down.



At 10 hours.

Poppy HD

Of all of NC's Pixies so far, only Poppy has screamed out to me to be stitched. I think it's the red dress.
So a month ago I took the plunge and started her and she raced along so very fast.

Of course as I was on the home stretch I found that I was missing one red thread. Fast forward a couple of weeks where Michaels still doesn't have that ONE red thread. So I beaded around it and kept calling Michaels and terrifying the staff. Finally, two days ago, they had it. I dashed out madly, bought it. Got back home and promptly put it to use.

So here is Poppy.
Started on May 15.
Finished June 22.
Took me 42.5 hours.

The fabric is waterlily, but it naturally shows up in all the pictures as a weird kind of gray. Grrr....



I couched all the metallic backstitching. I did about 3 stitches and decided I hated it, and then spent a few hours swearing as I couched the whole bit. I think this pic shows it a bit.



And you can see the wings and all their bling up close here:


Now she goes into storage to await the day I have enough money to take her and everything else in storage to the framer!

In bookish news: I'm working my way though Ian Carmichael's narration of the Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. And I love him. He really makes Peter seem like a featherbrained rambling smarty. I'm on Strong Poison, and I think the first meeting between Harriet & Peter is so adorable!

Oh, how I love that red dress!

Now I want to dig up my Red Rose of Sharon...