Dance Like An Egyptian

Egyptian Sampler is done! I woke up a few days ago and decided that I was just going to put Ohm aside and push for a finish. I've wanted to stitch this for a long time and I'm so happy that it's actually finished instead of languishing in my WIP pile.

There's just so much detail in this, but it doesn't feel like it. I think it's because it's just one motif after another, so it feels like lots of small happy dances.

I'm very glad I stitched the border as I went along instead of leaving it to the end. Funny (as in ha-ha-no) story: I was actually beading around the blue flowers when I realized that five of the star stitches were a stitch off. They weren't even wrong in a way I could pretend was creative; just wrong. So I had to take a break from the beading to go back to cross stitching. It threw off my beading zen a bit.

The over-one was alright but I'm so glad I didn't have to frog any of it.

Looking back I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed this, right up to the end. I usually get bored and the last stretch can sometimes be a real slough. But not for this. Still, I think it'll be a while before my next Teresa Wentzler (probably Peacock Majesty).

I think I'm going to pull out Deco Spirits for a bit now. Maybe finish off one of the Spirits.

Title	Egyptian Sampler
Designer	TWDesignworks
Start date	January 1, 2014
Finish date	June 3, 2014
Total time	231.75 hours
Fabric	28 ct antique white lugana

April WIPocalypse

Right now Egyptian Sampler looks like this:

I don't want to jinx it by saying so, but I think I'm pretty close to a finish :)

This month's question: How do you keep your stash organized?
Since I skipped last week due to shame at the slovenly way I keep my room I thought I'd share the somewhat disorganized way I keep my stash. Almost everything takes up three drawers in a chest of drawers.


All my unused fabric is in one drawer. Everything is labelled with the size and count. Anything earmarked for a project has the project written down (because the number of times I used to get confused over why I had a particular piece of fabric cannot be counted). Little scraps that I'm convinced I'm somehow use are in a corner.

All finishes are in another drawer. This one is getting pretty full.

DMC is in five boxes. It felt like to took forever to get every colour on a bobbin but I'm so pleased that I did it. I actually have one giant set of floss that I work out of. I used to pull the colours for a particular project and keep them separately, but after I bought the same colour six times because I couldn't remember where it was I gave up and consolidated everything. Occasionally a dyelot changes and things go horrifyingly wrong, but mostly I never have to wonder where a particular floss is or whether I've cannibalized it for something.

All my books, magazine, charts and printed freebies are in a shopping bag. I keep everything by the same designer in one giant ziplog bag so they take up a little less space than if they were in individual plastic sleeves.

Everything else is in the last drawer, piled in controlled chaos.

The upper left is where I keep all non-DMC threads. The red is for my other Cirque projects, there's some anchor threads from Maia, The Shepherd's Bush thread-holder is leftover thread, there's some leftover Dimensions thread on a floss ring. Threads from the companies like Week Dye Works, Dinky Dyes etc are on their own floss ring. Next to that is my pile of ribbons. The two boxes in the bottom left contain all my Kreinik. Next to them is my tiny collection of pearl cotton.

The upper right box has all my trims.

All extra skeins of DMC are in bags corresponding to which box they would be in.

All Mill Hill beads are on floss rings in numerical order in their original packaging.

Oh and I forgot to take a picture of my WIPs, but they're all rolled up in a bag next to the bag of charts. It's a bit messy but it's organized enough for me :)

More Border

I picked up that missing DMC and it's back to the border. I also did a bit of the papyrus background in the centre panel; it was a bit annoying because I kept getting lost on which "stalk" I was on since many of them are a little different since the figures cut off parts.

Down to the Border

The pharaoh is done. I've run out of one of the yellows in the border. Montenegrin Stitch is fun. Egyptian Sampler continues to chug along.

March WIPocalypse

I missed last month's WIPocalypse since it was in the middle of the Olympics when I had my mini-break. Since this blog continues to be mostly Egyptian Sampler I thought I'd post about the difference two months makes.

From January's WIPocalpyse:

To March's:

That's 130 hours by the way.

This month's question: Show us your favourite places to stitch.
Hahaha no. I stitch in my bedroom where there are clothes all over the floor and the nightstand and the bed is never made. There's no way I'm posting a picture of that chaos.

Border Journey

As hypothesized last post, this is just more of the border filled in:

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
I'm tackling the papyrus panel next and then it's on to the pharaoh.

Back To The Border

I had a lovely follower ask about how Egyptian Sampler was doing and there's been a fair bit of progress since the last picture so here we go:

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
Please ignore that this was taken on a not-flat surface. It was the only non-blurry picture and I'm too lazy to go back upstairs to take another picture. The next picture will probably be pretty boring. I'm going to fill in as much of the border as I can.

One Step Forward, One Back

The Olympics are done. Now I can get caught up on my sleep. And on my stitching :)

I picked Egyptian Sampler back up:
And put in a few stitches and frogged a few:

More about IHSW here:

Over One And Faking Specialty Stitches

I successfully tackled that some of that over-one I was worrying about. I took it very slow and fretted a lot but it came out well. I was extra stressed because some of the colours were so different that I was convinced that it wouldn't look right. But it all looks good.

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
A close up of the over-one and the vulture. I cheated so much on those specialty stitches that make up the halo! The square ones are the only ones stitched as charted. I don't know the proper terminology but I hated how the partial eyelets made a giant hole (that single space that all the stitches are supposed to go in). So I didn't put all the stitches in there; every other stitch actually stops close but doesn't actually end in the "common" space. I don't think you can tell that the stitch isn't done "correctly". And that middle circle is supposed to be an eyelet too. With that many stitches in common I knew that I would hate any eyelet but I couldn't figure out a suitable stitch. It's an even-sided symmetrical shape but not one that I know any stitches for, and a Rhodes stitch would have been too high. In the end I cobbled something involving needle weaving and latticing. I honestly can't remember what I did except that I tried to make it symmetrical and I'm really glad that there's only one!

Lack of Spending, Captain!

One of the side effects of signing up for multiple SALs is that it means I have to post my progress. Which is good because otherwise I'd just tell myself that people are getting bored of seeing the same thing and stop posting. But this way I have to post. It's the SAL rules!

I'm participating in Mel's

where the rules are to spend less than $25 a month and use your current stash.

I generally tend to go months without buying anything (other than one or two DMC as I run out) but then have a massively horrifying splurge once or twice an year. I also want to track my needlework expenses to see exactly where I'm spending money and I'm more likely to do it if I'm doing it as part of a group.

So. January expenditure: $0

I've mostly been stitching Egyptian Sampler. I picked up the chart two(?) years ago and had fabric picked out last year. I have all the DMC colours (yes! I finally did it last November) so the floss is always there. Everything from stash.
I'm going to reach the over one bits soon. To be honest I'm not looking forward to them. The last time I stitched something that mixed over-two and over-one I had serious tension problems and the whole thing looked terribly puckered. On the positive side, it's been several years and I've hopefully gotten a lot better. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out.

Border Progress

My IHSW didn't go so well. In fact I stitched less than I would have a regular weekend. But I slept a lot so that was good.

This is what Egyptian Sampler looked like Saturday morning:
And this was at the end of tonight:
I finished up a few of the border motifs and started outlining them. The colours are actually very jewel-like and bright in person. The purple outline around the red stitches really enhance the gemstone look.

I've never had a lot of faith in the uniformity of my eyelet stitches and I wasn't interested in hours of doubt. So I switched out the small eyelets for Star Stitches and the big ones for Norwich Stitches. No worries about uneven pulling, just easy stitches.

More about IHSW here:

January WIPocalypse

I'm not exactly slaying a WIP for

I was convinced that I was ready to go back to a 10 hour per WIP rotation. Nope. I'm still on what-I-feel-like rotation, which means I have less to post because it's just the same WIP over and over again.

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
Please ignore the apparently slant. I took this picture at a strange angle. I am actually a bit further and should have more done (maybe even some backstitch!) after IHSW.

Egyptian Sampler

My big start for this year is TWDesignworks' Egyptian Sampler. I've wanted to stitch this for a long time but kept putting it off. But this year is THE year!

Egyptian Sampler
28 ct Antique White Monaco
I usually stitch all the cross stitches and wait until the end before the backstitch but I'm not going to be doing that for this. It works for less complicated designs and smaller TWs but this is too massive. I also plan on heading out towards the edge so that I can get to the border. The plan is to stitch bits of the border and the main design alternatively instead of avoiding the border and then having to tackle it at the end.

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*

Trio of Dragons

Another

Another finish!

Legends of the Dragons was my 2010 New Year start. It's now midway through 2012 and I've finally finished it! It's a three-parter with each dragon designed by a different designer. All three are now out of the business (although I believe Jennifer of DD still occasionally puts stuff out for retreats).
Magic by Dragon Dreams was the first one finished. I remember being very gung-ho at that point. I was going to stitch a dragon a month and finish the whole thing in 4 months. Ah, those were the days... I finished the border next. I was going to use an overdyed since I didn't want to tackle the border (it's all TW), but I never managed to find one I liked that was in my budget. So I eventually sucked it up and stitched it as charted. I'm glad I did that. And then it was Teresa's Wisdom. This is where I got stalled. I can't remember why, but I probably wasn't in the right mindset for a TW. That was a long hiatus. I didn't touch it during all of 2011. And then one day I just had to finish it. And the last one is Majesty by Black Swan Designs. Looking at my numbers this took the shortest time to stitch, which is surprising because I thought it would have been Magic. I was a bit nervous about the lettering because it's over one. The last time I had to stitch a small over one part in a larger design it didn't turn out too well. Too much puckering. But this turned out excellently. I owe everything to my Q-snap. And the fact that I stitched all the lettering over two days.

Title	Legends of the Dragons
Designers	Black Swan Designs, Dragon Dreams, TWDesignworks
Start date	January 1, 2010
Finish date	July 4, 2012
Total time	102.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct antique white lugana
Floss	As charted

Closer to the End

Jumaji June was excellent. Legends of Dragons went from this: To this:
But then I ran out of one of the Kreiniks, so it's on pause until I get to the LNS sometime next week.

Seeing Wisdom

This one's a blast from the past. My last post about Legends of Dragons is from back in 2010(!)
And now:

I was in the mood for a billion-and-one blends. I just zoomed through this and has a blast finishing it off.

Google Reader has been acting very strange lately. It doesn't load posts as they are posted. Instead at the end of a day I get all the posts from the previous day. It's very strange and I'm pretty sure that some blogs just don't show up on it any more...