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!

Lovely in Red

Thank you for the warm welcome back!

I've been struggling to take a decent picture of my New Year's Start. I don't have a good track record with NYS; my last two are still WIPs. But I couldn't resist.

I started Maia's Misaki, which will look like this when finished:

This is where I am right now:

Misaki
32 ct Ruby Wine Lugana
And she's already proven to be very demanding. Maia does kits, which I don't mind. BUT! The original fabric was 16ct red aida, which would have been all right except that there are a ton of quarter stitches, so I switched it out for a lovely 32ct Ruby Wine lugana. And the floss is Anchor which frays so much. I have to use lengths 1/3 of usual DMC length and I find the ends still fray a tiny bit. I don't want to go shorter because it already feels like I spend more time threading than stitching. And of course, three shades of similar reds on red fabric. Well, at least she'll look stunning when finished!

ETA: The whole piece is stitched including the background. She's in full crosses and the background is half crosses in 2-3 strands.

The Most Progress

I had a few new starts while on break and I made the most progress on Cirque des Triangles. If the colours look familiar it's because this is the exact same fabric and floss as Cirque des Cercles. I've always planned on doing all the Cirques in the same combination.

There's now also Cirque des Coeurs which I have to pick up.


Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115
As with Cercles I'm trying to make sure that dark leads to dark and light to light but it's a lot tougher on this one. Or maybe it's been so long that it just feels harder?

Also: When I went on hiatus I was still using the old Blogger interface so it was a massive shock to come back to a complete change. It took me way too long to find everything!

*Blows Off Dust*

Hello?

Is this thing still on?

Anybody still out there?

I've missed you all so much! It felt so strange being completely out of the loop. But I'm back!

I've had a couple of new starts. No finishes and progress on some WIPs since I was last here. Pictures tomorrow.

Indefinite Hiatus

I feel bad about this but I've decided to go on an indefinite hiatus.

I haven't felt much like blogging for a while, and I haven't been commenting for even longer. My stitching mojo is also at an all-time low.

I hope that I'll be back sooner than later, but I think it's better to wait until I get back my enthusiasm rather than continue half-heartedly and run the risk of becoming completely disinterested.

I may post the occasional finish, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

Stay in stitches,
B.

August Wrap-Up

It's a blue moon!

For the

I knocked off two WIPs: Maple Leaf and Japanese Octagon Box.

Maple Leaf was my Theme-a-licious piece for Altius August, where I interpreted "embrace the Olympic motto" as embrace the Olympics and be patriotic. Next month is September Smalls, for which I have no plans.

Goals for August:
1. Finish Japanese Octagon Garden. Yes!
2. Restart Maia. No.
3. Finish Maple Leaf. Yes.
Pipe dream: Make a new general use bag since my current one is getting ratty. The inner and outer shells are done. I just need to attach the straps and stitch it together.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started Cirque des Triangles.
2. Started Sweeping Cobwebs

Goals for September:
1. Work on Ganesha.
2. Work on my Granny Stripe blanket.
Pipe dream: Finish Sweeping Cobwebs.

Pictures Ahoy!

And I've done as much as I'm ever going to on Japanese Octagon Box, so let's call that a finish shall we? I made so many random changes on this. I left off the golden flowers because I didn't want to struggle with the overlay backstitching in a metallic business. I used the provided DMC conversion (which Martina warns is not quite equivalent) so there are parts where you can't really tell that there are different greens involved. I have no idea if this is true for the "proper" threads NPI and gloriana. But I can live with it. I left out the beads just under the upper Rhodes stitches. I replaced all the beads in the bottom 8 motifs with a light purple metallic. I'm rather fond of the cherry blossom(?) tree. But those over one birds were so not fun. When I was putting this away to be framed in the future I was a bit disconcerted to realize that I don't have much space left in that drawer.

Title	Japanese Octagon Box
Designer	Chatelaine
Start date	February 29, 2012
Finish date	August 23, 2012
Total time	91.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct white lugana
Floss	Mostly the DMC conversion, a couple of Dinky Dyes
	and Kreiniks that I didn't note down *is sheepish*

Hermitting Away

I spent the weekend plodding through more of Tulip Praise. I'm getting just a little bit bored with it, but I only have to fill in the purple bits in the top an middle lines to finish this month's part so I'll probably keep going.


Tulip Praise
25ct antique white lugana

August TUSAL

Now with extra red! It's mostly from Maple Leaf. The bright yellow is frogging from Tulip Praise after I decided to switch out the yellow for purple.
That's Something Wicked by La-D-Da in the background.

The Podium At Last

Altius August is about embracing the Olympic Motto and elevating your mind by learning something new. I embraced something vaguely Olympic-related and ignored the rest.
If you're wondering what a maple leaf has to do with the Olympics, well, aren't we all just a little extra patriotic around the Olympics? So here's my version of waving the flag ;)

I thought since I was stitching with a metallic thread on an opalescent fabric that it would take me a while to finish. It actually went by pretty fast. I used 2.5 spools and maybe 1/10 of a bead packet. This is going into my "to be framed" drawer (which at this point is just ridiculously full, but probably not going to decrease any time soon). I'm not sure how well you can see the sparkles in the fabric and the floss, but rest assured. It's shining with patriotism ;)

Title	Maple Leaf
Designer	Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks
Start date	July 31, 2012
Finish date	August 15, 2012
Total time	16.75 hours
Fabric	32 ct opalescent white lugana
Floss	Kreinik 003, MH 3049

A Late Start

I started this yesterday, so it totally counts as a WIP for this month's

So. The Olympics. See, I'm not a sporty person. The most athletic thing I ever did was play chess as a teen. I even managed to get out of mandatory gym class in high school. All this means that I'm rather apathetic towards the Olympics (sacrilege, I know). I don't really watch any of it. Occasionally if someone else in the room is watching something I'll watch with them, but I don't go looking. I do rather vaguely follow Canada's medal count.

Which brings me to the matter at hand. I know that there's a fair amount of people either starting something new for the Olympics or stitching something patriotic. So I decided to stitch something patriotic for the Olympics. (I was going to start on Friday but my fabric didn't arrive). I'm going for subtle but I don't think it's as subtle as I think.

Alessandra Adelaide Needlework's Maple Leaf. I'm stitching it in Kreinik 003 on 32 ct opalescent white. It is incredibly shiny.


Maple Leaf
32ct opalescent white lugana, Kreinik 003
When finished it will look like this (only, more shiny):

July Wrap-Up

I got a very late start on Jolly July. I was originally planning on working on the Christmyth ornies (as per the suggested Christmas theme), but then I finished them earlier in the year and I had no idea what to do. I actually skipped the previous theme-a-licious update. But then I decided to tackle Sleepy Hollow and finished it, so that was all good.

The original plan for Atlius August (learn something new) was to work on some of Hardanger projects. Instead I've decided to embrace the Olympics ;D

Goals for July:
1. Keep up with Tulip Praise. Sadly no. I was having colour issues, and although those have been sorted out I don't really feel like working on it for now.
2. Finish Legends of Dragons. Yes!
3. Finish all the cross stitching on Palm. Yes. In fact I finished Palm.
Pipe dream: Finish Japanese Octagon Box. No. I'd say I have about 15 hours left in it though.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Finished Palm.
2. Started Maple Leaf
3. Started Maia

Goals for August:
1. Finish Japanese Octagon Garden.
2. Restart Maia.
3. Finish Maple Leaf.
Pipe dream: Make a new general use bag since my current one is getting ratty.

Fi-neigh-ly Done

What can I say? I have a weakness for awful puns ;)

There are lots of changes in this, and I can't remember most of them because this was before I made extensive notes. I know that I made some change in the border somewhere and had to shorten the tree. The moon is not made of Caron Waterlily, it's made of DMC 745. The metallics are not what are called for. The bottom of the jacket is purple instead of green. There's only one bead colour instead of two. I'm sure there are more things *shrug*

Title	Sleepy Hollow
Designer	Glendon Place
Start date	August 30, 2010
Finish date	July 27, 2012
Total time	130.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct Thunderstorm linen
Floss	I used the provided DMC conversion

A Long Overdue Winner

This weekend was devoted to getting all the backstitch in Sleepy Hollow done. Now I've just got all the beading in the border to go.
Sleepy Hollow
32 ct Thunderstorm
And the end of the backstitch means it's time to announce the winner from my 2010 contest to guess the hours of backstitch! It took me 28.5 hours to finish all the backstitch: 7 hours in 2010, 8.5 hours in 2011 and 13 hours this year. Which means the closest guess was Annie with 25 hours (the highest guess). Apparently folks were somewhat optimistic about how fast I could stitch. Of course, considering I promised to send the winnings out by Halloween 2011 I was clearly the delusional one LOL! Drop me a line Annie and we'll see about those winnings...