March Achievements & April Goals

Goals for March:
1. Finish and mail out Kathy's winnings!!! Soon, Kathy. I promise.
2. Stitch on the UFO RR About 2 hours each.
3. Finish Celtic Spring No. Issues with deciding the purple metallic
4. Stitch a themed small for my pinkeep collection No for the second month in a row. This themed pinkeep plan isn't doing too well.
5. Stitch on The Runekeeper Saga Finished it too!

Unplanned things:
1. Started Something Wicked
2. Started Cool Christmas
3. Started Compassion

Goals for April:
1. Finish and mail out Kathy's winnings.
2. Stitch on both UFO RRs
3. Finish Compassion
4. Finish Cool Christmas
5. Stitch a themed small for my pinkeep collection
6. Stitch Butterfly Bellpull

The start of March was excellent, what with Runekeeper Saga being finished, but I lost my steam towards the end. I think it's because I can't find a good audiobook... In April I will be between jobs, so tons of time (most of which will go towards finishing up a bunch of online classes) but there should be lots of time to stitch. Crossed fingers...

BORED!

SO BORED!!!

I haven't felt like stitching a thing this week. Spring Queen is beige, I can't figure out what purple I want for Celtic Spring, there's too much black in Something Wicked, Why Hoard Gold? has Marlitt threads, the blue and grey from How Does Your Garden Grow (In The Dark)? look the same, Autumn Winds is over 1, etc etc!

So I dragged out my charts and stared at them all. Then I threw them all back in the drawer.

So I thought I'd start something new (again). But nothing I had kitted appealed to me. I don't want to start Celtic Autumn since I haven't finished Spring. I don't want to start another Mirabilia. I really don't want to start a Teresa Wenztler. I don't have any small pieces of leftover fabric suitable for a small. I don't want to cut into any of my larger pieces of fabric in case I find a larger design that might fit onto them.

Maybe I'll go to the store and kit something else up and not start that either.

Macbeth IV, i, 45-46

Since I was good and finished off two semi-old WIPs, I celebrated by starting something new for the International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. (Admittedly most of my weekends are IH&SWs...)

It's been quite a while since I studied Shakespeare, and I've always enjoyed his comedies more. But when I saw Something Wicked by La-D-Da, I knew I had to stitch it.


Something Wicked
32 ct Peach Whisper Belfast
Note the green striped socks! Such a nice touch!

Only One Of Its Kind

for me anyway. I speak of the 15-sided biscornu.


Last August I started a freebie 15 sided blackwork biscornu. This was to be my travel project, but after 9 squares the weather grew too cold and it disappeared into the drawer. I finally finished off all the blackwork and then had to tackle the actual finishing.


Excellent assembly photos here and here. However even with these instructions I had a devil of a time.

Not sure if you can tell but the part where 5 sides connect doesn't come to a point, but a hole. I just can't seem to tighten it up. And let's not get into post-stuffing joining bit. And the fuzzy white bits!


It's cute as anything, but way too much work. This is going to be my one and only 15 sided biscornu. (Which takes the Just Nan 15 sided ones out of my future. And let's not get into their even more complicated looking pretties!)

Title	Not sure. I just call it the 15 sided Blackwork Biscornu.
Designer	Stitch-Creations
Start date	August 30, 2010
Finish date	March 16, 2011
Total time	Unknown since I didn't time myself on the bus
Fabric	18 ct Black Aida
Floss	DMC Blanc

Epilogue

I'll admit it: I read a ton of fantasy. From Tolkien to the Dragonlance series, to The Wheel of Time, to The Sword of Truth to Songs of Fire and Ice to ... well you get the picture.

I'm a sucker for traditional stories of knights in shining armour and pointy eared elves.

And I've always, always had a soft spot for the Big Bad. I think it's the vast amount of power and arrogance.


The whole package is just a wonderful escape from reality.

And the before backstitch picture?


I did something a bit different with this design: I tried to stitch colour by colour. (Tried, since I'd occasionally miss a few stitches and had to go back.) But on the whole I was rather successful. So enjoy the show about adding one colour can sometimes make a big difference and sometimes can barely be visible.

Title	The Runekeeper Saga
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	June 10, 2010
Finish date	March 13, 2011
Total time	80.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct White lugana
Floss	As charted
Changes	All the squares now have the same border

Secretive Progress

It's been six months since I posted a picture of The Runekeeper Saga, and according to that post, I had a few stitches done.

Today I present everything but the backstitch:


The Rune Keeper Saga
28 ct Antique White LuganaI will confess that I took photos after every colour (except when I had to go back because I missed a couple of stitches) but never posted them. And I really have no explanation. I ... just didn't.

Since I've been on a roll, I'm going to stick with this, so hang around for 12 (hopefully) days showing the awesome power of backstitch!

Trial Run

I record my fabric, hours etc in an old journal. Said journal was purchased at the Dollar Store and had a hideous faux-leather cover which I trashed as soon as I bought it. It then stayed as a hideous cardboard covered thing. Until today!


I've always planned on getting a decent cover for it, but haven' been looking very hard for the perfect cross stitch design. Today I decided to see if I can actually make a fabric cover properly before I try it out on the still-theoretical cross stitch.


I used this tutorial, since it seemed pretty straight forward (and it was dead easy!) Even though this was a trial run I didn't want it to be boring, so I drew some random swirls and stitching a whole bunch of flowers I found in the bargain bin. It very simple but I am well pleased with myself!


Edited to add that I in no way made those flowers. While I'd love to do so they're way too complicated for me and at $0.66 for all of them, they were dirt cheap.
PS. Please ignore the absolutely filthy windowsill, window etc.

TUSAL March

Finals are done, my classes for the next 6 weeks are all online, and work hours will be much less for March. All this adds up to a lot more stitching and therefore a lot more in the jar next month.


The purple and yellow are from Celtic Spring.
That bit of green is from The Runekeeper Saga which reminds me that I have not shared a picture of it in ages! If next week ends up being as stitchy as I hope then I should have all the crosses done. Of course this leaves the insane amount of backstitching...