April Achievements and May Goals

I didn't do too well this April. Not with stitching and not with a lot of non-stitchy things. I hope May is better.

Goals for April:
1. Start and finish the next Heart. I started it, but I haven't even finished the outline.
2. Finish all the stitching on Cinderella. Done and I've started the beading!
3. Finish the "secret project". No. I didn't touch it.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Finished Mediterranean Mermaid.

Goals for May:
1. Finish the next Heart.
2. Finish Cinderella.
3. Start something new.

From The Depths

As is usual with my bead cannibalism, I ran out of one bead for Cinderella. So I went by my LNS (yes the one I complain about) and while I was there picked up what I needed for Mediterranean Mermaid. It took 45 minutes to finish her off. Why did I put it off for so long?


She has so many beads! It's utterly ridiculous. I'd completely forgotten how blingy she is. I was continually catching the thread on the already stitched beads.

Here's a rather fuzzy shot of her tail.

This entire dark blue/green middle part of her tail is metallics and beads. There isn't a single DMC in here. It's so so shiny in person.

I know I made a few changes, but apparently didn't write anything down so I'm not sure exactly what they are. One thing I remember is that I used the same colour as the tiara for her shoulder strands. As charted, it called for something that wasn't used for anything else. Just those strands. And in the interest of frugality I decided that they could be silver like the tiara.

The freestanding beads that are close to her body are correctly placed. After that they're "approximate". I started from either end and by the time I got to the middle I was just eyeballing them to make sure the "bubbles" were in a smooth line. I had zero interest in counting that carefully, and I'm 100% confident in saying that I don't think anyone would be able to tell.

Because of all the beads it's actually a very 3d kind of finish. And because there's so little stitching, and all of it is in a thin line in the middle of the fabric, the whole thing is kind of heavy and floppy around a lot (and the fabric is a very drapey kind too).

I'd forgotten how much I loved this one. I'm so glad I managed to finish it off.

Title	Mediterranean Mermaid
Designer	Mirabilia
Start date	May 7, 2015
Finish date	Apr 28, 2016
Total time	54.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct summersky jobelan
Floss	Kreinik 001 instead of 019

Bring On The Beads

Thanks everyone for all the framing advice! Hopefully now I can get some things onto walls.


I've started adding the beads to Cinderella! Here she is with her top half done. I have the entirety of her skirt left.

Cinderella
32 ct Charcoal Lugana
It actually took me longer than anticipated to get the beading, because when I started backstitching I realized that I'd missed an entire part of her sleeve and dress. So I had to stitch that. Then when I was backstitching I realized her hand was posed awkwardly:


While it is possible to hold your hand like that (I tried it), it would not be how my hand would look when running away while wearing a giant poofy gown and holding my heaving bosom. So to speak. So I had to remodel it. My version is a bit crude and I feel like the hand is a bit too big, but I prefer it to how it's charted.

Framing Question

I was hoping to have all the stitching on Cinderella done, but no such luck.

I do have a question for people who do their own framing:
Where do you get your frames?

I have so many finishes waiting to be framed but the cost of getting things professionally framed is ludicrous around these parts. And commercial frames available at Michaels/Walmart/etc are in fixed sizes, and my finishes are not those sizes. I'm thinking of doing my own framing but am stumped about where to get frames in custom sizes.

So Close

I don't think I've posted a full shot of Cinderella in a while, so here she is:


Cinderella
32 ct Charcoal Lugana
I've just got the silver leaves on the flowers and the backstitch before I can start beading. I want to start beading now!

Fancy 'Do

Cinderella
32 ct Charcoal Lugana
So I managed to find a redhead conversion for a different Mirabilia and modified it a little for Cinderella. I'm quite happy with it.

Now I have a few more roses to finish and then random missed stitches and it's onto the beads!

And What About The Hair?

Cinderella
32 ct Charcoal Lugana
I finished off Cinderella's skin and was about to start her hair. The plan was to make her a redhead, and while the conversion I'm using doesn't come with red hair I thought I had another conversion for that. It turns out that "thought" is the keyword here, because that other conversion is only the dress too and not the hair.

So now I have to decide if I'm going to try and come up with a conversion myself (doubtful since I'm not very good at that sort of thing), google one (there has to be a conversion of a Mirabilia design with red hair, right?) or just give up and go with blonde.