Stitch From Stash - July

Month: July
Spent: 0

I can't believe it's already the second half of the year! Time flies so fast that it's ridiculous.

Nothing much going on this month. I've just been plodding away at Autumn Winds and am almost done the first page.

Autumn Winds
25ct white Lugana

Winds of Progress.

I was looking at my recent progress pictures and thinking that I really haven't done any stitching worth showing and preparing to post anyway when I realized that I haven't posted a picture of Autumn Winds in ages.

My last picture of her was back in March,

Autumn Winds
25ct white Lugana
And now she looks like this:

Autumn Winds
25ct white LuganaI've only got the rest of this column and another entire column to have one page finished! Not bad for something that was languishing in the UFO pile until I restarted her.

Starting Over

When I last posted about Autumn Winds she looked like this:

Autumn Winds
28ct antique white Lugana
Since then I've managed to lose my original working copy, been unable to work backwards to figure out which parts I've stitched, kept it hidden, and finally restarted it.

I'm going with a block by block method, and now she looks like this:

Autumn Winds
25ct white Lugana

Admire the Hair

I never thought this day would come. I have actually finished a HAED! I'm rather insufferably pleased with myself.



I stitched QS Heather as part of this year's HAED freebie SAL. She's stitched in tent stitch with two strands on 25ct. This is the full version of Heather. I was under the impression that she was a mermaid, but apparently she's from a steampunk world. Which explains that green bit in the lower right (I thought it was part of a tail).

This is the third HAED I've started (sort of) and the first I've finished. My first start was Autumn Winds which is still floating around; my second (which I re-started) was Blue Moon which I've given up on.

I'm pretty sure the only reason I finished Heather is because I parked and went column by column. She took a whopping 115.5 hours but it didn't feel like I stitched for all that long. I think that's because I did it as a SAL and so it was only a page every few months. Apparently I can stick with projects if other people break them down and hold my hand along the way :)

Title	QS Heather
Designer	Heaven and Earth Designs
Start date	January 4, 2013
Finish date	August 31, 2013
Total time	115.5 hours
Fabric	25 ct antique white lugana

All Caught Up

Just in time for my camera battery to die, so today is a truly horrible photo courtesy of my phone.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I picked up a brand new light so now I can work on darker fabric again! Next up is Iris B.

Second Eye

More progress on Heather. I've raved about the colours in her hair several times, but her eyes are pretty spectacular too. And all the eyeshadow and makeup just makes her irises look amazing.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I have two more columns to finish the 3rd page and then I have to wait. I'm stitching this as part of the current HAED Freebie SAL, and the last part doesn't come out until the end of August.

Halfway There

It's actually over half. I'm further than I've ever been on a HAED. Knock on wood that saying that didn't bring on the evil eye :)


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I'm finding going OAAT very soothing. There's something about putting all other WIPs out of sight and out of mind that's very relaxing. Not to mention seeing major progress relatively fast.

Also, I really should introduce Heather to an iron!

Heather Again

I'm still sticking with Heather. I was a bit hesitant to post again because there isn't much progress since last Sunday, but I know that if I don't I'll probably fall off the posting wagon again. So sorry folks, it looks like it's Heather for the foreseeable future.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I know the picture makes it seem like there's a horrible transition between the pink and flesh in her skin, but it's actually a lot more subtle in person. I'll try taking a picture by daylight next time; maybe it'll come out better.

Still Loving The Hair

I finished page 1 and got a little over 1/3 of page 3 done as well! There are a few unstitched bits where I'm somehow missing a colour. I suspect I cannibalized it for some other project.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I use the dual highlighting method for HAEDs: highlight the symbol you're going to stitch in orange, stitch, highlight again in blue and the stitched bits are now this horrible green colour. Repeat. A few nights ago both my highlighters died in the middle of stitching. And I really didn't feel like changing out of my jammies that late. I've had to switch to yellow and pink which ends up orange; except I can't tell the orange from the pink and the yellow is too neon bright to use alone. I have no excuse for sorrow since I can just go the store, but I haven't quite gotten around to it yet. Maybe I should stock up on more blue and orange highlighters... Do they dry up if kept closed in a dark cool place?

One Eye

Yet another unplanned mini-hiatus. I'm starting to feel like The Boy Who Cried Wolf! It's frustrating and irritating me because I know that I should be stitching and posting but I can't seem to do it. But I think we're all getting tired of my repeated whining and failings on that count so I'll just get to the stitching.

A little over half of the first page on Heather. The chart is in four parts and the first is a full page and the others aren't. I think I'm going to jump to page three, which is the one right below because it has less stitches than page two.


Heather
25ct Antique White Lugana
I really love the colour of her eye, even though it felt like there were a billion colours making it up. And her hair! I haven't seen pink hair that works in real life, but I absolutely love it here. The flash picks up a lot of the white bits where the thread doesn't quite cover the fabric, but it isn't as noticeable in person. And I think HAEDs are best seen at a little distance so hopefully it won't really matter.

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!

Second Try

I decided to restart Blue Moon because I found that I don't like the look of half crosses in two strands. The stitches aren't uniformly flat; some stitches look more sunken than others. Also I'd started it on linen, and over-one on linen is a pain.

SK Blue Moon
25ct Antique White Lugana, full cross in 1 strand
So I picked up some 25 count lugana and started over. I've already put in more hours on this than I did on the original. Since it's full crosses it's taking more time to see progress, but I'm a lot happier with this and therefore more likely to stick with it.

I initially started gridding with a water soluble marker but I just didn't like it. So I switched to thread. I have a question for people that use water soluble markers: will the marks wash out after an ironing? Or should I avoid the iron until the very end?

March Wrap Up

March Madness. I think I can conclusively call it an utter failure. I planned to work on Blue Moon. I managed to put one hour into it over the whole month.

----->

Amazon April, aka work on the largest project. I'm not actually sure what my biggest WIP is, but Ganesha is massive enough and I'm hoping to focus on Him for most of the month.

Goals for March:
1. Keep up with TAST and The Great Escape. No.
2. Finish Parts 4 & 5 of Adriana B. Yes! And I even started part 6.
3. Work on SK Blue Moon. One hour is still one hour.
4. Start something for the leap year.I started the main panel from Japanese Octagon Box.
Pipe dream: Get caught up with Blue Moon before the next part comes out.Well, since the next part actually comes out next month I might still be able to do it.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started and finished ABCD by La-D-Da.

Goals for April:
1. Catch up on TAST and The Great Escape.
2. Work on Ganesha.
Pipe dream: Finish two pages of Ganesha

Splotch of Blue

My New Year's start is crawling along. This is a 2012 freebie SAL by Heaven and Earth Designs. I'm stitching it on 28 ct over one, with half crosses in two threads. I'm missing one colour (which seems to be everywhere), and Michaels hasn't had it for the past month. I may have to break down and pay double price at the LNS.
SK Blue Moon
28ct Waterlily Linen, 2 over 1 half crosses

Ominous Signs

16 hours in and I really hope the rest of the year isn't going to be like this!

First a look at last year's goals... Let's just say I missed every single one and leave it at that!
1. Work at least 100 hours on Ganesha (He didn't get a stitch last year)
2. Finish at least 10 of my carry-over WIPs
3. End the year with less WIPs than I started
4. Make one (themed?) pinkeep a month
5. Finish Sleepy Hollow so I can wrap up that contest (I haven't forgotten, just...not feeling Halloween)

So let's make this year's overall goals somewhat more achievable, shall we?
1. Finish Ganesh
2. Sort my life out to where I want it to be

As stated this is my list of permissible new starts. Of course, anything that I have the chart, 90% of the floss and a suitable piece of fabric is fair game. Hey, I have to keep my options open;P

Celtic Autumn     Sweeping Cobwebs     Misaki     Japanese Octagon Box     
Here Comes Treble     First Bass     Egyptian Sampler     Deco Spirits     
Cirque des Trianlges     Cirque des Carreaux     Cinderella     Blue Moon

And my New Year's start was from the list. Yay I've stuck to it!

Blue Moon
28ct Waterlily linen, half stitches in 2 strands
15 minutes in I went to snip some thread and realized that I'd been stitching with the wrong colour. 334 instead of 333. A feeble attempt to fudge failed when I realized that the later is a pale blue while the former is a vivid purple! Frog and restitch and one hour later I finish the 333 only to realize that I somehow don't have the next colour. And since I already highlighted the chart in preparation I'm going to have to wait till work tomorrow to reprint the chart.

It was when I went to note down the hours etc. that I realized that I haven't finished my last two New Years starts. (Legends of Dragons and Spring Queen) Is this yet another sign?

Add in some personal stuff that's making me seriously reevaluate things...

Well, it's a good thing I don't believe in signs and superstition. This year is going to be exactly what I want it to be and nothing is going to stop me!

A Way That Works

Since finishing Something Wicked I've felt like working on just about all my WIPs. So a quick touch-everything rotation may in order.

I started Autumn Winds last February, but didn't get too much done. As it can out:

When I put it away:


Autumn Winds
28ct antique white Lugana
I think the main problem was trying to figure out how to tackle her. I know lots of folks go block by block for HAEDs. I though about doing that but I find that there's always one or two stitches in the next block and the block after and it seems silly not to just finish those off too and within a few symbols I'm wandering all over the place.

But I've come up with a strategy that works:
I pick one 10x10 square.
I pick one symbol.
I highlight every instance of that symbol I think I can reach without making a counting mistake regardless of how many blocks this traverses.
After I've stitched that symbol I colour it in with a different colour highlighter.
Then I go back to my original block and pick another symbol.
Repeat until all the symbols in that block are done.
Then I look for the next block that has an unstitched symbol and go on.

This way I get to wander all over and still finish things off block by block. As of right now I have 4 blocks done, and since there's only so much over one I can do without going crazy it's time for something else.

I think I'm going to grab How Does Your Garden Grow (in the Dark)? and see if I can figure out what blues I want to use...

A Beehive?

At least that's I thought when I saw the orange "thing". Turns out it's part of a roof.

Round 2 of the UFO RR was Rachel's Wizard of Oz.

Upon arrival:

Upon departure:

Finished off the page and put out a feeler into the next.

A new start for the Olympics

I decided to use the Olympics as an excuse for another new start. This is my first HAED, and in an attempt to be somewhat sane, it's a Quick Stitch.


Autumn Winds
28ct antique white Lugana
The fabric choice is simply because on 28 ct she comes to about 7x5, and that brings my framing costs down (I'm looking at all kinds of things as I decide what to stitch).

I think I'm going to have to accept defeat and invest in multicoloured highlighters for her. Scanning ahead it's going to be tricky following a symbol because they wander quite a bit. (Did that make any sense at all?)

The goal is to finish her by the time the Sochi Olympics roll around.
What you thought I was going to say this Olympics? Let's try and be reasonable here!

(No, I had no idea where the 2014 Olympics were being held. I had to look it up.)