April SFS

I signed up for IHSW and failed horribly. I watched too much random tv and ate too much junk food and stitched about five stitches. It was a weekend best forgotten and I intend to move past it asap.

I also went on that shopping spree I've been threatening to go on. In anticipation of my birthday, which is next month, I shopped so that I would have everything ready to start on that day.

No pictures because it's all still on it's way. Hopefully it'll be here before May. Canada Post blah blah blah atrocious service blah blah blah.

Items	Cost
4 skeins DMC, 1 spool Kreinik, 25 ct black lugana 26"x26"	38.19
Ohm by AAN	24.18

Previous spending $7.26
Spending so far is $69.63
I have $30.37 banked

More about Stitch From Stash here:

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:

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:

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

Brightly Coloured

This week was pretty good since I finished the first part of a new SAL. This is Tulip Praise by Kathy Bungard of Gracewood Stitches. I'm stitching this with the Sticklounge group and it'll be one part every 15th for 10(?) months.
Tulip Praise
25ct antique white lugana
This is very much not my usual style but I thought it would be a nice change. I've also decided not to join the new StitchSpecialist SAL since I've decided I'm incapable/uninterested in finishing hardanger, however enthusiastic I am when starting.

I'm going for a bright almost primary coloured piece. It's half crosses on 25 count so that interesting effect you get when there are noncontact slashes should show up. The colours are all DMC and except for 310 and 444 I can't remember what they are (too lazy to go look). But this is definitely the palette I'll be sticking with.

I had a "I guess my mum was right with all that keep your room clean and put stuff back where you got it" moment. It was horrifying. (j/k I love my mum, but my idea of a "clean house" in no way meets hers). I went looking for a Dimensions WIP since I felt like working on it. I found the chart, the working copy, the WIP, but not the threads. I have no idea where they are. They're not in the threads drawer, they're not mysteriously on the floor in a bag. Presumably they'll show up, but for about five seconds I could just hear my mother's "I told you so".

In more cheerful news, I'm close to finishing No Late Knight Snacking. Legends is still waiting for me to get to the LNS.

Long Weekend Shenanigans

This IHSW was the Victoria Day long weekend! Strangely I thought it was next weekend, so I was caught a bit off guard. For those not in the know, Victoria Day is a federal holiday celebrating the birthday of Queen Victoria. It also celebrated the birthday of the reigning monarch regardless of that monarch's actual birthday. While it is a federal holiday, depending on what province or territory you live in you may or may be given the day off and you may or may not be paid for it. Yeah, I don't know either.

I was marathoning away on Japanese Octagon when suddenly I wanted to just chuck it across the room. Q-snaps and all. Taking that as a sign that I was burnt out on it I picked up Ganesha, put him back down (and thereby failed the first Theme-a-licious update) and ending up working on Adriana's backstitch.
Prior to the IHSW:
And after:
So far I've managed to backstitch most of the birds, and am about a third of the way through outlining the green bits. Which isn't really that noticeable.

Adriana B is designed by Aaron Art, and stitched with the Sticklounge group.

Grey Weekend

This month's IHSW was devoted to Ganesha and I managed to fill in more of the grey.
Ganesha
14ct white aida
I thought I'd share my thread sorter for this project since I'm very pleased with it. I don't use thread sorters because I'm too lazy, I just rewind the thread on the bobbin. But about 3/4 of the symbols are blends and it's way too much trouble trying to keep track of them. So this:

It's just a piece of 14 ct plastic canvas with the key taped to it. It took two tries to get the key sized to the right size so that one symbol=one square. As I said, I'm very smug about this XD.

I'm also a bit bored with all (16!) of my WIPs so maybe I'll start something small today...

A to Zed

The big success story of this week's IHSW is that I finished ABCD.


All these pictures are in no way what the actual piece looks like! Grr. The white doesn't actually contrast that much, it's almost difficult to see and the fabric is a lot more green. Oh well, c'est la vie. Actually the last one is probably the most accurate. The pattern next heads off to Middle Earth New Zealand.

Title	ABCD
Designer	La-D-Da
Start date	March 7, 2012
Finish date	March 17, 2012
Total time	14.75 hours
Fabric	32ct Waterlily jobelan
Floss	DMC 327,3837,208,209,210,211,154,B5200

Hermitting? What's That?

I was good Friday night* and Saturday morning. Then I went to the fridge for lunch and never went back :(


Namaste
32ct white lugana
I started and finished the yellow motif. Two to go.

I count the weekend as beginning as soon as I get home from work on Friday and ending when I go to bed on Sunday night/early Monday morning XD

Productive Hermitting

I spent part of the weekend finished the next part of Adriana B. I spent the rest of the time lazing around the house. All in all, it was a lovely weekend XD.


Adriana B
18ct white aida
Adriana B is designed by Aaron Art, stitched with the Sticklounge group, for the first International Stitch and Hermit Weekend.