Farewell to the Oldest

Lousy pictures ahoy!


I actually finished off my oldest WIP! Why was it a WIP?

*FLASHBACK IN FILM NOIR STYLE*
It was January of 2009. I had only recently discovered the online world of cross stitch. That's when they appeared. Four designs by Dragon Dreams. All gorgeous and they begged me to stitch them.

So that's what I did. I finished off all the DMC stitching and then I realized that each part had 2 Kreiniks each. This was in the early days. I didn't have any Kreiniks. I didn't want to buy so many for such few stitches. I decided to wait until I collected enough through buying them for other patterns.
*END OF FLASHBACK*

On a yen, I grabbed the dragons and checked my stash. While I still didn't have any of the required metallics I had enough relatively similar ones that I could fake it.
I realized the folly of going with a black fabric when I doing the backstitching. The dragons are almost fully outlined except you can't see that! Also, see that faint silver swirl in the water of the third dragon? That's the exact same colour as the blue in the belly of the second. Crazy how much the colours around it make it look so different.

Title	Generosity/Elemental Dragons: Earth, Air, Water, Fire
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	January 06, 2009
Finish date	April 08, 2012
Total time	63 hours
Fabric	28 ct black lugana
Floss	DMC as charted, 415 for the border
	Kreiniks 001, 003HL, 009, 015, 031, 684,

Progress Is Progress

And we actually have the appearance of my "real"

project today!

Ganesha hasn't seen a needle since 2009! And this is how he was then

I decided on a two pronged plan of attack. An hour of tackling the boring background (which stitches up pretty fast) and two hours of the main design (which is a confetti filled monstrosity that does not seem to progress!)

Setting the Scene

I finally got caught up with parts 10-13 of The Great Escape. It's all background all the way. I had no idea that I'd fallen so far behind.


The Great Escape
28ct white Jubilee, DMC 317, 318, 413, 414, 415
The only new stitch was the Star Flower stitch, which is that giant square stitch on the left. It's a modified Jessica stitch and was easy to stitch.

Some of the straight stitches (the grasses) are ridiculously long. I stitch this in-hand and it was such a pain trying to make sure they had a decent tension!

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

Long Legged Birds

I caught up on my goal of finishing upto part 5 of Adriana. Now I just have to print part 6 and then backstitch everything. The backstitching should be interesting because the lines are in colour but my printer only does black...

Adriana B
18ct white aida
Adriana B is designed by Aaron Art, and stitched with the Sticklounge group.

March TUSAL

This month's

is presented by Prairie Schooler's When Witches Go Riding.

Using a sphere is interesting because it tends to roll around (I don't have a base for it) making the ORTs roll around and the newer colours pile over the old ones.

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

This! Is! Madness!

Well, yes. It is March.
Heather suggested working on a different project each day or creating one's own definition of "madness". I went with the second and defined "madness" as working on a HAED. It's only entirely appropriate therefore, that I don't get anywhere near my HAEDs. *snort*

Instead I drove myself crazy with a travelling pattern. Organized by Jennifer, it consists of Peggy Lee's ABCD by La-D-Da. It's been stitched by a bunch of people (Jennifer has links if you're curious) in silks and overdyed.


ABCD
32ct waterlily lugana
I was going to share the epic tale of how this design has been driving me crazy, but have decided to spare everyone XD. Maybe next time.

Modifying WIPocalypse Plans

*Scrolls over the last month to see what happened since the last

*

As far as WIPs from last year go, apparently I managed to finish Namaste.
And that was it. So I'm making the executive decision to count anything that was started before the previous WIPocalypse as an applicable WIP (that makes a lot more sense in my head).

Taking that into account, I finished off Lily of the Valley's head. Explanation about that: when I was trying to convert Lily to a brunette I couldn't visualize how the shading flowed. So I went ahead and stitched the head and then made the conversion. Instead of frogging I added the beads and I now have her head and shoulders (and headpiece) as originally charted. No idea what I'm going to do with it. Possibly a needlebook. I'll add that to the growing list of finishes that I plan and just can't be bothered to do.
Lily of the Valley
32ct White Lugana

Leap Day Start

So I'll start by confessing that while I think Chatelaine's mandalas are lovely and that I love to look at people stitching them, there's no way I'd ever stitch one for myself. Simply put: I can't get past the fact that there are upside-down parts. Can't get past it.

Some of the band sampler type designs are very pretty, but it's Japanese Octagon Box that has stolen my heart! Specifically the main panel. It's got that weird panel/spaced-box look and it's just lovely.


Japanese Octagon Box Panel
32ct white lugana
I'm only stitching the main panel and I plan on framing that. My finishing skills are nowhere near enough to tackle the box and I'll get more mileage out of a framed picture than I will of an accessory box.

I'm stitching this with the DMC conversion provided by Martina. The only problem is that there are some varigated colours that don't have an equivalent, but I'll tackle that when I get to it.

It's also progressing faster than I though it would. I've always had this image of Chats as monstrously epic works that take decades to finish. Perhaps most people just get stalled a lot? Or maybe it's because I'm only stitching half of the whole design... At any rate, this being a leap year start, I'll count it a success if I finish by the next leap year.

February Wrap Up

Ah, February 29*.


I'm batting two for two with another Theme-a-licious finish.
As for as March Madness (work on a different thing a day), while I probably have enough WIPs to do that I'm not going to. Instead keeping the "madness" spirit, I'm going to focus on HAEDs, which I've decided I was mad to start in the first place.

Goals for February:
1. Keep up with TAST and The Great Escape. No, I’m behind on TGE and I’m skipping the most recent TAST.
2. Finish Parts 3 & 4 of Adriana B. No, only Part 3 is done.
3. Work on SK Blue Moon. Two hours is still two hours.
4. Put some serious hours into Namaste Yes, I think so XD
Pipe dream: Finish Namaste. Yes, much to my surprise!

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started Blackwork Mystery Sampler.
2. Started and finished Heart of My Heart.
3. Finished Namaste.

Goals for March:
1. Keep up with TAST and The Great Escape.
2. Finish Parts 4 & 5 of Adriana B.
3. Work on SK Blue Moon.
4. Start something for the leap year.
Pipe dream: Get caught up with Blue Moon before the next part comes out.

*A day we add to make sure the Gregorian calendar stays relatively close to the astronomical calendar. It’s completely arbitrary because really, date and time are completely man-made; minutes and seconds in base 60 (thanks, Sumerians), hours in 24 and days as 365? What's the logic in that? And "relatively close" because the revolution is not 365.25 days but actually 365.242, so the extra day doesn't bring the calendar perfectly in sync. And really, this particular day only applies to the Gregorian calendar, other calendars have other modifications. I could go on for ages, but that's hardly what anyone is here for XD.

However grasping any excuse for a new start, I'm off to start something. A flower for the first person to guess what. Just one hint: it's an approved start.

Salutations

An unironed Namaste. It's currently clipped to a coat hanger and hanging on my closet door until I work up the courage to turn it into a bellpull. Also, it is a pain to take pictures of this.


The yellow is my favourite, which is odd because I'm not at all a yellow person.

Title	Namaste
Designer	Ink Circles
Start date	May 12, 2011
Finish date	February 25, 2012
Total time	51.25 hours
Fabric	32ct White Lugana
Floss	DMC as charted

Playing Catch Up

Three(!) weeks work of

.
Chevron stitch, Detached Chain stitch and Chain stitch. Only Chevron was new to me. I had no idea what to do with the chain stitch. So it's just randomly there.

28ct Golden Honey Cashel, Dinky Dyes Aquamarine
I have no idea how I fell so far behind. I'm also behind on The Great Escape.

February TUSAL

It's the new moon! It's the

February's TUSAL is presented by the 2009 Christmas Tree by Nora Corbett. Said tree is sitting with a black frame that I plan to turn red (haven't actually read up on how yet).


There's a lot more colour this month courtesy of Namaste.

Edited to add: I'm joining the chorus of people declaring the comment verification too hard (I mean I had Cyrillic letters show up once! How the **** do you type those?). As such I have removed it from my blog and will probably try once to comment if you've got it. For the love of all things stitchery, PLEASE remove the blasted thing.

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

Colour Inside The Lines

Ah Fangirl February. The designer that I'm currently mad for is actually Joan Elliot, but I don't have a single WIP by her. In fact, I've only stitched one of her designs. Instead I picked Tracy Horner of Ink Circles, whose geometric designs are just fantastic.


Namaste
32ct White lugana
I've actually finished off all the black stitches, but it's a pain trying to take a picture of the whole thing since it's so skinny. Instead there's a horrendous picture of the first three motifs. There are three colours (besides black) in each, and when I started I'd only stitched one purple. Not bad progress for halfway through the month, considering I've spent time stitching other things.

Card Swapping, For The New Millennium

OK, so the new millennium was ages ago, but I still like to think of Jo's Secret Stitching Sweetheart exchange as an update.

So who sent me this pretty little thing?
Thanks to Cucki~

And where did mine go?

SAL Directory

Since there was a bit of interest in an SAL listing I've gone ahead and set one up at

SAL Directory.

I've posted 5 that I know of. Some new, one really old. I'm defining an SAL as a design released in multiple parts, and restricting the directory to free and almost-free.

I hope that this will be useful and I'm really hoping that folks will mention SALs that they know (more enabling!). My knowledge of the French SALs is nil, so if anyone knows those I'd really appreciate a line or two.

I'm hoping to keep this as up-to-date and informative as possible and I'm counting on everyone's help and support.

Cynic with a Pretty Heart

For someone rather cynical about Valentine's I end up stitching something every year. This year is Abi Gurden's freebie for members of the Stitchspecialist group. It's called Heart of My Heart.


I like how the little stick figures are gender neutral. They could be a boy and a girl or two girls or two boys. All the hearts are various specialty stitches. There isn't a single cross in this piece.

I didn't have a suitable red in Perle cotton for the hardanger portion, so I used 2 strands for the Kloster blocks and 1 strand for the weaving. It came out surprisingly well. Good to know that other kinds of thread work. The problem is that I can still see bits of the fabric sticking out where the Kloster blocks were cut and the slide-the-needle-under-and-massage-the-threads-over technique isn't working. *sob*

But the most shocking thing? I switched out the beads for French knots! A couple of them are wonky, but for the most part they look pretty good.

Finishing this is not going to happen for a long time because I want a heart-shaped ornament and I'm not the least bit confident about such a non-four-sided figure.

Title	Heart of My Heart
Designer	Abi Gurden
Start date	February 9, 2012
Finish date	February 11, 2012
Total time	6.75 hours
Fabric	32ct peach whisper
Floss	CC Cherry Tomato, Ruby Slipper, Goldfish, Bandana

Finding SALs

So I'm just curious as to how people find SALs. I usually find out about them when someone whose blog I follow posts a link.

Is there any directory/list out there?

I know of about 10 SALs going on right now, but I know there are tons more that I’m missing out on because I never find out about them.

Would people be interested if I started a blog to advertise/publicize upcoming SALs? I’m thinking that people could submit information on SALs they are running/know about. Definitely free SALs, and also groups that are stitching specific commercial patterns together (all copyright rules being followed of course!).

So what do you think? Is this something worth a shot? Opinions, please!

Recordkeeping

I've occasionally had people comment on how I track my hours and when Lucie posted a picture of her stitching journal, I was inspired to share my (lack of) method.

My method is pretty simple. When I start something I note the title, date, and fabric. Any floss changes go there. Then it's just a matter of putting down a stroke for every hour with each fence equalling five hours. When finished I add up the fences, write the finish date and highlight the title to indicate that it's done.

Hmm, the fabric information is missing on this page because these are all WIPs from previous years (picked a bad page there). Since I try to track how much stitching an year, the count gets restarted every January. I rewrite all the information and the previous stitching gets noted in Arabic numerals. Occasionally I forget to leave space for any changes and end up squeezing them in all over the place. This one is the original page for TGE, I couldn't be bothered to copy the details of every part again, so I'm just continuing it. So there's the part, the stitch, the colour used, and the time taken.

I use my Ipod as my timer, since I actually can't stitch anymore without music/audio in my ears.

And that's pretty much the method of my madness XD

One Down, ? To Go

Since the last

update, I've managed to finish Lily of the Valley! Yay!

Lily of the Valley
32ct Waterlily Jobelan
I put a few stitches into some other projects but I just want to celebrate the slaying of a WIP a bit more XD

Something Fishy

This week on

.
The Herringbone Stitch. I've done a Triple Herringbone Stitch once, but never the actual stitch itself.

28ct Golden Honey Cashel, Dinky Dyes Aquamarine
The Herringbone Ladder was lots of fun, even if I had to be extra careful not to pull too tight. And the Closed Herringbone is incredibly high.

Apparently the herringbone stitch is so named because it looks like the backbone of a herring. You learn something new every day.

January Wrap-Up

I can't believe I almost forgot that today's the last day of the month!

First:
The original plan was to work on Palm. I didn't even touch that. BUT! I finished Lily of the Valley, so Jardin January was a success.

Fangirl February was supposed to be devoted to Mirabilia/Nora Corbett, but since that ended up happening this month, I'm going to switch to Tracy Horner of Ink Circles, and maybe Teresa Wentzler.

I actually didn't set goals for the month, weird.
So it'll all be Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started SK Blue Moon
2. Started TAST Doodle Sampler
3. Started Adriana B
4. Finished Lily of the Valley

Goals for February:
1. Keep up with TAST and The Great Escape
2. Finish Parts 3 & 4 of Adriana B
3. Work on SK Blue Moon
4. Put some serious hours into Namaste
Pipe dream: Finish Namaste

I think I'll make a pipe dream goal every month for fun.