Fi-neigh-ly Done

What can I say? I have a weakness for awful puns ;)

There are lots of changes in this, and I can't remember most of them because this was before I made extensive notes. I know that I made some change in the border somewhere and had to shorten the tree. The moon is not made of Caron Waterlily, it's made of DMC 745. The metallics are not what are called for. The bottom of the jacket is purple instead of green. There's only one bead colour instead of two. I'm sure there are more things *shrug*

Title	Sleepy Hollow
Designer	Glendon Place
Start date	August 30, 2010
Finish date	July 27, 2012
Total time	130.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct Thunderstorm linen
Floss	I used the provided DMC conversion

A Long Overdue Winner

This weekend was devoted to getting all the backstitch in Sleepy Hollow done. Now I've just got all the beading in the border to go.
Sleepy Hollow
32 ct Thunderstorm
And the end of the backstitch means it's time to announce the winner from my 2010 contest to guess the hours of backstitch! It took me 28.5 hours to finish all the backstitch: 7 hours in 2010, 8.5 hours in 2011 and 13 hours this year. Which means the closest guess was Annie with 25 hours (the highest guess). Apparently folks were somewhat optimistic about how fast I could stitch. Of course, considering I promised to send the winnings out by Halloween 2011 I was clearly the delusional one LOL! Drop me a line Annie and we'll see about those winnings...

July TUSAL

This month's TUSAL features a lot of frogging. You can see a tiny bit of the yellow at the ton. There's a lot more yellow and green under it. I'm playing around with different colours on Tulip Praise. This has served to reaffirm my inability to pick colours on my own.
That's The Runekeeper Saga by Dragon Dreams in the background.

With A Little Help From My Friends

16 hours of backstitch later, I'm done Palm!
I've mentioned the story of this piece several times, but a quick recap: When I moved houses in July 2010 I brilliantly packed all my stash away and then had several hours of nothing to do. I also had a Dimensions kit available, so I started it. And then I unpacked everything I put Palm away. Then I participated in a UFO Round Robin and sent Palm out. The ladies made such a big change in it that I knew that a determined push could finish it off. Of course, it still look me a while to get around to finishing it, but I could never have done it without all the RR ladies! *hugs*

And because you can't make out much of the detail in that picture, here are some clickable close-ups:

Title	Palm
Designer	Dimensions
Start date	July 10, 2010
Finish date	July 12, 2012
Total time	No idea how many hours the RR contributed, but I put in 38.75
Fabric	16 ct khaki aida
Floss	As provided in the kit

If Only I Could Use One of Those Leaves as a Fan

I've been plodding away at Palm. It came back from a UFO RR looking like this: And once I got all the cross stitches and half stitches finished it look like this. I was being incredibly lazy, hence the atrocious photo. I almost ran into trouble with one of the greens in that upper border. I stitched the whole thing, looked with relief at the single strand I had leftover and realized that I'd done the stitching in the wrong direction! And it sas half crosses in an area of more half crosses so it would've been really obvious. So I had to carefully frog and reuse the thread. And since this is an older kit some of the threads aren't the hardiest things around. I'm not sure how to describe it, but they sort of untwist and stretch and then pull apart. I was absolutely terrified that I would run out. Luckily it all worked out, but you can bet I was extra paranoid about direction for the next few hours!

Trio of Dragons

Another

Another finish!

Legends of the Dragons was my 2010 New Year start. It's now midway through 2012 and I've finally finished it! It's a three-parter with each dragon designed by a different designer. All three are now out of the business (although I believe Jennifer of DD still occasionally puts stuff out for retreats).
Magic by Dragon Dreams was the first one finished. I remember being very gung-ho at that point. I was going to stitch a dragon a month and finish the whole thing in 4 months. Ah, those were the days... I finished the border next. I was going to use an overdyed since I didn't want to tackle the border (it's all TW), but I never managed to find one I liked that was in my budget. So I eventually sucked it up and stitched it as charted. I'm glad I did that. And then it was Teresa's Wisdom. This is where I got stalled. I can't remember why, but I probably wasn't in the right mindset for a TW. That was a long hiatus. I didn't touch it during all of 2011. And then one day I just had to finish it. And the last one is Majesty by Black Swan Designs. Looking at my numbers this took the shortest time to stitch, which is surprising because I thought it would have been Magic. I was a bit nervous about the lettering because it's over one. The last time I had to stitch a small over one part in a larger design it didn't turn out too well. Too much puckering. But this turned out excellently. I owe everything to my Q-snap. And the fact that I stitched all the lettering over two days.

Title	Legends of the Dragons
Designers	Black Swan Designs, Dragon Dreams, TWDesignworks
Start date	January 1, 2010
Finish date	July 4, 2012
Total time	102.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct antique white lugana
Floss	As charted

June Wrap-Up

Jumanji June was excellent until the 15th, and then I stopped. But this happened so it's all good.

July is Jolly July dedicated to Christmas stuff. I actually finished off my Christmas pieces back in April, so I'm somewhat undecided on what to do...

Goals for June:
1. Finish The Great Escape. Yes!
2. Start Tulip Praise. Yes.
3. Work on Legends of Dragons. Yes.
Pipe dream: Finish the "Wisdom" Dragon. Yes. I'm actually almost done "Majesty" as well.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Finished No Late Knight Snacking.

Goals for July:
1. Keep up with Tulip Praise.
2. Finish Legends of Dragons.
3. Finish all the cross stitching on Palm.
Pipe dream: Finish Japanese Octagon Box.

Summer Blahs

I'm blaming the hot thunderstormy weather for my severe case of ennui. Here's another piece that's getting somewhat close to the end. And I still haven't picked up that Kreinik for Legends, which I need for this as well.

Japanese Octagon Box Panel
32ct white lugana

No Biting

No Late Knight Snacking by Dragon Dreams is done. It's a bit ironic that I stitched this because I'm a major midnight snacker. Pretty much every night there's a cookie, a piece of cake or a handful of chips on the schedule.

Before the backstitch: After the backstitch: And my favourite part:

Title	No Late Knight Snacking
Designer	Dragon Dreams
Start date	April 23, 2012
Finish date	June 20, 2012
Total time	16.75 hours
Fabric	18 ct white aida
Floss	As charted

June TUSAL

I can't believe that we're already at the 6th new moon of the year.
That's Out For Coffee by sodastitch in the background.

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.

Closer to the End

Jumaji June was excellent. Legends of Dragons went from this: To this:
But then I ran out of one of the Kreiniks, so it's on pause until I get to the LNS sometime next week.

Seeing Wisdom

This one's a blast from the past. My last post about Legends of Dragons is from back in 2010(!)
And now:

I was in the mood for a billion-and-one blends. I just zoomed through this and has a blast finishing it off.

Google Reader has been acting very strange lately. It doesn't load posts as they are posted. Instead at the end of a day I get all the posts from the previous day. It's very strange and I'm pretty sure that some blogs just don't show up on it any more...

Grab The Confetti!

Because we're celebrating a finish this

The Great Escape by Bee's Needleworks is almost entirely composed of specialty stitches, some of which were great fun and others were mind-numbingly boring.
The next project is a Hardanger-A-Long. I'm still debating whether to sign up or not. I've had zero luck finishing any of the HALs I join.

Title	The Great Escape
Designer	Bee's Needleworks
Start date	September 21, 2011
Finish date	June 4, 2012
Total time	18.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct white jubilee
Floss	DMC 317, 318, 413, 414, 415

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?

May Wrap-Up

May Memories was a complete failure since I didn't even touch Ganesha.

For June Jumanji, which is when you work on something animal themed, I plan on tackling Legends of Dragons. An oldie that hasn't seen a needle for about two years..

Goals for April May:
1. Work on Japanese Octagon Box. Yes, but then I reached the point where I can't look at it anymore.
2. Work on Ganesha. No.
3. Finish No Late Knight Snacking. No. I ran out of one colour and never got back to it.
Pipe dream: Finish Japanese Octagon Box. No.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Finished Adriana.
2. Re-started Blue Moon.

Goals for June:
1. Finish The Great Escape.
2. Start Tulip Praise.
3. Work on Legends of Dragons.
Pipe dream: Finish the "Wisdom" Dragon.

Edited: Those were May goals! Ah the woes of copy-and-paste.

All Done With Adriana

I first saw this ages ago on Kielrain's blog and fell madly in love with it. And I still love the colours in it. It's really the backstitching on the birds that makes them stand out. And strangely my favourite part is actually these frond-things.

Title	Adriana B
Designer	AaronArt
Start date	January 7, 2012
Finish date	May 29, 2012
Total time	86.5 hours
Fabric	18 ct white aida
Floss	I used the DMC conversion provided

This was stitched with the Sticklounge group.

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.

May TUSAL

Just scraping this in with less than an hour left of the day.
It's interesting using a sphere because the threads inside rotate as the ornie rolls around, so what ends up visible doesn't always correlate to what colours I've been stitching. Those oranges are from Adriana, but I finished all the orange bits months ago. And the blue along the bottom is from when I did some marathon frogging, maybe in February?

That's Cirque des Cercles in the background. I'm thinking of starting either Triangles or Carreaux after my next finish...

A Bit of Confusion

I was plodding along on part 14 of The Great Escape. And I mean plodding. The signpost is composed of Van Dyke stitches which gave the Wheat-Ear stitches (wings) a run for the title of Most Boring Stitch. Well, the stitch isn't boring, it's just having to do a billion of them that made me lose interest.


The Great Escape
28ct white Jubilee, DMC 317, 318, 413, 414, 415
Eventually I got to the text and that's when I got confused. I wondered why there should be a sign if the town was a metre away. Because to me, "1 m" equals "1 metre". "1 mile" would be "1 mi". Adding to my confusion was my belief that the UK is metric (apparently Mousehole is a place in Cornwall).

A bit of research later: Apparently the UK still uses miles for distance, and "m" as an abbreviation. And it's illegal to use "km" for distance! The mind boggles!

For my own sake I'm wondering if a bit of modification to "mi" isn't called for...

Full Moon Frenzy

Tons of progress on Japanese Octagon for this month's

Japanese Octagon Box Panel
32ct white lugana
I'd just a tad obsessed with this one. I've also made so many changes that I haven't written down that I don't want to put it away in case I forget any of them before I get to the last two panels!

The over-one "clouds" gave me fits. At least half of them are in wrong places, but luckily it doesn't make much difference. I am not looking forward to the over one birds.