Unexpected Colours

Continuing Misaki, I've managed to finish most of the sleeves and the obi. I was surprised by the yellow and green in the obi since I didn't have the model picture handy and was expecting more red. Sometimes it feels like the only colours in Misaki are red and black ;D

Misaki
32 ct Ruby Wine Lugana

Fill It Black

I have a few more WIPs close to finishing but I decided to tackle Misaki on impulse. I had to slough through that mindlessly boring black but I've moved onto the more fun bodice and sleeves.

From this:

to this:

Misaki
32 ct Ruby Wine Lugana

Pedants Unite!

Riding the high from finishing Iris I dug out something I thought wouldn't take too long to finish:
If you're wondering if you've seen that before, the answer is no. I started this in August of last year because I wanted something for Halloween. That was in the middle of my slump so it didn't really go anywhere. It's Prairie Schooler's Sweeping Cobwebs.
Now let's take a moment to be horrified at the appalling (I say appalling!) language error in that chart. "when witches can be seen.. with her" Yes, it's the famous subject-pronoun disagreement. I'm especially sensitive to this because I spend a great deal of Grade 9 being berated by my English teacher for my constant failure to keep this straight. I also had the most horrifying run-on sentences which I'm sure didn't help with keeping everything straight (something I haven't quite gotten over!). But even as I feel in love with the chart I knew that I would never forgive myself if I stitched it as is. And of course, Ms. Robins would never forgive me. That's not very pedantic, you say? There's also only two dots in the ellipsis, which properly has three dots. I fixed that too.

I dutifully recharted it and went on stitching. I was about to start stitching "witch" when I realized I'd added in an extra "e" because apparently my de-pluralization skills are sub-par as well. Thank goodness I caught it before it got too far.
This was a pretty relaxing piece. Four colours, light coloured fabric, large count, lots of individual elements, a very simple border. Big enough for my Q-snap. It stitched up very fast.
I really like these cats. I thought I would like the moon the best since I love PS' laughing crescent moonmen but something about the cats just stole my heart.

And finally both my Prairie Schooler Halloween pieces:

Title	Sweeping Cobwebds
Designer	The Prairie Schooler
Start date	August 23, 2012
Finish date	July 30, 2013
Total time	26.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct Peach Whisper

Jewel Toned Beauty

Break out the champagne! I've finished Iris B and it is gorgeous!
When I first started this I debated between black or white aida and went with black because I thought it would pop more. Then my lamp died and I regretted my decision. And then I bought a new lamp and now that Iris is done I'm glad I went with black! Isn't that the way of things though: hindsight is 20/20 :)
I made so many changes. The biggest is that I didn't want to use any metallics on 18ct so I switched to DMC. This is what the original looks like.
You really can't see most of the backstitch from a distance but it's quite visible close up.
I have to repeat it again. I just love the colours. They're so bright and look even more gorgeous in person. I can't imagine how incredible it would have been with metallics, but I just love my all DMC version.

Title	Iris B
Designer	Aaron Art
Start date	February 2, 2013
Finish date	July 27, 2013
Total time	70.5 hours
Fabric	18 ct black aida

On to the Backstitch

Last time I posted about Iris B I was halfway done with the cross-stitch. As of today I've finished off all the cross stitch and am going to start the back stitching. There's a lot of it and I made so many colour changes that I have to change the back stitch colours too!


Iris B
18ct black aida
This photo is just awful. It really makes the colours look muddy and horrible, but it's all the picture's fault (and this was the best of 10+ photos). I still haven't managed to pick up batteries for my camera. I keep going to the store, buying thing and forgetting the batteries! I even wrote it down and forgot.

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.

Seeing Red

So I had another unscheduled break with very little stitching. *sigh*

At least Cirque des Triangles is still looking pretty. It also looks strangely orange in places but it's actually all shades of red.


Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115

Plodding On

I missed posting last week, but sadly it didn't make much difference. I've had a bit more progress and am so close to getting the skirt of her dress finished. Next up is that bouquet of confetti.


Spring Queen
32 ct White Lugana
I've realized with the last few Mirabilia mermaids that I love their tails and not much else. Siren and Merchant's hairpieces bore me and I care less and less for all the "treasures" in their hair. I adore the mermaid in Gypsy (her hair!) but the rest of the design just bores me.

Half Done

I'm not a big fan of abstract-type art. I don't really understand it. But I 'll make exception for things like Aaron Art's Iris B. The original is in metallics and rayons and is just unbelivably shiny, but I'm sticking with good old DMC.


Iris B
18ct black aida
I'm stitching it on 18ct black aida. I just love how the colours pop. I switched out the metallic gold in the middle for a light blue because I really don't want to deal with metallic on 18 ct!

Finger-sized Fruit

Well, technically first two knuckles of my finger but why be so persnickety*?

It's been a while since I stitched something over one. My lighting changed and isn't conducive to over one or stitching on black. I really should get a good lamp.

This is Pineapple Sampler and was stitched as part of the Sticklounge group over on Yahoo (tragically closing in June). The year is supposed to be under the butterfly but I thought it looked fine without it so I left it off. I have vague plans of a scissor fob, but as with all my finishing plans it's anyone's guess when that will happen!

Title	Pineapple Sampler
Designer	Cloudberry Samplings
Start date	January 18, 2013
Finish date	March 20, 2013
Total time	5 hours
Fabric	28 ct bayleaf linen

*my word of the day

Almost A Dress

I took a look to see when was the last time I posted about Spring Queen and was shocked to realize that it was back in April 2011, just a couple of months after I first started her!

Here's what she looks like at 90 hours:


Spring Queen
32 ct White Lugana
I'm close to getting the dress finished and really enjoying her, so fingers crossed for a finish.

ETA: I'd like to thank everyone who suggested I simply rethink Byzantine Ornie as a St.Patrick's Day ornie. That made me feel so much better because at least I was early for something!

First Finish of the Year

No, I don't believe it either. Both the fact that it took me until March to finish something and that I actually did finish something. My triumphant return didn't turn out so well considering I haven't posted for a month aha ha ha so apparently that was almost two months I didn't post!

I started this in October as a Christmas finish and did all the stitching in two days and then didn't bead until this morning. It took me 45 minutes to do all the beading. I can't even remember why I didn't just finish it off.

This is Teresa Wenztler's Byzantine Ornament I from The Best of Teresa Wentzler Christmas Collection, which was a very generous gift from Kim when she was de-stashing a while back.


There are quite a few specialty stitches but none that were new to me.

Title	Byzantine Ornament I
Designer	TWDesignworks
Start date	October 12, 2012
Finish date	March 10, 2013
Total time	11.5 hours
Fabric	32 ct opalescent white lugana

In an effort to actually post I've decided that I will post at least once a week. *raises fist to the sky and shakes it*

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!

Lovely in Red

Thank you for the warm welcome back!

I've been struggling to take a decent picture of my New Year's Start. I don't have a good track record with NYS; my last two are still WIPs. But I couldn't resist.

I started Maia's Misaki, which will look like this when finished:

This is where I am right now:

Misaki
32 ct Ruby Wine Lugana
And she's already proven to be very demanding. Maia does kits, which I don't mind. BUT! The original fabric was 16ct red aida, which would have been all right except that there are a ton of quarter stitches, so I switched it out for a lovely 32ct Ruby Wine lugana. And the floss is Anchor which frays so much. I have to use lengths 1/3 of usual DMC length and I find the ends still fray a tiny bit. I don't want to go shorter because it already feels like I spend more time threading than stitching. And of course, three shades of similar reds on red fabric. Well, at least she'll look stunning when finished!

ETA: The whole piece is stitched including the background. She's in full crosses and the background is half crosses in 2-3 strands.

The Most Progress

I had a few new starts while on break and I made the most progress on Cirque des Triangles. If the colours look familiar it's because this is the exact same fabric and floss as Cirque des Cercles. I've always planned on doing all the Cirques in the same combination.

There's now also Cirque des Coeurs which I have to pick up.


Cirque des Triangles
32 ct Lemon Whip Lugana, DMC 115
As with Cercles I'm trying to make sure that dark leads to dark and light to light but it's a lot tougher on this one. Or maybe it's been so long that it just feels harder?

Also: When I went on hiatus I was still using the old Blogger interface so it was a massive shock to come back to a complete change. It took me way too long to find everything!

*Blows Off Dust*

Hello?

Is this thing still on?

Anybody still out there?

I've missed you all so much! It felt so strange being completely out of the loop. But I'm back!

I've had a couple of new starts. No finishes and progress on some WIPs since I was last here. Pictures tomorrow.

Indefinite Hiatus

I feel bad about this but I've decided to go on an indefinite hiatus.

I haven't felt much like blogging for a while, and I haven't been commenting for even longer. My stitching mojo is also at an all-time low.

I hope that I'll be back sooner than later, but I think it's better to wait until I get back my enthusiasm rather than continue half-heartedly and run the risk of becoming completely disinterested.

I may post the occasional finish, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

Stay in stitches,
B.

August Wrap-Up

It's a blue moon!

For the

I knocked off two WIPs: Maple Leaf and Japanese Octagon Box.

Maple Leaf was my Theme-a-licious piece for Altius August, where I interpreted "embrace the Olympic motto" as embrace the Olympics and be patriotic. Next month is September Smalls, for which I have no plans.

Goals for August:
1. Finish Japanese Octagon Garden. Yes!
2. Restart Maia. No.
3. Finish Maple Leaf. Yes.
Pipe dream: Make a new general use bag since my current one is getting ratty. The inner and outer shells are done. I just need to attach the straps and stitch it together.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Started Cirque des Triangles.
2. Started Sweeping Cobwebs

Goals for September:
1. Work on Ganesha.
2. Work on my Granny Stripe blanket.
Pipe dream: Finish Sweeping Cobwebs.

Pictures Ahoy!

And I've done as much as I'm ever going to on Japanese Octagon Box, so let's call that a finish shall we? I made so many random changes on this. I left off the golden flowers because I didn't want to struggle with the overlay backstitching in a metallic business. I used the provided DMC conversion (which Martina warns is not quite equivalent) so there are parts where you can't really tell that there are different greens involved. I have no idea if this is true for the "proper" threads NPI and gloriana. But I can live with it. I left out the beads just under the upper Rhodes stitches. I replaced all the beads in the bottom 8 motifs with a light purple metallic. I'm rather fond of the cherry blossom(?) tree. But those over one birds were so not fun. When I was putting this away to be framed in the future I was a bit disconcerted to realize that I don't have much space left in that drawer.

Title	Japanese Octagon Box
Designer	Chatelaine
Start date	February 29, 2012
Finish date	August 23, 2012
Total time	91.25 hours
Fabric	32 ct white lugana
Floss	Mostly the DMC conversion, a couple of Dinky Dyes
	and Kreiniks that I didn't note down *is sheepish*

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

August TUSAL

Now with extra red! It's mostly from Maple Leaf. The bright yellow is frogging from Tulip Praise after I decided to switch out the yellow for purple.
That's Something Wicked by La-D-Da in the background.

The Podium At Last

Altius August is about embracing the Olympic Motto and elevating your mind by learning something new. I embraced something vaguely Olympic-related and ignored the rest.
If you're wondering what a maple leaf has to do with the Olympics, well, aren't we all just a little extra patriotic around the Olympics? So here's my version of waving the flag ;)

I thought since I was stitching with a metallic thread on an opalescent fabric that it would take me a while to finish. It actually went by pretty fast. I used 2.5 spools and maybe 1/10 of a bead packet. This is going into my "to be framed" drawer (which at this point is just ridiculously full, but probably not going to decrease any time soon). I'm not sure how well you can see the sparkles in the fabric and the floss, but rest assured. It's shining with patriotism ;)

Title	Maple Leaf
Designer	Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks
Start date	July 31, 2012
Finish date	August 15, 2012
Total time	16.75 hours
Fabric	32 ct opalescent white lugana
Floss	Kreinik 003, MH 3049

A Late Start

I started this yesterday, so it totally counts as a WIP for this month's

So. The Olympics. See, I'm not a sporty person. The most athletic thing I ever did was play chess as a teen. I even managed to get out of mandatory gym class in high school. All this means that I'm rather apathetic towards the Olympics (sacrilege, I know). I don't really watch any of it. Occasionally if someone else in the room is watching something I'll watch with them, but I don't go looking. I do rather vaguely follow Canada's medal count.

Which brings me to the matter at hand. I know that there's a fair amount of people either starting something new for the Olympics or stitching something patriotic. So I decided to stitch something patriotic for the Olympics. (I was going to start on Friday but my fabric didn't arrive). I'm going for subtle but I don't think it's as subtle as I think.

Alessandra Adelaide Needlework's Maple Leaf. I'm stitching it in Kreinik 003 on 32 ct opalescent white. It is incredibly shiny.


Maple Leaf
32ct opalescent white lugana, Kreinik 003
When finished it will look like this (only, more shiny):

July Wrap-Up

I got a very late start on Jolly July. I was originally planning on working on the Christmyth ornies (as per the suggested Christmas theme), but then I finished them earlier in the year and I had no idea what to do. I actually skipped the previous theme-a-licious update. But then I decided to tackle Sleepy Hollow and finished it, so that was all good.

The original plan for Atlius August (learn something new) was to work on some of Hardanger projects. Instead I've decided to embrace the Olympics ;D

Goals for July:
1. Keep up with Tulip Praise. Sadly no. I was having colour issues, and although those have been sorted out I don't really feel like working on it for now.
2. Finish Legends of Dragons. Yes!
3. Finish all the cross stitching on Palm. Yes. In fact I finished Palm.
Pipe dream: Finish Japanese Octagon Box. No. I'd say I have about 15 hours left in it though.

Unexpectedly This Month:
1. Finished Palm.
2. Started Maple Leaf
3. Started Maia

Goals for August:
1. Finish Japanese Octagon Garden.
2. Restart Maia.
3. Finish Maple Leaf.
Pipe dream: Make a new general use bag since my current one is getting ratty.