Gettysburg and a Little Sheep

Dase totally inspired me for July's UFO project - after seeing her incredible progress on Gettysburg, I just had to get my poor, barely-touched kit out and give it some luv.

Here's before:

And here's after:

I may get a bit more done on it before I put it away. I hope! My Da would really like to have this. You know, someday. Some far off, beautiful day... :D

And since I finished 'Achoo!' I decided I could start something else! Right? Yay! But I didn't want to start a big project. So here's my little bitty sheep. He's from the pattern 'Sheep for Thee' which I think is by Bent Creek but for the life of me I can't remember and it's at home right now.

There are five more sheep to go :D This sheep was supposed to be done in ecru (for the DMC version) but even though I used the recommened fabric color, it just didn't show up. So I tweeded him with the lightest shade of brown.

Achoo!

Well, I didn't get my day off last week like I wanted, but this week I did!

Which means...

My puppy is finished!!!

Yay!

Pattern: 'Achoo!' by Brett Longley

Floss/Fabric: Dimensions kit

Finished Size: 12 x 10 inches

I really enjoyed the pattern, but half-stitches with 5 strands of floss are No. Fun.

Let's see - I started this one Jan 1st, 2009, worked on it for about 4 days, then worked on it... uh, in March or April, I think - and then the last couple weeks of my very sparse spare time. (I really need a vacation.) So it didn't actually take all that long - it just seems like it!

So Close!

I'm getting very close to finishing Puppy - only the half cross stitch and backstitch to go! If I have Tuesday off (I hope!) I'll have this... er, puppy... done!

All the full crosses are done and the half cross is started, though I doubt you can see it - I'm currently working with one strand of pale grey on white material. Lovely way to go blind!

Also a bit of progress on Mary Wigham - two small motifs finished and the first set of initals stitched. While I am going to put Mary's name and the 1790 date, I'm changing the initials on hers to my family's initals. And yeah, I caved and fixed the charted mistake in the yellow medallion. Couldn't take it :D

The little full medallion is the color I was iffy about - it does blend into the fabric a little (only a tiny little bit, though) but for some reason I find it lovely. I wish you all could see it in real life...

The Improved Puppy (and others)

I've worked on poor Puppy very little this weekend, what with the holiday and all, but here's his update:

I have only the dark grey and black left to do on him, then it's on to the half-stiches and backstitching. Yay!

Mary Wigham has her first two motifs:

This is the first time I've ever stitched a reproduction sampler, and I have to admit, leaving in the mistakes is killing me! The ones in the coral-color weren't too bad, but the missing stitches of the 'pinwheel' in the yellow is driving me batty. I dunno if you guys can see it - I may have made the pic too small - but one of the - blades? petals? - is missing a stitch on the end of its two bottom rows. I've seen other stitchers' WIP pics and some have corrected it - I may end up having to do it even though it lowers the authentic-matching look. Ah, well, it's not like I stayed true to the original with the fabric color, right?

I also forgot to post my UFO progress for June - I got out my anime pattern of Kurama (from the anime/manga Yu Yu Hakusho) Here's his Before & After shots - I did much more than 100 stitches on him :D

His mouth & chin need some serious tweaking next time I pick him up. I made this pattern when I first got the software, and I didn't really know what I was doing. Wufei looks much better.

Mary Wigham Fabric

Lots of pics in this post!

I got my fabric for Mary Wigham - it was white, and I wanted brown, but couldn't afford to order brown. So I dyed it. One of the bands that I use to make fabric look mottled broke and I didn't realize it. So I didn't get all the mottleing I wanted, but it still came out rather nice.

It's 30x36, or it was. Shrinks a bit when you dye it.

Here's the floss toss - the camera captured the color of the fabric almost perfectly, but it burnt out some of the floss colors. Oh, well. They look nice, and only one shade of pink blended in. I may replace it. I may not. I kind of like the faded effect of it.

I've started stitching, but I've gotten very little done so no pic yet.

Here's Puppy:

I finished the last of the solid brown colors and I've almost finished the first brown blend. One more blend, and then the grey & black spots and the peach on his lil' toes. After that, there's only the half cross stitch of the shadows & spots around him. I'm going to try for a July finish!

I lucked out this week, in my opinion - I love to go to 'flea' markets and yard sales. About two years ago, I got this picture of a sailing ship for $1.00 - I think you can see that the rigging is all done in very elaborate string work, with little nails. It's very interesting, at least to me!
I have a fondness for nautical things, which is odd since I've seen the ocean a grand total of twice.



A day or so ago, I got another $1.00 pic. The lady selling it said no one would want it because the bottom left-hand corner of the frame is broken with a piece missing.

She was wrong.

I wanted it.

This picture is huge - it's almost four feet tall and over two feet wide. It's also heavy! The frame needs some wood epoxy (is that what the stuff is called?) and a bit of cleaning, but I can't imagine how much this must have cost new.

I have no idea who the artist is. I thought maybe Waterhouse, but I've yet to find a pic of it on any related website. Ah well, research is fun! I haven't found a signature on the actual print.