Finishing the Year with a Finish

It is done!



'Nautical'
A sampler (those flags are the alphabet & numbers) by ColorCharts
Stitched with DMC on light blue 14ct
Appx 14x14 inches
Started a LONG time ago.

Isn't it pretty?

And my tradition is still going strong - finishing up the year by finishing up a project.

Tomorrow I have to be very good; family tradition is that what you do on New Year's Day is what you'll do all year long. So I'll be starting something (Crazy January starts tomorrow, after all!), possbily finishing something, doing some self-improving, and spending some time with family.

And posting some stitching resolutions here :D

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

Two More Colors for Nautical

I have stitched all the blue and all the white. The white is a little tough to see but the backstitching will show it.



Only red and black to go!

More Goodies

I got two gift cards for Christmas - one is reserved for a trip to JoAnns for floss.
The other I was specifically told to get patterns :D
I'm very obedient - yes, I am!
So I got those HAEDs in the last post, and I've spent the last on these:

Julie posted about this site, and I decided to try them out and see how good their patterns are, because they are beautifully cheap! They're all shown in virtual stitches so as long as the color blends turn out, most of them should be very nice. Some are a little too patchy and pixellated for me, but I liked these (and put about eight more on a wishlist)

Snowing



This looks exactly like my cat Audio!

Night Hunter



The Goth Chick will try to steal this one


Looking West



I love these colors!

Then patternsonline.com was having a sale, so I got the last four of the EMS Animal Babies that I wanted needed. Now I have the whole collection of the animals, but I still need two of the Snowbabies. I got most of them when they used to be free; I've had to buy very few.
I got Snail Baby, Moose Baby, Parrot Baby, and Catepillar Baby.



I'm in a very happy-stash place right now! I need to get some fabric, but I'm hoping for a little Christmas bonus from work for that. JoAnn's doesn't have very much of the smaller counts, which is what I want, but I will be getting a lot of floss on my trip!

I also made a small payment on the HAED layaway I had... now my gift card is allllll gone.

I'll show you my progress on Nautical tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

Christmas Presents & TUSAL

The Goth Chick bought me a HAED!

Disarmed by Sessler


And my brother got me this:


And I used a gift card to get these:




Captive Heart and Bluebird Masquerade, both by Sessler. It's possible that she's my favorite :D

Hope everyone got exactly what they were hoping for this holiday!!!


PS - Almost forgot the TUSAL! Already late XD

One jar full to the brim thanks to a final total of 11 hats!

The Juliet Dress (almost done)

I still didn't get a very good picture of the Juliet dress - my house is just not bright enough, even in daytime with the lights on. And there was no way I was taking it outside!

Anyway, this is the original Juliet dress - remember?


My sister, The Goth Chick, fell in love with those sleeves. She just wanted the dress 'a little longer'.

Which eventually became floor length.

I was almost done when she asked how difficult it would be to make it flare out... sort of like this:


No problem, not really. Just some increases, I thought. Then I realized regular increases wouldn't work with the stitch pattern, so I made it into five evenly-spaced sort-of flares? I don't know how to describe it. Here's what they look like:


Then Goth-y asked me about adding a bit of a train, like this:


I told her I could, but not that long because it would get filthy and torn unless I made some sort of lining for it, and the stitch pattern for Juliet is not sturdy enough to attach a lining. So as of early this morning Juliet looked like this:


The Goth Chick wants it to flare out below her knees, which it does because I made her try it on so I could see where to start the train. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but it was too dim in my mum's house for pics, anyway. As of right now, I need two more rows to finish the train, then two more rows around the bottom of the whole skirt for the trim. Then...

It's done. And I will be so very happy.

And the Goth Chick will look like she's wearing this:


a la Morticia Addams.

And she'll be so very happy. I promise pics!

More Hats

I waited until too late in the day to get a good picture of the Juliet dress, so it'll have to be tomorrow for that post.

In the meantime, here are some more hats.

Another for my SIL (sister in law)



This one is for the Goth Chick



And this one is for the Goth Chick's Husband

(I apparently deleted the front view of this one, and it's already wrapped. But it's very cute. In a, um, manly way. Really.)

IHSW

Right - it's been a loooooooooong time since I posted!
I've been working extra hours at my job and this month - I have barely cross-stitched at all.
All my extra time has been taken up with the Juliet dress and the HATS! that my family must have :D

So for IHSW I made sure I had exactly enough time to sit and stitch all the yellow that was left on my Nautical sampler.



Not much, I know, but at least some!
I'll be able to get this done as soon as my presents are finished and they alllmost are.

I did this for the weekend, too - turned this stack:



Into this:



I made a hat earlier this week:



So here's the set. This is for my SIL



I'll be showing more hats and stuff as the week goes on! Don't want too many pics in one post! Tomorrow I'll show you what's going on with Juliet.