Stashy Saturday

I used a little bit of my tax refund to order four kits online.  Two of them have arrived so far!

'The Flute Player' and 'Inspirational ABCs'

Unspoken

I put my progress on the SAL blog so I thought I'd post it here, too - 'Unspoken' is growing slowly but surely!

January:

February:

I have got some darker colors now, and reached the side and bottom of the first page :D

February IHSW

I'm late, had to work extra - bleh!
Here's last month's 'Lovers' progress:

And a dark pic of this month's slight progress.  Lots of confetti and very little time :D  I actually have a day off on Wednesday so I'm considering giving this one more day this month.

I worked on Mini-Rings, too, but I'll post that tomorrow!

Stashy Saturday

I am trying to get some stitching done (last minute!) for IHSW, and I almost forgot Stashy Saturday!

So all I saw at short notice was this:

Super duper awesome eBay purchase that is WONDERFUL when you're stitching HAED charts - these are highlighters!  Yes, a RED highlighter!  I love these with all my little heart :D

Here's a HAED I don't think I ever posted about - a Hannah Lynn Quick-Stitch (ha!) called 'Glacia' that I can't find on the site anymore.  Weird!  I didn't think they took patterns off unless the artist retired.

The Time of the Great Back Stitching

Fred.

Oh, Fred, Fred, Fred...

May I never leave all the back stitching until the end ever again!!! 

Fred's bottom bookshelf got some love yesterday because I had the day off and 16 inches of snow outside!  I have fifteen books to finish and knocked off almost seven yesterday - I have to go back and put some page details with one strand of black on that sideways book and a few strands of metallic on the small blue book.

He looked like this:

And now like this:

The book titles are hard to see in the pic; they are 'Garbage Can Cats', 'Catalog of Hairballs', 'Holy Cats', 'Three Wined Mice', 'A Tale of Two Kitties' and '5 Fish Ponds' (Not sure if that is supposed to be the title or sort of like #5 in a series of travel books?).  Eight books, the Owl, his back half, and his whiskers to go.

I have discovered, though, that I have some re-stitching to do - I found a tutorial last year that was supposed to make prettier stitches and be easier - a way to anchor extremely long back stitches like Dimensions kits often have, instead of piercing the Aida fabric - it worked beautifully at the time but in the months since I worked on him the floss has relaxed and separated and looks terrible!  So I have to redo that leaning brown book 'Bye Bye Birdie' next to his head and paw.  If you look close, you can see where it sagged and looks really bad.  But it shouldn't take too long to fix.  Guess sometimes the old ways really are the best :D

Today at work it was really quiet (see afore-mentioned 16 inches of snow) so guess what I did?

Yep, finished it off!

SO. MUCH. BACK. STITCHING.  There is tons of it in that wreath, and half you can't even see!  But it's pretty and it's finished - #29 of 30!  Only the 'Noel' stocking to go!

Catching Up

Mini Rings, Week 6.

We're on Week 8 now.  *SIGH*  I have still have more catching up to do! :D :D :D
The red I added is a nice rich, deep red, not the orange-red of the picture.  My camera refuses to properly capture red.  I have an utter awesome finished afghan that I can't take a picture of to save my life!

Stashy Saturday :D

These are fun!

Another HAED - on layaway but mine soon!

'Steam Punk Cat Daddy' by Jeff Haynie

And the stitch preview:

I can't wait to get my mitts on this one!

Here's a shot of a very messy shelf in my craft room:

All those tins and pencil boxes have kitted-up projects in them.  Some are started, and some are not.  This is not the best way in the world to store them, but it works for now!  I'm looking into some better options :D

Also considering cleaning up the craft room - what a mess!  Those pill bottles on the top shelf are travelling ort holders.

Greenery

The computers were down at work today but I had to stay to answer phones - it was so cold and there were almost no customers.  I wish every day was like that!  Except for the cold.

Since I only had a little work to do, I got some stitching out.  I only had my stockings with me, so I got started on the second to the last, the wreath with the big, red bow.

Of seven colors, I got three done and most of the fourth.  Three shades of red to go, and the backstitching.  If tomorrow is anything like today, I'll have a wee finish!

I'm off to work on my Mini-Rings CAL afghan now - I'm two weeks behind!

February Turtle Trot

I worked on six of my ten projects for Turtle Trot this month!  (Turtle Trot is hosted HERE)

Wufei, Yarr, Fred, and Snowing got no love but they're next on my list so there should be some progress in March :D

'Unspoken'  went from nothing to this:

Almost 1,000 stitches - quite a lot for a slow stitcher like me!!!


'A Great Light' got the first shade of blue done.

Before:

After:

'Cut-Thru Princess Palace' got some backstitching and a potty.

Before:

After:

Christmas Stockings got another finished off:

There are two left!


'Lovers' got the most visible progress -

Before:

After:

And this picture sums up most of my progress on Mary Wigham:

That's the fluff left from pulling out the invisible basket motif.

Here's the wee bit I have restitched - you can see the 'ghost' of the old motif around it!

By the time March rolls around, I'm hoping to have the two Christmas Stockings stitched so I can replace that slot with my Bent Creek Snapper project - otherwise I'm going easy on setting goals this year :D

January Snows! (and a Royal Flush)

I finished the first of my Snapper blocks - 'January Snows'.  I had to take it outside to get a good picture and it's still not the best.  The fabric is a sort of creamy tan color.  The floss looks pretty close in this, though.  A little brighter, maybe.

I have to finish the border around it and get 'February Glows' done this month to stay on schedule :D

I couldn't resist the pun for this next one - I worked on my Bothy Cut-Thru Princess Palace, which did look like this:

I did some backstitching, and then - I stitched the toilet in the bathroom upstairs!  So Royal Flush!  And my sister is rolling her eyes so hard they might fall out, bwah ha ha ha!  I could make a double-pun and say I've stitched both thrones?

hehehehehehehe...

YOTA Post!

Yay, I didn't forget - LOL!!!

YOTA stands for 'Year of the Acronym' and is a SAL (Stitch ALong) to work on a UFO (Unfinished Object).  It is hosted HERE.

My YOTA project is 'Flower of the East'.  This is a project that was given to me by a lady I never met before and who hasn't answered my emails since.  She posted it on a giveaway page on Facebook and no one else asked for it.  It was the partially stitched fabric and the chart only, no floss or metallics.

I bought the floss but haven't bought the Japan Braid that it requires yet.  It looked like this:

I have found some unexpected issues with finishing a project started by someone else - the first thing I checked was did we cross our stitches in the same direction, and luckily yes, we did.  That was good.

When I put her in my Q-snaps to get started, I discovered that my two strands of floss were coming out much thinner-looking than her two strands of floss.  I kept checking to make sure she hadn't used three strands but no, two strands it was.

I changed to a bigger needle than the first one and it helped a very, very little.  I didn't know what to do, then noticed her stitching was a lot looser than mine and had a bit of an epiphany.  It looked like my stitches used to when I stitched in hand instead of using a frame.  So I tried that and bingo, I was in business!  Our stitches matched!

As I started stitching along, I decided that the reason she didn't want to finish her must have been the fabric.  It's terrible, loosely woven and floppy and uneven.  Pull the stitches the least bit too tight and it leaves gaping holes.  I wasn't about to give in though - I adjusted my tension and settled in to a rhythm and it finally started flowing easier.

So now my Flower looks like this:

I have finished her hair and the flesh tones of her face.  She needs her eyes, mouth, and the flowers in her hair next.  She's very pretty, though, isn't she?  Even with her slightly scary current face!  Next time I hope you will see her with her hair and face finished and her parasol and fan done, as well.

Stashy Saturday

I've been pretty busy this week, so not much stitching and I'm behind on my Mini-Rings afghan.  I'm really close to being done with the January Snapper, though, so I'm hoping for a post tomorrow :D  In the meantime - another Stashy Saturday!

Another HAED that is on layaway!  Hoping that's paid off soon, though!

'Late to School' by Bob Byerly

And the stitch preview:

I love the way this one looks, and I have another of this little girl and her imagination on layaway.  I'll show it later :D

Another Bent Creek in my stash:

This one is 'Brown Bird Sampler'.

And some crochet to round it up - this afghan kit is pretty old.  My Mum found it on eBay and gave it to me for Christmas.

I couldn't get a good pic on my own so I used eBay's.  My picture was pretty creased and bent.  The yarn is so tiny and fine, too!