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.

The Puppy Progresses

Hi guys!

Thanks for the comments on the last post :D
I've got some more done on the puppy - all the white is now stitched, and more of one shade of brown. I hope you can see the progress; the white goes down each leg and tops the bit of paw to the right and the tail to the left.



My fabric for Mary Wigham probably won't be here until Monday or Tuesday, so I'm going to try and finish up the light brown - all the other browns are blends.

Dani - I was thinking that very thing when I decided to try this! I've been very careful counting - lol, and recounting because I'm paranoid! - but so far everything is matching up nicely. Much relief! I think it's because this pattern doesn't have a huge amount of color changes - it was prolly the best I could have chosen to try stitching this way!

The Patchy Little Puppy

I really wanted to join the Mary Wigham SAL this week - I got my floss (I have to order everything, because I'm in a very rural area) and then the fabric I wanted to use turned out to be about 2 inches too short.
I knew I should have measured it.

So, being frustrated, I took my stress out on my puppy :D

All I had done before was his head.

Sorry he's a bit wonky-looking, I was too lazy to take him out of the Q-snaps before scanning.

Usually I work in sections - like I finished his head - but this time I thought I'd try something different, and I stitched all the cream in the project. A friend of mine does hers like this, and I must admit she stitches faster than me so I thought I'd try it.

I'm going to keep working on him until my newly-ordered fabbie shows up.

Claddagh :D

My Claddagh project is done:

Pattern: Web freebie from Anime-Manga stitchs (link to the right)
Size: About 3x6
Fabric: 20ct rust hardanger
Floss: Ecru DMC

This is for my sister's wedding anniversary (one whole year!) in August. I think I'll make it into a pillow, possible with something Gaelic written beneath it. Her wedding ring is a Claddagh, and her whole wedding was Scottish/Irish-based (thistle, handfasting, silver coin in her shoe, all that) We kind of mixed up Scottish and Irish things, since we have both in our ancestory. It was very pretty. Her husband even wore a kilt! Around here, that was amazing. Everyone has traditional American weddings here. Boring! Even the fact that her wedding was outside amazed some people. So very traditional in this area... sigh.

UFO Finished - Yay!

I think I called this by the wrong name last post.

Anyway, it's done!

Pattern: Mulberry Tree Sampler from Sept/Oct 1987 Women's Circle CrossStitch (yep, old!)

Fabric: 28ct Annabelle Linen (no color name)

Finished Size: About 11x 9 inches

I changed the color of the house from 801 to 898 and the color of the hearts from 221 to 817. The original fabric was supposed to be Natural Aida, and those colors just didn't look right on the rose-colored fabric I chose. I also stitched the numbers in the main house color; they were supposed to be green like the letters but that was just too much of the same for me. The numbers are off-center but stitched as charted; I thought it was kind of cute that way. I'm not sure why.

I think I started this one in May of 2008, so it's not as old as some UFO's I have! (insert a blush here)

Mulberry House UFO

This was my UFO project in May.

My Mulberry House Sampler as it was:


And as it is now, with much more than the promised 100 stitches. My scanner, sadly, has decided that crooked isn't good enough, it must make things dark now, as well. The colors in the first pic are much closer to the real life colors.

I've decided to stick with this one for now; once I finish the house and tree, there's only the alphabet, numbers, and a row of hearts to do. I can get it done in a few days if I actually have the time to stitch.