Here's what I've been doing lately

Well, I suppose I am long overdue for an update.  Work has continued to be crazy and I've been dealing with some health problems in the family, so although I still have been stitching, it has slowed down a bit.  But here's what I've been working on.

First of all, lots of Round Robin stitching.  I finished up the last project in my sampler round robin, which was a couple bands from Just Nan's Queen of the Needle design:

I feel really blessed that I didn't get a part with lots of specialty stitches, because they really intimidate me.  As it was, this was my first time doing eyelets (the yellow center of the purple flowers) and I think they turned out okay.

I also finished up another part in the Lizzie Kate Round robin.  This was the Give Santa Cookies part of the Christmas Rules series:

I just love these patterns, I can't wait to stitch them myself (when I have a chance to pull them out of my stash cupboard).  I thought pink was an odd choice of color for the cookies though.  (shrug)

I also spent quite a bit of the last month working on my first project for the Etsy Round robin I joined.  This one was half of a purple sugar skull:

I have to say, this pattern was one of the reasons I am distrustful of people selling patterns on Etsy.  Pretty much it looked like the graphic was just fed into a cross stitch conversion program.  It really could have used quite a bit of cleaning up (in my opinion) to remove some of the confetti and make the design much more symmetrical.  I was happy when this one was over.  It pretty much drove me crazy.

In addition to the round robin pieces, I have made a bit of progress on a few other things.  Best Friends Share has progressed from a random orange blob to two kitties and the start of a basket:

And more purple has been filled in for Singing Owl.  This pattern has so much fill in!

But at least the stomach is done now.  I had to put this one down for awhile and take a break though.

Next up, I'm working on the next Lizzie Kate RR piece and the next Etsy RR piece.  Also, I really, really need to get started on my planned Christmas gifts for this year if I have any hope of finishing them by the end of the year!

An Explosion of Stitchy Progress

Well, somehow despite my best intentions I disappeared for a little over a month again. Oops.  Life has been super crazy and I've been working the equivalent of a second job during the weekends, so lately it seems like things like blogging get pushed out of the way.  Luckily though I haven't lost my stitchy bug, so I have A LOT of progress pics to show you. Here's what I've been working since my last overdue post.

It's been awhile since you've seen Mr. Let It Snowman.  Here's what he looked like the last time I took a photo of him:

I've actually gotten a bit farther with this, but I haven't worked on it in quite awhile. I got sick of all the white I guess.

Also, a lot of stitching has been done for my round robin projects lately.  On the sampler front, I finished my section of two rounds.  The first was a couple blocks in Frosted Pumpkins Spring Sampler:

I really do like Frosted Pumpkin's patterns, but for some reason I really struggled with this one and I'm not sure why.  But I got it done in the end, so there you go.

The next sampler round was the bottom-most part of this Strawberry Shortcake Sampler:

My section was the green cake plate and the little plaid stripe underneath it.  This one was a fun pattern, it went pretty fast for me and I ended up ahead in the round robin for the first time ever.

I also have a lot of progress to show for my Lizzie Kate Round Robin projects.  First is the finish of the February stamp that I showed progress in last time:

I wasn't sure how I was going to like the colors on this one together as I was stitching it up, but I decided once it was finished it wasn't too bad.  Those little blank spots in the flowers will eventually be covered up by little purple buttons when the owner gets the project back.

The next project I got in the mail were for Lizzie's Boxer seasonal patterns.  We could choose which part we wanted to stitch and I chose the top half of the winter pattern:

This one stitched up really quick, even with all that blue fill in.  Although I totally miscounted the snowflakes the first time and had to frog them all.  That's what I get for starting it on a road trip I guess.

My most recent Lizzie Kate finish is one of the Boo Club series of patterns.  The frog turned out a little weird because his black eye buttons won't be applied to the end:

The interesting thing about this pattern was that the owner asked us to do it in only 1 ply thread, which was new for me, but it kind of grew on me the way it turned out.  I personally don't like that kind of coverage, but I bet it makes your overdyed threads go much farther!

I've been digging through lots of my old magazine issues lately and even though I have tons of WIPs to work on, I couldn't help picking a couple patterns that stood out to me for World of Charity Stitching's friendship quilt theme.  These will probably get there a little late to be included in that, but I'm sure they'll be put to good use (or I might find another use for them in the meantime).

This one is a pattern from Lucie Heaton, and the individual pattern doesn't have a name, so I called it Dancing Divas in my head.

Not much to look at now but I stitched all I could with the colors I have on hand at the moment, so that's all there is for now.  This is definitely a pattern that will greatly benefit from the backstitching, which seems to be a common theme in Lucie's patterns.  But they're super fun to stitch and work up really quick!

The second pattern I pulled is a card design called Best Friends Share from a really old copy of Cross Stitch Card Shop.

I just started this one last night, so right now it's pretty much just an orange blur, but eventually this will be two cute little kitties curled up in a basket together.

I think that catches me up with everything for now, and of course I promise to try and update more frequently, although the way life has been lately, who knows?