Weekend Update: Finishes, exchanges, kitting up and more!

Hello everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend.  Even though Mondays are totally my enemy, I had a great stitching weekend, so I'm excited to share my progress with you. 

First of all, my Buzzy Bees N bookmark was received by my partner in the Lucie Heaton Facebook Group Initial Exchange.  Since I forgot to take a picture of it after I finished the bookmark itself, here's the picture she posted on FB so that you can get an idea of what it looks like. 

I also got my package from the same exchange.  In addition to the adorable framed initial, my partner also sent 5 colors of DMC floss in my favorite pastel shades, 3 packages of various trims that will come in handy for finishing future projects, a monogrammed journal, and a bar of mango coconut dark chocolate.  Whew!  It was such a nice surprise to come home to on Friday. 

Here's a close up of the stitching itself:

I love the frame she used, and doing the initial in beads was a genius idea.  It makes it look so elegant and totally matches the feel of the whole piece. The fabric appears to be some sort of opalescent hand dyed evenweave, and I love the colors!

And my other big news from the weekend.... Baby Tinkerbell is finished!!!!!

This ended up kind of being a love/hate piece.  I love the pattern, and I loved working on it, but in the end it wasn't as fun as it could have been because of the deadline I was up against.  Also, I wayyyyyyyyyy underestimated how long it would take to stitch and backstitch this whole thing.  But I'm happy with the result.  I might even stitch it again someday, though if I get the chance I will definitely be doing it on evenweave because the fractionals were everywhere!

This is a freebie pattern I got off an Italian blog, and was stitched for the Love Quilts charity.  It was done on white 16 count aida (which was a nightmare for fractionals!) with charted DMC threads in 2 over 1.  I started it on May 15th and finished on May 31st, so not bad for a fairly large complicated pattern.  I think the stitch count is around 120 x 80-something (I have it written down somewhere, but not in front of me at the moment).  This was one of my Turtle Trot pieces, so I can now put that down as complete. 

So now that that's done, I have two more charity projects in the pipeline, and then no more deadline stitching for me this year!  At least, that's the plan now.  I need to get serious about finishing up some of the Christmas projects I have planned.  Now that the year is almost to the halfway point, I'm starting to realize how behind I am on those. 

I spent a couple hours last night kitting up said charity projects, and my latest exchange swap project.  There's something so satisfying about starting/preparing to start a new project, isn't there?  The exchange will be a summer themed one this time.  I also need to stitch up my Round Robin block and get that mailed off.  So I guess that's a sneak peek at what you'll be seeing here over the next month!

May 2015 Smalls SAL Check-In and some Tinkerbell Progress

Whew, May has just flown by for me.  This month has been so crazy, I can't  believe it.  But it's already the last Wednesday of the month, which means it's time for my monthly check in for Stitching Lotus' 2015 Smalls SAL.

Most of my stitching this month has been pretty big projects.  My Frosted Pumpkin entry for the month was a little on the larger size, so I won't count it for this.  But I do have one finish I know counts as a small.  I feel like my monthly check-in posts can get repetitive picture-wise for those of you who are regular readers, so I purposely left off posting this picture before.  Here's the complete finish (with backstitching) of my Buzzy Bee N by Lucie Heaton:

This was for an initial exchange as part of a Lucie Heaton Facebook Fan Group I'm in.  It was stitched on a scrap of 14 count white aida I had around, 2 over 1 with charted DMC threads.  I started it on May 12th and finished it on May 15th.

After taking this picture, I finished it up as a bookmark, since my partner said she loved to read, and sent it on its way to Canada.  Sadly I forgot to take a picture before I put it in the envelope and sealed it up.  *facepalm* So hopefully my partner will let me borrow her picture when she receives it. 

So that's it for smalls this time around.  Mostly I've been working like mad on Baby Tinkerbell.  Only 2 days left to finish her!  I'm almost done with the stitching and ready to start backstitching (which will take forever I expect).  Sadly I don't have an updated picture (I thought I did, but I don't) but here's a peek at least at what she looked like Monday morning, which is almost recent. 

This project has been fun, but is totally tiring me out.  No more deadline stitching for awhile for me after this one!

Plans for the Weekend

Well, I'm planning on doing some stitching this weekend.  How about you?  I have about 5 projects that need to be completed and sent off by the end of the month.  Hmmm, I think I'm totally insane for signing up for so many things.  In fact, the other day my Mom saw me stitching, asked what I was working on, and when I told her, her response was "don't you ever stitch anything for yourself".  Guess I haven't much lately.  I will have to remedy that.  But in the meantime, I have deadlines to follow!

So I've got a bit more progress to show you on said projects.  I finished up the stitching on the N from Lucie Heaton's Buzzy Bees alphatbet for my intital exchange:

I actually kind of like it with the backstitching.  Actually, I've finished all the backstiching too, but I will be saving that finish photograph for the smalls check in at the end of the month.  I'm devious, I know.  But for once I'd like to show frequent readers some new photographs for my SAL check-ins. 

Anyway, I like it both this way and finished with all the detail, although I think if I stitch it again I might just backstitch the flower and bee and leave the letter un-outlined.  I plan to finish this up into a bookmark and get it sent off this weekend. 

Which brings me to the start of my newest project.  This is the Baby Tinkerbell pattern featured on my Turtle Trot list (Project 9). 

Just a bit of green so far.  This is strip of darker green on her dress caused by the shadow of her arm. This design has a TON of fractionals like the Friends for Life pattern did, and this particular aida is super stiff, so this one will present me with a bit of a challenge. Hopefully I will get much further as the weekend progresses. 

April Turtle Trot, May WIPocalypse and more!

Well, with the continued craziness that I posted about at the end of last week, still not having internet access at home (living in the country is just great sometimes), STILL being sick with this stupid cold, Mother's Day on Sunday, etc. I missed the check in dates for both WIPocalypse and Turtle Trot.  But better late than never!

First of all, thank you to everyone who left well wishes on my post last week.  They were much needed.  My boss's husband had a major heart attack last Wednesday, leading to my rough week at work in trying to fill in for her.  Sadly, her husband passed away on Saturday, so Sat/Sun/Mon were busy trying to get things ready and settled for the funeral.  So that's over with, but things are still a little crazy as we try to adjust to the "new normal".

Secondly, I hope everyone who celebrated Mother's Day had a great weekend, and you enjoyed the time you spent honoring your mothers/sisters/aunts/daughters/etc.  I cooked up a storm last weekend, which sadly cut into my stitching time, but oh well.

Now, onto the updates I suppose.  First off, the May WIPocalypse check in as hosted by Measi.

May's question is: I would like to know if you look for LNS’s when you travel. What is the favorite shop you’ve ever found?

Sadly, I seem to never live in an area that has a LNS around.  I did find one in Placerville when up at Apple Hill when I lived in California, and one in Boise when visiting my grandparents (which sadly had gone out of business when I went back to look for it last year).  Usually when traveling I don't have time to explore for an LNS, I have a time schedule I need to keep to, but I want to possibly do it more often in the future.  Sadly, I have not found one near me in Mississippi yet either.  Anyone know of a LNS around the Jackson area?

As far as progress, I'm going to combine this with my Turtle Trot progress check-in, since some of the things I worked on this month were TT pieces.

Project 1: Halloween Quaker

Previous Progress:

How it looks now:

Projects 2-6: No new progress

Project 7: Flower of the Month SAL

I made more progress on January, but I can't find the progress pic I took anywhere!  I will have to update this post when I find where my camera stashed it.

Projects 8-10: No new progress

Project 11: Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin

Here's my latest finish on the FP Round Robin.  This is for Round 4, where I once again had Woodland Sampler to work on.  I finished the October block:

Made a huge counting mistake on this one (several times) so I had to frog a bunch and modify the pattern a bit (or risk having to frog the entire pattern).  I think it turned out okay anyway. 

Project 12: No new progress

So sadly, not a whole lot of progress going on there with those pieces.  Hopefully after June things will settle down a bit stitching-wise though. 

In April I also had two other non-Turtle Trot progress finishes, Easter Egg Topiary and Friends for Life, both of which were charity stitching donations.

I also managed to get a bit of stitching on this new project last night:

I don't anticipate this taking very long.  As you can probably tell, this is an initial, specifically a N.  It's for an Initial Exchange swap I signed up for on Facebook.  This is from the Buzzy Bees Alphabet by Lucie Heaton, I think from an old CrossStitcher magazine I have lying around.  Sorry for the wonky lighting, the fabric is actually regular white aida.  It's so hard to get good pictures of my stitching at night. 

Well, that's it for progress shots today.  Hopefully your stitching is all going better than mine!