Progress Update: Day 28 & 29 of the Crazy January Challenge

I'm back to the two day update post today, since I forgot to take pictures of the Day 28 project, and so I didn't have anything to post yesterday.  So I managed to take some pictures last night, but the lighting turned out kind of funny, so they will look a little wonky. 

Day 28 was Wednesday, which are always my very busy, very long days, so I purposely chose something smaller.  Plus, at this point, I pretty much had the rest of my challenge all planned out.  So Wednesday was a kit by Mill Hill called Lucky Day. 

This one only has 2 colors of stitching, as the gold thread it comes with is purely for attaching beads.  If you couldn't tell, it will be a four leaf clover when I get done.  The dark green thread I started with didn't show up too well on the green paper so far.  This will be a gift for a friend who loves all things Irish. 

Yesterday was Thursday, which mean it wasn't quite as long as Wednesday, but still busy, so I chose another small project to do, a Mill Hill kit called Kitty's Stocking:

Got the top of the stocking finished.  I'm really excited about this one, since I did the Tropical Kitty kit last year and loved it.  I have one other kitty Mill Hill in my stash to do eventually too.  The one thing I'm nervous about is this one has a lot of back stitching details in addition to the beading, so I hope I can get it done in time for my upcoming gift deadline. 

And since I didn't feel like working on Kitty when I got home yesterday, I pulled Perfume Bottle out again and worked on that while we watched the new TNT series The Librarians (which is kind of kooky, but I really liked, by the way). 

The bottle itself is now completely outlined, and you might be able to see the bit of gray at the top where I started on the sprayer.  I just have the metal and ball part of that to finish, the rest of the stripes to fill in, and a couple flowers at the bottom to finish.  Hopefully I'll be able to complete it this weekend and have something new to show you.  

So now we're heading into Saturday and my weekends-without-internet, so I will be back on Monday with the updates on my last two projects for the challenge.  It's kind of bittersweet.  I loved doing all these new starts, but it is a little tiring on some days, and I am itching to go back to some of the things I've started. 

Until Monday stitching friends!

Progress Update: Day 27 of the Crazy Challenge

Only a few more days to go of the January Crazy Challenge.  Wah.  It's kind of bittersweet.  While in some ways, a new project every day has been rather chaotic, I do like the excitement that comes with constantly starting something new. 

Yesterday's start was the companion piece to the Day 26.  I looked up the patterns and found out they are a series of 6 blocks called Christmas Cuties by Maria Diaz, although each pattern individually is not named.  Here's my start on the reindeer, which is the only one other than the polar bear I will be stitching. 

Got a good start on his head, and the little bell around his neck.  And although the polar bear I started the day before is also super cute, I'm rather partial to this reindeer of the two designs.  Looking forward to finishing him, as he is one of the pieces I've chosen for Turtle Trot this year. 

And of course because I have an impending deadline, I also made some headway on Perfume Bottle.  Are you getting sick of progress updates on this yet?  :)

Today's planned start is another Mill Hill kit, the first of the last two I have to start and finish before March. 

Progress Update: Day 26 of the Crazy January Challenge

So, moving right along with the Crazy January Challenge, here's what I was able to get done yesterday.  This is a project I am calling Polar Bear Square, since I don't really know the original name of it.  It's a pattern from an old Christmas issue Enjoy Cross Stitch magazine, which I believe means it was originally published in either Cross Stitch Crazy or World of Cross Stitching, probably also several years ago. 

I do remember that the designer is Maria Diaz, and this is part of a set of 6 matching designs (polar bear, reindeer, snowman, angel, penguin and Santa I believe).  It will be fairly small, about 4 x 4 I think when finished, and 100% coverage with no fractionals or backstitch. 

Since there is no backstitching in this whole project, the outline of the characters is done entirely in black stitches.  So I decided to start with the black outlines first, and then fill in as I go.  So yesterday had the beginning's of the polar bear's head.  This is one of my Turtle Trot pieces, but it will probably go to the back of the rotation for now, since I have several projects with screaming deadlines approaching.

I didn't get much more done, mostly because at the moment I am trying to finish up two squares for World of Charity Stitching, the Perfume Bottle and Rainbow Mandala squares.  Here's the stitching I did on the mandala over the weekend:

Last night luckily was a nice relaxing night, so I was able to get quite a chunk of Perfume Bottle done while I was watching some of our DVRed programs. 

It's finally actually starting to look like something.  Now I just have 3 purple stripes to finish (one big and two small) and to fill in some of the shading, then do the sprayer and the two yellow flowers at the bottom of the bottle.  I can handle that, right?  Unfortunately, tonight through Thursday are going to be CRAZY so I don't know how much more progress I will be making with this one until Friday.  *sigh*

Well, at least I already know what today's new start will be.  It's going to be Reindeer Square, one of the companions to this piece.  Out of the six, the polar bear and reindeer were the two I really liked, so I will only be stitching those for now. 

Until tomorrow!

Progress Update: Day 8-11 of Crazy Challenge (Long and Picture Heavy again, sorry!)

Sorry, this is going to be another picture heavy post for those who are on slow connections.  This whole not having internet at the house thing really puts a cramp in my updating abilities over the weekend, and I wasn't able to post my update from Thursday last Friday before I left the office.

So here's what's been going on in my stitching life lately.  Luckily I'm happy to report that I have still kept up totally with the challenge, even if it hasn't been a lot of stitching.

As I mentioned in my last post, my plan for January 8th, last Thursday, was to work on a WIP project.  I pulled out my Tree Frog Trio kit from Dimensions for this day, since it is also one of my Turtle Trot pieces for this year.  I started it back in July or August last year, and it's kind of fallen into the UFO pile.  So here's where I started on Thursday:

And here's where it ended up:

Not a lot of progress, but I'm starting to see some.  I started with that frog on the left because it is the one that has (gasp!) blended threads, which I've never done before, so I figured out with the difficult thing first.  If I can finish this one by Christmas, it will go to a friend who loves frogs and is back in California for a Christmas present.

January 9th was Friday, so I decided to pull out something a little less complicated since my brain was shot from the work week in general.  I decided to pull out this perfume bottle design that I'm doing for World of Charity Stitching.

I got a good block of color for the first stripe on the bottle done, which is more progress than I've been able to do on anything lately.  This was a freebie pattern I found off a french blog, and it's going to have a very pretty purple/pink old fashioned atomizer bottle with a couple of yellow flowers by it when it's done. 

I spent most of the morning of January 10th on Saturday unpacking boxes.  We've been in the new apartment since Thanksgiving, but I've kind of been putting off really unpacking most of my things other than the basic essentials of what I need all the time, so I figured it was time to work on that.  Then Saturday evening I had a sort-of-date, so I ended up getting back to the house and working on my stitching kind of late. Since it was late, I decided I needed another brain dead project, so I pulled out this Yin Yang Horse pattern.

The nice thing about this is that it's all one color, only black required.  This is another piece for WOCS, and it was charted by me based on an online clip art gallery I saw.  I actually got a good chunk of this done (for me anyway), but had to quit a little earlier than expected because I had a "helper" glue himself to my lap and keep trying to steal the thread as I pulled it through fabric:

 (Brownie you are so not being helpful right there)

Yesterday was the 11th, and due to the fact that I'm running out of Q-snaps to hold my projects, I decided to start a project that already had been put on the frame, although I hadn't started it yet.  This is a Gingerbread House Facebook SAL designed by Shannon Wasilieff that she hosted in her group last year.  My intention was to start it before Christmas last year, but presents pushed it out of the way and I was never able to get a start.  So I pulled on one of my Christmas Q-snap huggies and gave it a go.

I may have gotten a little farther than this, but I was distracted by watching our DVR recordings of Agent Carter and Galavant and I totally messed up the spacing.  I had to frog a bit, and then decided to re-grid my pattern, rather than re-grid the fabric or frog everything I had done to make it match.  The joys of stitching, huh?

And in addition to my new starts, I am also hard at work on trying to finish my Giraffe Print Mitten for WOCS.  I've made some good progress on that, I figure I'm about 1/3 way done by now.  Hopefully it won't take much longer. 

Well, that's how things are right now.  I'm hoping to do more daily updates this week (instead of these huge block of updates), so stay tuned for those!

Free Pattern Friday: Christmas Madonna

Since today is the last Friday before Christmas, I have something very Christmas-y for today's free cross stitch pattern.  For me, Christmas is a very fun time with lots of great secular traditions, but in the end it is ultimately also a celebration of God's greatest gift to mankind, the birth of Jesus Christ.  I know not everyone feels the same way about celebrating Christmas as I do, and that's okay, but for me it's something very important.

I really wanted to find a Christ centered pattern I could share for this Friday, and had a hard time finding one that I liked.  But eventually I stumbled upon this Madonna and Child pattern in the shape of an ornament.  It was originally published in 1994 by Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum.  It looks great stitched on cloth and framed, but I've also seen it stitched on perforated paper as an actual ornament too and it is just as beautiful.

Head over to the Madonna and Child page on the designers website to download the PDF of this free cross stitch pattern.  And in the meantime, I hope all of you have a happy, safe, beautiful Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year).

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday (Part 2): Festive Cheer Owl

So now onto my regularly schedule free cross stitch pattern post for this Friday.  Today's pick is a cute and quick little design you can easily stitch up for a card or ornament if you're looking for a last minute gift.

I don't know why, but I am really into owls lately.  Which is good for me right now, because along with foxes apparently they are the new "in" thing.  So when I saw this cute little festive owl with a Santa hat for Christmas, I knew I had to share it.  This lovely design was designed by the talented Holly over at the Holly's Hobbies blog.

Head over to the site to get the PDF chart for this free cross stitch pattern.  If anyone stitches this up, leave me a link, I'd love to see it!

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Free Pattern Friday: A Christmas Carol

So I actually have something else planned for this week's Free Pattern Friday, but since I just found a super cool free cross stitch pattern that is only available for a limited time, I'm going to post two today (lucky you!). 

The UK cross stitching magazine Cross Stitch Collection is having a 12 Days of Christmas celebration.  They're going to do a bunch of giveaways for the next 12 days, and today is the first day.  They're giving away this large Victorian Christmas Carol chart by Maria Diaz for Day 1, but it's only available to download until this coming Monday.  So head over to their blog ASAP to get the download link. 

And keep your eye out for another free cross stitch pattern post later today!

Happy stitching!

Free Pattern Friday: Sweet Treats

Today is the first Friday in December, so it's onto Christmas themed free cross stitch patterns!

My mother's birthday is the first part of December, so I always end up thinking about Christmas baking way before the actual holiday.  I've always loved to bake since I was a little girl, so when I saw this pattern in a cross stitching magazine awhile back I fell in love with it.  The good news is, when poking around looking for patterns I realized that it's actually posted for free on the publisher's website, so you can stitch this piece even if you don't have the back issue it was published it.

This is intended as a front piece for a baking set, but with some modification I plan on framing it or making a cushion out of it when it (finally) gets added to my very large WIP pile.

Head over to the Cross-stitching.com website to download this cute free cross stitch pattern for yourself.  You'll need to sign up for an account to download it; just advance warning.  

Happy stitching!


If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 4

Well, nothing like getting in by the skin of your teeth.  Today is the last day to check in for week 4 of MMMM hosted by Justine's Cross Stitch Blog for November.  Luckily I have some progress to report, even though this week has been CRAZY! We finally got moved into our new own actual place though, which was nice, but definitely cut into stitching time.

So I have the complete finish on Victorian Tree to show you:

And I finished beading Tropical Kitty and finishing into an ornament:

Just have to back it and it will be done.  I also finished Teton Santa's beading, but forgot to take a picture and since I am on a borrowed Wi-Fi connection at the moment (no internet at the new house for a couple weeks) I won't be able to upload this at the moment.

I still have 3 ornaments to finish beading (nuts!) which I was hoping to have done by the end of this month, but I should be able to get them done by Christmas at least!

Free Pattern Friday: Cross Stitch for Charity

So today is Friday, which means I will be posting a free cross stitch pattern today.  Well, I had already have a post planned for today, but I came across this set of free patterns that are only available for a limited time, so I wanted to share.

There is a group on Facebook called Cross Stitch for Charity.  In exchange for donating to the current cause the group is supporting, themed free cross stitch patterns are posted on the group page for members to download for a limited time.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, right now through December 5 (?) the group is raising funds for Toys for Tots.  Right now there are 7 charts posted for you to download in exchange for donating any amount to the charity.  Designers include Passione Ricomo, Primitive Hare, Lesley Teare, and many more.  As you can see from this photo, they are super cute patterns (and this isn't all of the patterns posted yet either). 

So if you'd like to get some free patterns and help a great cause in return, here's what you do.

1. You must have a Facebook account
2. Like the Cross Stitch for Charity page
3. Join the Cross Stitch for Charity group page
4. Donate to the cause using the link in the pinned post at the top of the group
5. Download your favorite charts in the group Files tab

These charts will only be available for a couple more weeks I think, so if you are interested in any of them, definitely head over there ASAP.

Come back later today for another Free Pattern Friday post (my regularly scheduled one).

Happy stitching!

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 3

So, it's a little early for a normal MMMM update, but since this week looks like it might be really busy, I figured I would do an update today anyway, and maybe a supplemental one later in the week if I can wrangle it.

I'm still busy on those Christmas gifts, so today's update is from the western beading front.  I did start on beading Teton Santa, and have got about halfway done on the amber beads:

This is definitely going faster than Victorian Tree so far, although I think that might partly be because the petite seed beads are supposed to have full crosses and regular seed beads only have half crosses, and so far, I've only done regular beads.

Then since a certain person wasn't home during the weekend, I took the oppertunity to switch out Teton Santa for Be Merry in my WIP list of the day, so I could get started on that.  Here's the progress so far:

That's actually only one kind of bead left, can you believe it?  Of course, that one bead takes up all those spaces in the lettering, so it will probably take awhile.

So now, it's back to beading!  I still have to finish these two, Provencal Rooster, Tropical Kitty, and Hot Stuff before Christmas.  My goal is to get them stitched by the end of the month at least, so I can focus on finishing them up into ornaments in December.  Which, we're moving again (at least only across town this time) so things will be crazy for the first part of December anyway.

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 2

MMMM is a SAL created by Pull The Other Thread and taken over hosting for November by Justine's Cross Stitch. 

So this week, the big news is....

I have a finish!!!!!

Victorian Tree is done, done, done.  Okay, well, I need to do the actual finishing up into an ornament still (backing it and adding a string) but other than that, the stitching is all done.

The coloring is a little weird in the photo (the light was wonky yesterday) but you get the general idea.

My first time beading any project, and I think it went okay.  I don't think I'll be winning any technique prizes any time soon, but there you go.  So now I'm off to work on Teton Santa, which will be the next beading project.  Hopefully that one will bead up a lot quicker, since there won't be so many random placement of assorted beads (they're more colorblocked).

I should also mention this is my first finish of the year.  Yikes.... : /

Mini Mega Month Madness (2.0) SAL Progress: Week 1

Well, you may be wondering if MMMM concluded at the end of October, why you're seeing another post for it.  The original SAL hosted by Pull The Other Thread did conclude at the end of October, but Justine of Justine's Cross Stitch blog has taken over hosting for November.  So that gives me another chance to finish up those minis I worked on all last month!  Which is good, because they're all Christmas presents anyway...

So here's my latest progress.  I didn't really get much done this week, mostly because I joined a book club last minute a few days before the meeting, so I was attempting to read the 500 page book before that happened Thursday night (I didn't make it, by the way, in case anyone was wondering.  But I tried. :)

All the main stitching on Teton Santa has been done:

And all I have left for stitches on Victorian Tree is to finish filling in the red background.  Sheesh, I never knew background could be so tedious!

So after that's done, it's onto beading, beading, beading (and a little backstitch) for my 6 Mill Hill projects.

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 5 (Final Week)

It's weird to be at the last week of MMMM. First of all, like, where did October go? And secondly, I feel like I just got the hang of doing this mini thing.  Yes, there is technically 1 more day in October, and there's a possibility I might get more done between now and then, but just in case, I figured I better post my last official update today just in case. 

I am really, really close to a finish on Teton Santa.  Just his head left to finish.  Well, and then there's the beading of course, but that will be for later. 

Also coming along well on Victorian Tree.  Really need to finish this one soon as it's for an exchange and I need to send it off in a couple weeks.  So I guess the new experience of beading will happen with this one first.  Obviously I didn't finish the beading on my other MH kits yet either, which was one of my goals for this month, but I'm at least happy that I motivated myself to do as much stitching as I did. 

I think I need to resign myself to the fact that I don't stitch as quickly as I think I do.  :)

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 4

So I'm a little later with this than my intended Thursday update but, well, let's just say it's been a really, really rough week.  In fact, if it weren't for stitching during my lunch hour, I would have no progress to show this week whatsoever.  But thankfully I do have some progress, so here we go. 

Teton Santa is moving along.  Got a little more done on his coat and arm.  The areas I have left involve lots of switching of colors, so I imagine progress will slow down on this quite a bit. 

I also started the last of the Mill Hill ornament kits I NEED to get done by this year, Victorian Tree.  I started this shortly before my last update, but hadn't taken a picture of the like 15 stitches I had started at that point. 

The tree on this one is actually being a bit of a challenge, because the three greens are quite mixed up, it's hard for me as a cross country stitcher to get a rhythm going.  I had to break out some markers and mark what stitches I've made, which is unusual for me, especially with a small piece.  But now that the tree is pretty much done, the background will hopefully go much faster.  Going on a road trip on Saturday, so might get some stitching done on the way up if the sun comes up at a decent time, but it will be too dark on the way home to do anything.

Obviously there is only one week left in the SAL, and I still haven't completed the beading on the other ornament kits I have finished the stitching on.  Bother.  But I will get it done in time for Christmas!  I don't have a choice really... 

So once Teton and Victorian are done with stitching, it will be beading, beading, beading, and then backing, cutting, hanging, and sewing.  And then when that's done, I'll either attempt to start on the kits that I didn't have to get done this year (but would be nice to finish) or I'll try to finish the nativity project I have going for a friend.  It kind of fell by the wayside when I realized I might not get it done before Christmas, but if I work really hard on it, I might get it done in time, guess we'll see. 

Mini Mega Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 3

Time for another MMMM update! And since I finally had some free time on my hands this week, with permission from a few of the participants I was able to put together this nifty banner to highlight the SAL.  If you're new to my blog and haven't heard of MMMM yet, click on the banner above to take you to the hosting blog, Pull The Other Thread, for full detail.

Anyway, this is kind of a late post, but better late than never I guess.  I still made it before the week was up at least!  After having a pretty productive week last week, I haven't made too much progress this past week.

I finished the basic cross stitching on Be Merry, now it's just waiting for backstitching and beads:

I also made a bit more progress on Teton Santa's shorts and mittens:

I also picked up Victorian Tree tonight, so that's the last project I'm hoping to finish by the end of the month(ish).  I don't have a picture of that yet since I've only put a few stitches in, but at least I'm on my way.

Be Merry: New Start and Progress Update 10.7.14

Wow, I seem to be posting a lot lately.  Hmmm, don't know if I'll be able to sustain that all throughout this month, or if I'm just lucky on time at the moment.  Also, when you're doing mini projects I find I have to post progress pictures quick, lest they get finished and I have no in-between photos to share.  But in progress pics are cool.  :)

Here's the start of the second-to-last Mill Hill kit I have to get done this year for ornaments for family for Christmas.  I of course have like 13 more kits to do for friends and family period, but I have resigned myself to the fact that if they do not get done this year, that will be okay.

Although this one design is mostly red, for some reason I decided to start with green, so it's not much to look at yet.  Each one of those letters will be checkerboard with beads/not beads, so it's going to be a lot of work on this one I think.

Perhaps a new progress pic for this one to come Thursday in my Mini Mega Month Madness SAL update this week.

Teton Santa: Progress Update 10.6.14

As I mentioned in Saturday's post, I moved back onto Teton Santa for my Sunday conference stitching agenda.  So here's the progress I've made since last time:

Luckily this isn't turning out to be nearly as big as I thought it would be, so I no longer feel a little "iffy" about labeling it a mini for the Mega Mini Month Madness Challenge.  And it's also good that it's working up so fast, although that might change once I'm done with the fairly monochromatic goat and on to the multicolor/multibeaded Santa.  I'll be posting my progress since Sunday later on this week for the challenge.

Hot Stuff: New Start and Progress 10.4.14

So true to my Mega Mini Month Madness Challenge, I dutifully started a new mini project on Wednesday, since it was October 1st.  This one is a kit from Mill Hill called Hot Stuff, and I put down my Quaker project to work on it.

This week is the general conference broadcast for our church, which I love conference weekend because I can usually get a good amount of stitching done while I'm listening to the speakers (I'm not brave enough to stitch in church, but I'll do it when I'm siting at home on my couch).  So although I'd only worked on the piece for about 40 minutes total since Wednesday, I managed to get a good chunk done.  Here's where I'm at after the Saturday morning 2 hour session:

I managed to finish it completely except the beading during the afternoon session, so pictures of that to come later.  Now I'm moving back on to Teton Santa for tomorrow I think, which although it's bigger than this project, I'm still counting as a mini because I will eventually be making it into an ornament.

Teton Santa: Progress Update 9.24.14

So one of the things I'm planning on doing for Christmas this year is to make a Christmas ornament for each of my family members.  I finally picked out a Mill Hill kit for everyone on my list, my close family and extended family.

This one is for my uncle, it's a kit called Teton Santa.  It's done on neutral 14 count perforated paper.  This one is much larger than the other kits, so hopefully that won't look too weird when it's done.

So here's the progress:

Hopefully I'll find time with the busy new work schedule to get more of done soon!