April 2015 WIPocalypse

We've reached another full moon, so it's time for a WIPocalypse check-in, as hosted by Measi.  Actually, the official check in date was Saturday, but since I still don't have internet access on the weekends, I am a little behind on reporting. 

April's question is: Which specialty stitches do you love doing on projects? Which do you dread?

For me, I pretty much dread all specialty stitches.  Most of all, I hate French knots (even though those aren't really a specialty stitch per se).  I can do some specialty stitches, I used the lazy daisy stitch on my Victorian Tree ornament last year, I just don't like the extra fussiness I guess.  And I'm definitely not brave enough to branch out on a pattern with tons of specialty stitches.  Beading is specialty enough for me right now!

Now I suppose I should tally up my progress for WIPocalypse this month.   Looking back at my original WIPocalypse goals, here's where I stand so far:

Goal 1: Keep up with the 2015 Flower of the Month SAL - I did some good progress in March and got caught up with starting.  Now to start April this month. 

Goal 2: Crazy January Challenge, completed.  I have also finished stitching 5 of the 31 projects so far. 

Goal 3: Keep up with the other SALs I've taken on this year.  So far, so good, although I have missed TUSAL a couple times.

Goal 4: Work on my 10 Turtle Trot pieces.  No progress on this last check-in.  And I haven't got much progress so far this month either.  I'm actually thinking about adjusting my TT pieces a bit. 

Goal 5: Finish Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin when it comes back to me later this year - cannot complete yet.  But I've been seeing the progress on my pattern in our Facebook Group, and so far Days 5, 8 and 9 of the 12 days of Christmas are complete.

Goal 6: Other projects to start - none started yet.

And a New Goal 7 (just for April): Finish the A to Z blogging challenge!

My finishes for March the February and March parts of Frosted Pumpkin's Woodland Sampler, (my contribution to Round 2 of the above mentioned Round Robin group), Sparrow on Vine stitched for Love Quilts, and Hoppy Spring stitched for a spring exchange.  I'm not going to post pictures of these finishes again, since long time readers of my blog have already seen them several times this month, but you can click on the links to see them if you wish.

And I have new things to share too!  Although not really a "goal" I did reach a landmark, my first "finished-finish".  I finished up Hoppy Spring as a flat piece, which is my first time ever finishing a small project (beyond a few bookmarks in the past).  I used Vonna's very nice finishing tutorial to help me.  Thanks to the very limited selection of supplies at my local Joann's, I had to really improvise my supplies, but I think it turned out okay despite that.  

 
Here's a picture of the fabric I used for the back:

So what do you think?  Did it turn out okay?

 
I also had a long stitching session this weekend thanks to our church's semi-annual broadcasted conference.  I was able to get done my Round 3 project for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin.  This is the November block of Dessert of the Month Club:

Isn't it cute?  I love the eyelashes.  I had a hard time deciding which  block to do, but in the end my brother helped me choose this one.  No progress pics on this one unfortunately, since it went so quick.

Well, I guess that's it for this (rather long) update post.  Until next month!

Guess What?

Bunny butt!!!!

Okay, see, I promised my brother I would do that.  I've been bugging him all weekend with that as I've worked on Hoppy Spring, which as you can see, I speedily completed over the weekend.  So I didn't finish it in time for it to count for this month's Stitch From Stash, so it will count as my first finish from April instead.

If there's one thing I don't like about this pattern, it's that the flowers at the bottom seem a little off center.  Strangely enough, I realized after I finished the piece that pattern preview had them in a slightly different position in relation to the bunny than the actual pattern. 

The pattern also lists colors for both DMC and Anchor threads, and I thought for sure once I added the darker brown of the bunny's head and the flowers that it was designed with Anchor threads because I didn't think the DMC looked right at all.  But since I didn't want to start over (it's due by the end of the week, and I still need finishing time) I kept going.  It seemed like the darker brown was way too dark and the pink flowers way too bright pink.  In the end, they must have grown on me, because the colors don't bug me any more now that it's done.

This is for a Spring themed exchange I'm participating in through the San-Man Originals message boards.  It's stitched on 14 count white aida using the charted DMC threads.  I started it March 25th and finished it March 29th (which is totally marathon stitching for me). This is a freebie pattern from Tiny Modernist called Easter Bunny, that I slightly modified by stitching "Hoppy Spring" on the bottom instead of Happy Easter.  The pattern can be found about halfway down this page if you'd like to stitch it yourself. 

So now it's onto a new spring design, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  Pictures of that coming soon.  I also made some progress on my EMS flowers for the Flower of the Month SAL I host (finally) so look for pics of those coming when I post the check in tomorrow.

I will also be participating for the first time in the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge next month.  For those of you who haven't heard of it, more information can be found here, but the basic idea is that you write 26 posts in April, one for each letter of the alphabet.  Mine of course will be cross stitch themed, but I haven't really decided how else it will go yet.  I'm not going to worry about being too thematic, since this is my first time participating.  I know of at least two other stitching blogs that are taking part, and they're celebrating by doing a letter of an alphabet pattern a day, which I think is a great idea, but I just have way to much deadline stitching to do at the moment to participate in that.  Bummer.  But look for those posts to start coming in a couple days.  It's going to be like Crazy January all over again with multiple posts per day, haha. 

Speaking of which, my Stitch From Stash update last Friday was my 100th post, can you believe it?  Thank you to all of you who join me and read my crazy thoughts and comment on my posts.  It means a lot.  I try to reciprocate as much as possible, although I am wayyyy behind on reading my blogs, so I haven't been commenting as much as usual lately, and I hope you all forgive me.  

Anyway, more updates coming tomorrow!

Stitch from Stash March 2015

It's time for another 2015-A Stitch From Stash Check In!

Month: March
Spent: $26.75
Earned: $8

March should have been an easy SFS month, since it was my birthday so I shouldn't have needed to buy anything.  Alas, I did make several purchases this month. 

First of all, I had run out/was missing several DMC threads for the next few projects I was planning, and I also needed some 16 count aida for an upcoming Love Quilts project.  So armed with a 20% off entire purchase coupon from Joann's I got what I needed on my birthday, along with some needles (I lost a few on the plane) and some finishing fabric.  Since both needles and finishing fabric are exempt, the total spent was $6.77.  I then had to hop over to Hobby Lobby to pick up the few colors Joann's had been out of, so that was another $2.20.

I've been telling myself to stay away from eBay lately, but I found this really great deal that I couldn't resist.  I've been trying and trying to find a copy of the Joan Elliott calendar that was released with World of Cross Stitching magazine this year.  Most of the ones you see on eBay are the abbreviated 2-chart version that was sold in US stores, and I can't afford shipping from the UK most times.  Well, I lucked out and won an auction that had not only the Joan Elliott charts, but some Margaret Sherry charts from 2012 as well (score!) with UK to US shipping less than $6.  Total spent - $2.78 US for both.  A steal!

My last purchase is where most of my budget went this month.  After posting in my March WIPocalypse update that I was wishing for a copy of Mirabilia's discontinued Lady of the Flag pattern, I had one of my blog readers approach me and offer to sell me her copy for $15.  Since I haven't been able to find it on eBay for cheaper than $20 lately, I took her up on it.  It isn't here yet, but I can't wait to see it.  It will be my first Mirabilia design.

So now I've detailed how I was naughty, time to show off my latest finish.  I did finish two small pieces as part of the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin I'm doing, but since I didn't pay for the pattern or threads/fabric on those projects, I'm not counting those towards earnings for SFS.

But I did finish the project I am calling Sparrow On Vine:

 Ta-da!  It's really finished this time. 

This is for a quilt being made by Love Quilts.  The theme for this quilt was religous sayings, so I took this pattern of a pink bird on a green vine and added the text from a scripture in Matthew.  The bird part of the pattern is a freebie from the French blog Passion Broderie 77 and can be found here if you'd like to stitch it yourself.  This project is done on 14 count plain white aida with DMC threads, was started on January 30th as part of the Crazy January Challenge and I finished it on March 26th.  At approximately 92 x 87 stitches, it earns me $8 this month for SFS.

So that's my update for the month.  Here's where I am now:

Starting balance from February: $5.30
March budget: $25
Finish bonuses: $8   
Total:  $38.30 to spend in March
- Total stash purchases: $26.75

Ending balance: $11.55

Well, at least the ending balance number is going up...

I thought I might have another finish this month, but didn't quite finsih it before I had to get this update up.  This is the start of my latest project, which I'm calling "Hoppy Spring".  It's a bunny looking over his shoulder at some pink tulips.  It's a slightly modified Tiny Modernist design.  Here's the progress so far:

Just a cotton tail (which doesn't show up much) and a bit of bunny right now.  But it's stitching up pretty quick, so I'm hoping I can get it done this weekend.  Hopefully back with a progress update on that Monday!