Long Overdue Update (Picture Heavy)

Well, my last post here was apparently 3 months ago to the day.  Yikes.  I knew it had been a long time but hadn't realized it had been that long.  I've still been stitching over the last few months, but I kind of fell off the bandwagon with my Olympic stitching in my last update, so I just hadn't been coming back on the computer to actually post an update.  So here's a rundown of what I've been working on in the meantime...

First off, I did finish the Believe part of Lizzie Kate's Living with Charm series from the LK Round Robin I was in.  Here's how that one looked when it was finished:

Next up was the last round for the Lizzie Kate RR before getting my own project back.  I stitched the bottom of this pattern from the 3 Little Words series:

I don't know what kind of evenweave this project had, but it was a joy to stitch on.  So thick and creamy, if you can describe fabric that way.  My qsnap loved it too.

So after I sent this one on I got my project back.  Unfortunately my original project got lost somewhere in Canadian customs, by my fellow RR stitchers pitched together to get replacement fabric and threads.  It was a tiny bit disappointing getting it back, just because although the project hadn't been replaced, I couldn't help thinking it wasn't actually my project.  It still has several sections to complete before it's done, but I had to put it away for a bit because it just makes me a little sad to look at right now.

I also got some stitching done on my Etsy Round Robin projects.  The first one after the darling Disney project I showed last time was a block from the Spooky Halloween Sampler by Frosted Pumpkin:

I had actually stitched one block of this already in the Frosted Pumpkin RR I did last year, so it was nice to do a different part of it this time.  I did L is for Lollipop this time.

The next round in the Etsy RR I've actually lost photos of that project somewhere, so I don't have anything to show you.  It was a part of a subversive cross stitch called Welcome to My Hood, I think by Granny Panties?  It honestly wasn't my favorite thing to work on, so I'm actually not too torn up about losing the pictures, haha.

The next round project was another Halloween piece, this one is by Satsuma Street.

I did the two E blocks and the candy corn.  I have to say I've loved the couple of Satsuma Street patterns I've worked on, although this one gave me a bunch of trouble.  I had to frog and restitch the border twice, and the big E on the bottom once.  My scissors definitely got a workout on this one.

That brings me up to my current project for the Etsy RR.  This is my progress so far on Sewing Room by Soda Stitch:

I have to say I've admired Soda Stitch's patterns for a long time and I even have a couple in my stash (2 I think?) but I have never actually done one yet.  I am loving this one so far though. I can tell this is a project where the back stitch will really make a difference though.

In addition to my round robin stitching, I have also stitched quite a bit more on Welcome Home than you last saw it:

Pretty much almost done except the roof and backstitch.  I've put it away for now though because I'm hitting Christmas present panic mode and need to focus on those projects over the next couple weeks.

I also started on a project that I am calling Summer Bouquet, from a Lucie Heaton booklet that came with one of the UK cross stitch magazines.  I got pretty far on it just a couple colors left to fill in:

Unfortunately I had a major accident and spilled applesauce all over this project.  Again, had to put it away for awhile because I can't look at it after that.  I'm pretty sure it will be okay because I just used DMC threads, but I haven't tried to deep clean it yet.

So that's what's been going on around here stitching-wise.  Hopefully it won't be so long before my next update!

Olympic Stitching Part 2

Part 2 of my Olympic Stitching hasn't gone quite as well as part 1, but here is what I managed to do.  You can see my progress of Part 1 here.

Day Six
Stitchlympics: New Start Marathon
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with specialty stitches

I had planned and planned and planned for the new start marathon event of Stitchlympics, but I didn't realize that it was on a weekday instead of a weekend.  Shucks.  Going to work really puts a dent in my stitching time, LOL.  In order to count as a new start, you had to put in at least 50 stitches.  I only managed two projects in the time I had after work.  The start of a Margaret Sherry Christmas card:

And the beginning of my next Lizzie Kate Round Robin piece (Believe from Living with Charm series):

I also put a few stitches into a 3rd project, but didn't quite manage 50 stitches before I crashed and had to go to bed.  This was also what I was going to count as my specialty stitches (the piece had Smyrna crosses), but since I didn't get that far, I got a nil on the Maynia challenge.  Forgot to take a picture of what I did manage to do, so I'll have to share that one later.


Day Seven
Stitchlympics: Specialty stitches
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with green in it

Didn't do any stitching this day.  :(


Day Eight
Stitchlympics: Wind bobbins for 10 minutes
Summer Olympic Challenge: Triathlon, stitch on 3 pieces

I don't usually use bobbins to store my floss at the moment, so I was out for this challenge.  And this day was also a non-stitching day (had a date instead).


Day Nine
Stitchlympics: Go For Gold: Stitch with something sparkly
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with red in it

This was Saturday, so I finally got some progress to report!  For the sparkle challenge, I pulled out the materials to start Brooke's Books Annie the Autumn Witch, and started on her hat brim because it's all Kreinik #8 braid.  It was my first time working with a Kreinik braid and it went much easier than I thought it would!  I managed to get the whole hat brim done:

I wish you could see it in person, the color is actually a combo of orange, purple, and black that's so nice and Halloween-y and it doesn't come out in the picture at all.

I also started a ladybug design that is a Durene Jones freebie called Love Bug for my red piece.  Don't know what I'll do with this when it's finished yet.

The red was the only color I could find in my stash on short notice (the rest are likely all kitted up with something else, so I just did a good chunk of the red outline around the ladybug's spots).


Day Ten
Stitchlympics: Stitch with beads
Summer Olympic Challenge: A piece with animals in it (especially horses if possible)

I had planned on pulling out a Mill Hill project for beading day, but by the time it actually rolled around I didn't have any that were ready for beads yet.  So I decided to focus on my Lizzie Kate project instead while watching a movie:

After the movie was over, I didn't really feel like switching projects, so I compromised on the animal piece by stitching while watching The Incredible Dr. Pol, which at least is a show full of animals.  Got almost done with the word "believe" before I stopped for the night.

So that brings me up to tonight.  We have company coming off so I'm fairly certain I won't be meeting tonight's challenges.  But we'll have to see.

How is everyone else's stitching go?

Stitchy Progress and New Stitching Challenge

Well, we made it through Mom's knee surgery and she came through okay, so hopefully things will be settling down soon.  In the meantime, I made progress on the next Lizzie Kate Round Robin piece.  This was the letters S and T from the ABCs of Aging Artfully:

I had to break it up into two pictures since the S was at the end of one line and the T on the beginning of another.  Actually, I was scheduled to stitch a little more than just these two letters, but since last month's Etsy RR piece (the sugar skull) took so much time, I ran out of time to finish my section of these completely.  Oh well!

My next up piece was the second round of the Etsy rotation, and I have to say this is a project I love.  It's Disney, so what can I say?  I've done Chicken Little, most of Aladdin (he's missing his hair), and started on Lady from Lady and the Tramp so far:

This is the piece that kept me from going crazy while waiting out the surgery in the hospital.  Just need to finish up those three then stitch Ariel and it will be onto a new home.  I'm not sure I like the red color of Lady's ears.  I always thought of them as more of a reddish brown, but in real life they really are like a dark red.  Other than that, this has been super fun to work on.  Funny story, I almost picked this same pattern as my Etsy piece for this round robin, so there's a good chance I will cave and purchase it later and you will see it again sometime.

So as you can see, most of my stitching so far this year has been round robin stuff.  I haven't really done much personal stitching since January.  Frankly, I've lost my stitchy bug a bit, and the only thing that's keeping me going some months is that the RR pieces are mandatory stitching (for lack of a better word).  Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy doing (most of) them, but the motivation comes more from a sense of obligation than anything else.  I find I love planning and picking projects, but I don't have a lot of finishes lately.  I have a bad case of start-itis for sure.

So I decided a stitching challenge might be what I need to get me out of the slump.  And being the crazy person that I am, I found two.  As you probably know, tomorrow is the start of the Summer 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.  The Olympics are one of the few sports I actually enjoy watching, so I look forward to them every couple years.  So when I found two Olympic challenges on Facebook, I knew it would be perfect.

The first is Stitchlympics hosted by the Cross Stitch It's Fun! Facebook group, and the second is the Summer Olympic Challenge hosted by the Stitch Maynia Facebook group.  Both groups have an individual stitching challenge for each day of the competition.  I'm going to try and combine daily challenges wherever possible.  Stitchlympics is a team competition, so hopefully I will do well and help bring my team to victory!

So along with wanting to stitch along with the challenges I'm going to try and keep up my blogging progress every few days as this goes along.  Wish me luck!  Tomorrow (the opening ceremonies) the challenge is to stitch for at least two hours, and for Stitch Maynia, to stitch on something blue.  I think I can come up with something that meets both of those.

A Long Overdue Update

Hello readers!  I hope you haven't all given up on me, LOL.  It's past time for a new stitching update from me, but I just have been so busy with work and personal issues over the past few weeks I haven't really found the time to blog much.

As I reported in my last post, I had some major carpal tunnel like flare ups in my wrists at the end of January the derailed my Crazy January plans.  I had hoped to pick it back up in February, but that didn't happen.  By the time I was feeling better enough to stitch, I had to get some projects for my round robins done, and well, there you go.  Best laid plans.  Hopefully next year's challenge will go better!

I did consider doing a new project a day type challenge in either April or May but I think at this point I don't think I will do that.  I really, really want to finish the stockings for myself and my family for Christmas this year, and if I want to get through all that, I'm really going to have to crack down to have them finished in time.

So since early February although I haven't been blogging, I have been stitching.  Thus I have A LOT of updates to share with you.

First of all, last check in I was working on Sweets to the Sweet for WOCS.  Well, that one was finished:

It was done on 14 count white aida with charted DMC threads.  Didn't make any changes on this one except I didn't attach the charm that came with the pattern.  I really like this one, and might do it again, but will probably do it in different colors because by the end I was really sick of that shade of red.

After that, it was time to finish up the motif I was working on in Ink Circle's Garden of Stars for the Sampler Round Robin I'm in:

The only thing I didn't like about working on this one was that I only got to work in one color.  Seriously though, the size of this project is MASSIVE.  I had no idea from looking at the model photo.  Even if you stitched it 1 over 1 I'm sure it would still be huge.  The linen on this project was a little fiddly too, which was a little frustrating (had to frog a few things).  Over the past year or so I've been doing round robins, I've really become comfortable with stitching over 2 now, but I have to say I think I prefer evenweave over linen because I just don't like the variances in thread thickness or the transparent quality that linen has in many cases. 

But, moving on.  I also finished up the next square for the WOCS "sweets" theme.  This is Chocolate Box by Little House Needleworks:

For various reasons, including time and convenience, I did this one much different than charted.  The original has a 2 part border surrounding the chocolates, complete with beads.  Since the deadline on this one was coming up, I decided to only do the chocolates themselves and I left off most of the lazy daisy, french knot, and backstitching embellishments.  This is also on 14 count white aida, and I used the DMC floss conversions in the chart.

The first project in my Lizzie Kate round robin came to me, so I finished up my section of that one.  I forget the name of it at the moment.

Overall it was a pretty quick stitch and nicely cheerful.  It was weird to completely start a new project for someone though, LOL.  Usually the project owner does a bit before they send it out into the world for the RR's I've participated in before. 

My section for February for the sampler round robin was also a really quick stitch:

This is part of Country Cottage Needleworks Snow Sampler, and surprisingly I actually got this done in all one night which is unusual for me.  I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the whole thing before sending it on though.

So that's it for the finishes, which brings me to my current stitching.  First up is the next project in my Lizzie Kate Round Robin:

I'm doing the February Block of the Monthly Stamps Flip-It series.  The floss colors were a bit modified by the project owner, but I think it will still be very pretty when finished.  I'm actually a little farther along on it than this, but I haven't taken a new picture lately.

My work project is another WOCS square, this one for the Snowman theme.  Here's what Let it Snowman looks like lately:

He's much father progressed than the white blog I shared after his start during January.  I'm pleased with the way he's turning out, but I'm thinking I will skip a lot of the fussy backstitching on this one.  I just don't think he needs it really. I'm hoping to have him finished and on his way soon!

Progress Update: Crazy January Challenge Days 11-14

Despite my best intentions, this is the first opportunity I've had to come on and do a Crazy January Challenge update since Monday.  Somehow I find myself getting sick (again!) and combined with a very busy week at work again, it's really slowed me down.  Bleh. 

But enough complaining.  Let's talk about funner things.  Here's a recap of what my challenge progress is.

January 11th, Monday, I did decide to pull out another WIP project rather than start something new.  I decided it was time to work a little bit of Sunshine by Satsuma Street, since it hadn't seen any love for awhile and is actually pretty close to being finished.  So I pulled it out and took it from here:

To here:

Not too much left to go on this one, so I should be able to wrap this one up pretty quickly soon, although maybe after January and the challenge is over. 

Tuesday night I started a new project.  This is Lizzie Kate's Autumn Alphabet, which I sent out this week as the start of a new Lizzie Kate round robin that my Facebook group is doing.  That's right, I'm pretty much crazy because I signed up for another round robin at the same time.   This one was hard for me to miss though, because I absolutely love Lizzie Kate designs. 

I stitched the middle "M" block on my project so my fellow stitchers have a base point to start their stitching from.  Here's what it looked like when I sent it off:

I'm super excited about this project because it's the first Lizzie Kate chart that I've splurged for the charted Weeks Dye Works and Crescent Colors overdyed threads.  Although you can't really tell with this block because the orange is the one color of DMC in the pattern and the very slight variation in the dark brown hasn't shown up in the small amount of stitching for this letter.  I can't wait to see how it turns out as a whole though.  I plan on doing all 4 in this alphabet series eventually. 

Wednesday I decided that after all the Mill Hill kits I did in December, I was really kind of missing doing the little Mill Hill kits.  So I pulled out Kitty's Stocking and managed to put in one more stripe of color, taking it from this progress last year:

To this:

Not much progress, but hey, progress is progress, right?  I was still in a Mill Hill mood the next night, so Triple Scoop got a little love to take it from where I left it last year:

To this:

Again, not much progress, and in posting this now I see a mistake I need to go back and fix.  But most of my challenge stitching this week was done on lunch breaks, since I've been working on other things during the evening.  Swirly Lollipop has got almost all of its stripes now:

Just the green stripes, white, and the stick to fill in.  I also made a dent in my chosen mandala motif of the Ink Circles piece I'm doing for the sampler round robin for January. 

So that's coming along too.  So what's my plans for the weekend?  Well, I haven't picked my project for today yet, so we'll see what calls to me tonight when I settle in for my nightly stitching session.  Other than that, I want to organize the rest of my potential crazy project pieces and choose which ones I will most likely stitch on during the rest of the month.  Oh, and rest.  Lots of resting.  This getting sick thing is no fun, I tell ya.  : (   Good thing we have a 3 day weekend which gives me more time to recuperate. 

A to Z Challenge: R is for Rules

Today is Day 18 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge.  If you are new to the blog and haven't heard of this challenge before, the basic idea is to blog (almost) every day in April, taking one day for each letter of the alphabet. Since I have a cross stitch blog, I am blogging about cross stitch patterns in my stash and on my wish list for this month of April.

R is for Rules

Today is a pure wish list post, and as such is rather long.  You've been warned.  

R is for rules, and specifically the Christmas Rules design by Lizzie Kate.  There are actually a series of (six?) charts from her "double flips" series, which means you actually get two charts for the price of one.  I really love all the individual Christmas rules in this series, and I think they look absolutely adorable all stitched together like this.  I think I especially like the "listen for reindeer" rule; there's something so whimsical about it.

And while we're on the subject of Lizzie Kate...

There's also a matching set to this one called Halloween Rules, which I like, but I like this series called Boo Club more.  These are just 1 word Halloween phrases with a cute little picture by them.  Actually, there's a Christmas version of Boo Club too (can't think of the name right now) that I do have in my stash, but the Christmas Rules pattern is still on my wish list.

There's also a series of one word patterns called Living With Charm that I also love.  These patterns were actually my introduction to Lizzie Kate.  One of the cross stitch forums I visit had a member who was stitching them, and stitching them together into one piece, and I just fell in love with the effect as a whole.

Now, I can appreciate single Lizzie Kate patterns too.  I love this one called Cat Lessons for People.  Those of you who are cat lovers will totally understand it.  She's also got one called Kitty String that's nice and simple, but I think if I had to choose one cat themed LK pattern, this would be it.

As I mentioned on "A" day in this challenge, I have a weakness for alphabets, and LK has a lot of them.  And although I admire a lot of them, I've really admired seeing this Christmas ABC chart being stitched up by several members during the Crazy Challenge back in January, and it's just kind of grown on me.

Of course, not to be outdone, my love of alphabets is also mirrored by my love of monthly patterns.  So I absolutely adore the Lizzie Kate Year of Blocks Flip Its patterns.  I have about 3 of these now, but someday hope to be able to collect all 12.  I also want to be able to stitch them in the recommend Weeks Dye floss someday, which is normally out of my budget, but I think in the backgrounds on these blocks it really makes such a difference.

So now that I've finished gushing about all things Lizzie Kate, and boring you with another long post, I wish you happy stitching for the rest of the day!

One of the other A to Z blogs I've been reading had the excellent idea of adding links to previous posts at the end of a particular day.  So if you'd like to see my previous A to Z entries:

A is for  Alphabet
B is for Britty Kitty
C is for Carousel
D is for Debbie Mumm
E is for Eat
F is for Frogs
G is for Garden Cat
H is for Hats 
I is for Ice
J is for Joan Elliott 
K is for Kokeshi 
L is for Lesley Teare
M is for Margaret Sherry 
N is for Noah's Ark
O is for Owls
P is for Pumpkins
Q is for Quaker