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!

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. 

Well, I'm Back...

Hey everyone,

So I kind of disappeared for a lot of June, didn't I?  As I mentioned in my last stitching update post, things were a little difficult for me health-wise.  Add to that a crazy stressful month at work, and things have been sparse on the blogging front.  I even missed most of my check-ins for the last month including TUSAL, WIPocalypse, Smalls SAL, and Stitch From Stash.  I'm definitely feeling better from the almost-pneumonia, and although I have some additional health things I'm waiting to sort out, things are doing better than they were, so that's progress.  I'm hoping to get back on top of things this month.

Although I may not have been blogging much, I still have been doing some stitching, so I do have progress to share with you.

I finished my fish pond square and sent it off to Love Quilts in time for the end of the month deadline:

This ended up being a pretty quick and easy stitch.  It was done with charted DMC threads, 2 over 1 on white 14 count Aida.  It is a free pattern from Happy Stitch, which you can find over at that blog.  There's even a matching cat pattern as well. 

Moving right along, there is of course the always progressing Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin project I'm participating in via Facebook.  This month brought the Once Upon A Time sampler to my door.  This one will be interesting because the owner of the pattern actually made quite a few of her own conversions to the originally.  I'm stitching Rapunzel this time around, and here's my progress so far:

Yeah, so I haven't done much yet.  Mostly just the two borders, and then that bit of tree you can see over there on the left.  I'm actually struggling with this fabric.  Most of the other round robin pieces have more or less got me used to stitching on linen/evenweave, but I don't know if it's the color of this particular one or what, but I'm having a very hard time with the over 2.  I've had to pick out a lot of stuff so far.  The color is beautiful though, so I'm loving that. 
 
In other news, Sunshine by Satsuma Street is moving right along.  I almost finished the sun side of the face, but ran out of the yellow, so I moved on to starting some of the rays while I wait for a chance to obtain more of the yellow floss in the meantime. 

It's actually turning out a little smaller than I pictured it, but that's okay.  This will be a square for World of Charity Stitching, so although it's technically "deadline stitching" the due date is pretty flexible, so I'm taking my time and enjoying it. 

Some stitching updates

Well hello everyone.  I've been meaning to post this update all week long and for one reason and another I keep getting distracted.  Things have been a little crazy around here this week.  Monday I finally broke down and went to the doctor for this cough and cold that's been bothering me for almost 2 months now.  Diagnosis: sinus infection and/or bronchitis with the potential to become walking pneumonia.  Yuck.  I was given a steroid shot, (ouch!) an antibiotic, and told to get plenty of rest and drink plenty of fluids.  But mostly I pretty much only have enough energy to get through the work day, so by the time I get home I don't do much. 

I do have a little bit of stitching to show though.  Over the weekend I did manage to finish off my part of the Halloween Sampler for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin.  This is "O is for Owls":

And here's a pic of what it looks like so far before I sent it off again:

This larger view gives you a better idea of the pretty color of this hand dyed fabric, although it's still way washed out when I took this pic on my phone.  This was the third round robin project that I've done over 2 (linen or evenweave) and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it.  Once I was done with that, it was time to start a new project.  This is a Fish Pond pincushion design that I'm doing as a square for LoveQuilts:

Sorry for the wonky lighting, I didn't really have the energy to try and make it look better when I took the picture last night.  It's not going to be a very big design, so I expect to finish it fairly quickly.  Maybe this weekend hopefully, since it needs to be in by the end of the month and I didn't realize how quickly June was getting away from me.

I have Fish Pond on my 11 x 11 Q-snap, so it's a little big for travel, so I have a smaller project I'm working on during lunch.  This is Sunshine by Satsuma Street:

This will be one of those half sun/half moon combined motifs when it's complete, all done in the funky bright colors Satsuma Street patterns are known for.  It's not much to look at now, since I only have part of the off-white of the moon side of the face done so far.