Here's what I've been doing lately

Well, I suppose I am long overdue for an update.  Work has continued to be crazy and I've been dealing with some health problems in the family, so although I still have been stitching, it has slowed down a bit.  But here's what I've been working on.

First of all, lots of Round Robin stitching.  I finished up the last project in my sampler round robin, which was a couple bands from Just Nan's Queen of the Needle design:

I feel really blessed that I didn't get a part with lots of specialty stitches, because they really intimidate me.  As it was, this was my first time doing eyelets (the yellow center of the purple flowers) and I think they turned out okay.

I also finished up another part in the Lizzie Kate Round robin.  This was the Give Santa Cookies part of the Christmas Rules series:

I just love these patterns, I can't wait to stitch them myself (when I have a chance to pull them out of my stash cupboard).  I thought pink was an odd choice of color for the cookies though.  (shrug)

I also spent quite a bit of the last month working on my first project for the Etsy Round robin I joined.  This one was half of a purple sugar skull:

I have to say, this pattern was one of the reasons I am distrustful of people selling patterns on Etsy.  Pretty much it looked like the graphic was just fed into a cross stitch conversion program.  It really could have used quite a bit of cleaning up (in my opinion) to remove some of the confetti and make the design much more symmetrical.  I was happy when this one was over.  It pretty much drove me crazy.

In addition to the round robin pieces, I have made a bit of progress on a few other things.  Best Friends Share has progressed from a random orange blob to two kitties and the start of a basket:

And more purple has been filled in for Singing Owl.  This pattern has so much fill in!

But at least the stomach is done now.  I had to put this one down for awhile and take a break though.

Next up, I'm working on the next Lizzie Kate RR piece and the next Etsy RR piece.  Also, I really, really need to get started on my planned Christmas gifts for this year if I have any hope of finishing them by the end of the year!

Progress Update: Day 24 & 25 of the Crazy January Challenge

First of all, to all the new readers who have joined me over the past weekend, welcome!

It's back to work on Monday, which means in my break times I now have internet access once again, so it's time for my January Challenge updates from this weekend.  So here's my two starts for the past couple days. 

First of all, I went through my stash of projects I had sat aside for this challenge and had a organizing moment (or two).  Because of some things that have come up over the course of the month, although I am keeping up with the challenge of working on something different every day I am not fully sticking to my original list.  So knowing there were only 8 days left in January at that point, I had to pick/choose what projects were the most important for me.  So I now have the rest of the month planned out.  My WIP projects have been put aside in favor for projects with closer deadlines, and I'm hoping I do get to pick them up again sometime in Februrary.  This is not to say I won't have new starts any longer in February, but I'm going to try and focus on finishing some of these things that have looming deadlines.  Best laid stitching plans and all that...

Anyway, Saturday I started a square I'm doing for Love Quilts.  It's called Silly Ladybug, and will be a (very) big ladybug with heart shaped spots.  I got half of one heart done.  Hoo boy, this is the one I'm worried about getting bored with because it has very large blocks of the same color.

My second piece for the weekend was also a Love Quilts project.  I call this one Singing Owl.  I just got a bit of purple between her eyes done, since I was focusing on the A-Team Mythbusters special we had DVRed from Saturday night.

We had company over both Saturday and Sunday night, so needless to say, the amount of stitching I got done either day wasn't very spectacular.  

I also made a bit of progress on Perfume Bottle and Rainbow Mandala, but sadly forgot to take pictures, so those will have to wait until tomorrow to post.  I really need to knuckle down and finish those, because they are due very soon.

Until tomorrow!