Progress Update: Christmas Gifts and Crazy January Challenge Days 1-5 (Long and Picture Heavy)

I was finally able to remember to take pictures last night of what I've been doing, so it's time to post a few updates, mostly for the Crazy January challenge.

First off were the Mill Hill kits I was finishing up for Christmas presents for my aunt and her family.  I did manage to finish them a few days before Christmas, so that was good.  So Tropical Kitty, Provence Rooster, Hot Stuff, Be Merry, and Teton Santa have been moved to my 2014 finishes page. 

The bad news about that is that I completely forgot to take pictures of them before I gave them for Christmas.  Oops!  Luckily 3 of them were still on the tree when I went over to my aunt's for New Year's Eve, so I managed to grab a picture of those ones.

I already posted a finish picture for Tropical Kitty, but here it is hanging among the branches and lights:

And Teton Santa (so much beading, but turned out pretty good):

And Hot Stuff, pretty much the easiest project of the 5:

I am still trying to get pics for Be Merry and Provence Rooster, but for now you'll just have to use your imagination. 

So that updates me up until the end of the year.  Well, then starting January 1st, I started on my Crazy January Challenge, which is to start/work on 31 different projects, one for each day in January.  Unfortunately, my plans I originally posted about have already changed, since I've had a couple projects I thought I would get done after above ornaments and before the end of the year.  Needless to say they didn't get done as planned, so now I'm shuffling my Crazy projects a bit.  But that's okay, I'm just going to spill over into February a bit (haha).

So onto my daily updates, since the lack of internet access has put me behind on reporting a bit.

For January 1st, I spent the morning making a big breakfast for my cousin and my brother, and then we went to go see Into the Woods in theaters (which I highly recommend, by the way).  Then the afternoon was spent preparing for a date (yay!) so needless to say, I didn't get home until 10:00 and I didn't get much stitching done.  Since it was the start of the year, I decided to pull out my January start for the 2015 Flower of the Month SAL I'm hosting this year.  Since it was so late, I only got a bit done:

And by a bit I mean like 7 stitches.  But hey, I finished one color block, so there you go.  I plan on picking this one up again before the month is over.  

January 2nd was the first of the imposing projects I mentioned. I needed to finish my mitten squares I am stitching for World of Charity Stitching.  I started with Leopard Print Mitten, since that's the one I had started already.  This one was a WIP, so this is where I started:

And after several good hours of stitching, I was able to scrape out a finish:

My first finish of 2015!  It is VERY unusual for me to have something done so early, even if it's something small.  But oh well, it's a finish.  So happy dance anyway.  So Leopard Print Mitten has been moved to my brand new 2015 finishes page. 

January 3rd I spent most of the day trying to unpack boxes, and we also had a massive rainstorm/tornado watch that meant we spent several hours sheltering/trying to entertain our sister missionaries.  So my stitching plans kind of went out the window.  But I did manage to start Giraffe Print Mitten, which is the second of my mitten squares for World of Charity Stitching:

Doesn't look like much so far, but hopefully I'll get a good chance to work on it this week and finish it off. 

January 4th was Sunday, and my brother's family birthday party, so again a short stitching day.  Also, it was the season premiere of Galavant, which I enjoyed immensely, but didn't get much stitching on during it.  But I did get one ring done in my Rainbow Mandala square.  This is a freebie pattern that I'm changing the colors on, also a project for World of Charity Stitching (notice a theme going on)?

January 5th, yesterday, was a start on Frosted Pumpkin's 12 Days of Christmas pattern.  I'm doing a Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin through a group on Facebook, and this is my pattern I'm sending out.  I'm doing the border of the piece before it leaves, and each member of the group will complete a different square from the pattern until it eventually makes it way back to me.  So I got a good start on the border, which hopefully I can finish tonight really quick. 

Don't know what will be for tonight's stitch, other than there probably won't be a ton of progress made on it.  Mostly because I need to finish the above border and mitten (not to mention the Rainbow Mandala) soonish, so those will take precedence over anything new.  So my new start may look like the January Carnations one up there.  Only like 7 stitches.  But I am determined to start something at least!

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!

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 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.

Mega Mini Month Madness SAL Progress: Week 2

It's time for Mega Mini Month Madness update #2.  I think I will change my update day from Wednesday to Thursday, since I realized yesterday that Wednesday are my long days... and that usually means I don't have time to blog.

Thanks to conference on Saturday and Sunday last week, I had a pretty productive week of stitching.  In fact, it might be the the most productive week I have all month...

So nothing is "finished" yet, but I did finish all of the stitching on Mill Hill's Hot Stuff for my first mini project of the week:

Then I have made quite a bit of progress on Teton Santa, my largest mini for this challenge:

And I have made a little bit more progress on Be Merry:

Unfortunately I have had to frog quite a bit on this one.  :-/  For some reason, I just can't quite seem to count right.  Hopefully I will have better luck next week.  

So for my goals for the month, they have now been updated to:

1. Finish the beading Tropical Kitty, Provence Rooster, and Hot Stuff
2. Finish stitching Teton Santa and Be Merry (then bead thereafter)
3. Start the last project I 100% must get done before Christmas: Victorian Tree

Until next 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.

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!