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 1

Hello readers!

We're several days into the Olympics, so I've been working hard on my Stitchlympics and  Summer Olympic Challenge pieces.

Apologies in advance for some of the photos.  For some reason my phone has been taking really bad pictures lately.

Day 1 was the Opening Ceremonies.  The Stitchlympics challenge was to count your stitches while watching the opening ceremonies (or equivalent time).  I happened to DVR the ceremonies (yay for fast forwarding through commercials and the Parade of Nations!) so we actually watched a couple finals from American Ninja Warrior while I stitched on my Disney piece for the Round Robin (BTW, Linda I know you asked for the name of the pattern/designer, I'm trying to find out for you!).  I was able to stitch 213 stitches and finish off Aladdin's hair:

The Stitch Maynia Summer Olympic Challenge was to stitch on something blue (for the blue in the Olympic Rings).  Not a lot of blue available in my Disney project, so after finishing Aladdin's hair I also started a new project I'm calling Welcome Home.  That's where the rest of my 200+stitches came from. This will be a square for World of Charity Stitching:

Not much to look at yet, just some blue highlights.  With only two colors and very minimal backstitch, it should stitch up pretty quick though.

Day 2 of Stitchlympics was a 15 minute stitching "sprint" to see how much you could stitch in 15 minutes.  To maximize my chances I decided I should stitch on a single color block, so I chose to start the orange of Lady's face from the Disney project:

51 stitches after 15 minutes.  Not bad.  :)  The Stitch Maynia challenge for Day 2 was to stitch on something with an international theme.  I only had about 15 minutes to stitch on Saturday because we had company over so I decided to fudge and also count the Disney project for that one as well.  Hey, the characters are from international locations, right?

Day 3 of Stitchlympics was a 3 hour stitching marathon.  I pulled out the Disney project again and finished up Lady and started on Ariel's hair:

There's a lot of hair!  The other challenge for this day was to stitch on something with yellow (again for olympic rings).  Sadly I failed at this one.  I just didn't feel like pulling out any other projects because I wanted to focus on the Disney piece.  Oh well, I did stitch orange on Lady; that's in the yellow family, right?

Day 4 of Stitchlympics was another "sprint" stitch, this time a 30 minute sprint "relay".  I managed 101 stitches on Ariel and almost finished her in my 30 minutes:

The Maynia challenge for Day 4 was to stitch something with water in it, so I stretched a bit again and figured my Ariel mermaid counted for a water challenge.  So after the 30 minutes was up for Stitchlympics I finished up the last little bits of Ariel and completed her:

Since I was so close to finishing my part of this piece completely, I decided to spend a few extra minutes for the single stitches I'd been kind of leaving until the last minute (eyebrows, cheeks, etc).  Would you believe it took about 30 minutes to put in about 20 stitches?  Gah, I hate changing colors.  But it made a difference.  Here's what my part looked like when all finished:

Day 5 was yesterday which was left handed stitching for Stitchlympics and a piece with black in it for Stitch Maynia.  Sadly I had a flare up of pain in my left elbow which made stitching difficult, so I don't have any progress to report for that.  So my brother and I and a friend went to see Suicide Squad instead.  :)  But it's feeling a bit better today, so I'm hopefully I'll have something to share for Day 6.

Here's wishing you all lots of stitchy progress!  I plan on making much more as I keep watching over the next couple weeks.