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. 

Progress Update: Crazy January Challenge Days 9-10

Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Mine was actually pretty busy since we spent most of it trying to my brother up and ready for his move to Orlando for his "summer" break for the next three-ish months.   But I still kept up with at least a little stitching for my January challenge, so here's what I worked on. 

Friday night I was feeling pretty dead because we'd had a pretty rough week at work, so I decided rather than go allllllll the way across the room to my work bag and pull out Fa La La, I would just pick up Swirly Lollipop and do a few stitches.  Managed to put a stripe and a half in so now it looks like this:

I had a bit of a mini heart attack moment where I thought I had centered it wrong on the fabric, but after 30 minutes of counting and measuring and recounting I think it's actually okay.  I'm liking the way it's turning out so far. 

Saturday night I decided to pull open the latest sampler round project I had just gotten in the mail.  It's Garden Stars by Ink Circles which if you haven't seen it before, is an absolute HUGE project featuring all sorts of mandala type motifs.  I don't think I correctly internalized just how big this project was when I looked at pictures of it online at the beginning of the of round robin.  I got a nice chunk of the mandala motif I'll be finishing for this round one, I think maybe about 1/6 of the way done?

The colors got bleached out a bit in the picture, but there's all sorts of green used.  The motif I'm working on isn't my favorite green color, but it's interesting to see how it fits in with those around it. 

Sunday (yesterday) I figured perhaps it was time to mix it up a bit since so far I've worked almost exclusively on new starts.  I decided to pull out a WIP project instead, and pulled out one of my oldest, Silent Night by Mill Hill.  This is going to be a gift for a family friend who collects nativities, and originally it was supposed to be given as a Christmas present two years ago, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to work on it lately.  Not sure why since I really enjoyed it through the first 1/2 or so, but I've been bogged down on the top and haven't gotten much progress on it in almost 2 years. 

So I pulled out Silent Night while catching up on Downton Abbey last night and went from this:

To this:

Not much progress, but at least the top is starting to look like something a little more now.  The light bleached out the colors a bit on this picture, they're closer to life in the top picture.  I did get to stitch with my Christmas Ott light, so that was exciting!

Tonight will probably be another WIP project, since I just am not sure I'm in the mood for something new again.  Guess we'll see what tonight brings after work. 

Progress Update: Crazy January Challenge Days 6-8

Time to share another update of my projects from the Crazy January Challenge.  You know how I said I was on a snowman pattern kick earlier?  Well, here's why...

After the 5th, I moved on from the "sweetie squares" to the "snowmen squares".  The first is Frosty Snowflake, a Needle Bling Designs pattern from the 2013 Just Cross Stitch ornaments special. 

I managed to get a bit of the brim on the snowman's top hat done.  He's not much to look at right now, that's for sure.  This is another WOCS piece, and they specifically asked for designs that were done on other colors of aida to offset the white of the snowman patterns.  I ended up sourcing two pieces of moss green aida, so that's what I'm stitching this and my other snowman square on.  The color really kind of bled out in this picture, but this next photo shows it more at it's actual color. 

Day 6 is also done on green aida and is a pattern from the (now gone) US magazine The Cross Stitcher (not to be confused with the UK publication CrossStitcher magazine which is still in print as of this post).  Anyway, my working copy unfortunately doesn't list the designer or the title of the pattern and since I don't know exactly where in the black hole that is my stitching magazine stash right now the original magazine is, I'm calling it Let it Snowman. 

Doesn't look like much yet either.  Just mostly a white blob. 

Which brings me to the last project start before my internet-less (and thus update-less weekend). Today's start was also a snowman.  This is a freebie chart from Plum Pudding Needleworks called Fa La La:

Although I got a decent start on his head at lunch today, without some of the facial details you can't see it much against the natural aida yet.  I'm hoping he will stand out better as his face and hat are added.  This is my selection for the 2016 Christmas Ornie SAL, since January's theme is music. 

In other stitching news, I finished up my part of the latest sampler round robin project:

So that's off in the mail.  I got the next round yesterday but I haven't had a chance to open it yet so I don't know what it is yet.  But I expect that will show up in my crazy challenge later on in the month (maybe even this weekend). 

Progress Update: Crazy January Challenge Days 1-5

Now that I've finished up wrapping up 2015, it's time to look forward to 2016.  Looking back through my blog archives, apparently my first Crazy January Challenge post last year was also Days 1-5, so I suppose that's appropriate!

For any of you who haven't heard of the Crazy January Challenge before, the idea is to start 15 new projects in the first 15 days of January.  Over the years it has evolved to different iterations, one of which is to start a new project for each day of January (so 31 projects).  Now, I have way to many WIPs to do 31 new projects (okay, I could do it if I really wanted to) so I do a combination of new starts and new projects throughout January instead.

And with that explanation over, here's a peek at what I've been working on.  My projects haven't gotten a huge amount of progress, mostly because I think I may have overdone things a little over the Christmas holiday, and I'm feeling a little flareup in my carpal tunnel and what might be tendinitis/tennis elbow.  So I'm trying to take things easy on the stitching front in general.

For New Years Day (Jan 1) I got started on the latest round of the Sampler Round Robin project I'm doing with my Facebook group.  This is the start of my part of Blue Ribbon Designs Little Quakeresque:

It is 1 over 2 threads done in an overdyed 3 color thread.  I like how it's turning out so far, but the project owner requested we not work in rows so the motifs ended up "striped" so it takes a bit more concentration.

January 2nd I decided it was time for something more "new years"-y so I started New Years Magic.  It's a freebie pattern by Brooke's Books.  I got one of the fairy's arms done and the start of the highlights on her face and neck.

I've never done a New Year's design before, mostly because I don't really decorate for that holiday, but Brooke's designs really appeal to me lately and the pink and purple of this really called to me for some reason.  I think I will leave off the year as it is in the original design and just leave it generic to take out for every year. 

January 3rd was a Sunday, which tend to be either really good or really slow stitching days for me.  My brother ended up being sick so I didn't get much done on this start either.  This is the start of Swirly Lollipop, a design from Daily Cross Stitch.com.  This will be going to World of Charity Stitching for a "sweet" themed quilt they are putting together.

I got two of the bottom stripes done, so hopefully this will work up pretty quickly.  It's going to be very colorful when it's done, that's for sure!

January 4th was Monday and so that meant back to work, which meant a lot of my stitching was confined to my lunch break at work.  This start is another WOCS project for the sweet quilt (as long as I get it down in time).  This is Chocolate Box by Little House Needleworks.  I thought for sure I could at least get one of the 9 chocolates completely done, but as you can see, that didn't quite happen.

With a name like Chocolate Box, you KNOW there's going to be a ton of brown in this.  So it was nice to start with one of the more decorated chocolates in the pattern as the center block.
 
Day 5 was the last of what I'm calling the "sweetie square" starts.  This is Sweets for the Sweet by Sue Hillis.  Kind of weird for me to start with "backstitch" first, but since that was the center of this pattern and I'm not doing any sort of gridding for this one, starting with words it is.  Anyone know what the pattern name refers to?  The English major in me is pretty tickled by it. 

 This is going to be pretty monochromatic until I reach the chocolate box on the lower right corner.  Which probably a good thing since I'm actually out of a few of the colors I need for that part.  Speaking of which, do you ever feel like you must have the entire DMC library by now but when you go to pull colors for a design there's always at least 1 you're out of?  Or is that just me? 

So that catches me up to today.  Guess we'll have to wait and see what the future holds when I get home and see what speaks to me for Day 6. 

In addition to the new starts, I've also been making slow progress on the sampler round robin project from Day 1, since that needs to be mailed soon.  Here's how it looks now:

Back with more updates soon!

Christmas Debrief

Hello fellow stitchers! 

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday break.  I pretty much collapsed after my pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and have been pretty quiet for the most part, although now we are into January I am officially smack dab in the middle of the Crazy January Challenge.  But before I start sharing my January projects, I figured it would be a good idea to officially wrap up 2015 since I never got around to actually posting anything the past two weeks.  (I did think about it, just never actually DID it....)

Warning in advance, this post will probably get long and picture heavy.

The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with my mom and brother at least.  Dad and Grandma still need to get theirs, so I don't know that reaction yet.  Here's what Love Potions ended up looking like (gifted to Mom):

I told her they were "lotion and potion" bottles since my mother makes her own lotions.  It's a bit of an inside joke in our family.  My cousin thought they were old-fashioned light bulbs up until right before I finished the project (since he was privy to the crafting process). 

My Americana-obsessed brother was very happy with Stars and Stripes, despite my worry that it was a little too small. 

Cookies for Santa for my dad turned out great, and I think this is my favorite Mill Hill of the year (although love potions is a close second because it used many of my favorite colors).  There's just something about this that is so festive. 

And my last Christmas finish was Floral Watering Can for my grandma.  I was really excited to see this one come out as part of Mill Hill's spring release last year, but yikes was it a more complicated pattern than I realized!  Never again will I leave a project like this to the last minute (if I can help it). 

I mentioned in a previous post that I made made (non-stitchy) ornaments for my coworkers, here's how my flurry of snowmen turned out:

Does anyone know if there's an official term for a group of snowmen?  If not, I think a flurry of snowmen should be made official.  These are two pieces of felt blanket stitched together by my wonderful long suffering mother on her sewing machine, with hand tied ribbon scarves and acrylic painted faces by me.  Each snowman also has two buttons, taken from my great-grandmother's vintage button collection.  My mom agreed to part with a few of the buttons from her grandmother's collection, and I think it gives these an extra special touch.  My coworkers loved the ornaments, and some even more so after I told them about the buttons. 

So that is what I gave for Christmas.  Here's what I got. 

My exchange partner apparently had to replace my ornament because the original was damaged by the post office (grrrrr!) but on Christmas Eve I got the most adorable snowman ornament in the mail:

Perfect actually because we didn't decorate until Christmas Eve this year.  I'm not sure who the designer is, but maybe Bent Creek or The Trilogy?  I don't know why, but lately I just adore snowmen so much, so this was a perfect little gift for me.  I think it's my favorite of all the exchange pieces I've gotten this past year. 

I also got my first scroll frame to try out, and a little traveling Ott Light from my mom, both were a huge surprise and I'm super excited to use them.  Then from my cousin I got a large full size floor stand Ott light, which I never expected to get because they are very expensive.  I'm super excited to use it, although it's been set up, I haven't had a chance to use it yet because I haven't found the perfect spot (near an outlet) to set it yet.  Perhaps when we get around to taking down the tree. 

Another cousin gave me this Disney Classic Cross Stitch kit that (I think) is a Barnes & Noble exclusive because she knows how much I like Disney.  Honestly, some of the patterns in here look a little weird to me, probably because they are mostly based on whole stitch/pixel artwork, but I am really excited about the Sleeping Beauty Castle pattern from Disneyland. 

 
That pretty much wraps up Christmas.  So going wrap up for the rest of the year?  Well, since this post is getting quite long, I think I'll save that for another post for tomorrow.

Almost there!

We're in the final countdown to Christmas; are you ready?

I was able to get some progress done on my ornaments, although not as much as I wanted.  I need like 4 more days added to my weekend. *sigh*  In the end, I decided that my final to "maybe" projects that I was hoping to get done before Christmas will absolutely not get finished before the holiday.  So I've decided to save those two for next year and find an alternative small present to send to my aunt and uncle. 

I did finish-finish up my Holiday Stamp project, so that was ready in time to be sent off to my exchange partner:

So that left me free to focus on starting what will now be the last gift stitching project for the year.  This is Floral Watering Can by Mill Hill. 
 

I will be finishing it up as an ornament as a present for my paternal grandmother who loves gardening and flowers.  When we were younger and her garden was much bigger every trip my brother and I would tail her around the garden in the morning helping her water the plants with her beat up green plastic watering can.  I had a babysitting job Saturday night so I made some decent progress on this start after the kids went to sleep for the night. 

I was able to finishing the beading on Love Potions and attach the backing paper and bead hanger in preparation for it's "finish-finishing".  Now I just have to cut it out. 

I decided not to do the bead swags that were charted because I didn't really like them and didn't think they added much to the design, but I think they look oka without it.  Luckily the heart treasure covered up the giant green space left when I took out the "No 9" as charted, so overall I'm liking how it looks. 

I also finished the same steps on Stars and Stripes.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  The beading totally makes this one.  I made a few boo boos on the placement of blue and yellow in the lower left corner of the star that I had to improvise a bit to fix, but hopefully it doesn't look too bad. 

If there's one thing I'm disappointed in with this one it is that it is rather small, even for a Mill Hill kit.  It was originally intended to be a pin, so I guess that's why.  But I think the recipient will hopefully not mind the smaller size.  This was my favorite of the Americana kits I could find, and he is very patriotic.  I just need to cut this one out and it will be done as well.


All of the stitching and backstitching has been done on Cookies for Santa.  I'm a little disappointed that the photo washed out the light green "sprinkles" stitching on the white star cookie, but I'm hoping once the beads are on it will stand out more.  Next up for this one is adding previously mentioned beads and then cutting and backing and hanging. 

This weekend I also made some progress on the 11 fleece blankets I'm tying for gifts this year.  Which leaves me with a pillowcase, an apron, two batches of soap, two batches of lotion, and 13 felt snowman ornaments to finish before 7 days are up.  But this weekend I also completed 2 sewing projects that I can't show yet in the very chance case the recipient reads this blog.  I was extremely proud of myself since I have extremely rudimentary skills and my mom is such a good seamstress I always feel embarrassed asking for help because my sewing always looks childish at best. 

Anyway, I'm very proud of this project, which will be extremely useful (I hope) once the cold weather hits full force.  We haven't had more than a half dozen nights or so that have been cold here in Mississippi yet, but since this is only my second winter here I'm not sure what's typical yet. 

Funny side note about cold in Mississippi and cats:

Last winter Brownie took to "burrowing", which is what I called it when he wanted under the covers with me so he could snuggle up closer to my body warmth.  I tend to "cocoon" myself when sleeping in the winter and seal myself up so no cold air can reach my body, but when Brownie burrowed in, I would usually leave the end of the blanket by my face untucked so he could crawl out when he was done with being under the blankets. 

Well, last night I was woken up by him pawing and nipping at my hand... which was wrapped in my blankets.  Apparently he either burrowed in while I was sleeping or I let him in and didn't remember it at all during the night.  It took my sleep deprived brain about 5 minutes to realize he was trying to get my attention because he was trapped under the blankets. 

Christmas Countdown Progress Update

Most of my time these days is spent frantically trying to finish as many Christmas presents as possible before the looming deadline.  Which of course means that my Mill Hill stitching has been coming along.  So here's a quick look at my most recent updates. 

First off, I finished Holiday Stamp for my partner exchange:

I'll be finish-finishing it hopefully this weekend.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out; the petite seed beads are perfect for the scale of it.  I think the regular size Mill HIll beads would dwarf the design too much, but they fit perfectly here.

I also got the stitching all done on Love Potions:

I left the "No. 9" off the green bottle on the right, so I'm hoping it won't stick out because it's the one with the least amount of beading.  This will be hopefully be beaded by the end of the weekend, along with Stars and Stripes which I showed in my last update. 

I've also gotten quite far on Cookies for Santa now:

No longer just a green blob in the middle.  Just a bit more white to go, then backstitching and beading next for this one, again hopefully done by Monday.  Notice a pattern?  Then it's just 3 more kits to start and finish by the end of next week and *phew*, the Christmas stitching will be D. O. N. E., done.

Of course, then there are about 17 other projects I need to finish before the holiday that aren't stitching.  *sigh*