Stitchy Progress and New Stitching Challenge

Well, we made it through Mom's knee surgery and she came through okay, so hopefully things will be settling down soon.  In the meantime, I made progress on the next Lizzie Kate Round Robin piece.  This was the letters S and T from the ABCs of Aging Artfully:

I had to break it up into two pictures since the S was at the end of one line and the T on the beginning of another.  Actually, I was scheduled to stitch a little more than just these two letters, but since last month's Etsy RR piece (the sugar skull) took so much time, I ran out of time to finish my section of these completely.  Oh well!

My next up piece was the second round of the Etsy rotation, and I have to say this is a project I love.  It's Disney, so what can I say?  I've done Chicken Little, most of Aladdin (he's missing his hair), and started on Lady from Lady and the Tramp so far:

This is the piece that kept me from going crazy while waiting out the surgery in the hospital.  Just need to finish up those three then stitch Ariel and it will be onto a new home.  I'm not sure I like the red color of Lady's ears.  I always thought of them as more of a reddish brown, but in real life they really are like a dark red.  Other than that, this has been super fun to work on.  Funny story, I almost picked this same pattern as my Etsy piece for this round robin, so there's a good chance I will cave and purchase it later and you will see it again sometime.

So as you can see, most of my stitching so far this year has been round robin stuff.  I haven't really done much personal stitching since January.  Frankly, I've lost my stitchy bug a bit, and the only thing that's keeping me going some months is that the RR pieces are mandatory stitching (for lack of a better word).  Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy doing (most of) them, but the motivation comes more from a sense of obligation than anything else.  I find I love planning and picking projects, but I don't have a lot of finishes lately.  I have a bad case of start-itis for sure.

So I decided a stitching challenge might be what I need to get me out of the slump.  And being the crazy person that I am, I found two.  As you probably know, tomorrow is the start of the Summer 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.  The Olympics are one of the few sports I actually enjoy watching, so I look forward to them every couple years.  So when I found two Olympic challenges on Facebook, I knew it would be perfect.

The first is Stitchlympics hosted by the Cross Stitch It's Fun! Facebook group, and the second is the Summer Olympic Challenge hosted by the Stitch Maynia Facebook group.  Both groups have an individual stitching challenge for each day of the competition.  I'm going to try and combine daily challenges wherever possible.  Stitchlympics is a team competition, so hopefully I will do well and help bring my team to victory!

So along with wanting to stitch along with the challenges I'm going to try and keep up my blogging progress every few days as this goes along.  Wish me luck!  Tomorrow (the opening ceremonies) the challenge is to stitch for at least two hours, and for Stitch Maynia, to stitch on something blue.  I think I can come up with something that meets both of those.

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!

Calling for Round Robin Participants

I really shouldn't...but I did.

Since the Sampler Round Robin I have been participating in since last September through Facebook is about to wrap up (only one more project!) I decided to join another round robin, this one themed for patterns purchased from Etsy.  We start in June (or maybe July) and guess what?

We need 2 more people.

So yes, I am resorting to begging to see if anyone would be interested in joining us.  I know I've gotten comments on here before from people who were wanting to know how to join a round robin, so here's your chance.

If you've never done a Round Robin before the basic idea is that you pick a project, divide it up into parts (for however many participants you have), kit up your project with fabric, pattern, floss and mail it off to the next person in the round.  The person behind you in the round then mails you their pattern, and you work on a part of their project with the included pattern and supplies.  Then, in the next month you mail off that project to the next person and receive a new project in the mail to work on for the month.  When the round has been completed, you receive back your project completed (or almost complete depending on the size).

It's a great way to try out just a bit of lots of different patterns and projects!  If you're new to the blog and you'd like to see some examples of things I've worked on for the 3 round robins I've done so far, you can search the Frosted Pumpkin, Sampler, and Lizzie Kate round robin tags I have on my blog posts.

As I mentioned above, this particular round I'm recruiting for is for Etsy patterns, which simply means it's a pattern that you purchased from a designer who sells their items through the Etsy website.  So it's a huge open theme with lots of possibilites!  Some of my favorite Etsy designers are Brooke's Books, Satsuma Street, Tiny Modernist, Fiddlesticks AU, Cloudsfactory, DoNaStitch, Fangirl Stitches, Pinoy Stitch (home of the cutest owl patterns ever!) and of course one of my favorite UK magazine designers Durene Jones even has her own Etsy store with exclusive and out of print patterns.  So far for this round I've selected a typography pattern from Plastic Little Covers.  And there's tons more designers out there that I haven't even found yet!

Anyway, if you think you might want to join us, here's a few of the requirements:

1.  You must live in the US or Canada.  This is because it's hard to mail projects across the sea in a timely manner.  If you live in Europe,  they're going to a specific round for you guys too!

2.  You have to check in monthly on Facebook.  Since this is a Facebook based group, you will have to check in using your Facebook account.  That doesn't mean you have to be actively on Facebook all the time, but you will need to record your mailing/receiving in the group.

3.  You must have the time to complete a part of the project every month.  As you can see from my progress updates, this does cut a lot into personal stitching time.  But for me it's totally fun and worth it anyway to try all different sorts of things.

So if you're intrigued and you think you might want to join up, here's the main Facebook group page.  Make sure you read all the requirements in the pinned post at the top, then go to the Etsy event page to sign up for this round specifically.

Hope to see a couple new faces!  And you can of course expect to start seeing new projects here in my updates too.  :)

An Explosion of Stitchy Progress

Well, somehow despite my best intentions I disappeared for a little over a month again. Oops.  Life has been super crazy and I've been working the equivalent of a second job during the weekends, so lately it seems like things like blogging get pushed out of the way.  Luckily though I haven't lost my stitchy bug, so I have A LOT of progress pics to show you. Here's what I've been working since my last overdue post.

It's been awhile since you've seen Mr. Let It Snowman.  Here's what he looked like the last time I took a photo of him:

I've actually gotten a bit farther with this, but I haven't worked on it in quite awhile. I got sick of all the white I guess.

Also, a lot of stitching has been done for my round robin projects lately.  On the sampler front, I finished my section of two rounds.  The first was a couple blocks in Frosted Pumpkins Spring Sampler:

I really do like Frosted Pumpkin's patterns, but for some reason I really struggled with this one and I'm not sure why.  But I got it done in the end, so there you go.

The next sampler round was the bottom-most part of this Strawberry Shortcake Sampler:

My section was the green cake plate and the little plaid stripe underneath it.  This one was a fun pattern, it went pretty fast for me and I ended up ahead in the round robin for the first time ever.

I also have a lot of progress to show for my Lizzie Kate Round Robin projects.  First is the finish of the February stamp that I showed progress in last time:

I wasn't sure how I was going to like the colors on this one together as I was stitching it up, but I decided once it was finished it wasn't too bad.  Those little blank spots in the flowers will eventually be covered up by little purple buttons when the owner gets the project back.

The next project I got in the mail were for Lizzie's Boxer seasonal patterns.  We could choose which part we wanted to stitch and I chose the top half of the winter pattern:

This one stitched up really quick, even with all that blue fill in.  Although I totally miscounted the snowflakes the first time and had to frog them all.  That's what I get for starting it on a road trip I guess.

My most recent Lizzie Kate finish is one of the Boo Club series of patterns.  The frog turned out a little weird because his black eye buttons won't be applied to the end:

The interesting thing about this pattern was that the owner asked us to do it in only 1 ply thread, which was new for me, but it kind of grew on me the way it turned out.  I personally don't like that kind of coverage, but I bet it makes your overdyed threads go much farther!

I've been digging through lots of my old magazine issues lately and even though I have tons of WIPs to work on, I couldn't help picking a couple patterns that stood out to me for World of Charity Stitching's friendship quilt theme.  These will probably get there a little late to be included in that, but I'm sure they'll be put to good use (or I might find another use for them in the meantime).

This one is a pattern from Lucie Heaton, and the individual pattern doesn't have a name, so I called it Dancing Divas in my head.

Not much to look at now but I stitched all I could with the colors I have on hand at the moment, so that's all there is for now.  This is definitely a pattern that will greatly benefit from the backstitching, which seems to be a common theme in Lucie's patterns.  But they're super fun to stitch and work up really quick!

The second pattern I pulled is a card design called Best Friends Share from a really old copy of Cross Stitch Card Shop.

I just started this one last night, so right now it's pretty much just an orange blur, but eventually this will be two cute little kitties curled up in a basket together.

I think that catches me up with everything for now, and of course I promise to try and update more frequently, although the way life has been lately, who knows?

Free Pattern Friday: Super March Edition!

Well, if I'm getting back into the blogging swing of things, that means Free Pattern Friday is also due for a return.  Since I've missed the past few weeks, I have a super sized edition with 3 different free cross stitch pattern links to share!  Actually, this could even be considered an "international edition" of FPF.

First of all, March is my birthday month, so I'm going to spend FPF's sharing charts with one of my favorite sweets: cupcakes!   This is a cute and sweet (no pun intended) chart from one of my favorite UK designers, Lesley Teare.  It's the perfect size for stitching up and making a quick little birthday card, keychain, or magnet.  You can find the pattern and key to save in JPEG format on Lesley's blog archive.

And since my birthday is coming up this weekend specifically in March, I also have a cute little birthday chart to share.  This cute little bear and his snail friend are surrounded by lots of colorful confetti and comes from the Russian design blog Aliolka Designs.  Normally finding cross stitch patterns on Russian websites indicates a red flag for pirated patterns, but I'm happy to report this blog is totally legit!  She even has some alternative color schemes for this same pattern on the post if you're interested in changing the colors up a bit.  The pattern for this design can be found here in JPEG format.

And last but not least, March is also the time of Saint Patrick's Day (which is also the birthday of one of my oldest friends).  St. Patty's is not until next week, but since FPF will come the day after, now is time to share a themed chart.  It's actually the perfect design for when Easter is in March like it is this year because it combines Irish themeing into a Faberge style Easter egg.  This comes from the Facebook page of another one of my favorite UK designers, Durene Jones.  You can find the chart for this free cross stitch pattern here, although I think you might have to log in to Facebook to access it. 

Happy stitching!





If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

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!

Free Pattern Friday: Be Mine

Hello readers!  It's Friday, which means it's time once again for me to share a free cross stitch pattern with you.

But first, you may be wondering where I've disappeared off to for the past couple weeks?  Although I managed to keep up with my Crazy January stitching through January 24th, it was getting harder and harder due to a flare up in some carpal tunnel like symptoms in my hands.  So finally on January 25th I decided I needed to take a break and slow the stitching way down rather than risk damaging something so I would need more invasive medical attention.

I'm still planning on doing starts for Days 25-31, they're just going to have to wait a little longer.  Maybe I might be able to pull some out for this weekend.  I know I need to catch up in my reporting of what I did get done before I had to take a break, but sadly, typing imitates the movements that make it hard to stitch, so I've had to cut back on the blogging as well.

Anyway, in the meantime, I can take a quick bit to share a new free cross stitch pattern with you.  We all know Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and although I'm not a big fan of that holiday, I do love kittys, so I found this adorable kitty couple pattern that I can manage to stomach for Valentine's Day.

This pattern comes to you courtesy of Alita Designs, who did one of the snowman patterns I showed a few weeks back.  It's the perfect size for a card or small token that you can easily whip up between now and the big day.  You can download this free cross stitch pattern directly from the designer's website.

Happy stitching!





If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.