April Finishes

So as promised, here's a round up of the finishes I mentioned in my Stitch From Stash check in yesterday. 

First off, Friends for Life which is from an old issue of CrossStitcher magazine. This is the one I posted about at the end of last week, frantic because I needed to finish it no later than Monday.  I spent Thursday and Friday nights furiously stitching, got up super early Saturday to work on it some more, and then had a brainstorm.  The pattern originally called for some grass and sky detailing around the cat and dog, but by eliminating that it was still big enough for what I needed it for, and I was able to get it done much quicker.

This is definitely a pattern that benefitted greatly from the backstitch.  Here's where it was on Sunday night after all the main stitching and just a little backstitch was done:

 And here's where it ended up Monday after being completed:

Stitching details are 61 x 41 stitches (modified size) with charted DMC colors, done on 14 count aida, 3 over 1.  Stitched for a Love Quilts project (and I really hope it arrives in time, because it was down to the wire).   I started this on April 17th and finished in record time on April 27th. 

This was definitely one of those most challenging pieces I've done in a long time.  So. Many. Color. Changes.   So many fractionals (which are challenging at best on Aida).   Several french knots (which I'm terrible at).  And I made a TON of mistakes.  Hopefully despite all that it turned out okay.  I think if I had known starting at the beginning I was going to leave off the background, I would have stitched it with 2 strands instead of 3.  The pattern calls for 3 because some of the sky/grass are stitched with 1 strand to give it a varying thickness/shading effect, but it was a moot point since I didn't stitch those parts in the end. 

Anyway, I also finished up my latest WOCS piece last weekend, the one I'm calling Egg Topiary:

The green egg has pink dots in it, although the photo on my phone was a little funky and didn't pick them up very well.  This was stitched on 14 count white aida as a project for a spring quilt for World of Charity Stitching.  It was stitched with the recommended DMC threads, and is a free pattern from Stickeule.  I can't find the link at the moment, but I will post it later if I come across it. 

So now those are over, I need to work on my latest round of the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin I'm participating in through Facebook, as this will be due at the end of next week.  Here's my latest start:

This is Woodland Sampler again, but I'm working on the October block this time (and owl).  Working with linen again, yikes...

Stitching Updates

You know, the A to Z blogging challenge has been killing me.  Not so much the blogging part, that has been fine.  But I've had so many more wonderful blog posts to read this month with everyone posting once per day that I'm super behind on reading/commenting on everyone's blogs.  Just when I was getting caught up too!

Anyway, on to the world of stitching progress.  I was able to get a bit of progress done on my spring Egg Topiary square while I took that unexpected road trip last week:

I ran out of green while on the road, so that's why the green egg on the left is only partially complete.  Sadly, I didn't get as much done as I was hoping to.  But with one more big push this weekend I think I might have a finish to show you on Monday. 

I've also started a new pattern yesterday called Friends for Life from an old issue of CrossStitcher.  Here's what it will look like when finished:

And here's where I am now:

Doesn't look like much yet, since I've only done 2 shades of yellow in the dog's face so far.  This will eventually being going to Love Quilts for a quilt, provided I'm able to finish it before the end of the month.  I kind of forgot about it until recently organizing my stash.  Oops! 

A to Z Challenge: M is for Margaret Sherry

Today is Day 13 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge.  If you are new to the blog and haven't heard of this challenge before, the basic idea is to blog (almost) every day in April, taking one day for each letter of the alphabet. Since I have a cross stitch blog, I am blogging about cross stitch patterns in my stash and on my wish list for this month of April.

M is for Margaret Sherry

I first discovered Margaret Sherry when I was about 10 and I was helping my Grandma put out the new cards at the grocery store.  She had a job rotating out the seasonal cards by American Greetings, and there was also a rack of cards from Leanin' Tree.  When I saw these unbelieveable cute cat cards, I just fell in love with them instantly (yes, I've been a cat person my whole life).

I didn't see anything else Margaret Sherry for several years, until getting back into cross stitch last year, when I discovered the wonderful British cross stitch magazines thanks to my Kindle apps.  Here was the artist whose cards I had loved since I was little, and even better, her art was in cross stitch!  And although I fell in love with her cat art, I found out she does all sorts of animals too, all of which I love.  

Sadly, Margaret's designs are a little more challenge for those of us in the US to get a hold of.  Shipping from the UK to here in Mississippi is quite expensive, so it's hard for me to order a lot of her kits (the new ones by Bothy Threads are great!)  But because Margaret does contribute to the magazines pretty regularly, they're a great way to get a hold of her patterns at a reasonable price.  I was flipping through back issues last night searching for some alphabets for a future project, and in the process I was amazed to realize how many Margaret Sherry patterns I have. 

I have two lucky MS stashes I managed to find on eBay.  The first is a 2009 calendar that was put out by CrossStitcher magazine.  Each month features a square pattern featuring a cute little critter/critters and a funny saying to go along with it.  I was instantly drawn to this pattern called Choc-o-holic, because well, I'm addicted to chocolate.  Fun note: this pattern was originally part of my list of 31 starts for the Crazy January Challenge, but it got pushed aside from that list for a bit of obligatory stitching instead.  But I still have it kitted up and ready to go whenever I have a free stitching moment!

I love pretty much all of the designs from this calendar, but next on my stitching list would probably be the Chatter Box one, which I plan on making for my mom.  She's a bit of a social butterfly when she's talking to her friends, and I like that they are chickens in this pattern, since her signature greeting to her friends is "Hey chick!"

As I shared in my March Stitch from Stash post, I also found the 2012 MS Stitcher's Diary on eBay recently.  The package finally just got here (long transit from the UK) and I had a fun afternoon of flipping through these 12 designs.  There's some great ones in here that will definitely be going on my stitching list as soon as I get more comfortable stitching on evenweave.

My biggest planned Margaret Sherry project to date is I would like to stitch all 26 letters of the alphabet she published for CrossStitcher Magazine.  Each letter is a little over 40 x 40 stitches, so doing them all together will be a big undertaking!  I'd like to stitch them all as individual patches and have my aunt help me sew them together in a quilt, but we'll have to see what happens.

As I mentioned before, MS designs are a little hard to track down in the US, especially some of her older ones, so although I have several on my wish list, the pattern of hers I would most like to find is this one for The Twelve Days of Christmas.  I haven't had any luck getting it from eBay for a decent price + shipping yet, but I'm crossing my fingers I can get my hands on it soon!  Although I suppose I have plenty to work on in the meantime, really. 


I have to say, the only two things I don't like about Margaret's patterns are the fact that they are almost always charted in Anchor colors (and I only have DMC threads, sadly), and the fractional stitches and backstitch.  The backstitch always makes the design stand out and totally would not be complete without it, but these are definitely designs that will always be harder to work on Aida!

So after another long and lengthy post, I thank you if you've stuck with me so far.  I realize now I probably should have planned these designer posts a little more spread out.   I promise tomorrow's N post will be much shorter!

One of the other A to Z blogs I've been reading had the excellent idea of adding links to previous posts at the end of a particular day.  So if you'd like to see my previous A to Z entries:

A is for  Alphabet
B is for Britty Kitty
C is for Carousel
D is for Debbie Mumm
E is for Eat
F is for Frogs
G is for Garden Cat
H is for Hats 
I is for Ice
J is for Joan Elliott 
K is for Kokeshi 
L is for Lesley Teare

Final Progress Update on Crazy January Challenge: Day 30 & 31

Hello stitching friends, how was your weekend? 

Mine was pretty good until the "almost mini tornado" hit late Sunday night.  That was interesting.  Some days I'm a little freaked out by the new weather patterns I'm getting used to since moving to the South. 

The other reason my weekend could have been better was this:

I had planned to have it completely done by Sunday night.  Yeah, as you can see that didn't happen.  I mean, if you look at just the missing stripes on the bottle it seems like I could almost be done.  But then there's that weird blob missing from the bottom; those are the flowers I still have to fill in.  *sigh*

Actually, this one gave me a bit of bother on Saturday night.  I was all prepared to start filling in the spray ball thing (don't know what it's called at the moment) on the right side of the bottle when I realized that somehow I miscalculated/measured my fabric wrong and the design was going to be a little too big.  So I had to re-chart it so it was not nearly as tall, which made it more oval instead of round.  I thought it was terrible at first, but I think it turned out okay in the end.  Sadly I ran out of thread 2 rows before I finished it.  Grrrrrrr!  I hate when that happens.  So I had to dig into my stash and cut some more, which wasn't really a big deal, but on top of everything else... but at least the frog didn't show up, so that's something to be thankful for. 

So anyway, with that rant over, it's time to show my last two projects for the Crazy January Challenge. 

January 30th was Friday, and although I had the whole weekend ahead of me, I didn't make much progress.  This is going to be another square for Love Quilts when it is finished.  I call it Sparrow on Vine. 

I got the top of the bird's head done.  I kind of like the two tone effect, but that's just because I haven't done the other half of part of the stitches in that section yet. 

January 31st was Saturday and as it was the last day, I saved the big project for last.  And this one qualifies as big in several ways.  It's an I Love Britannia design by Jan Constantine that appeared in an old issue of CrossStitcher magazine.  I'm stitching it up for my aunt, who loves all things British because of the 18 months she lived there while serving a mission for our church.  So I pulled it out and here's my progress so far. 

What?  That many stitches took an hour?

So here's the reason I refer to this project as "the big one".  In addition to being large in size (finished size of the cushion will be 18 x 18 inches I think), this is my very first time stitching on evenweave fabric other than aida.  Ahhhhh!  So it's my first time stitching over 2.  This is 20 count, so the weave is quite large, which means I'm stitching 4 over 2, so I'm a little weirded out not only by trying to get used to counting by two threads at a time, but also because the stitches seem so big and chunky to me so far.  I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually...

I'm kind of feeling bittersweet now the the challenge is over.  On the one hand, it will be nice not to have pressures to start something every single day, but on the other hand, it was kind of fun.  But my WIP list is outrageously long now, so I'm going to try and limit the new starts in the next few weeks. 

So what's on the list next?  Well, I do need to finish that silly bottle, and then it's time to finish Rainbow Mandala and Horse Yin Yang, as those are all squares due for World of Charity stitching.  Then it's off to try and finish those six Mill Hill kits before those are due as gifts in mid-March.  Then I need to finish the My Little Pony magnets by early April for a birthday gift.  And then on top of that, I have two Love Quilts squares that are due March 1st that I need to start working harder on too.  And I will of course be stitching my rounds for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin I'm participating in, in between all those other projects too. 

Phew!  No rest for the weary stitcher.  :)

Progress Update: Days 16-20 of the Crazy January Challenge

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  It was a long holiday weekend for us here in the US, so I'm back today on a Tuesday with my long update from my (internet-less) weekend instead of a Monday.  Once again, this is long and picture heavy, so you've been warned.

Last week was the week of the My Little Pony projects, so Friday had a bit of progress on Apple Jack (again, only a sneak peek right now because it's for a gift):

Saturday I had a busy day of working on unpacking boxes, so I didn't get much stitching done, just about two rows:

The lighting was really wonky when I took this picture, sorry.  The fabric is normal white aida, not blue.  This is called Cat Lady Kit and is a pattern from dailycrossstitch.com.  The two rows I got done are part of the top of a cardboard box flap.  It eventually will be the whole box with three different cats sitting in it.  Nice, easy pattern, just didn't have time to do more yet.

Sunday I knew I would have a little more time, so I got this done while watching rerun of Agent Carter and then Galavant.  Luckily, no frogging this time.

This is an old pattern from a back issue of CrossStitcher magazine.  Unfortunately I don't remember which issue off the top of my head, and I don't have it in front of me to look up.  I don't even know the official name of the pattern, but in my head I'm calling it the Purple Paisley project.  Can you tell the English major likes alliteration?  It is on Lavender aida, and so far, yes, I've only stitched with purple DMC, so the progress is kind of hard to distinguish. 

Monday (yesterday) I had off from work, but the rest of my family did not, so I took the opportunity of an empty house to work on a (maybe) Christmas present for my Mom.  It will be a maybe depending on if I get it done by December this year or not.  This is also from a back issue of CrossStitcher.  I am not posting the official name here, since it will give away what it is for now and I'm not sure if Mom reads the blog or not.  So if you read this Mom, fess up so I know to hide it better in the future.  For myself, I'm calling this one Polka Dot Bouquet.

Got a nice start on a couple of the leaves yesterday before I went back to unpacking boxes and organizing again. This is on light blue aida (yes, actually blue this time).  The pattern calls for it to be on white aida with blue polka dots, but since that is a little hard to source in the US right now, I went for the light blue option instead.  This is my second project on the blue aida, the first being the Gingerbread Houses SAL project from last week.

In other stitching news from this weekend, I have another finish for 2015!  I was finally able to get Giraffe Mitten finished, so it's now on its way to become part of a quilt for World of Charity stitching. 

I was so glad to get this done, because it's actually a bit late, but being sick right after Christmas just threw me for a loop stitching-wise, and I've been behind ever since.

Onto today's progress... So during lunch I went ahead and started up the last of the MLP patterns, the final member of the "mane six" Fluttershy:

For some reason, I decided to start with her mane instead of her tail like the others.  *shrug*  Go figure.  Fluttershy is my favorite of the group, so I will enjoy this one.

So, what will tomorrow's stitching adventure be?  Guess we'll find out what I pull out of the box tomorrow!