Turtle Trot June 2015 Check-In

Well, today is the 10th of the month, which means it's time to show progress on my Turtle Trot pieces of the year.  Sadly, this SAL seems to have fizzled out lately on the host blog BAP Attack, but since I'm forging onwards with my progress, I figured I'd share anyway. 

I didn't have a ton of progress on my pieces the past month, mostly because of Project 9: Baby Tinkerbell.  However, I did manage to completely finish that one (yay!) so although that was most of my progress for the past month, it did cross one thing off my TT list. 

Here a pic for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

I also have been making progress on the latest round in the Frosted Pumpkin Facebook Round Robin group I'm in.  This month I'm working on the "O" block of the Halloween Sampler:

Not much else except the border and most of the O done so far.  I really liked doing the border, as it was my first time working with Weeks Dye Works threads, which were fun to do.  Usually I can't afford the extra expense, so I just use regular DMC threads, but the WDW overdyed threads were a nice change to work with.

My setback with this project so far is I actually had to frog the entire border around the block stitched by the last member of the round robin.  It's the Witch one just o the right of mine, and unfortunately she didn't count correctly, so the entire bottom and side borders were 1 block off.  It would have thrown off the rest of the blocks, and the relation of blocks to the outside "lace" border, so I eventually decided to restitch both her and my own borders.  So that took awhile.

In other news, I do have a finish to show you too.  Sadly, I guess I haven't posted any progress pics of this one yet, but here's what it looks like finished:

This is a pattern from a booklet by Lucie Heaton, and it doesn't have an individual name, so I just call it Tropical Drink.  It's for a summer themed exchange I'm working on.  I stitched it with recommended DMC threads, 2 over 1 on white 14 count plastic canvas.  I'm planning on finishing it up as a magnet, hence the plastic canvas.   I started it on June 2nd and finished the stitching the night of June 8th, so it was a nice, quick stitch. 

Now back to that Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin project.

Weekend Update: Finishes, exchanges, kitting up and more!

Hello everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend.  Even though Mondays are totally my enemy, I had a great stitching weekend, so I'm excited to share my progress with you. 

First of all, my Buzzy Bees N bookmark was received by my partner in the Lucie Heaton Facebook Group Initial Exchange.  Since I forgot to take a picture of it after I finished the bookmark itself, here's the picture she posted on FB so that you can get an idea of what it looks like. 

I also got my package from the same exchange.  In addition to the adorable framed initial, my partner also sent 5 colors of DMC floss in my favorite pastel shades, 3 packages of various trims that will come in handy for finishing future projects, a monogrammed journal, and a bar of mango coconut dark chocolate.  Whew!  It was such a nice surprise to come home to on Friday. 

Here's a close up of the stitching itself:

I love the frame she used, and doing the initial in beads was a genius idea.  It makes it look so elegant and totally matches the feel of the whole piece. The fabric appears to be some sort of opalescent hand dyed evenweave, and I love the colors!

And my other big news from the weekend.... Baby Tinkerbell is finished!!!!!

This ended up kind of being a love/hate piece.  I love the pattern, and I loved working on it, but in the end it wasn't as fun as it could have been because of the deadline I was up against.  Also, I wayyyyyyyyyy underestimated how long it would take to stitch and backstitch this whole thing.  But I'm happy with the result.  I might even stitch it again someday, though if I get the chance I will definitely be doing it on evenweave because the fractionals were everywhere!

This is a freebie pattern I got off an Italian blog, and was stitched for the Love Quilts charity.  It was done on white 16 count aida (which was a nightmare for fractionals!) with charted DMC threads in 2 over 1.  I started it on May 15th and finished on May 31st, so not bad for a fairly large complicated pattern.  I think the stitch count is around 120 x 80-something (I have it written down somewhere, but not in front of me at the moment).  This was one of my Turtle Trot pieces, so I can now put that down as complete. 

So now that that's done, I have two more charity projects in the pipeline, and then no more deadline stitching for me this year!  At least, that's the plan now.  I need to get serious about finishing up some of the Christmas projects I have planned.  Now that the year is almost to the halfway point, I'm starting to realize how behind I am on those. 

I spent a couple hours last night kitting up said charity projects, and my latest exchange swap project.  There's something so satisfying about starting/preparing to start a new project, isn't there?  The exchange will be a summer themed one this time.  I also need to stitch up my Round Robin block and get that mailed off.  So I guess that's a sneak peek at what you'll be seeing here over the next month!

April Turtle Trot, May WIPocalypse and more!

Well, with the continued craziness that I posted about at the end of last week, still not having internet access at home (living in the country is just great sometimes), STILL being sick with this stupid cold, Mother's Day on Sunday, etc. I missed the check in dates for both WIPocalypse and Turtle Trot.  But better late than never!

First of all, thank you to everyone who left well wishes on my post last week.  They were much needed.  My boss's husband had a major heart attack last Wednesday, leading to my rough week at work in trying to fill in for her.  Sadly, her husband passed away on Saturday, so Sat/Sun/Mon were busy trying to get things ready and settled for the funeral.  So that's over with, but things are still a little crazy as we try to adjust to the "new normal".

Secondly, I hope everyone who celebrated Mother's Day had a great weekend, and you enjoyed the time you spent honoring your mothers/sisters/aunts/daughters/etc.  I cooked up a storm last weekend, which sadly cut into my stitching time, but oh well.

Now, onto the updates I suppose.  First off, the May WIPocalypse check in as hosted by Measi.

May's question is: I would like to know if you look for LNS’s when you travel. What is the favorite shop you’ve ever found?

Sadly, I seem to never live in an area that has a LNS around.  I did find one in Placerville when up at Apple Hill when I lived in California, and one in Boise when visiting my grandparents (which sadly had gone out of business when I went back to look for it last year).  Usually when traveling I don't have time to explore for an LNS, I have a time schedule I need to keep to, but I want to possibly do it more often in the future.  Sadly, I have not found one near me in Mississippi yet either.  Anyone know of a LNS around the Jackson area?

As far as progress, I'm going to combine this with my Turtle Trot progress check-in, since some of the things I worked on this month were TT pieces.

Project 1: Halloween Quaker

Previous Progress:

How it looks now:

Projects 2-6: No new progress

Project 7: Flower of the Month SAL

I made more progress on January, but I can't find the progress pic I took anywhere!  I will have to update this post when I find where my camera stashed it.

Projects 8-10: No new progress

Project 11: Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin

Here's my latest finish on the FP Round Robin.  This is for Round 4, where I once again had Woodland Sampler to work on.  I finished the October block:

Made a huge counting mistake on this one (several times) so I had to frog a bunch and modify the pattern a bit (or risk having to frog the entire pattern).  I think it turned out okay anyway. 

Project 12: No new progress

So sadly, not a whole lot of progress going on there with those pieces.  Hopefully after June things will settle down a bit stitching-wise though. 

In April I also had two other non-Turtle Trot progress finishes, Easter Egg Topiary and Friends for Life, both of which were charity stitching donations.

I also managed to get a bit of stitching on this new project last night:

I don't anticipate this taking very long.  As you can probably tell, this is an initial, specifically a N.  It's for an Initial Exchange swap I signed up for on Facebook.  This is from the Buzzy Bees Alphabet by Lucie Heaton, I think from an old CrossStitcher magazine I have lying around.  Sorry for the wonky lighting, the fabric is actually regular white aida.  It's so hard to get good pictures of my stitching at night. 

Well, that's it for progress shots today.  Hopefully your stitching is all going better than mine!

April 2015 Smalls SAL Check-In

I must be really off my groove this week.  Despite having the date marked on my calendar and everything, I somehow totally forgot to post my April update for Stitching Lotus' 2015 Smalls SAL yesterday.  So I'm off to remedy that. 

These pictures will be repetitive for anyone who follows the blog regularly.  Sorry about that!

Of course my smallest small finish this month was my block for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin.  This month I tackled the November block of the Dessert of the Month Club. 

I also had one "small-ish" finish.  Not super small, but small enough to count?  It was Hoppy Spring, which I sent off for a spring themed exchange:

This was my first finish of April, and also my first time "finish finishing" anything.  Which was good, since I've also signed up for a summer exchange through the same forum, and now an initial exchange on Facebook too, so I'll need some practice. 

This is what my exchange partner sent to me for said spring exchange:

I love little bunnies, so cute.  Sadly, the scissor keeper chart didn't include the pattern, so I need to figure out what to do with the kit.  Anyone have that copy of CrossStitcher and want the kit to go with it? 
 
Well, I guess I managed to sneak one new picture in.  :)