New Start

So I was feeling rather unmotivated to stitch the past 2 weeks or so. Just not feeling my Christmas project, or any of my other HAED's.

With the finish of Lily of the Valley, I had given myself permission to start another. But everything else I have kitted is too big for a scroll frame and I didn't want to pull the Christmas stitching off my 11x11 Qsnap, since it's a pain to deal with.

THEN there was the 45% off anniversary sale.

I was feeling like I wanted something that would be a little quicker to stitch (low confetti quotient!) that was also something that I could have a end use for. Read: I'd put it on the wall in my house.

While I love Treasure Hunt Bookshelf, I just didn't think that it would fit the criteria this time around. I have Once Upon a Time for all the fiddly little color changes and details. I wanted faster, and easier.

So I was thinking along the lines of silhouettes and Julie Fain's work since my sister is doing amazing on her progress with Enchanted Glimpse. Now things have changed a little. Glimpse was charted a while ago (2010) and only uses 30 colors. Sorrow is a 2015 and uses 90. But still a significant amount of black. Which, while "boring" to work with, also makes for fast stitching - just outline the area and then fill it in, no chart needed while filling in!

So with HAED's sale, and then a 30% off entire purchase coupon from Michaels, I bought the chart as well as the floss and a new QSnap (already had a piece of fabric) and BAM! Rebel that I am, started it that night without even winding all my thread onto bobbins.

Hopefully this helps the motivation and recapturing the "stitchy bug."

She's going to look really pretty in my bedroom one day.

Using 2 threads of floss, tent stitching on 28 count lugana. I love the tent stitching.

Happy Stitching!

Really finished

So after the debating on when to fix the Kreinik on Lily, I decided to just go for it. 2 days of cutting and picking out B5200 (DMC's ice white color) and re-stitcing using 1 strand B5200 for one leg of the X and one strand of Kreinik for the top leg.

Re-stitching after frogging

Sparkly fairy!

So now she's really complete. Including stitching the signature and year (since I figure it will be nice to know who stitched and when somewhere down the line if someone keeps these pieces!)

Signed, framed and completely finished

Back to Christmas Crafting we go!

Lily of the Valley - Finish, sort of ...

Oh wow. I'm so excited! To think I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish Lily and get the Christmas present stitching out of the way!

I finished stitching Rachel Anderson's Lily of the Valley with no background on 13-Oct-2015, so in about 9 months. But I didn't work on her continuously, there were lots of little breaks.

I don't think I'm happy with the B5200 though, and will be ripping that out to stitch one leg of the full cross in B5200 and then the top leg in Kreinik like it calls for. This is what I did for the stem of the mushroom and it gets the sparkle but doesn't have the bulkiness of the 2 stands of kreinik overlapping on the full cross (like how it is for all the flowers)

Lily of the Valley - Finished - 13-Oct-2015

Overall I am happy with what the stitched portion looks like. I wish that the leaf for the plant didn't cut off at a 90° angle on the outside portion there, but I won't be able to add lib on a HAED with all the shades used.

I don't know that I'll do another no background chart. But she's finished at least - which means I can start another!!

This also finishes my 2015 stitching goals for HAED, which I'm quite excited about!

Now the question is; Treasure Hunt Bookshelf (Aimee Stewart) or Night Cafe (Leonid Afremov)?

Happy Stitching!

Once Upon a Time, there was a page finish!

To get a good start on the Christmas crafting I've neglected the HAED's a little. So I was feeling a bit of pressure to knock a little more out on my half year goals. It seems like the blocks of color stitch up so fast, and then I can spend a few days stitching to finish less than 100 stitches of confetti madness.

I'm happy to say, tonight marked 2/3 of the way to my half year goals with a page finish on QS THB Once Upon a Time!

Now just to finish Lily of the Valley - which is just confetti left too.

WiP 03-Oct-2015 - Page Finish

Looking at the other pages is a little confusing when you don't start top left. I don't think I will be stitching any more from the bottom right up.

Parking Madness

All Colored In

Happy Stitching!