WiP Wednesday I

More Lily updates. I don't get a lot of work done on the weekdays with all the dog stuff going on. 

Monday - Teaching 

Tuesdays - TA Class every second week

Wednesdays - Class

Fridays - Barn Rental

Saturday Morning - Teaching

Little exhausting. But Lily is coming together, which is good. Since I am not going to start another until she's done!

Happily, the remainder of the flower is mostly greens and in blocks, so there is significantly less confetti. Page 5 is complete and Page 6 is well on its way to being complete as well. Once they're done I'll have to roll the frame again and then it will be on to the last set of pages!

WiP 24-May-2015, must remember to stop using cell phone pics ...

I also discovered one of my House Mouse pieces given as a Christmas present that someone was going to sell in a garage sale. Its been rescued and re-homed with my Mother (she's got a kids room for the grand kids and has her House Mouse up on the wall in there. I assume the new one will join it.)

Lily likely won't be going to my sister for a birth announcement. I might lose it completely if I frame her and find her in a garage sale bin after I spent WAY more time and money on her than I did on Sweet Dreams. Somewhat disappointing.

Sweet Dreams - stitched Fall 2009

Addicted?

There is a HAED group on Facebook. Which is awesome. There are so many pretty pictures to look at; finishes, work in progress pictures and who can forget people posting all the patterns they've bought (especially if there is a sale.)

Some people say that the group is "enabling" by being supportive of people buying 5,6 or more patterns per sale. I am beginning to wonder if there isn't a touch of "keeping up with the Jonses" in there as well. You know, where you have to show the internetz how hardcore (or whatever) you are because you have 20 patterns, many already kitted to stitch while someone else only has 2! If you only have 2, obviously you're missing something, so get with the program!

I think I have 6 patterns not including current WiP and I have decided to cut myself off. No more buying. These things are going to take YEARS to complete and I've spent way more than enough money on stitchy related stuff already!

Just the patterns, but OMG pretty;

Love, love, love the colors, but I don't know where I would put the finished product.

Foxglove Ball -"Only" the pattern

Road to Oalovah - "Only" the pattern too

I also like to have kits of stuff, so of those 6, 2 are complete material packs that I bought the fabric for;

Treasure Hunt Bookshelf - HAED Material Pack & Fabric

The Dreaming Tree - HAED Material Pack & Fabric

Mini Enchanted Christmas Reindeer - Floss & Fabric

Then I have the ones where I have purchased the floss and fabric, so essentially they are kitted as well ...

Portal to Anywhere - Floss and Fabric too

So now I don't know which I want to start next.

I found HAED because they showed up in a Herrschners catalog and I fell in love with Treasure Hunt Bookshelf (THB.) But Once Upon a Time (a quick stitch portion of Treasure Hunt) is a work in progress right now. So do I want to start Treasure Hunt, or not? Maybe I should start after I finish Once Upon a Time?

Portal would look amazing in my living room, which is why I kitted it up. But which to start? And when?? Do I save Portal for the January Stitch A Long (SAL)? I've never done a SAL before, I assume it's pretty much the same as posting update photos, but everyone starts from scratch.

Also, just to comment here. I only bought 3 patterns during that sale. One of which was the Julie Fain for my sister. The others were Portal and Road!

WiP Weekend!

Since I have a bit of stitching on the go at the moment (3 WiP and 2 more that I really would like to get a start on.) I decided that I should bring a piece to work with me to work on at lunch!

I used to do this with my old job. In fact, I started Wreath during lunch breaks. Makes for a nice mental break from work. I had even bought a 11" square QSnap frame that I could put the piece in. Perfect!

So instead of starting another piece, or moving Lily or Once Upon a Time off of their scroll frames, I put Wreath in the QSnap, tucked it in my stitching bag and off to work we went! The 11" frame fits perfect in the bag, and since I bought the floss for Wreath it's on bobbins in a case instead of in a baggie like the material pack for Once Upon a Time is (so in theory it will stay cleaner and not get lost.)

Wreath is NOT easy stitching and I am attempting to work more using parking with it, to hopefully speed it up a little. I don't mind how detailed and intricate it is, I just wish it would go faster. Right now I'm fighting with the mice and have given up on the orchids for the time being. The faces of the mice were blocks of color, I needed a confetti break. 

I haven't made a lot of progress on it. But at least it's running to and from work with me and I feel better about not ignoring it!

I made significant progress on Lily over the Long Weekend that we just had, since I've made myself a deal that I will finish her before I start on either of the new projects. Pages 4 & 5, the Fairy wings/head/hand is nearly complete with just a few confetti stitches missing.

WiP 19-May-2015

... and rewind ...

Krenik   /scowl

Sometimes it may be better to go with your initial, gut instinct. I left Lily for a little bit to start on THB Once Upon a Time.

I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or not that I was stitching with Krenik on the fairy at that time. I don't mind the Krenik in the flowers. There isn't a lot of it. I like the effect.

On the fairy's body though, I didn't like the effect. But did I let that stop me? Nope, sure didn't. I did her forearm, then I did her upper arm and then it was time to stitch her face, and I balked. Hmmm. Really not so sure that looks good the little voice in the back of my mind whispered.

Sometimes the little voice isn't right, like when it told me to buy the Lily of the Valley pattern WITH the background because this one, without the BG isn't as pretty. Or when it told me that the stitching was looking stretched and I might be creating a mutant Fern Gully x Avatar fairy.

This time however, it was right. So I got to cut out all the tiny, delicate stitching of Krenik on her body. And I've replaced it with DMC B5200 "white" I'm still not sure about what THAT looks like. The white is a little stark, but at least it is the same thickness as the other stitches instead of looking "puffy."

This pattern likely would have looked a little better on a pale green fabric instead of white/off white. But I'm not starting over!

Close up, fairy w/ B5200 10-May-2015

 I'll finish the rest of the piece and hopefully that will dirty the white up enough that I do like the look of it. I'm thinking next time I might go with blending filament instead, I think it's thinner.

WiP 10-May-2015

On the up side though, I picked up some more patterns that I absolutely LOVE during the HAED Mothers Day sale when patterns were 45% off!

I also grabbed a Julie Fain pattern for my sister. Then I printed it, proceeded to kit it for her, got her a QSnap frame and took everything over so she could start while she was still excited about the idea! The madness that is HAED cross stitch loves company! Mwhahaha!!

Sister's stitching!

Because, why not?!

The Internet is a dangerous creature.

You can sit online, on Facebook, on blogs and see pictures of other people's stuff. So of course you want it too! Or you think, heck, yeah, I can do that. Look! EVERYONE is doing that!

Especially when there is a sale on and people are buying up patterns left, right and center and then posting them. Oh ... shiny!

Step right up folks, plenty of space on the band wagon here ...

Or. OMG. I. NEED. THAT. So you buy it. Which might be tomorrows story. Today's story is this:

Now, in my defense, I did purchase it a while ago. Months in fact! (Dec 2014)

So I'm going to make a go of actually working on a rotation and ROTATING what I am working on (that last empasis is for me, so I do it!)

WiP 30-Apr-2015 (starting bottom left)

Fern Gully x Avatar?

After the last post, I was sincerely worried that the fairy was going to turn out some mutant creation reminiscent of Fern Gully meeting Avatar. (I didn't date myself by knowing that movie, did I?!)

Thankfully, not so!

I spent most of the 3 days over the weekend stitching. Completing a decent portion of page 4 and getting a good enough portion of the fairy done to have an idea if the finished piece is going to be hideously misshapen or not.

Fairy - Page 4 & 5 19-Apr-2015

She looks pretty in proportion from here, and I'm loving the detail of her wings. So delicate looking and pretty!

What I'm not loving is stitching with the Kreinik again. Sigh.

See the Kreinik is thicker than one strand of floss, so those areas look raised. I didn't mind the effect on the lily blossoms. I'm not sure how I feel about it on the Fairy herself. So far I'm just attempting to keep the stitching very taut to flatten it out that way, and it seems to mostly be working.

The finished piece likely isn't going to be inspected quite as closely as it is while I'm working on it. So as long as the Kreinik looks decent I think I'm just going to leave it. Although, for Treasure Hunt I'm nearly certain I'll have to split the Kreinik or tent stitch it.

I also had the brainstorm to offer this to my pregnant sister who was looking for a girly birth record. There are many cute ones out there, but not many that are predominantly feminine. Which I suppose makes sense, since you may start stitching one when you don't know the sex of the baby, or you just won't be finding out the sex since it's a gift or whatnot.

I can just see it now;
Here, have this pretty princess pink birth record for your baby boy ...  Er ...

Anyway. I offered Lily up for my sister to turn into a birth record if she likes. It would be pretty easy to just stitch in the date/name and other details in the gap between the fairy and the flowers. She's got something she is working on as well, but thinks Lily will be prettier and will decide later. (I'm assuming based on how much she likes her finished product.)

Now that I have a deadline for completion, it was just as well I spent most of the weekend getting page 4 done!

WiP 19-Apr-2015

I don't think it's looking half bad, and the detail/delicacy is very pretty! This makes me almost happy that I did go with the no BG version, since the one WiP I've seen of the original version has significantly fewer shades and looks much more pixelated and not as pretty (imo.)

Trucking along

Still working away on Lily!

Pages 1-3 are complete. Page 6 has some significant progress, and I've started stitching page 4 to start working on the fairy, not just the flowers. Fairly happy with my progress so far considering I'm just working on it for a little bit at night after 9 pm.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not so sure on the dimensions of the fabric. The squares should be square. They're not. They're rectangles. Taller than they are wide. So the design is "stretched" taller than it should be. Hopefully this doesn't significantly affect the look of the finished piece.

Not sure if it's the fabric, or the frame I have the piece on. Likely a bit of both I'm thinking. The weave of the fabric is a little loose and it's quite soft compared to Lugana. Then to keep the fabric taut to stitch it is stretched more "up and down" vs "side to side" due to the rolling frame.

I did notice this when I was gridding the fabric, but I turned a blind eye to it. Fingers crossed that that wasn't an epic mistake. If it was, well that's what nieces are for right? (not quite a non sequitur - I'll gift the finished piece to one of my nieces!)

WiP 18-Apr-2015