Not much stitching last week

I was able to finish the first three Polar Plunge designs from Hands on Design last Tuesday night, and now have to wait until May for the final three charts:

The boards that these will be finished on are arriving today and I already have the rick rack trim, but I'll probably wait until all six are stitched before I start the finishing; better to get it over with all at once!

That was most of the stitching I did last week as I finally bit the bullet and started clearing out the basement. Three trips to the dump and three trips to Goodwill later and we finally have a fairly organized space again! I still need to go through some of the individual plastic bins, but the worst part is over. Now when it warms up we'll have to tackle the garage--ugh!

I did do a little bit of stitching on Firefly Fairies this weekend, and am getting close to finished with the greens in the first fairy:

It seems like some of the greens in this just shouldn't go together at all, but the shading is so clever that they all seem to work as a whole. I'm planning to work on this one until the next set in the Gather Round club arrives, probably in two to three weeks.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Almost finished

I'm still working on HOD Polar Plunge and hoping to have all three of the current releases finished by tomorrow night. The Field of Greens floss finally arrived on Saturday and it is a really pretty color; I like how it pulls some of the greener patches of the fabric together into the whole design:

The fabric is Song of Sirens on Belfast linen from Nicholas Flamel Design on Etsy; I originally bought it thinking it would look good with a Mirabilia mermaid on it, but I really like it with this series. I don't know when the next three will be released, but I'll be ready to go when they are.

Last July I took six pieces in to my framer and I've been getting them back for the past month or so. Last week I finally picked up the last one, Jardin Prive's Au Fil des Nichoirs:

I like how the blue frame picks up the blue in the design and in the variegated floss I used to stitch the border. I also had Madame Chantilly's Cats in the Rain done:

And Blackbird Designs America:

I thought this frame was fun with the design; it comes in white, red and brown. It used to come in blue but that's been discontinued, which is a shame because I probably would have used that if it had been available.

When the woman called to say the final one was finished, she said the owner said to tell me that framing should be getting back to a more normal time frame and to bring some more over so I took five more in (I still have a backlog of gift certificates that my wonderful husband has given me); we'll see how long these take to get back.

For now it's back to work on Polar Plunge, and then hopefully I'll be able to get some more stitching in on Firefly Fairies; I'm trying very hard not to keep starting new projects and then putting them away for years at a time.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Taking the plunge...

...the Hands on Design Polar Plunge that is! I've been excited about this series ever since I watched Cathy's Market preview FlossTube and I ordered the first three charts as soon as they showed up at 123Stitch. They arrived Saturday, so after I finished A Honey of a Tiny Town I put all those supplies away and pulled what I needed for a new start, and this is where I am so far today:

My old skein of Tartan Plaid doesn't look anything like the chart photo/DMC 3768 reference so I'm going to use Chesapeake Bay instead, which is almost a perfect match for 3768. I haven't found the new floss color Field of Greens in stock yet, but I'm hoping 123Stitch gets it soon, and I'm really happy with this fabric that I had in my stash. I'm enjoying every stitch and looking forward to the final three designs--if I remember correctly they will include puffins, penguins and a narwhal. 

Yesterday I finished Heart in Hand's A Honey of a Tiny Town with A Honey of a Frill added to it, and it turned out really cute:

The fabric is probably a little light for the white in the design, but overall I'm happy with the way it looks. Now I have to wait until May for the Seaside Tiny Town, and then I'll send them both to the finisher so they can join my Tiny County:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Everything must stop for a new Tiny Town!

Last Friday I was happily stitching away on Firefly Fairies when a surprise gift arrived in the mail--the new Honey of a Tiny Town by Heart in Hand Needleart. As this is one of my favorite series of designs, I promptly finished the thread I was stitching on FF and set about pulling floss and fabric for the Tiny Town. So, after a week of work Firefly Fairies looks like this:

I'm still really enjoying working on this one and I look forward to getting back to it in a week or so, but for now it's time to create a Tiny Town. I started it Friday evening but I didn't do a lot of stitching this weekend so I've only gotten this far:

The skein of Whitewash that I have that was used to stitch the house has a bit too much beige in it, so it kind of blends in with the fabric, which is PTP Crystal Legacy on 36ct linen. Instead of changing the fabric I've decided to use Snowball for the rest of the design, as it's a nice, bright white and should show up better. There's also a Honey of a Frill chart that I'll be adding into the Tiny Town as I did with the Halloween town. Speaking of which, last month I received the Blooming and Halloween towns back from Faye Riggsbee, who did another beautiful job on the finishing:

And in another exciting piece of news (to me anyway!) Cecilia has another town that will be released this May, a Seaside Tiny Town:

I think this might be my favorite of the seven so far, just so cute! 

I have the Honey Frill and a few colors of floss on order that I'll need to finish the Honey town; hoping they'll arrive later this week and I can have this almost done by next Monday. The weather has been getting a bit better here in Wisconsin and I'm trying to get back into a walking routine, which always cuts into stitching time. My husband officially retired on February 28th (even though he made one more customer visit on March 1st), so he's trying to figure out what his new routine will be. We're hoping to go through 20+ years worth of stuff in the basement and garage this spring, so I'll be less productive stitching-wise for a while, but it will be nice to have a good clear out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!