The Last of Stitch Maynia

Okay, I'm late again.  Story of my life.

Here is project #5 - 'The Tie That Binds' from 'Words to Stitch By':

I ended up with two -TWO - doctor's visits, after all, so there was less time for this than I hoped.  However, I'm am very satisfied with my progress!  Although, I must admit, the DMC conversion does not look a whole lot like that pattern picture.  I noticed it when I got the floss, but I decided not to change it, because the person that this will eventually be given to will love these colors :D

The knotwork border is Olive Green, not Brown.  Otherwise the colors match fairly well.  Maybe the dark color in the flower is a bit redder.  So pleased with this one :D

And yeah, I decided to go for one last start - six total. (On the 30th I am not starting a new one.  I think I will pick up my HAED, 'Unspoken'.  I miss it.)

For the last one, I decided to go big.  Not quite HAED big, but pretty big, none the less!

Lovely, lovely, lovely!  Except that the dark color I started with, just behind his ear, is SIX strands of floss in a half stitch.  My fingers are sore from the effort of getting that through the fabric, and there is a ton of that symbol! But I shall persevere :D

I have still more China kits to show you!  This is one I've been searching to find for quite a while -it comes up on eBay and Aliexpress but it's usually the smaller version.  I wanted the big one!  It's called 'Golden Lillies'.  It finally popped up on eBay in the large size and I grabbed it.

I forgot to take a picture of the pages layout, but there are 24.  It has 23 colors - less than usual but SO MUCH FLOSS!  You'll see!

Here's the folded fabric -

And I unfolded it to find this -

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

And then here is the huge 5 foot long fabric:

I am just itching to start one of these huge ones but I will finish Sunset Birds first!

Happy stitching, guys!  Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend - I have it off!  Whoo hoo!

Tama

A Late Post, with more StitchMaynia

I had a lot of doctor's visits the last two weeks - I switched doctors and this one is so very, very thorough!

So not a lot of time for posting, and sadly not a lot of time for stitching.  But here's the bit I have done!

So, Fizzy Moon kit 'Friends' was start #3 for StitchMaynia:

And I got this far, mostly sitting in waiting rooms:

I like that stripey red hat!  I did make one counting mistake in out - I've pulled out the wrong stitches, but I have to put one stitch of dark red back in.  This one is interesting - it has those funny stacked stitches that you only seem to see in British patterns.

Here was my choice for start #4:

My father loves the 'Footprints in the Sand' story, so this will be for him.  One of my first cross stitch projects was the Lord's Prayer done almost all in backstitch so this will sort of match.  That one has been hanging on my parents' wall for years.

There are several versions of this story done in cross stitch - one is a kit by Bucilla - but this is the one I like the most.  For one thing, it has the whole story on it, and I really like the 'delicate' look of it.  I'm stitching it on the recommended fabric, which is 28ct Mushroom Lugana.  It's not quite the same color as pictured, though.  I wonder if the color has changed since this pattern was published?  I know you can tell from the price that it's pretty old!  It was published in 1985.

This one didn't go to the doctors with me, as I don't like taking something this big.  So it got a total of two evenings work on it:

It was slightly slow going even then, as I got the hang of doing backstitched words over two.  I don't think I've done that before!  I was just getting in the groove when it was time to switch projects - that's the only thing I don't like about my rotation!

And here is start #5!  I started it on the 20th.  It's from this lovely book, and I'm doing the one on the cover.

No doctor visits for a few days, so I'm hoping for some good progress :D  It's charted for NPI silks, but I can't afford those, so I'm doing the DMC conversion.  The colors are therefore a little different, but you'll see when I post my progress picture.  Hopefully, not as late as this time!

I do want to show you my 'purse' kits and their progress but I'll save that for tomorrow - maybe make a Sunday tradition of it :D  They usually get a little work done on them every week.

For now, though, here is (yet another) China pre-printed kit :D :D :D  I actually got this one a while ago but forgot to post about it.  It's not one of my brand-new goodies.  I do love it, though!

The listing only called it 'Horses' so I will have to see what the name actually is.  It's a very nice stylized drawing.  This one has 14 pages, half of which are smaller pages.  So it's roughly the same as a HAED Quick-Stitch.

Except of course, on giant fabric XD  This one is 3 feet long and about 1 1/2 feet high.  It came with two needles and has a lot of floss colors (37, I think), and one of the big twisted skeins of extra floss.  I thought it would be black, but actually the darkest color on the piece is a very dark green.  So there's a green horse in there!

Here is is with the 8x10 booklet laying on it.  I blacked out the floss key, so no one can yell at me about showing what is almost a pattern.  I don't think anyone could see the picture well enough to stitch from it but why risk it?

Well, that's all for me tonight - I'll try to show my purse kits and maybe my diamond painting tomorrow!

Happy Stitching!!!

Tama

Sleepy Kitten, Maynia Start #3, and Tigers!

Hullo, all!

Here is my progress on start #2 - as a reminder, it's supposed to look like this:

The tea things and the daises are solidly stitched, but I didn't want to stitch all that white on white fabric.  So, instead of doing in on 14 count white aida, I chose to do it on 28 count Glass Blue Monaco.  Here's my start:

I finished all of the B5200 in the daises and have started on the other colors.  I'm looking forward to working my way down the vase!

Here's start #3 - I have a lot of doctor appointments coming up and I wanted something small to take with me - it's still going to get its five days of work, but if for some reason I don't finish it, it'll go in my purse.  (I finished the Love, Love, Love kit that was going about in my smaller purse, but I keep forgetting to take a picture!)

It's a free Fizzy Moon kit that came with an issue of World of Cross Stitch.  It's called 'Friends' and is to be finished into a little card.  I'll probably give it to my mom, 'cause she'll use it to decorate with :D

And now, another China kit :D :D :D

This one is a big one (yay!) and is called 'Tiger Family'.  Here's the picture on the booklet.

And the pattern page layout:

Twenty four fairly solid-stitch pages.  This is what came out of the package - a big, heavy piece of fabric with three packs of two needles each!  I hope these don't make my fingers burn like the others did!  Six extra needles is a nice thing :D

When I unfolded it, this is the floss pile I saw.  It's all sorted, no worries there, it's just folded around the floss sorters.  I think this one has 44 colors.

Then I unfolded the giant fabric - it's just shy of four feet long and about 30 inches tall:

Yeeks!  This is going to take a while!  But I think I'm going to love every stitch!  I can't wait until my Dad has time to make my big frame so I can work on one of these giant kits!

Happy Stitching guys!  I'll be back around the 15th with whatever I start next!

Tama

Stitch Maynia Start #1

The rules for Stitch Maynia are very, very loose.  There's an official sign-up in the Stitch Maynia group on Facebook.  The original challenge was to start something every day for the first 15 days of May, but now it's just basically - start stuff in May.  As many or as few as you want.  I've decided on something new every five days, until I hit five projects.

Probably.  There may be six :D

For my Start #1, I'm doing 'A is for Anchor' by Prairie Schooler.  You would think that after April's A-Z challenge, I'd be tired of the alphabet, but nope!

I'm not stitching them on one big piece like a lot of people are - I'm stitching them on separate small pieces.  This is the only one I'm starting during Stitch Maynia.

So I'll be back in a few days to show you progress and my next start!  So far I only have about 20 stitches on this one, because today was busy.  I started a Bigfoot amigurumi and went to church and a Christening.

Happy Stitching, all!

Tama