Generations, Pages 2, 7 and 12 are Complete

There is quite a bit of confetti in these manes, let me tell you, but I can't express in words how much I love the foals little black mane that sticks straight up.   It's adorable. And did I mention I am now 1/2 way through this project?   I love the halfway mark, it always gives me a sense of accomplishment!

I'm hoping to have one more update by the end of the year so I have three more pages in which to tally for my yearly stats, but I won't come anywhere close to last year.  But I'm okay with that. I only ever keep track because I'm curious as to just how much stitching I actually do. And I realize that I do a lot.  An awful lot.

Normally I'm quite hard on myself for making myself switch up projects when I get to the end of a cage, but this next page has the foal and the mares face and I just cannot leave them faceless.  It's such a peaceful, beautiful pattern that I think Wind Moon will have to wait just a touch longer.  But she will be back on my stand in the New Year.  I've committed to accepting that she is a multi year project and when I pull her out I will likely stitch a row before she goes back into storage. 

Anyway, the weather has turned and now instead of air conditioner stitching, it's stitching under a blanket with a cat on my lap for warmth kind of days. My favourite kind of days, to be honest.  Especially when rain is hitting my windows, because then I feel I'm exactly where I should be, which is snuggled up with a needle in hand. 

I hope to see you all one more time before the new year.  Wish me luck!!!

Pages 1, 6 and 11 of Generations

After my epic trip to England and Scotland, where I really didn't stitch much, except for on the plane, my stitching bug is back with a vengeance. All I want to do is sit and stitch.

This is the first time I've ever stitched down a pattern and not across. I absolutely had to finish the beautiful face on the horse, it seemed a crime to leave the nose and lower face unstitched.  This is the full length of the piece.  Usually I would switch it up for Wind Moon at this point, but since this project has been neglected for so long, I think I'll stitch another page at least.

I just started using easy guide needles.  They are a needle with a tiny ball on the end of them.  OMG, love, love love!!!   Easy Guide Needles 24 and Easy Guide Needles 26.  They aren't cheap, but they are sooo nice to stitch with.  They just sort of find the hole in the fabric by themselves, with very little work from me and they cut down on thread splitting or accidentally catching a bit of fabric that belongs to the next hole.  The only criticism is they are nearly impossible to thread through stitched threads for finishing a thread, but I keep another needle handy and just thread it in order to run my thread under my stitches.  I'm trying my best to post a link to where to buy them.  Fingers crossed it works.  This is the only actual cross stitch store I've been able to find them on.

Let me know if you've ever tried them and what you think.  

Row Finish for Wind Moon and Much, Much More

Hello Kindreds,

This row took me forever to complete, mainly because I started Generations in the middle of it, then made "Welcome Friends" for a wedding gift, then made two Christmas stockings.  So I was a little bit distracted. But here it is, 6 and a half pages of Wind Moon done, completing row 3.  Her lovely face is finished as well as the bulk of her hair, and in the next row I start on her wings and her beautiful, beautiful dress.

She doesn't look so stark in real life, she's very lush.  I tend to have these row finishes very late at night - it's just coming up to 2 in the morning, and I think the light I use to lay the work under is very bright, which leads to the starkness.  But I can tell you, she is very lovely up close.

As I mentioned, I made a wedding present, "Welcome Friends" for friends of ours whom we will be staying with in Scotland, but for our lovely hosts in England, I made stockings for their two children.

I wanted to have a snow motif that connected the two, so, with the help of a dear friend who sewed these for me, we picked out the fabric you see below.  Alice's stocking is backed with a grey/blue velvet with a blue polka dot tulle over top (the polka dots symbolizing snowflakes). Monty's stocking is a red velvet backing with these adorable cotton balls that look like snowflakes that line the seam of the stocking.  The inside is lined with a pale blue polka dot cotton fabric. I think they turned out perfectly.  I hope they like them!!

We just had our summer fair and I entered Adrift, Meeting on the Turret Stairs and Welcome Friends. It was the first time I've ever entered any of my work into a fair and guess what? I won all categories, with Adrift taking home the best in division.

This is a terrible photo, because she was laying flat on a table and the lights were directly above her, which makes her look really red, but also puts some strange circles on the piece.  But this is what I saw when I went through the fair on the day before it closed.

People were really amazed and I felt really proud bringing home those ribbons and cash prize (A whopping $9)  It's nice to be able to show people what cross stitch is capable of being.

I'm on my way to England and Scotland this Friday and I haven't decided what to take with me.  I bought a little HaED quick stitch, so I'm either going to take that or Generations, which I haven't worked on in ages and I need to get cracking on that.  I guess it will come down to the night before and how much room I have in my carry on as to what I will take. I hear the weather has cooled there, thank goodness, so it seems the perfect time to travel.

Happy stitching to you all and I'll see you all when I get back, at the end of September.

Back from the Framers

I bet you think I've fallen off the face of the earth, haven't you? But I've actually been busy stitching like mad.

First off, I FINALLY got around to framing Meeting on the Turret Stairs.  This was surprisingly hard to frame, because how I envisioned it in my head just didn't seem to work.  I was planning on using a mottled matting in browns to compliment the castle walls, but it just didn't work.  So in the end I chose a very, very dark plum, almost black. I felt it brought the shadows to the foreground and showcased the piece in the best light. 

I had to take the photo on an angle, because of the reflection, but this was the best shot out of all of them.  I'm really happy at the end result and I will hang her on my wall tonight. 

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm going to England and Scotland in September. I'm so beyond excited for this trip.  We are staying with a couple of friends in England and I'm making Christmas stockings for their two children, they aren't quite finished yet, but I hope to have something to show you by the end of the month.  And the couple that we are staying with in Scotland are friends who we met on our first cruise and have stayed friends with.  They visited us here in Canada and now it's our turn to visit them.  They got married back in May, so I when I saw someone stitching this pattern, I knew it would make a perfect gift.  Thanks to Amazon.com and their 24 hour delivery, I got it.  I changed up the fabric to an 18 count Aida with a sparkle running through it, and stitched this up in one month.  For the matting I chose an emerald green. 

This is Friends Welcome (In Gaelic)  I think it will make a perfect wedding present for them and I can't wait to give it to them.

The sparkle in the fabric doesn't really show, but trust me, it makes a delightful little addition to the piece.

Because I've been busy making this and the stockings, I've had no time to work on my HaED's, although I did get about three pages of Wind Moon completed and I'll post a photo when I have a row completed. I've finished stitching her beautiful face and it does not disappoint. I'll be back to working on my HaED's after my trip and will hopefully have something to show off in October sometime. Until then, this blog might be a bit quiet. 

I'll, of course, post photos of the stockings when they are complete. 

I hope you are all having a lovely summer and I hope to touch base with you all soon!

Page 1 of Generations (Mini) is Complete

Started March 19th and finished April 30th.  Due to work, and reno's that were going on, this page took me more time than it usually does, but I'm absolutely loving the results so far.  The urge to just keep stitching this when I got to the end of my page was so strong, I literally had to MAKE myself put it away and put out long ignored Wind Moon. With reno's complete, I'm now able to dedicate some good hours to my projects, so I'm hoping it won't be a month and a bit until my next update. 
Fingers crossed.

It's just a small update right now, because my office is still the storage area for all of the furniture while we were doing reno's and it's really cramped in here, and my chair is tilted a very strange angle, so I'll close this very small update and confirm that yes, I am still alive and I will see you all very shortly.

Meeting on the Turret Stairs (mini) is Complete

Completed on March 17th. Note, it had just come off the Q-snaps when I took this photo, so this is why you see a slight wave in the piece.  This was my first mini and I was a bit dubious as to how much detail would be lost on one, but when it came down to it, the only place I really noticed was on the hand that grasped in the knights embrace.  Other than that I was really happy with the detail.  I remember seeing a photo of a mini Adrift and I really couldn't tell the difference between them.

I'll be taking her to get framed in a few weeks and will post a photo of her ready to be hung on my wall.

A while back I decided to take the time to label where in my cabinet my DMC threat sits. This was an arduous procedure, as I, being to darn fussy for my own good, decided that I needed to cut each label down to size and put a border on it.  The reason why I did this was I noticed when it came to changing floss for projects, and as I usually have 2 projects going at the same time, that it was hard to determine where my floss went, without putting all of floss back from both projects and then pulling them again for the old project and the new.  This was time consuming and a big fat PITA, so I took the time to label my spaces.  What a difference it made! I was able to pop all of my threats from Turret Stairs back within minutes and pull the threads I need for my new project.

New project, you ask?   Why yes, I do have one lined up.  My next project will be another mini. Generations, by Laura Prindle.  I plan on hanging this one in my office at work,  when I'm done.
I think it's stunning and the polar opposite of Wind Moon, both in colour and size. 

So there you have it.  That's all my news I have for you at this time.

Happy stitching, kindred's.

First Page Finish of the Year

Meeting on the Turret Stairs pages 8 and 9.

That's a row finish. I'm now 79% done this project. I only have 3 partial pages left, about 3/4 of a page each. The end is in sight.  It's funny, because as I was stitching the last page, I was wondering why the knight had one slim grey leg and one fat beige leg.  It wasn't 'til I was done and had a photo of my work that I could see that the beige fat leg was actually part of the pillar of the turret.  Sometimes when I'm working on a HaED, the pattern doesn't make sense to me, but I just trust it and carry on.  It eventually makes sense.  

AND I will be continuing to work on this, as Wind Moon is currently at a friend's house, a talented, talented seamstress, who is making me a carrying case for my huge Quantum frame, so I can transport Wind Moon easily to Stitch-n-Bitch on Sundays. She's making me a case that I can sling over my shoulder.  I will, of course, brag  share with you all when I finally get it.

I haven't been stitching as much as I normally do, as I have discovered the wonderful world of Assassins Creed, and have been traveling through London, circa 1869 and killing blighters.  It's seriously digging into my stitching time, but I can't help it. I've never played video games before, other than Mahjong and Tetris.  It's pretty fun, but the graphics are fantastic. I often forget to do my mission and I just wander aimlessly through the game looking at the sights, which makes me the worst gamer ever. But the shiny will soon wear off and I will be back to my project soon enough.

I promise the stitching bug will bite again, but updates may be slower than usual.

I may just blaze through these next three pages, so hopefully the next update will be a project finish. That's the plan, anyway.