Christmas kitty #1

I stayed up probably too late finishing the back stitching on the first of the Christmas kitty ornaments I picked up in a kit late last year (I'm such a sucker for a sale and cute kitties).



This is the first time in a while that I've worked on something in 14ct (plastic canvas in this case)! I picked up a small scanner to have at home with some of the bonus money I got at Christmas, so this is a scan of the piece, rather than a photo. I'll probably start scanning more of the small projects in directly since finding good light for photos in my apartment is difficult sometimes.

I've started working on a little blackwork bookmark this afternoon - pics when I have enough progress that it actually looks like something. :)

Happy New Year!

I was shocked to see how long it had been since my last post when I went to write this post today! Of course that also means that I haven't been doing a lot of stitching lately, but hopefully I'll be able to get some more in for this new year.

Looking back on 2010, I did meet at least one goal and finished Halloween Fairy, although I still have one large project left that I need to finish (Catherine of Aragon) which will have to be a goal of 2011. I also want to start to make a dent in some of the old kits I still have around.

In lieu of recent stitching, here are two older projects that I was recently able to finally get some photos of. The first is, I think, the first "over one" on a small count (28 ct in this case) project that I did. It was originally a gift for my grandmother and now is at my dad's. The pattern was from a British magazine from the 1990s, but I don't know which one.



And the second is the largest needlepoint project I've ever done. It was from a kit and I probably stitched it at some point from the late 1990s to early 2000s.



I'm almost done with the first of six kitty cat Christmas ornaments that I picked up last year and I think I'll set it aside after I finish the one I'm working on. I just hope they don't turn in to another set of "15 year ornaments" like the batch I finally finished a few years ago!

A little blog housekeeping

I spent way too much time yesterday going through all of the old posts and adding labels for the posts that didn't have them and trying to add links to the companies and designers of things that I've worked on. I'm not really sure that I *needed* to do it, but since I had labels and links for some posts and not for others, the OCD side of me wanted them all to have labels and links.

Now, to actually do some stitching!

Two more small finishes

Here are a couple of small finishes from the past couple of weeks. The first is the one that you saw an "in progress" photo of in the previous post and the other is the autumn square from a Prairie Schooler design from the February 2008 issue of The Gift of Stitching. (You can see the full design here.)





I've started one more little Halloween design from the Just Cross Stitch October issue, then I'm going to start on some Christmas stuff.

Last weekend's stitching

I didn't get as much stitching done this past weekend as I had hoped too, but I did manage to finish one of my small projects, "By the Full Moon" by Tracy Horner of Ink Circles from the September/October 2010 issue of Just Cross Stitch. I stitched it on some hand-dyed Silkweaver fabric.



I also started another design from the same issue - "Perched on a Pumpkin" from Blue Ribbon Designs, also on some Silkweaver fabric.

Halloween Fairy Finished!

I can't believe how long I dragged out the completion of this design. I've decided that I really dislike doing lots of long stitches (the metallics of the webs and vines) and I think that's why it took me so long when I was so close to finishing. Now I need to wash and frame it, which will no doubt take another two years.

Yesterday I discovered something I don't think I had previously realized - going to a craft store without knowing exactly what you need is just as bad as going to the grocery store hungry. I ended up with several things that I probably didn't need, but I'm a sucker for kitty cat Christmas ornaments (especially when they are 50% off). And organizer tools (especially when they are 30% off). And several other things what were various percentages off. :)

I'm going to finish a couple of small things and then get started on my next big design - Sleepy Hollow by Glendon Place. As has happened a couple of times, I had a hand-dyed fabric that I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for, and then found the perfect design (the fabric is "Raging Storm" by Silkweaver)!

Small finish from last weekend

Last weekend I got the bug to start doing some final finishing on some of the smaller designs I've stitched, which mostly meant that I ended up looking through all the craft store sales fliers and then wandering the aisles looking for inspiration. The ornament below is the only one that I ended up finishing over the weekend, and it didn't come out as good as some other ornaments that I did a couple of years ago. I think part of the problem was the oval shape and that I didn't clip the bunched-up fabric enough so the two halves didn't stick together very well (thankfully I had really thick cording to fill the gap). I was proud of myself for finding something to make the oval shape though - I was originally looking for an oval stencil in the art supplies, but didn't have any luck (they just had circles and they were really expensive). So I wandered over to the wood crafts and found an oval cut-out (for painting and putting on furniture, picture frames, etc.) that was just the right size and only 29 cents. Score!



The design is from the Just Cross Stitch ornaments issue from a few years back. I've called it "Who Tree" because it makes me think of the trees in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". :)

I did more on the remaining metallics on Halloween Fairy (which I will hopefully finish this weekend) and I started on a small ornament from this year's JCS Halloween issue. I like to have a small design that I can stitch on while I'm sitting in bed watching TV later in the evening and don't want to mess with a big design (even though I have a great lap frame). More pics this weekend!

Halloween Fairy is almost done!

I took this photo earlier in the day yesterday while the light was still good (Tropical Storm Hermine was approaching with lots of clouds), so I've actually gotten even closer to finishing than when I took this photo. Apologies for the weird shadow on the left side.

Three years and a Halloween Fairy update

Yes, this is my three year blogiversary! And I've only been working on Halloween Fairy for two of those three years. ;)



As you can see, she's finally starting to get legs and I'm almost finished with her skirt (I think it was all that dark brown stitching that was killing my desire to pick this one up and finish it, but I'm almost done with that now!). Soon I'll be able to get to the pumpkins and the remaining metallics and beads. I really wanted to start on another project, but I realized I needed the long Q-snap bars from this one, so I'm using that as incentive to get her finished before *this* Halloween.

Fall trees finished!

I finished Fall Trees last night!



I'm going to do a little work on the remaining parts of Catherine of Aragon's skirt and then some more on Halloween Fairy. Of course, this plan will probably fly out the window when the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue gets here. Can you tell I have a BIG weakness for Halloween and Fall designs?

Fall trees update

I thought I might get around to finishing this over the weekend but I didn't quite manage it. Almost there though!

New stitching - Fall trees

Yes, I've been doing a little more stitching! Woo-hoo! This design is "Fall Line Up" from The Cross Stitcher magazine October 2009 issue. I chose a sparkly hand-dyed 32-ct fabric for it (although the sparkles and color don't show up very good in the photo - I'll get a better one in natural light when I finish it).

Some stitching!! *faint*

And if it looks familiar (say... like something in this previous post) there is a good reason for that! A friend went to the UK recently and brought me a Tudor rose bookmark kit that I had already done before. I was planning to stitch them together and make it two-sided until I discovered that one was 14-ct and the other was 15-ct. Oh well, I guess I have two now!

Now I think I'll try to finish a few of the autumn and Halloween projects I started last year (and the year before that - yes, I still haven't finished Halloween Fairy!). Thinking of the fall is about the only thing that gets me through Texas summers.

Since I still don't have stitching to share with everyone

I thought I would pass along this awesome article...

From the Wall Street Journal:

Idle Pastime: In Off Hours, Truckers Pick Up Stitching

With Less to Haul, Drivers Try New Hobbies; Quilting in the Cab

By JENNIFER LEVITZ

WALCOTT, Iowa—Semi driver Dave White happily sequestered himself in his rig at a truck stop on a rural stretch of Interstate 80, waiting to pick up his next haul: 45,000 pounds of Spam. He used to loathe the downtime in his job.

Then, he bought a sewing machine.

Since last year, when the economy left drivers with fewer hauls, Mr. White, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound ex-Air Force mechanic with a bushy mustache, has hunkered down inside his truck in his many off hours, making quilts from patterns with names like "Meet Me In Paris." When he's not sewing, he's daydreaming about it, he said as he ran a square of yellow cotton with little violets through his machine. "Oh, there's many a time you're just going down the road at O-dark-thirty in the morning and you just start thinking about a particular pattern."

Full article

(and maybe some needlework soon... I've really been itching to do some stitching!)

Happy New Year!

I did manage to get some stitching done in 2009, but not as much as I would have liked. I haven't even done as much over my winter break as I had planned, although I did get around to rinsing a bunch of hand-dyed fabrics and washing some small projects so I can do the final finishing. I mostly finished stitching one small ornament from a kit I got in a grab bag a while back, but I'll post a photo when it is totally complete.

Goals for 2010? To finally finish Halloween Fairy and Catherine of Aragon! I am still hoping to make a dent in some of the old kits still sitting in my organizer bin but a lot of those are pretty big projects. Maybe I'll try to get the smaller ones done first so I'll feel like I've accomplished something. :)

Halloween Fairy update

I can't believe it has been so long since the last update of Halloween Fairy, but then again, I haven't worked on it much! Over the weekend I finished all of the top half of the chart and worked some more on the skirt:

Another fall finish

This is another fall design from the Just Cross Stitch Fall/Halloween issue -



I used a great small piece of Silkweaver hand-dyed fabric that was perfect for this design. I'm in their Fabric of the Month club and I have the "surprise me!" option, so I never know exactly what I'm going to get. When I first saw this piece I wasn't sure what kind of design I would be able to use it for, but it ended up being just right for this one!

First of the JCS fall/Halloween designs done!

I actually finished this last weekend but I'm just now getting around to posting the photo since it has been a very busy week.

It was nice to be able to finish a small project since I've been slowly (VERY slowly) working on two larger projects for about a year now. Plus I was finally able to find a good use for this one small piece of needlework fabric that was just begging for a design like this! Of course, working in those lovely autumn colors has really made me wish that we could skip September and just go straight in to October.

Two years!

Today is the second anniversary of this blog, which I've basically been using as a journal to keep track of past and current stitching projects. Eventually I should add some quilting and costuming, but I don't have nearly as many examples of that as I do the cross stitch (and a few other types of needlework). And to celebrate two years, maybe I'll do a little stitching tonight! Several of the designs in the new Halloween issue of Just Cross Stitch are calling me...

Spring (and the four seasons) is done!

Here's the final photo for the spring quarter of the Four Seasons design:



And here are all four sections together:



I still haven't made a final decision on how I'm going to complete these - I'm flipping between a quilt or four thin, black frames - so for now they will sit in my "waiting to be finished" basket!