A finish but no happy dance.

I did it. I finally finished Cirque des Carreaux by Ink Circles. This is stitched 1 over 1 on 25 ct Nightfall lugana by Sassy Fabby's using Epiphany silk by Carrie's Creations.

I adore the pattern. I love the fabric. I swoon for silks.

I hate the finish.

One of the skeins must of been from a different dye lot (my fault) and it is glaringly obvious to me. I do not have it in me to rip it out and restitch it. At least not at the moment. So it'll go away into the done pile and I'll look at it again in a few months. Maybe.

I'm glad I'm finished, but I wish I loved it.

Not up for a happy dance.

Progress, progress, new start?

Lots to share today!!  I have made excellent progress on Cirque des Carreaux in the past week. I've now finished 4 1/2 + pages (don't you just love throwing away pages of a chart that are completely highlighted??!), and just 2 partially completed pages to go!

I also got a bee in my bonnet (no pun intended) and put in about 1000 stitches on Sunflower Bee - the project I started at the retreat for my dad. The colours aren't too exciting, but the subtle pattern emerging is kinda cool.

I'm not entirely sure I love stitching 1 over 1 full crosses on 28 ct. I picked up some more fabric from my LNS the other day to restart QS Blue Butterfly, so I might try tenting 2 over 1 on 28 ct for that and see how it goes.

I did mention a new start, didn't I? Well, it's not quite a new start, but I kitted up something new and will be starting it in the next few days. My dear stitching friends, who are INCREDIBLY enabling, have talked me into trying counted canvas. I was browsing my LNS the other day while I waited for help with fabric and saw this pattern:

Well, those are some of my favourite colours and I just fell head over heels for this pattern. Of course I bought it on the spot, and the next thing I know, I'm being told to kit it up so I can learn how to do it this Tuesday. More pics to come I guess.

Aren't these threads lovely? I havent stitch with the Caron Snow or the Rainbow Gallery Overture before, so this will be quite the adventure!

Chugging along with CdCx

I really like working on Cirque des Carreaux because it travels so well. One thread, no muss, no fuss. So I took it with me for a short visit to my parents' place. I made some really good progress too! Page 4 is now almost finished -- you can see the bottom left corner now!

Two-thirds done (and a sneak peak)!

I've still been working on Cirque des Carreaux this week (when I've had time, which isn't often). The top three pages are now fully complete and a little of each of the next 3 pages are stitched as well. The entire piece is two-thirds of the way done.

The end is near, and yet somehow a long way off! I'd love to finish this in the next few weeks.

I've also put in a couple of hours on DQ -- here's a close-up sneak peak of the centre of the design:

Getting closer!!

This past week I have mostly worked on Cirque des Carreaux when I've had a spare few minutes.

Page 3 is only a handful of stitches away from being completed and that means only 3 partial pages to go!! I expect this one might just get finished by Spring!

My First Retreat

Just got home from my very first stitching retreat. It. Was. Awesome.

It truly felt like Christmas - I stayed up late the first night talking, laughing, and stitching, then got up early the next day, stayed in my jammies, and went running out to the main room to stitch again. It was better than Christmas because it didn't end after one day!! Big shout out to my partners in crime - Caroline and Tracey!!

So much progress - oh my gooses!

The first night I worked like a madwoman and completed page 4 of Drama Queen. That's 6 pages completed now or 32, 582 stitches or 42.2%.

I stitched every day from 8am till 2am - barely stopping for meals. It was a blast! I will admit that my attention wavered a bit, so I changed projects frequently. Luckily I brought quite a few with me. The only one that didn't get any love while I was at the retreat was Elizabeth by Mirabilia. She'll come out to play once I have a few other WIPs finished.

Definitely made some progress on Cirque des Carreaux. I think I've finished about 2.5 pages of the 6.

I finally put a few more stitches into Rules For Life by Kincavel Krosses. I love this piece. I'm hoping to finish it sooner rather than later.

I had a few new starts as well.

I started Ice Blossom by Just Nan and it was a bit of a disaster. Not only was I stitching white on white which is challenging, but I was converting the recommended threads to HDF silk and DMC perles. I did quite a bit of frogging, and I still have more to frog because I stitched one part without the sparkly metallic it needs. *sigh* It looks okay though. I like the textural differences I've added.

I also started Sunflower Bee by HAED for my Dad (he doesn't know about this though). I gridded the first page and put in 100 stitches. It's 88,900 stitches in total, so bigger than Drama Queen, but I'm stitching it on 28 ct white lugana so it should be roughly the same size. No idea when I'll actually get this one done, but the chart is full of big blocks of colour for the first few pages. It should be an easy stitch for now.

I also managed another start/finish!! I worked on the February design in the SotW hardanger SAL from Mabel Figworthy's Fancies. I didn't follow the directions for colours and I changed the beads to French knots (I can just see the beads being ripped off by my nieces within hours of getting it), but I think it looks pretty good. I forgot how time consuming woven bars are to do! It felt neverending. I also found the bead edging stitch to be fairly difficult and quite annoying. I referred to it often as the "stupid stitch." It turned out all right in the end.

Overall, the retreat was amazing. I am dead tired, and yet I feel refreshed, re-energized, and more like a real person than I have in a long time. It was good to take a few days for me without any guilt and with little thought for school and my responsibilities there. I didn't even check email!! (I dread going to check it now though.)

I've already put in my deposit for the October retreat!!

Last update of 2012

I mut admit, it's been a pretty good stitching year. It's very likely that because of all the pressure from participating in the Ultimate Crazy January Challenge, I not only got a lot of projects done but I stayed more focused than usual. Only 2 new starts outside of the challenge, and I finished both of those this year as well.

I am not participating in any challenges this year. No CJC, no TUSAL, no WIPocalypse. Just me and my stitching. I might join in on the occasional IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend), but only if it fits my schedule. I want to stitch with no pressure or constraints this year.

I still have a lot of projects on the go, so I'm going to spend most of 2013 working on getting that pile down to a more respectable (and manageable) size. I've divided my pile of projects into WIPs and UFOs. I'm just going to ignore the UFOs for now and not feel guilty about it. Instead, I'm going to try to finish a few of my bigger WIPs. I've decided to concentrate on Cirque des Carreaux (Ink Circles), Elizabeth (Mirabilia), Rules For Life (Kincavel Krosses), QS Blue Butterfly (HAED), and of course, Drama Queen (custom).

WIP Goals:

• Complete 3 pages of Drama Queen.
• Finish all other WIPs.

Don't think for a moment though that I won't be adding a few new starts into the mix! I have several new starts planned, but I am going to try and restrain myself and not start any more HAEDs (expect for QS Mystic Garden for the HAED BB SAL).

I really do want to start another HAED ... must resist!! (Though I will likely keep buying charts. I just love OWNING such pretty things!)

New Start Goals:

• Start QS Mystic Garden and complete at least 1 page.
• Start and finish Ice Blossoms (Just Nan).
• Start and finish Tribal Butterfly (Sparklies) in rainbow colours for my mom.
• Start Ciara Blue (Blackwork Journey).

I know I'm a little nuts for thinking I can finish so many "big" projects in one year, but I'll at least give it a good try. There is lots of variety and I'm going to stagger the new starts throughout the year, so I can revel in the excitement of planning and starting.

I do have some last minute progress to show you as well. During the last few days, I've put in some time on Cirque des Carreaux, and have managed to finish page 2 (and a little bit more)! 

It's looking good I think. :) Time to switch off to Drama Queen for a bit and get to work on some of those 2013 goals. 

I'm going to try implementing a small rotation for my projects. To start, I'm going to rotate a full page on Cirque with half a page of Drama Queen. Once I start QS Mystic Garden on January 4th, I'll add that in as a 1/4 page after every half page of DQ. Once I get used to that (and make some decent progress) then I'll add in some other projects. We'll see how well this works. It took close to 9 months to get over the 'switching bug' I got from all those starts in January. It's a miracle I can focus on any one project for more than two days.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and encouraging me during 2012. I really do appreciate it. Here's to a stitchy new year!

Stitching and Stash!

My ability to focus hasn't been that great lately, so I've been jumping from project to project. So I have lots of little updates.

First up ... I pulled out a UCJC project that I hadn't touched since I started it in January. I put in 50 or 60 stitches, then got bored. Anyway, my meager progress on SK Oriental Courage (HAED):

Then I pulled out Cirque des Carreaux again (I just love stitching this one!) and did 1/4 - 1/2 a page of stitching.

After trying (in vain) to find a blue silk that matched nicely with the variegated silk I had originially used in my NATO Subversive Sampler (Kincavel Krosses), I gave up and settled on a purple silk that doesn't quite match, but is as close as I can get. It certainly looks 100% better than the 2 or 3 blue options I had (and 1000% better than the original blue I'd used).

In my attempts to find the right blue silk (and because I needed another skein of Hearts on Fire for my Austrian I heart project), I ordered a bunch of gorgeous silks from Carrie's Creations.

From left to right they are: Electric Blue, Foxfire, Graphite, Plum Passion, Slate Blue, and Purple Pansy.

And finally, I am a sucker for HAED sales. During the 35% Hallowe'en sale, I bought the following charts:

Dark Angel

Flash

 Soul of the Masai Mara

Mini Asian Fantasy 3

I have more in my cart because of the 50% sale, but I haven't committed to anything yet.

Progress, Framing, and Dyeing!!

For some reason, I just could not put Cirque des Carreaux down. I not only finished the first page, but managed to get almost 1/4 of page 2 done too! I had to literally take it off the q-snap and bundle it away so that I would work on other things. Since CdCx is a multi-page pattern, this counts as a finish for my UCJC! Yippee!

I think it looks great and this picture does a good job of showing off the true colours of the fabric and silk.

I got Jasmine Pixie (by Nora Corbett) back from the framers over a month ago, but I only just got around to hanging it up. I'm pretty proud of this piece, to be honest. It's my first piece that had both fractional stitches and a ton of beads. She's just lovely!

Two weekends ago I got the dyeing bug again, so I popped over to my LNS, picked up over a yard of 32 ct lugana plus a spare piece of jobelan, and went to work! I picked up a few more dye colours as well, so I got to try new things.

I learn a lot each time I try dyeing, and this time wasn't quite as succesful in my opinion. In order to have more pieces to dye, I cut up my yard of fabric into smaller pieces (15x18). As a result, less fabric in the dyeing containers means the patterns on the fabric look different. Important to learn, but dissapointing too. I did get a few decent pieces though.

This piece started as 32 ct ivory jobelan.

I washed it 4 or 5 times after dyeing and colour was still coming out. Red is so hard to dye. :( Definitely not a colourfast piece of fabric. LOL. I almost wish I hadn't washed it so much ... the red isn't as vibrant as I would like.

This piece was originally 32 ct antique white lugana.

This is my favourite piece from this dye session. I'm not quite sure how I managed such awesome mottling with the blue and the teal. It makes me think of mermaids ... hrmm ... might have to go searching for some Mirabilia patterns.

These two started as 32 ct white lugana.

They are pretty, but not overly exciting. Again, I washed out more of the colour than I would have liked. I have a thing for bold, vibrant fabrics I guess.

September WIPocalypse Report

Another WIPocalypse report, and I still have so much stitching left to do before the world ends! Perhaps I should stop buying stash ...

Anywho, I have made a small amount of progress on another UCJC project - Cirque des Carreaux by Ink Circles. The last time I worked on it I didn't really enjoy it that much, the 1 over 1 on hand-dyed fabric was giving me problems. But this time it's been delightful! Guess you just have to be in the right frame of mind for certain projects.

Halfway done page 1 now. I think I'm going to stick with this piece a little longer, see if I can get a page finish soon (maybe the end of Oct?). If I do, it'll be another finish in the UCJC challenge since this is a multi-page chart. Wouldn't that be nice?

I joined in HAED Appreciation Week a few weeks ago. Here is what I added to my growing stash:

Cushion Blue by Cari Buziak

High Tea by Gordon Fitchett

Peacock's Lagoon by Ciro Marchetti

I am DYING to start Peacock's Lagoon -- the colours are so rich and vibrant -- but I am being very good and resisting temptation (for now). I've also bought a few new charts from my local LNS which I'd like to start, and again I am trying to resist. I have a serious case of startitis ...