First Finish of 2013!

Insomnia = lots of stitching.

And so, I managed to finish mini Metamorphosis much earlier than expected.

I'm not totally in love with this piece. I think the first blue is too light. :( I do however like the impression this gives off of getting stronger and bolder as it changes. So many layers of meaning for this piece!

I tried to put a few more stitches into QS Mystic Garden (I'm up to 167 stitches to date),  but I'm just not loving this one right now.

I've now switched back to Drama Queen for a bit. (Such a pleasure to stitch this one!) Going to see if I can finish another half page before mid-February.

Frustration and another new start

So I started working on QS Mystic Garden for the HAED BB SAL. I'm parking, which I've really enjoyed when working on DQ, but it isn't working for me on this piece. There's almost too much confetti! And with no other pages around it, there isn't anything to anchor your threads on, so it's all just a big ugly mess! Three days and I've not even stitched 100 stitches on it. Bleh. I'm taking a break from it for a bit, but I might have to try cross country on it for a while and see how that goes. Need to get a different coloured washable pen though. Blue on blue isn't too useful.

To calm me down and make stitching fun again, I started another new (and very easy) project.

Look familiar? I'm stitching Metamorphosis by Ink Circles again. This time it's being stitched 1 over 1 on 28 ct white lugana using DMC threads. Instead of the more primitive/Quakery colours of the original, this one is being done in blue ombre. It is so little and cute! The solid coloured thread makes this design a breeze to stitch. Can't believe I got almost the entire first motif done, and I only stitched for a couple hours today. Smoking needles, indeed!

Half page progess & a new start

Okay ... I'll admit it ... I'm cheating a little here on the progress. A good chunk of this half page on Drama Queen was done in the last few days of December 2012, but, I finished the half page in January 2013, so I'm going to count it as this year's progress. :)

I'm trying to stich on a rotation, kind of, so now that half a page of DQ is done, I'm starting QS Mystic Garden (for the HAED BB SAL) and I'm going to try to do a 1/4 page before I switch out projects.

My start:

This is stitched 1 over 1 full x's on 25 ct Night Magic lugana (Sassy's Fabbys). I am gridding, but my washable pen is blue, so it's a little hard to see. I might have to go find a purple one.

Close-up:

This is crazy confetti, so we'll see if I last through a 1/4 page.

Pockets of Progress

This Ultimate Crazy January Challenge has completely ruined my ability to focus on a single piece for an extended period of time. 3 to 4 days seems to be the absolute maximum before I just have to switch out my projects.

So I end up with a little bit of progress on a bunch of pieces. This update features two projects that haven't seen the light of day since I started them in January.

I Stitch Therefore I Stash (pattern from Cross Stitch Crazy):

I have decided that I am not a huge fan of stitching with variegated threads. I don't love the blocky/streaky look, and I find that my stitches don't lay as well when I have to do one stitch at a time.

QS Blue Butterfly (HAED):

I'd gotten used to stitching over 2 on a lot of my other UCJC projects, so it took a bit to get back into stitching over 1. I will admit that my love affair with HAEDs has waned. I still love the projects I'm doing and will eventually finish them all, but I like having other types of projects on the go as well. There are just too many patterns in the world that I am dying to stitch.

2012 UCJC - Day 27

I really liked today's project, even though the stitches started off a little funky.

Today I started a new HAED - QS Blue Butterfly by Ching Chou Kuik. I'm stitching this on 25 ct Night Magic lugana by Sassy's Fabbys, 1 over 1. The picture doesn't do the fabric justice AT ALL. It's not grey, it's actually a very deep, dark teal. It's gorgeous.

The first 100 or so stitches in this piece looked funny to me, and I was worried that the hand dyed fabric was responsible for the weirdness. Although, as I put more stitches in, it seems to be working itself out.

It's very strange to be stitching with so much pink (this is the second project this week that has been nothing but pink so far), but I'm kind of enjoying the happy, bright, bold colours. I think this piece is going to look amazing on the dark background.

To be honest, it shocked me when I printed out the chart ... only 2 full pages and 2 itsy bitsy partial pages. For a HAED, even a quick stitch, it's tiny! This might just be finished this year after all!

4 more starts to go. :)

Edited to add a slightly better photo:

A DQ Milestone

I've been working pretty steadily on Drama Queen for the last little while, and this morning I hit a milestone -- 20,000 stitches done (or 25.89%).

The stitch count:

This coming weekend is an IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) and I think I might just pull out my Tree of Stitches and finally work on part 3 (the dreaded French Knots).

Also -- I need to give a huge shout-out THANK YOU to Rachael of TimRachael's Blog for being so incredibly generous! She had a giveaway last week, and I won! So in my email yesterday, I received a chart from HAED. It's gorgeous!! It'll be yet another present for my mom ... eventually. I'm not sure when I'll have time to sneak it into my rotation. (Perhaps CJC 2012 will have to expand to 16 days!) It's QS Blue Butterfly by Ching-Chou Kuik.

Oct IHSW - Not a lot of progress

It was IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) again, hosted by Joysze over at Random Ramblings. I signed up to participate, and had every intention of making significant progress on my QS Terra Fairy Sprite, but it just wasn't to be.

I went away for the weekend and didn't even end up taking any stitching with me at all!! It's pretty unusual for me to go that long without stitching something.

So I added an extra day to my IHSW weekend and put in a couple hours tonight on QS Terra. Not exactly the progress I was hoping for, but it's a little farther along.

Slow and not so steady progress ...

Time for another update on my HAED BB QS SAL project - QS Terra Fairy Sprite. Though we've been sent 5 of 6 pages in the chart, I am still slogging through page one. I don't know what it is with this one, but I just can't seem to make much progress at all!

Anyway, here she is for September:

Oh so slowly ...

I did a little work on my HAED Bulletin Board QS SAL - Terra Fairy Sprite. I love the picture, but stitching this piece just seems to take FOREVER. I'm still not done page one ... and pages 2, 3 and 4 are already sent out!

But anyways ... here she is:

QS Terra Fairy - July Update

Finally made a bit of progress on my HAED Bulletin Board SAL. I'm still struggling through page one, and page 4 just got emailed out. Eek!

This will end up in my rotation during the next few months.

QS Terra (HAED SAL) - Feb Update

My progress so far on the HAED Bulletin Board SAL:

I've almost stitched a 1/4 of the first page. The second page will be sent out at the beginning of March, but I won't be touching that anytime soon. I'll be happy if I finish the entire first page by December.

While the stitching is relatively easy right now because it's just big blocks of colour, I am really not liking the 28 ct fabric. My stitches are too small and they look uneven and funky. Bleck ... I don't like. But I refuse to restart (again) so will persevere in spite of my dislike. I'm glad I figured this out on a piece I'm not really attached to though. There is a distinct possibility that this may become a UFO (unfinished object) in the future.

HAED Freebie SAL 2011 - QS Terra Fairy Sprite

This year I decided to join the HAED Bulletin Board Freebie Stitchalong. We had a choice of 6 quickstitch patterns, and I chose Terra Fairy Sprite by Brigid Ashwood.

It's not something I'd normally stitch, but the other patterns really didn't call to me. I admit I do like the tattoo on her arm, almost matches mine. :)

It's a year-long stitchalong, where I get one page of the pattern every 2 months. I have a ton of other projects on the go, so I don't expect to get too far on this, but I have committed to finishing at least the first page before Christmas.

I was originally planning on doing this in petit point on 32 ct silk gauze, but one thread wasn't enough coverage and 2 threads was so squishy that I couldn't tell the stitches apart (which is a problem since you need to count stitches in counted cross stitch - go figure!). I then bought some 32 ct lugana and tried 1 thread and 2 thread tent stitches, both of which I hated. I then tried 1 over 1 full crosses on the 32 ct and still hated it. For my last ditch attempt (keep in mind I stitched 200-300 stitches each time I tried this), I tried 1 over 1 full crosses on some 28 ct jazlyn fabric. It's doable, but it's not my favourite.

Since I had so many false starts, I really haven't gotten very far on this yet, but progress is progress.