WIPocalypse - January progress

To be honest, I don't have much progress to show on my WIPs because I have been so busy with all my starts for the Ultimate Crazy January Challenge. As of today, I have 9 new starts and it's boggling my mind a bit. :)

Anyhow, I thought I would show the tiny bit of progress I made on Drama Queen during the holidays.

It's a whole lot of red. :) And there's still more red to go in there.

This will be on the backburner until all my new starts are, well, started. February will be the perfect month to stitch red!

2012 UCJC - Day 9

Didn't have as much time to stitch today as I would have liked, but I do have a little bit of progress to show.

Today I started Elizabeth by Miribilia on 32 ct Silvery Skies lugana (by Enchanting Lair), 2 over 2 using DMC and Mill Hill beads. I must admit that I just LOVE the fabric I'm stitching this on. I can't wait to see how all the colours come together on it.

I love this design ... but I don't think it'll get much love in the first half of this year. Too many other things to stitch!! LOL

2012 UCJC - Day 8

I have to give a big shout-out to my LNS - Thread & Eye. Kathy and Neale are just the nicest, sweetest people ever!

Today's project is Metamorphasis by Ink Circles. I ordered the chart near the end of November, but it didn't arrive at my LNS till after I had left town and headed to my parents' place for the holidays. I'd already made arrangements with Kathy & Neale to kit up the chart for me so it would be ready to go when I picked it up at the beginning of January. Lo and behold, I get an email just before Christmas from them ... they had everything ready for me, but they had some hand-dyed fabric that would look lovely and would I like to see it before they cut the white lugana I had original planned on using? (Twist my rubber arm!) So they waited for me to pop by in January and they showed me the most perfect fabric! It's a gorgeous buttery beige and the threads looked stunning when I did the floss toss.

So, I am now stitching Metamorphasis on 32 ct Heritage lugana, 2 over 2, using the recommended GAST threads. I'm loving it!

I made decent progress today too. I will be getting back to this one sooner rather than later. :)

2012 UCJC - Day 7

Today I started a freebie by Penelopis called Wieniec Korona. I'm continuing the silk trend too -- black HDF silk, 2 over 2 on 32 ct white lugana. I didn't have a lot of time to stitch today :( so my project doesn't really look like anything.

My only complaint with this pattern is that when I printed out my working copy, the graph paper was all fuzzy and blurry and the pattern was very difficult to read.

I had to rechart it by hand so I could follow it.

2012 UCJC - Day 6

The silk trend continues ...

This is a sweet little chart by My Big Toe Designs called Christmas Snow. It doesn't really read Christmas to me ... so I like to call it Swirly Snow. :P Anyway, I'm stitching it on 32 ct Siren's Ocean lugana by Enchanting Lair, 2 over 2 with (you guessed it!) white HDF silk. I {heart} silk.

This piece is fun to stitch, and I love the look of the white on the hand-dyed fabric. I'm getting used to stitching with just one colour thread per project, not sure how I'll adjust when I get a chart with lots of colour changes. LOL

I've been trying to follow as many other Crazy January Challenges as possible, and a common thread of conversation revolves around how difficult it is to start so many new projects so quickly (and we're only 6 days in). I must say I feel that way too. I love starting the projects - it's really satisfying to start all these charts that I've had in my stash for ages and just never found time for. I like seeing my thread and fabric decisions become a reality in my hands. At the same time, it's really disconcerting to stitch for a few hours, take the piece off the q-snaps, tuck it away in its baggie in my drawer of starts, and then prep the new start for the next day. The urge to continue stitching on one project is almost overwhelming. It's just weird.

2012 UCJC - Day 5

More silk!!!!

Today's start is a fun one, that's for sure. I'm stitching the NATO Phonetic Subversive Sampler by Kincavel Krosses on 28 ct white lugana, 2 over 2 using Carrie's Creations Fantasm. (It's not subversive -- yet! But it is beyond pretty!)

Close up!

This one is fun -- amazing colours, lovely silk, and a simple, straightforward design. The size amazes me though, it's so small -- only 4.5 x 3.5 inches. I look at the chart and my brain thinks it should be as large as the page is for some reason. Once it's done, this will be a fun piece to tuck on a shelf in my office at school and see if anyone notices the subversive message! LOL

2012 UCJC - Day 4

In case you haven't noticed or didn't know, I LOVE LOVE LOVE stitching with silks. This is my fourth project in my UCJC and it's the second one using silks! There are 7 more in the line up as well. I'm seriously addicted to them. Love them!

Today's start uses Vicki Clayton's HDF 2125 on some hand-dyed 16 ct aida (Whimsy it's called) from Picture This Plus. I'm stitching the Tribal Butterfly by Sparklies.

In person the silk is much brighter and shinier; I am already in love with this piece. It looks great and is stitching up pretty fast. Plus, it's such a simple straightforward stitch -- a very welcome change from what I commonly stitch. It kills me to put this one down!

2012 UCJC - Day 3

Tried something new today -- hardanger. It was a little intimidating at first; I didn't really understand the chart and the threads were like nothing I'd ever worked with before. Caron Watercolours (aka perle #5) is gigantic!!!

So this piece is called Clover by Mabel Figworthy's Fancies. The model is stitched tone on tone, but I thought clover should be green ... and have some POP to it! So I chose to stitch it on 25 ct white lugana using Caron Collection threads in Emerald (Watercolours and Wildflowers) with some Mill Hill Petite Seed Beads.

Once I got going and got used to the threads, it was actually a lot of fun to work on! No cutting has been done yet, but it's coming!! I am looking forward to coming back to this piece and finishing it soon.

I love starting all these new projects with UCJC, but I almost wish I had a little more time with each start. I'm just getting into a piece and I have to put it down again. It'll be a month before I can touch this again.

Anyway ... NEXT!!

2012 UCJC - Day 2

Today's stitching did not start off as well as I'd hoped. I decided to try tenting on some of my larger, fully stitched pieces b/c I really want to get some finishes in sooner rather than later. I loved the idea of being able to stitch 2x as fast this way.

Full of high hopes, I started stitching Fractal 284 Bookmark, and after almost 200 stitches ... I HATED it. My stitches looked all funny and uneven. (Though they look better in the pic then they did in real life.)

No offense to those out there that tent, but I just can't fathom enjoying stitching an entire piece that way. This means that the other 3 pieces I was planning to tent will now be done with full crosses, and will take forever to finish. :(

So I spent an hour or so frogging out all that I'd done, and restarted using full crosses.

I'm 240 stitches in, and it looks ok. There's something about this piece (perhaps it's the fabric?) that's making me not love stitching it. This one might not get pulled out again for a while.

And it begins ... 2012 UCJC - Day 1

I've been so excited the past few days just waiting for the 2012 Ultimate Crazy January Challenge to start! 31 new starts in 31 days -- how crazy am I??

So here I go ... Day 1!! Today's start is the 2009 Christmas ornament by Tor Rhuann Designs. (Check my UCJC page for a picture of what it should look like when finished.) I love the look of assisi-style designs, and it feels good to get a head start on my ornaments for next Christmas. I'm stitching this on 18 ct white aida with HDF silk (Ethereal Ice) and PTB Silver.

And my progress today:

I also have a card to share today. I played around with creating my own washi tape the other day using authentic Japanese origami paper. I love how it turned out, and it was fun to make an Asian-inspired card.