Turtle Trot - February

It's time again for the Turtle Trot SAL -- working on a list of 10 WIPs that need some love and that I post about on the 10th of every month.

I only worked on 4 of them in the past month:

Catch a Falling Star (HAED)

On January 10th

On February 10th

Ciara Blue (Blackwork Journey)

On January 10th

On February 10th

Damask Square (Ink Circles)

On January 10th

On February 10th

Wise Wisdom (Stoney Creek)

On January 10th

FINISHED!!!

One down … nine to go. :)

Been a long time ...

After an entire year of not putting a single stitch into any of my HAEDs, I am happy to say that I completed page 3 of Catch a Falling Star by Julie Fain.

This one is going away for a bit (I have a new start or two coming soon), but hopefully I will get back to it later this year. It's a very easy (and slightly boring) stitch right now … thank goodness I decided to tent it.

Turtle Trot SAL - January

Last year I didn't participate in any SALs (I think the Ultimate Crazy January Challenge, the WIPocalypse SAL, and the TUSAL in 2012 burnt me out a little). This year I decided to ease myself back into the swing of things by participating in the Turtle Trot SAL hosted by BAP Attack.

I've chosen 10 projects, both older UFOs and newer WIPs, that I would like to make slow and steady progress on this year. These pics are the most up-to-date available for each project.

1. Baked Alaska (Glendon Place)

2. Catch a Falling Star (HAED)

3. Ciara Blue (Blackwork Journey)

4. Damask Square (Ink Circles)

Side note: Damask Square was my New Year's Day start for 2014. This is the first progress pic of it. It's stitched over 1 on 28 ct black lugana using white HDF silk.

5. Drama Queen (custom chart by Skitzzzzz)

6. Elizabeth (Mirabilia)

7. Home Sweet Home (HAED)

8. Lickle Bit Shy (DMC)

9. Welcome (Kincavel Krosses)

10. Wise Wisdom (Stoney Creek)

Page Finish = Happy Dance!

I decided I needed some mindless, non-challenging stitching, so I worked on Catch a Falling Star (HAED) and managed to finish page 2!! You can see the beginnings of a big star!

This one is getting tucked away for a while. Not sure what's next though.

November WIPocalypse

I didn't work on any of my WIPocalypse goals lately.

I spent the last week or so stitching on Catch a Falling Star (HAED), but since I already reached my 1 page goal on it. These are just bonus stitches...

Then, because I don't have enough things on the go, I started something new. Can you guess what it might be?

Fingers crossed I can get it done (but not framed) by Christmas. It's for my mom.

CaFS Page Finish

I've been working on Drama Queen quite a bit lately, but because it is such a complicated, confetti heavy piece (even though parking helps tremendously) I needed something simple to work on that wasn't so taxing. So I decided Catch a Falling Star was the perfect simple project.

Lo and behold, a page finish!!

This is my first big project using tent stitch, and while the speed is really nice, I'm not in love with the coverage. This project is stitched 2 over 1 tent on 25 count light blue lugana. Considering how much 939 (dk navy blue) there is, doing full crosses might have driven me insane. :)

This is one of my UCJC projects, and since it's a huge HAED, a page finish counts as a finish in the challenge. Yay! I haven't had a UCJC finish since June. I believe this is UCJC finish number 13.

2012 UCJC - Day 21

I decided to try tenting again.

Today's start is a HAED called Catch a Falling Star by Julie Fain (retired). This was the first HAED pattern I ever bought, and I LOVE IT. It is a huge piece though, with dimensions of 400 x 509 stitches or 16 x 22 1/2 inches. I would like to finish it in my lifetime.

I'm stitching it on 25 ct ice blue lugana, 2 over 1 tent, using DMC. For some reason, this time around my stitches are laying quite nicely, though the coverage isn't spectacular. I keep reminding myself that it only looks bad when you're inches away from it. It'll look fine at a distance.

This is also the first time that I really felt the need to grid. I've gridded my other HAEDs, but only by page, not by 10x10 block. I'm a cross country stitcher, and a pretty good counter, so I never really saw the purpose of gridding each block. This piece is completely different. So much of it is the same colour (139,929 stitches of DMC 939) that it is almost impossible to accurately count the tent stitches. Gridding makes it SO MUCH easier -- consider me converted.

I will say that tenting is just ridiculously fast. I only put in a few hours here and there today, and I managed 728 stitches (or 14% of the page). That's lightning speed compared to my other full-cross HAEDs.

I have 2 other HAED starts coming up in UCJC -- I think I'll do the butterfly in full-crosses, but the Storykeep might just get tented too.

Ages ago, before Christmas, I took a picture of all of my kitted up projects spread out on my treadmill. I took another picture today. Hard to believe there are so few left on there. Only 10 more starts. :)