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)

Another half page done!

I finally put in the last few confetti stitches to meet my goal of half a page of DQ a month. The last little bit of this half page was very confetti heavy and it was slow going.

It'll be nice to put this aside for the rest of the month and work on some other projects that are screaming at me. I think I'm going to move over and do the top half of page 8 next -- the first bit is confetti heavy, but then there are some nice big chunks of colour at the far edge.

IHSW March 2013

For the first time in a long time, I signed up for the International Hermit & Stitch Weekend hosted by Joysze over at Random Ramblings.

I hermited, but I didn't stitch too much. I worked on Drama Queen, but much of the progress was made pre-IHSW (but I forgot to take a picture before I started).

New scroll covers - aren't they lovely?

DQ is coming along nicely. There's even a small chance that I'll finish this half page before the end of March!

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:

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!!

TUSAL Time, Parking Progress, and More Charts

It's TUSAL time again! My mason jar of orts is getting incredibly full. I keep having to squish them down to make room.

This month there is a bunch of blue silk in there from ripping out the lettering from my NATO Subversive Sampler (which I replace with purple silk). On top of that are a ton of reds from Drama Queen.

Speaking of Drama Queen, I finally have a page finish!!

This was by far the most stress-free and enjoyable page I have done on this project so far. Parking is definitely the answer for me when it comes to complex, confetti-heavy projects. Now I just have to decide if I work on page 7 (the one below the page I just finished, which is more poppies and confetti) or page 4 to finish the top row (which is mostly blocky background). I'm leaning towards page 4, because I might just get another page finish in before the end of December this way.

Shamefully, I must admit to purchasing a few more HAED charts during the 50% off sale. I don't know what I was thinking, or when I'll ever get around to stitching all of these charts. Oh my goodness my stashpile is huge!! Here's what I just couldn't live without ...

China Lake (Gordon Fitchett)

Ice Palace (Ciro Marchetti)

Magikal Moment in Time (Ciro Marchetti)

I resisted buying Marchetti charts for so long, but I caved -- now I'm in trouble!

Progress and Chaos

PROGRESS!!! Parking is working really well for me on Drama Queen. I can't seem to put this piece down, and I truly haven't been this excited about this project since I started it 16 months ago.

A few columns done (well, the blue part at least). Figured I would finish the top blue bits before starting on the red section.

Deceptive confetti-heavy bits.

And the chaos ... tons of colours and shading along the edges of the poppies, which means a chaotic mess of threads and needles. Thank goodness it isn't as difficult to stitch while parking as it looks.

I popped by my LNS today (I just HAPPENED to be in the area) and bought a few silken goodies for my giveaway. You can still enter on this post until Sept 22nd.

Somehow I managed to buy almost as many goodies for me while I was at it. LOL. What can I say? I love my HDF silks and I hate the thought that they are being discontinued. Gotta stock up while I can. :) The three on the left are for me, but the 4 lovelies on the right are for the giveaway.

Parking

I finally tried parking.

It is VERY different compared to how I usually stitch (cross country). It really took some getting used to and completely changed everything about how I stitch. I found that it slowed my stitching speed considerably, but my productivity went up.

How you ask? Well, while I am physically slower at stitching (I don't just mindlessly do big patches of stitching in the same colour), I find I don't spend as much time searching for symbols, marking up my chart, figuring out stitching pathways, or flipping over my work and starting/ending threads. I can't watch TV while stitching like this; it takes far too much concentration. Instead, I listen to music and I get a TON done.

Let's take a look at my first try at parking:

This is 178 stitches into the page. I'm actually stitching almost a column and a half wide here (14 stitches) and it's a little cumbersome. However, it's background, so thankfully I'm only negotiating 4-6 colours at any one time. I even tucked a few strands away for the next column.

I had the bright idea of starting the next column of 10 stitches because they are in the same colours as the first column. After a 10x10 block, I realized that I was starting to get confused/stressed trying to stitch across 2.5 columns, so I stopped and tucked those strands away and went back to the original column.

I'm about 471 stitches into the page here, and I am loving how my stitching looks. My stitches are even and pretty, and I didn't struggle trying to fit any of them in. Not only that, but I LOVE seeing no holes! I can understand how people can get addicted to stitching really complicated pieces this way because the picture literally develops in front of you. It's very cool to see.

I went back to the original column (which I stopped working on mainly because the number of symbols in the block tripled) and started adding more colours.

I've added 7 new threads into the mix, though several of the original colours have now ended. It's a little tougher negotiating (and keeping untangled) so many more threads, but I'm still able to make progress. It's strikes me as odd that I don't stitch at the same pace I did before (especially in blocky areas like this one) and yet I have gotten SO much more done today. I'm about 499 stitches in here -- almost 10% of the page!!

I need to make a trip to my LNS soon and buy a few more packs of needles. Not having to rethread all the time certainly helps my sanity, though the more threads I introduce, the harder it is to keep everything neat and untangled. I still need to finish adjusting to this new way of stitching, but I certainly see why some people swear by it.

Drama Queen!!!

I put this project aside for the longest time because the confetti was killing me. Recently I finally got in the mood to work on it, and I plowed through and FINALLY finished the fourth page. So I've done 21988 stitches, or 28.46% of the project. It looks fabulous (even though the reds don't photograph well).

I did wonder if it would be the death of me though. See that whitish/blueish section in the middle of the poppies? There were 21 colours in the last 58 stitches. Must have been 75-80 colours just in that section. I can not explain the pain that the confetti caused me. I think the worst part was finding symbols that I knew I already stitched, but I managed to miss just one or two. Sigh.

I'm excited to start the next page because I'm going to try parking for the first time. I'm pretty nervous about it, and I'm very worried I'll get annoyed and give up on it. However, if I can make it work, then I think progress on this piece might pick up a little bit. Fingers crossed and wish me luck.

July WIPocalypse

I finally pulled out a non-UCJC piece to work on for WIPocalypse. I am determined to finish the fourth page of Drama Queen before I go back to any of my UCJC projects. I am getting closer, but there is still a good chunk in the middle left to do.

For some reason, the reds don't photograph well. In real life, you can see the details and the immense amount of shading that really makes this piece so stunning.

My 3rd UCJC Finish!

As promised ... I finished Carolyn's Garden Poppy by Serendipity Designs yesterday afternoon.

I'm very glad to have 3 of 31 finished ... on to the next one!

Drama Queen - A proper page finish

Several months ago, I almost finished page 5, but I left 40 or 50 stitches of pure confetti hell for a later time. I really did need a break from such a confetti-heavy, complicated piece. So I tackled page 6 and it's gigantic chunks of red.

I haven't touched Drama Queen since the end of November.

This week, I finally had the energy to stitch DQ again, and so I took advantage of that energy by tackling the unfinished confetti on page 5 and working on some of the white/off white stitching on page 6.

The confetti is so strange to stitch because the colours (when they are in your needle) seem to make no sense - reds, browns, purples, blues, greens - all blend together to make the picture come alive.

It is slow, painstaking work, but I'm glad I have a real finish on page 5 finally (and 84% done page 6). I need another break now ... LOL.