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.

A Waiting Game

So, long-time readers might remember that I often read and participate on a forum called crossstitchforum.com. They have an annual exchange called Stashmas. It's on December 1st, and it's just a celebration of all things stitchy. This is my second year participating and it's so much fun to have a package full of goodies arrive on your doorstep!

I sent out my package more than a week ago (pictures to come in a later post) and today I received mine! Yay! And you should see the package it came in ...

Though the sender gave me very strict instructions:

And so the wait begins.

Masculine Birthday Cards

So I decided to make a birthday card for my Dad. I tend not to make masculine cards, so this was a bit of a challenge.

My first try:

It started off with good intentions - browns and blues, but somehow pearls and shimmer spritz and ribbon jumped onto the card. It's cute, but not my favourite, and not exactly masculine either.

My second try:

It looked better in my head, but it'll do.

Patchwork Cards

I saw a card somewhere in blogland (I'm terrible at remembering where I see inspiration - I know, I'm sorry) that used 3 patterned papers as a background and it made me think a little bit of a patchwork quilt. So, I took that idea a little further and created a Christmas card and a Halloween card.

I went to my local Fabricland the other day, and found some great lace. I've never used fabric on a card before, but I love the subtle texture it adds. I also kinda dig the "frosting" I added to the sentiment. I love heat embossing!

Confetti Break!

The confetti intensity on Drama Queen is getting to me. Progress is SO SLOW ... I'm losing my mind. I decided I needed a break from confetti, but I needed to keep making progress on DQ, so I started on page 6. There is a TON of 666 to stitch -- big beautiful chunks of it!

And so, here is my confetti break progress:

Page 5 only has another 300 or so stitches to go, and I've already stitched almost 1,000 on page 6. In total I've stitched almost 17,000 and the piece is 22% complete. Yay!

CJC 2012 Stash

So this week has been a great shopping week for me -- clothing, electronics, small appliances, and stitching stuff!!

I popped by my LNS today and picked up a few items for the 2012 Crazy January Challenge (CJC). There will be another stash run in late November/early December once I figure out all my fabric needs.

First off I picked up the chart for Mirabilia's Elizabeth. (LOVE IT!)

I picked up a few specialty threads for some of the other projects - some Caron Collection Watercolours and Wildflowers in Emerald, HDF silks in white, bright purple, and an icy variegated blue, and some silver Petite Treasure Braid. I also picked up a few packs of Mill Hill beads. One is for my Hardanger project and the other is one of the ones I need for Elizabeth.

Another semi-related purchase this week is a new camera to take pictures of all my stash and projects! My mom will be thrilled when I return her camera to her. LOL

All in all a fun week of shopping. Next post -- a stitchy update!

Call me an idiot ... it's okay.

I know that I'm busy. I know that I have far too many hobbies and nowhere near enough time to spend on them. I also know that I have more stitching stash then I know what to do with, and a lot of it is tucked carefully away because I have so many huge projects on the go.

So what do I do? I sign up to participate in the 2012 Crazy January Challenge, of course!

This challenge has participants starting a new project every day for the first 15 days in January 2012. The aim is to try to finish all 15 projects by the end of 2012. I've created a page on my blog JUST to help track my progress -- click here to check out what's on my "to do" list. Kitting up and starting all these projects will be fun, but trying to finish them all will be very difficult, especially since I already have several huge projects on the go. We'll see what happens ...

As an added incentive, I've also signed up for the 2012 WIPocalypse (click here for details). This challenge is based on the idea that the world will end in 2012, so participants are trying to finish their WIPs (works in progress) before the end comes.

I'm an idiot -- I know.

Retail therapy and some Christmas cards

It's been rainy and gloomy here and I have been buried in schoolwork this week. As a result, I have been rather grumpy. Naturally, I figured some retail therapy was in order! So off I went to my LSS. I picked up a new Fiskars paper cutter, some Spellbinders dies, and a 6x6 pad of paper that is loaded with butterflies (which makes it the perfect paper for cards for my mom). I have also discovered Glue Dots -- and they are AWESOME. How did I craft without them?!?!

Anyway, I decided to try out my new Christmas Spellbinder dies. LOVE 'EM!

I really like this first card, so simple but looks great.

I made two of the next card; they are similar but not identical. (I've only taken photos of one though.) I even practiced using my distress inks. I still haven't quite got the hang of them yet.

I probably should have resist embossed the snowflakes, but I was just too lazy to pull out all my heat embossing stuff. I kinda dig the swiss dots folder embossing on the snow. First time I've used that folder. (I bought it and forgot about it -- oops!)

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.

Birthdays, Christmas and More

I told you there would be more cards coming!! I managed to get a few of the personalized cards done, as well as a few Christmas cards. The rest will have to wait until next week sometime, since I am going away for the weekend.

First up, is a card I'm strangely thrilled with. I made this for a good friend of mine who is defending her thesis proposal this week. Woohoo!

I really don't like the colour orange -- I'd even go so far as to say I hate it. But I picked up a used pad of 6x6 paper at a garage sale and I decided that this would be a good opportunity to use some of it. As the card started to come together, I started pulling different shades of orange cardstock out of my stash, then I found some orange flowers and gemstones. I have no idea how I ended up with so much orange!! But I think it really worked.

Next up is a birthday card for my brother. I don't often make masculine cards, and I (like many others) struggle when I try. What do I do with all that space when I can't put ribbons or flowers or other bling on it?!?! I think this turned out pretty well despite the lack of bling.

And finally, a few Christmas cards to add to my growing hoard. The bow on the first card was a pain to make, but it looks okay. For the second card, I struggled with the blahness of it -- then I added the snowflakes and it suddenly wasn't such a failure!

Don't you worry now -- there are still more cards on the way next week!!