April IHSW & another bonus TUSAL

This weekend was IHSW - the International Hermit and Stitch weekend hosted by Joysze at her blog and on Facebook.   I stayed at home, nursing a sick puppy (Mona is off her arthritis meds and on prednisone, which makes her sad) and watching a bunch of Netflix (mostly Marcella).

I meant to work on finishing my Hearts of America, but I was way too lazy to straighten up the craft/guest room enough to get to the machine, so I worked on Deco Spirits instead.

I was here (working on Water):

and now I'm here:

I usually wait to do the metallics later (all of that blue and the gold is kreinik and PTB), but because there was so much, I decided to get it over with a little early and then get back to the white.   I had to take the picture at an angle because it just would not show up in straight on photos.

My stitching has been super slow, because a certain Tiny Monster keeps demanding attention.  And if I don't pay attention, she starts running off with threads, kreiniks, etc.    And I've also discovered the joy of having a black haired dog.  I used to just find white hairs stuck in everything that I couldn't quite remove.  Now I have fine black hairs in the mix with those white hairs.  Oy vey!

And as a bonus, I also remembered to take an ort/TUSAL shot (TUSAL, the Totally Useful Stitch A Long hosted by Daffycat (also on Facebook), where we show off our orts). I have to keep pushing down the orts, but I'm getting a nice Deco strata in there ;)

2017 WIPocalypse wrap up

So here's the yearly wrap up for the WIPocalypse, which isn't as much as I expected originally, but a new job, move, house projects, etc. will do that to you.  Which is to say, yes, it's less than I expected, but I'm certainly not upset about it.

I always use WIPocalypse for existing WIPS (as of  Jan 1) only, so that left this original list:

1. Epic RR
2. Fantasy Sampler
3. Deco Spirits  - TINY bit of progress!
4. Desert Sunsets - PROGRESS!
5. BoInk
6. Freshwater Pearls - PROGRESS!
7. Celestial Dragon
8. Stained Glass Zelda  - Progress.... of a sort?
9. Fortunate Traveler 
10. Enchanter 
11. Chinese Dragon 

My goal was to finish at least three of these, I was looking at Desert Sunsets, Freshwater Pearls, and Fantasy Sampler as my big three finishes, but I finished none ;) 

That's not to say I didn't get anything done, I did get a few things finished/done/framed, and they're in the "Finishes" tab, I just don't consider them part of my WIPocalypse SAL.

So here at least is the progress:

Deco Spirits - I started on the Air block.  that's it!  But it's something ;)

Desert Sunsets:

I started approximately here with one:

I finished it!

And I started and got a good bit done on the second (excuse the fuzzy photo, I'm too lazy to take another).

I'm absolutely confident that I will finish this one this year, mostly because I want to pass on the patterns to a friend.

Freshwater Pearls saw the most amount of progress this year, from this:

To this:

I might get this one out of the way this year, we'll see.   

And I decided to not continue with Stained Glass Zelda.  I did not get very far on the piece, and I'd like to keep the fabric for future use (hey, I use good fabric, no reason to waste it, and there's not enough done on the piece to bother adopting it out, imo).

So until next time, which should be in about a week! :)

September TUSAL & other stuff

So first off - here's my TUSAL update (hosted by DaffyCat, check the sidebar for the gif/link).  I should have posted last week, but by the time I thought about it, I realized I'd be sequestered to the home with this vicious cold and figured I'd throw a few extra orts in there...

I did Miss Witchy Mouse and worked on Deco Spirits, so there's a bit of festive orange, but is mostly the monochrome scheme of the Mirabilia.

And here is the progress I made on Deco Spirits - I got the first block completed!  Huzzah!

I even made a fun "Awesome" photo (thanks, G+/Android) of the progress as I went  (You can't really tell most of the progress because there was a whole lot of white involved!):

Here are some fun shots/close ups:

First block completed - Earth

Face

Star

I subbed the Petite Treasure Braids when working with the gold an the blue.   I did stick to the 9294 Kreinik, because I never saw the PTB that's supposed to be equivalent and I didn't want to chance it.   I do think it's funny how much more green the blue TB/Kreiniks look in the photo when up against the more purpley blue hues.


And just for fun, I'm going to try to do another SAL - just for the month of October.  It's the Mega Mini Month Madness SAL hosted by Pull the Other Thread.   I think it looks like fun.  Basically, stitch on minis.   I'll go into more detail about what I'm going to do for my first post (in a couple of days).

IHSW for September - my first!

This weekend I participated in my first International Hermit and Stitch weekend, which is hosted by Joysze.

I did go to Drag Bingo on Saturday and a movie festival on Friday, but I was looking forward to a quiet weekend after all of the craziness of the gaming convention.  I spent most of the weekend binge watching the last season of Once Upon a Time (why isn't American Horror Story on Netflix yet! arrrrgh!)

The first thing I worked on was Just Nan's Miss Witchy Mouse.  It was so cute I couldn't *not* stitch on it, and I had a piece of linen in my stash that was perfect for it.  (More info in the link above).

I finally got back to working on Deco Spirits.   I had gotten the #8 Kreinik I needed, and spent a couple of hours ripping out the metallic that didn't work out so well.    And then I did the building bits.   When I finished with that, I worked on finishing the star, and after the Kreiniks, the Treasure Braid was such a pleasure.  I really don't like working with metallics over all, but their effects are so nice, I never think to swap them out for something without sparkle.

So here's the Before and After:

Apparently my ott lite is definitely affecting my photography.  KER POW, blue!

And just for fun - a slightly blurry shot that caught some of the pretty sparkle!

I am really enjoying Deco and I think I'll stick with it through the block.  It's what I had planned for my rotation, but I don't force myself into doing something I don't enjoy.

September WIPocalypse update

 

I have a bit of progress (huzzah!) - so here's the run-down.

I organized everything.
Even ironed it and put in into a better bin!

I stitched part 3 of my BoInk carpet page:

I made some progress on Celtic Ferret Knot!

Before - Page 1 & part of Page 2

After - Pages 2 & 3 all black is complete!

And here's my little bit of progress on Deco Spirits:

August WiPocalypse update

 

I'm actually all excited because I have stuff to brag about (I think!) for this month's WiPocalypse update.   As in, down one and much progress on another.

I finished Halloween Fairy by Mirabilia (yee haw!), so that's one down.

(More pics here)

And I made some progress on BoInk.

Mirabilia starts & Progress

It's no good for me to talk about stitching progress if I don't actually have any, is there?

Right now, I'm in love with Mirabilias, probably because I finished the S-Fairy, which I hope to have framed pictures of, in the not to distant future.

In the meantime, I started something brand new while I was on vacation, and it's Deco Spirits by Mira.

I owned this chart wayyyy back in the day, not long after it came out in '96, but I didn't think I'd ever actually get around to it and I gave it away.

And then I saw it posted by someone on my 'book wall, and I remembered why I fell in love with it to begin with.  PLUS it totally fits in with the decor at the house, so I figured - why the hell not?  I had almost everything I needed in stash, so I brought it and got started.

So here she is - Deco Spirits (this block is going to be Earth):

Last year, because I did not have what I wanted for my project (rather, I didn't have the DMC on me, and I sure wasn't going to buy anything I already had), I started Halloween Fairy.   I somehow lost the Chocolate Cream Pie Crescent Colours, so I was just stitching around that area till the thread came in that I ordered.  Last night I stitched a bunch of it, but no pics, Alas.

And here is New Years Fairy, which I started for no damn reason at all, but the goal is to get Halloween done and then New Years.
After that, I may or may not start on Thanksgiving, or just work on some other WIP projects to decrease the load.    I want to get down to 5 WIPs, so we'll see how that goes.

 

So that's it for now :)