Back in the light of day

It turns out that this lovely lady, who was originally the New Year New Start 2013 stitchalong, and she hasn't seen the light of day since 2015 - I had no idea it had been so long.

I was away for a mini stitching retreat with friends this weekend, so she was lovely to take with me because I could chat and stitch without worrying that I'd miscounted, and because of that I've also manage to move her on a little bit. Hopefully it won't be three years until she's next out, but considering how many projects I have on the go I really wouldn't count on it.

Progress of varying degrees

 So, Family Values is progressing, little stitches fill in the blanks now, so it's coming together quickly, but at the same time this last bit seems to be taking me ages and I really don't know why that is, so I'm still working on it. However Heroes and Heroines Supersized was released today, so I need to finish that page off so i can start my new project.

In other news I was at the Crafty Kitten stitching retreat this weekend with the lovely Angie from Miamina's Musings, Dawn from Crafty Kitten, Sarah from Paine Free Crafts and Eileen from Thread Pickerz and many other people, but they're the only ones that I can reliably link to. We had a fantastic weekend, but I didn't achieve quite as much stitching as intended due to spending far too much time talking instead but here's what I did achieve. I carefully set her up so that I wouldn't have to count at an point during the weekend, so at least that went well.

Not a bad week

So, this is Heather all ready for me to take to my stitching retreat with me. All I have to do is colour in the black, none of that pesky counting involved, so I don't have to worry about getting distracted and making a mistake (hopefully anyway.)

Second up I have my Cloudsfactory 2014 SAL, which is starting to vaguely look like something, even if I am only working on the border still. This was started during a new start event last year so I only did a couple of hundred stitches and moved on. I've also discovered that as I made it ridiculously small (1 over 1, full crosses on 28 count) it's the perfect size for my needle minders :-)

Heather returns

She's looking a bit surreal at the moment. I'm doing all the outlining on this row for this rotation. There's a odd sort of logic for this. I'm thinking that I'm going to take Heather to the Craft Retreat in June, which means that I can then do all the filling in without having to count and so without having to worry about miscounting and messing up because I'm not concentrating!

Another page, could I finish the row by the end of year?

The titles says it all really. I've managed to finish another page, I've now only got 1 page ans 1 partial page left, but I'm always working quite a lot between now and then, so, it'll be interesting to see if I can manage it, wish me luck.!

Another page

So here she is, another page done, and you can see the beginning of her second eye and eyebrow. I do like this project, and she's one of my few 2014 targets that I might actually achieve this year. It's got to that time of the year, where I start thinking about what my targets were for this year, and what targets I'm going to set myself for next year. I always over aim, but it's fun to try. I know I've failed dismally this year, there are too many new starts for me to achieve half of my targets, but I haven't looked through to see just how badly I've done yet... that's for later in the month!

Tiny update

It's just the black and I'm tenting, so it stitches up quite quickly, but seeing as it's two weeks since I posted, I feel like I should have more to show.
Ah well, progress is progress I guess.

Finally finished the black and white...

The title says it all really, I finally finished the two partial pages on black and white that were my start on Dark Hope, and as pages of black and white tiles go, they look quite nice, although I admit that it's not really much to ohh and ahh over just yet. But the chart is gorgeous and will be well worth it when it develops a bit more. So, the question is, how did I celebrate finish the pages on monochrome? 

By moving on to a chart that is currently all black. There are times when I seriously question my own mental well being... but I do enjoy coming back to this because it stitches up so quickly (at the moment - before I start the colour), as you can see by the fact that I've already finished the next page. I'm quite excited by this page because, what you may not realise about this page is that there's something on it that isn't, technically, hair. The bottom right of this page has eyelashes and eye brow. Okay, I know that that's technically hair too, but it's a different type of hair, and I'm excited to see it all the same.

Heather continues

I do love working on Heather, she stitches up so quickly, so I get to see progress so quickly (the joy of tenting rather than full stitches). So page finish, she does away again already and I move back on to Dragon Rider. You never know though, once that's finished Heather may re-appear, or, I do have a couple more new starts calling to me. You may notice that I keep adding pictures to my WIPs down the right hand side. If the picture is there I have kitted up and plan to start in the next few months.

A surprisingly productive week

As the title says, I've had a surprisingly productive week (and a strange inability to spell productive this morning, I've had to correct every time I've typed it). First up is Tale of the Red Swans by Aimee Stewart, and this is actually my target for the year achieved, which is a little disappointing, because it means that I've now put this away to work on something else. This is four partial pages, which I'm claiming adds up to roughly one page. Unfortunately is doesn't look like much yet, but you can just see the beginning on the clouds in the top right, and also the tiny beginning of what I'm assuming will be a fish on the 'top' left. 

Secondly I've finally finished the third page of Pride and Prejudice. This is a lovely design, but most of this page has been cream. I like one colour stitching and it's been perfect to take to craft group where I don't really have to concentrate on, but I just seem to have been working on it for ages. I suddenly realised last craft group that the patch of white was finally getting smaller and so when for a final push this week to get it finished! 

And finally Heather by Hannah Lynn has returned to the frame, finally! I love working on this and have rather missed her. I've set myself a target of another row on this this year, and the page that I'm on this week, which seeing how quickly she normally stitches up (one of my few tent stitch pieces) I think should be totally achievable, so much so that I've got it into my head that I want to add one little accent of colour, just one strand of her hair or the hair ornament as well. Anyway, we'll see how I get on. I'm off this week with nothing major planned so I've set myself some (by my standards) fairly ambitious stitching targets. With any luck I'll have another productive post to make last week to show for it!

Heather returns (briefly)

As promised last week, I managed to work on Heather this week, and I'm pretty proud of my progress on her, especially as I didn't really think I'd had much free time! The top row (of black) is now complete, so this is 5 full pages and 1 partial page (it was only about 12 stitches wide). I love her, such a gorgeous chart, although I did seem to have a slight melt down with my ability to count to ten at one point, I think I've solved it now. I think this is a sign that I'm starting to get a little more settled with my hours at work that I'm actually managing to get stitching time again! So happy all round really!

Happy stitching everyone. Oh, and I apologise for being such a bad blog follower recently, I'll try to get some time to tour every one elses blogs and leave some comments.

 

Oh, in other news, does anyone else really want to see Despicable Me? I'm currently trying to convince my other half that he wants to go with me, I think I might have to bribe him with pick and mix!

Computer working update - picture heavy

Picture update now that I've finally got a working computer again (although it doesn't seem to be liking blogger for some reason)!

First I have Heather, next page finished, and now put away for a while so that I can work on some other, much ignore projects! She sure does have a lot of hair, although she also has goggles now, which is very exciting to see. I've now got one and one partial page to finish the row, so I'm pretty comfortable that I'll achieve this New Year Target

Lancelot & Guinevere hasn't had any attention for far too long, probably the best part of a year, I've also decided that, as it only has 50 colours so I'm using it for another attempt at parking, and the top row has now been completed! I've really enjoyed it, as it's so long since I've worked on this it has novelty value, and I'll get the beginning of Lancelot & Guinevere on this page, which is exciting!

 I've managed to complete the second page of Pride and Prejudice, which I'm really happy with. I always fall back in love with this when I'm working on it, it stitches up so nicely and so quickly!

And finally, because I've decided that I'm not going to finish Chakra Fae (I just wasn't enjoying it, and didn't like the way it looked, so I took the hint) I've got a new start, Snowdrop Fairy by Joan Elliott, I've been promising myself a Joan Elliott start for ages, so I finally have... not much to show, I know, but isn't the fabric gorgeous? It's Lady of the Lake for Steph's Fabby from a RAK event at Christmas, and it's great!

 

Pre IHSW

First, my update of Dwarven Leader, it turns out that I had the perspective all wrong, what I thought was the beginning of his beard is actually where his eyes are going to be. I spent last weekend working on his face, so he does have a little bit more shape than he once did. I only work on him in short bursts

And here's Heather who I still love working on, but I think that I'm finally getting to the stage where I'm happy to put her away and work on something else without getting distracted by her again. We were playing a game on Facebook this week where we posted one picture containing all of our WIPs, my picture had 10 WIPs in it, 1 of the girls had 48 WIPs in her pic, so we're now all using her as out excuse if we want to start something new. I'm going to try and finish this page of Heather and Pride & Prejudice, and then I'm thinking that some older projects will see the light of day, it's about time that Lancelot & Guinevere, Chakra Fae and Winter's Majesty got some love. So I'm going to try and get a couple of page finishes in, then move on to some unlobed projects! And it's International Hermit & Stitch this weekend, and Ben's planning on going out a couple of times, giving me the perfect opportunity to actually settle to do some stitching!

Have fun!

Heather is now at 3 pages

Latest update of Heather, she has some hair (just for a change), but she also has half of her goggles as well, and I'm still loving working on her. I've forced myself to put her away for a couple of weeks so I can work on something else, but I think I'm going to miss her, so I'm sure that she won't be missing for long.

A tiny update

I don't really know where this week went, but I don't have much progress to show... although the advantage of doing the black on a Hannah Lynn is that it doesn't take much work to make it look like I've actually progressed. And I know, I'm meant to be finishing my page of Pride and Prejudice, but the smaller stretchers for Millennium frame arrived and I just couldn't resist trying them out. Now that I've got stretchers that are the right size for me, I offically love my Millennium Frame, just like everyone else in the stitching world already seemed to.

However, to make up for my lack of stitching I do have some news which is very exciting for me and probably a lot less exciting for everyone else, but because I'm excited I'm sharing it anyway. I got a new job! I handed my notice in to my old job yesterday and start in my new at the beginning of April. After what seems like years of trying I'm finally taking a step in the direction I want to go in and have a job with a local (very nice) hotel, I'm so excited! Looks like I might actually achieve one of my New Year's resolutions after all! Yay!

Pre IHSW update

Pre-International Hermit and Stitch Weekend progress update. Firstly, I managed to finish the second page of black on Heather last weekend. I'm starting to think that my six page target on this might not be as overly ambitious as I originally thought. I do love working on the black on Hannah Lynn's, they're so easy to stitch and stitch up so quickly, especially as this is tented, making it even faster than usual.

 

This is what I'm going to be working on this weekend. I'm just starting to see this page take shape rather than it being a random brown shmush. To be honest, this page is mostly hair, so there isn't really much to see anyway (hmmm, bit of a theme here, today I have mostly been posting about hair). Ben's reading over my shoulder as I type this and has just asked "So, does that mean it's International Hermit and Stitch Weekend this weekend?" When I said it was he replied that "It's also FA Cup Weekend." So it looks like we're both going to get to do what we want this weekend. Happy stitching all, I look forward to seeing your IHSW progress in the week.

Heather has hair

To be fair, I think that's how I'm going to be describing Heather for the next six months, she has quite a lot of hair, so I'm probably going to be stitching her hair for a while yet. I do love working on her (just as I always love working on Hannah Lynn's designs, the black stitches us so quickly). Have you seen Hannah's latest Alice in Wonderland series that she's working on? I'm absolutely loving them!

First full week of 2013

Here she is, I finally finished the top row of the Passione Ricamo SAL, I even finally got round to getting the colour that was missing from her wings! I've still got to do her beads, but I'm going to do those last as I don't want to accidently crush them with whichever frame I happen to be using at the time... I'm now only 3 pages behind, for now! 

And Heather, I love working on her... even after I had a major meal down where I'd done most of the page and realised that half of it was wrong and needed to be frogged... I seriously considered chucking her and starting again, but I was good, I unpicked it all, moved it one stitch across and stitched it again. This is the first page and the beginning of the second, and Hannah Lynn charts are just such a joy to stitch when you're working on the black, (I haven't tried colouring one in yet, so I can't really comment on that)!

It was Ben's birthday this week so I made him a cake (cake post to follow), and took him to Xscape which is a real snow slow not that far from where we are. I'd bought him a couple of hours on the slope and me a couple of hours of being made to feel stupid by a snowboard instructor. It actually went a lot better than I expected it to. Skiing was such a disaster that I kinda expected snowboarding to go the same way, but, while I was still pretty terrible. I was less terrible than I expected!

First post of 2013

I said I was going to finish this page by the end of the year, as you can see, that didn't happen! However I am close, and I would have finished it by now, if I hadn't got distracted by my New Year start. I'm now 3 and a bit pages behind (chances of me ever catching up = zero) as the latest page was released on the 1st of Jan. I'm a little concerned as the latest page has the beginning of some writing on it, and I don't know what it's going to say, and I don't know if I want there to be writing on my stitching. I'll wait and see what it says, but it has put my off a little bit!

Secondly, my new start for the New Year, shes lovely! Another Hannah Lynn by HAED (as you can possibly tell by the bold black outline and nothing else). I'm tent stitching over 1 on 28, and had forgotten how fast that goes when you're doing blocks, I feel like I'm flying through this. I know it doesn't look like much, but I've only had 4 or 5 hours on it, and by my standards this is really fast! I've set myself the goal of the top row of black (5 and a bit pages) by the end of the year, and at current pace I might actually achieve it. It's not often I set myself a goal that's actually achieveable!

Now some other bits and bobs, I don't know how many people have heard of TiltonCrafts run by the lovely Shelley, but she does some gorgeous charts and has recently mentioned that she's found some lovely Sailor Moon inspired artwork that she's thinking about charting, but she didn't know how popular they'd be. I think they're great and said that there are a surprising number of geeky stitchers, but I'm curious, how many of you would be interested? Also, while I'm sharing cross stitch designers who are incredibly bad for my bank account also head over and have a look at Sarah's painefreecrafts who also has some gorgeous charts. Sarah's only been running for a month or so, so she hasn't got many up on her site yet, but she's got three that I'm going to end up buying pretty much as soon as they're on the site because I'm already absolutely in love with them, and many more that will make their way on to my bucket and wish lists.

Thanks also to those of you who showed an interest in a stitchers retreat and said you'd be willing to help me out by answering questionnaires and such, I'm really grateful and will contact you when I've got my butt into gear and started sorting stuff out.

Finally, there is apparently a slight issue with blogger at the moment where you can't upload pictures if you use Internet Explorer. Blogger are aware of the issue and are apparently dealing with it, but as it's now the weekend the general advice is to not hold your breath for it to happen any time soon. In the mean time, it's only a IE issue so if you're feeling brave download another browser temporarily and that works fine, I'm currently using Google Chrome. I know that may not be relevant to many, but it took me a while and a lot of getting frustrated with blogger to find out why it wasn't working and how to work round it, so I thought I'd share