Clara has been calling to me, so I decided to spend a week on her before I went back to the final push on Dictionary on Love. She's been screaming for attention for so long and I was looking forward to the bright colours on her, so what did I do? Work on the grey on the back ground... I'm an idiot. Having said that, it's quite nice blocks of colour, so it has stitched quite well, so maybe there was an odd sort of logic in doing the grey first... that and the fact that I usually try to stitch the 'boring' bits first, so that I don't loose interest as I'm getting to the end (as is happening slightly with Dictionary at the moment). Anyway, back to Dictionary I go, lets see if I can get it finished within the next week... here's hoping, because I'm missing my other projects!
Good afternoon my dears, my apologies for being so absent recently, I don't seem to have much time recently, either for stitching or for then blogging about what I stitch... which is why I've also been so useless with International Hermit and Stitch just recently... having said that I've had a surprisingly productive couple of days... Love sick has been done in the last 24 hours, which is definitely a record for me... I've only got the title left to do... the end is in sight and my deadline is no longer scaring me. My target was to be at this point within another week and a half, there's a possibility that I could have this finished by then, but, as has been my habit recently, I might take another break before picking this up again... (and breath, that was a ridiculously long sentence). I'm trying to convince myself that I won't be starting something else once I've finished this one, I've got a few others that aren't on frames so I ought to just swop onto one of those instead, having said that there are a couple of smaller (by my standards) kits knocking about the flat which are trying to catch my attention now that they know this is nearly done. Temporarily I'm going to try and work on some other projects, but I may end up being weak and caving on a new start.
I'm starting to realise that for the first time ever I might actually hit my target date. I've only got two squares and the heading left, miracles happen!
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!
I've done better than I expected to this week. The Love-a-bulls are finished, and I've now managed to move onto the next square, so, at the moment at least, I'm still pretty comfortable with my deadline for getting this finished in time. Lets give it a few months though and see what happens.
I don't have much progress to show at the moment, just a little bit of the third picture, you definitely tell what this one is going to be yet. Hopefully I'll get a bit more stitching time this week.... stranger things have happened
I am such a bad blogger at the moment. I'm still trying to get used to my shift patterns in my new job. It means that I don't always seem to have much time for stitching or blogging at the moment. I'm hoping that as I get used to the shifts I'll manage a bit more free time, and that as I get used to the work I'll end up doing a bit less over time, which I'm currently doing to make sure my work is actually finished at the end of the day. But anyway, here are my updates. First, Dictionary of Love, I've said in the past that I love working on Dictionary of projects because it gives me a fabulous sense of achievement, because you get lots of little finishes and actually get to see progress happening. This is planned as a wedding present and I've got a little under five months to get it finished and framed, which, I think I will manage, they do stitch up beautifully quickly, and always look great when they're done. The backstitch is very simple but always looks so effective.
Life definitely seems to be getting in the way of 
Least ways she will be when I actually get round to doing some stitching on her... although there's definitely more than there was the last time I posted, if you squint you can almost see the bunny. I just don't seem to have had much time for stitching recently. I started a new job a couple of weeks ago so am going through a pretty intense learning curve at the moment, plus it's shift work, so by the time I get home I'm utterly brain dead, but I'm hoping to get my butt into gear and start stitching on her again this weekend. I've also got stitching group this week (although I'll be late cos of work, but after this one I've requested earlies up to the end of the year to stop that happening again) so at least I'll be able to work on something then... don't think it'll be this though, I'm a bit scared about taking hand-dyed fabric out of the flat. Hope everyone is having fun and their stitching is more productive than mine it!
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!
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.
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.
Not much to show I'm afraid, I haven't had much time to stitch since posting my IHSW pic. Hope everyone else has had a more successful week!
My update for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, not as much as I was hoping for, but not a bad showing all the same. I've only worked on one colour this weekend (my stitching is rather monochrome at the moment, I think whatever I choose next, I'll have to make sure that it has some colour in it), but there's quite a lot of that colour, I've still not quite finished down the right hand side. I hope everyone else had a lovely IHSW and I look forward to seeing all your progress over the next couple of days.
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.
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!
I know that I'm probably the only person who's been amused by the 'mystery' stitch, so thank you all my lovely followers for your patience with me... but I give, this is what I've been working on. Dwarven Leader, art work by Jankolas, charted by Paine Free Crafts, which I fell in love with when she released it, so I had to start it straight away. As you can probably imagine, there's a lot of background to stitch so I have sort of skimmed over the background a bit to get me a bit more central so I'm actually working on him instead.
Here's the latest update on it, there's a little bit of hair in there now, although it's not a great picture, I really struggle to get a decent picture of the pale background. He's actually going away for a while now. I'm stitching in little short bursts at the moment and his hair is quite confetti, and confetti when I've only got short stitching times drives me crackers. So I'm settling to work on something else for a while then I'll come back to this when I've really got time to sit and work on it.
It still doesn't look like much, so I'm going to hold off saying what it is for another week. However, the guess I had of Linda Ravenscroft by The Maiden I'm afraid isn't right though, but I can see the logic. She's very fond of 3770 backgrounds, which will be included in the shading here. I am enjoying working on it, unfortunately, there a lot of working happening at the moment (stupid jobs, taking up valuable stitching time) so there isn't as much stitching as I'd like.
