Page finish - woohoo!

 I finished the page, I've officially finished 2 columns of Dragon Rider, which as there are seven columns all together, I am officially over 25% of the way through! He now has wings and a tail, with any luck the next column (which I'm optimistically hoping to finish this year as well - yeah right!) will start to have a body and a motorbike and all the part of the picture will join together... it's sound how excited I am about that! At the moment the tree and the castle are the focus point, next column and the dragon actually becomes the focal piece instead!

 Noah's Ark, my progress on this is kinda slow, because it only gets about two hours every two weeks at my stitching group. I probably ought to spend more time on this project, but at the moment this isn't a priority because it's an emergency Birth Sampler, as opposed to having a deadline. I am enjoying working on it though, although it doesn't look like much at the moment!

And finally, can you guess what it is yet? A new start (which I really needed), which I am, so far, really enjoying to working on, although I admit that I don't have much to show yet. I'm working on the first two pages together, but even when they're done there won't really been any of the focus of the piece on show!

Happy stitching all!

Nearly there

Well, nearly there on this page anyway... another couple of weeks and I'll have this page finished, finally... I seem to have been working on this for ages now! But, because I am at the nearly there stage it means that I do have the final push to get there, which is always useful!

I do love this design, and I love that on pages five and six I'm finally getting to see the dragon come together. And look at this picture reminds me of one of the reasons I keep a blog. When I look at my stitching I see a shmush of stitches, it's only when I look at the picture here that I see how well defined the wings actually are, which makes me happy!

Happy stitching all!

Wingy goodness

Once again, not a massive amount of progress to show, but because the wing starts properly on the row that I've done this week it does show a more obviously difference, because something has actually changed between this week and last. This page seems to be stitching up really slowly. I think it must be because there's been a bit of confetti and I've had to start a lot of new colours this row. I'm hoping that with a lot of those parked for the next row that one will stitch quicker and I'll feel like I actually have something to show next week. 

Secondly, it was stitching group this week, and this is my current stitching group project. Seeing as it only actually had a couple of hours spent on it, there does seem to be noticeable difference, I think that's part of what's so nice about the bold colours of Bothy Threads.

 

Hope everyone has had a lovely stitchy week!

Not much to show

I don't seem to have much to show, especially considering that I didn't post at all last week, and that's because, for some reason, I don't seem to have had much time to stitch the last week, but I don't really know why. I have been working long hours about work, but that's about the only excuse that I have. Anyway, here's what little progress I have on Dragon Rider 

Followed by what little progress I have on Noah's Ark, which is even less than I thought it was... how sad. Hopefully I'll be able to have more to show next week, must get my head down and work hard this week, especially as I'm suffering from major start-itus at the moment, so many projects are just pleading with me to start them, especially after Aimee Stewart's Large Version World Bookshelf was released last night! It's practically begging me to buy and start it, I can actually hear it!

Happy stitching all!

Hibernation Progress

So, on Friday I said that I was going to hibernate and work on Dragon Rider this weekend, and posted a picture of where I was starting from. On Saturday I couldn't pick dragon Rider up for some reason, just kept found myself doing other things, so I cured the itch, with a new start. Ooops! I know it doesn't look like much at the moment, but please welcome Cut Thru Noah's Ark from Bothy Threads. This has been calling to me for a while (I do love Bothy kits, and have wanted to do a Cut Thru for ages) and I can mostly justify this as a new start. In my New Year targets I said that I would start either an emergency birth sampler or an emergency wedding gift to try and get ahead of the game when friends start announcing things. Welcome my emergency birth sampler, and it's just so pretty and they're such fun to stitch, and I need portable projects for craft group, and I'm very much aware that I'm trying to justify this but I like it and it makes me happy so nyah! 

And it did do the trick, today I have been working on Dragon Rider and do actually have some progress to well, so I have managed something on the intended design as well, albeit possibly not quite as much as I had hoped. But it's given me a kick up the arse to get on with it and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to show off a page finish. There are lost of nice blocks to black to work on so the last bits of this page will hopefully whistle through.

Right, I'm back to work after a week off, so I'm off to make as many hot water bottles as I can find (I was so cold last night) and actually try and get a decent nights sleep.

The Elite by Keira Cass

I've been saying that I'm going to return to book reviews this year, so this is my first attempt!

 

The Elite by Keira Cass

 

This is slightly difficult to review because it's actually the second one in the trilogy, so I'm trying to talk about it without giving too much away about what happens in the first book, however, due to the fact that it's a trilogy certain things are a given.

 

In the first book (The Selection) we discover that there has been some sort of apocalyptic event which means the world is no longer as we know it, the USA is now Ilea and is living in a caste system. The caste your are born into dictates what your job will be and basically how wealthy you will be. We also discover that the Prince is looking for a wife, and this is basically done through some kind of Big Brother esq competition (The Selection) where one woman from each region goes to the palace and they are slowly eliminated. The woman that we are following is America, unsurprisingly due to this being a trilogy, America is still there at the beginning of the second book.

 

As with pretty much every teen book at the moment, we have the obligatory love triangle. We have America, Aspen (her original love from back home who broke up with her during the first book, turned up as a guard at the palace and has been confusing her ever since) and of course the Prince, Maxon. I have a major problem with the triangle, in that I can't stand Aspen, I think he's a manipulative dick. However, I haven't read the third book yet, therefore America and Aspen could live happily ever after for all I know, but I will be very disappointed if that's the case. America is very confused, about pretty much everything, she thinks she likes Maxon, and he's made it very clear that he would propose to her, however she's scared of the responsibility that comes with the crown therefore Maxon has agreed to put off asking her to marry him and sending all the other girls home while she acclimatises and works out whether she could as manage as the queen. Aspen, as I have said, broke up with America, he's a lower caste than her and decided that he wasn't good enough for her and dumped her. America, as part of the Selection has agreed that she is a virgin and that during the Selection there will be no other men. Aspen decides to show his love for her by constantly putting her in danger by being the other man that she's now allowed to have (can you tell that I don't like him?).

 

This book covers a lot of aspects without really actually doing much, Ilea has two sets of rebels who are against the Selection, the royals and Privilege in general. The rebels keep attacking the palace, meaning that everyone has to hide in secure rooms while the guards fend them off, but we don't really know what the rebels want, or what they hope their attacks will achieve, hopefully the third book will clear that up because to me, it's one of the most interesting aspects that's currently not being utilised to it's full extent.

 

This is aimed at a teen audience and consequently the writing style is not too taxing. It is however very enjoyable, and I don't remember anything jumping out at me as glaringly stupid or annoying about the writing style. It's easy to drop in and out of this book and it's not too complicated to keep track of what's going on. The only problem I really had (and more so with the Selection than the Elite) is that you're introduced to a lot of female characters at once, and apart from four or five who are kept to the centre I struggled to keep track of who was who.

There are also some lovely secondary characters, America's maids are lovely, and I would really like to see a bit more about them, we've been fed bits and bats of their back story and I hope that this is because it will become relevant in the third book and we'll learn more. Some of the other girls are interesting, some are two dimensional and are purely to serve a purpose, unfortunately this does include one of the main rivals.

 

I'm aware that I've across as a bit negative in this, but I did actually enjoy it. I loved the first book and whistled through it then went and bought the second one which I also enjoyed, but possibly wasn't as gripped as I had been by the first one. Having said that I finished the second one this morning and went straight on to amazon to track down the third one which hasn't been released yet, and the only reason I haven't ordered it is because the kindle edition isn't available to pre-order yet, I will do as soon as it is. It's due to be released early May so late May early June will probably see The One being reviewed.

 

There's a lot of teen fiction around at the moment, it's currently a very popular genre in quite varying styles, success and quality (thanks I suspect to Twilight), and this is good quality compared to a lot of what's around. It is well written, it's an interesting concept (somewhere between Hunger Games and Big Brother) and I don't actually hate the heroine (something quite rare in the current crop). The main issue I have with it is that I can't comprehend any attachment to one corner of the triangle other than familiarity, he puts her down then tells her he loves her (again, far too common at the moment). This is the 'filler' book. The Selection introduces everything and The One (book three) will wrap everything up, all this book has to do is potter along, eliminate another couple of girls and try and instil another danger to keep you interested enough to read the third which will, hopefully, tie everything up. I'm looking forward to the next book and would recommend this, but go back to the beginning and read The Selection first.

Dragon Rider - start point of a weekend hibernation

Here's where I'm up to on Dragon Rider, which I'm rather enjoying. And for some reason I randomly decided that I wanted to start parking again on this page, so that's what I'm doing, hence the extreme number of threads on this at the moment!

Ben's away this weekend, so I plan to hibernate and stitch. So this is my starting point, how much do you reckon I can achieve over the weekend?

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!

Not much change

Tiny update on Red Swans this week. I know it doesn't look like much, I don't seem to have had much free time this week. There's a little more black than there was last week, and the green is a bit denser! I'm hoping to get these pages finished this week, which I think is just about doable, I've got pretty good stitching shifts this week and not much else planned. Then I've got a week off the week after, so I'm currently planning out my random week out stitch-a-thon plans!

A larger green shmush

I'm updating early this week as I'm working all weekend (sigh), although I've just had 3 days off for Ben's birthday so I shouldn't really complain about that. Here is the continuing growth of Red Swans, where I'm working across 4 partial pages at once. Yesterday was my first colour that wasn't green, it was black. unfortunately, because they're all such small partial pages, I think that even when I've finished all four of them you still won't be able tell what it is, but I'm enjoying it all the same!

What you have created, if it has a name, is some green!

I sometimes think that the only reason I start with the green is because I like using that name! Here is my start of Tale of the Red Swans by Aimee Stewart (charted by HAED). It's a beautiful chart, although I admit that at the moment it doesn't look like much of a beautiful chart. I'm part of a group on facebook that Aimee is also a part of, and when I mentioned that I was thinking of starting this she said she wanted to see this stitched us because it had meaning to her so I simply couldn't pass up this start! It is gorgeous, and I'm really looking forward to seeing this grow, although my target for this project this year isn't that ambitious. My target is one page, but the page I started on is a tiny partial page, so I've decided to do three partial pages for my target instead! 

Secondly, this has technically already been posted, this is where I finished Apocalypse Princesses at the end of last year, but because it was only posted as part of my progress in 2014 I decided to re-post it here as well. I've deliberately left that funny triangle without stitching at the moment, it's all the same colour so I decided to wait until the next page, where there's also a lot of that colour so I can stitch straight across and hopefully avoid getting lines between my pages. This suddenly came together at the end of the page, and I was so excited to see the top of Mulan's head suddenly appear, especially as it was all pretty confetti heavy, so it was driving me a little potty towards the end.

I'm hoping to have quite a good stitching January and get myself off to a good start for all my targets. I've got an extra day off next week, I lieu day coming a couple of weeks after that and a weeks holiday the week after that, our holiday year runs to the end of February so we're all frantically using our holiday up. For some of these days Ben's either working or away, so I'm really hoping to have a bit of a stitch-athon, definitely get Red Swans target finished and hopefully make a decent dent into another target as well. Anf I've got a crotchet lesson booked, so I'm hoping that start towards my learning to make Granny Squares target as well!

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you're all feeling as positive about 2014 and your targets / resolutions and this post seems to sound!

The obligatory end of 2013 soon be 2014 post

Okay, so here it is, the breakdown of my 2013 targets!

2013 Targets

Start a Joan Elliott start - DONE
Top row of black on Heather - DONE
2 Pages of Dragon Rider - FAIL - I'm horrified to discover I only did half a page!
2 pages of Lancelot and Guinevere - FAIL -  again, only half a page
Colour top row of Clara - FAIL - at best I've done half a page, but she's very pretty!
2.5 pages of Chakra Fae - FAIL (kinda) I got rid of it, decided I didn't like it!
Finish Passione Ricamo SAL - FAIL (kinda - again) Also got rid of it!
3 Girls of the World - Fail - I nearly did one
Winter's Majesty - FAIL - absolutely none
2 pages of Pride and Prejudice - So Close, one and a half pages
2 pages of Dwarven Leader - FAIL - again, about half a page
Finish something - DONE - woohoo, thank goodness for a friend getting married!

 

Here's a review of my stitching progress in 2013, and mostly this proves that I haven't really achieved much this year!

Apocalypse Princesses was started this year so this is my full progress here!

 

Clara at the end of 2012

 Clara with a bit of colour, not much colour I know, but a bit!

 

Dragon Rider at the end of 2012

 Dragon Rider as it is now, half a page progress!

Dwarven Leader was also a new start this year, so I don't have a before picture

 

Heather was a SAL start for 2013 so this was started on the 1st of Jan, and I loved working on her. Looking back to getting back to her again!

 

The lovely window of Lancelot and Guinevere as it was at the end of 2012

 The lovely beginning of Lancelot's head, only half a page again, so embarrassed!

 

How Elizabeth and Mr Darcy started 2013

 How they ended 2013

 

The beginning of my first Joan Elliott project,  and she is lovely, and I adore the fabric!

 

Winter's Majesty, sadly this is by before and after picture, I haven't worked on this at all, I'm so ashamed.

 

China was all on her own at the end of 2012

 She nearly has a friend by the end of 2013

Which leads me on to my 2014 targets. I've tried to be a bit more realistic, but they're still probably a bit optimistic

• 1 page of Joan Elliott
• 1 page of Dwarven Leader
• 2 and 2 half pages of Dragon Rider
• 1 and a half pages of Lancelot and Guinevere
• 1 page of Winter's Majesty
• 1 colour page of Clara
• 2nd row of black on Heather (seeing as it was one of the few challenges I managed this year I thought I'd be equally ambitious again)
• 1 page of Tale of the Red Swans (new start for 2014)
• 1 page of Rendezvous (new start for 2014)
• 2 and a half Girls of the World
• 1 and a half pages of Pride and Prejudice
• Start Japanese Chatelaine (new stat for 2014)
• 1 page of Apocalypse Princesses
• Finish something (unlikely, but hey)!
• Start a birth or wedding sampler (people keep getting married or having children, I figure I try and get ahead).

This list looks longer but it is less ambitious that last year, it's just that it contains more projects... hence why a finish is so unlikely
 And I have a few non stitching targets as well:

• Learn to make crotchet Granny Squares, I have a ridiculously ambitious project in mind!
• Write 10,000 words a month - it's less that 350 a day, so not as horrendous as it sounds, and I figure being very ambitious means that I might actually achieve something
• Start looking into the logistics of  a stitcher's retreat. It was a plan that really didn't materialise in 2013, so I thought I'd start slowly progressing with it this year!
• Get better at gingerbread houses (you should see the monster we created this year)
• Ditto, start to improve on cake decorating as well!
• Become a better blogger, I've been most remiss since starting my new job as I didn't seem to have much free time, but as I've got a bit better at my job and gained a bit more free time as a consequence I will try to blog regularly and keep commenting on others blogs as well!

So that's my ridiculous targets, what are yours?

Final update of the year!

Here it is, my final update of the year, Apocalypse Princess', which I'm still loving, and it's suddenly looking much more logical after I looked at this picture than it has done the last few days looking at my stitching!

I'm hoping to get this page finished by the end of the year (mainly because I have another SAL starting in the New Year), and yesterday was the first time that I thought I might actually achieve it!

Coming to the end of the year

Greetings all, firstly an apology for my appalling photography this week... the trouble is I leave for work in the dark, come home in the dark (I'm sure I'm not the only one) so I never have any natural light to take pictures in!

Anyway, here is my latest update of Apocalypse Princesses... I know it doesn't look like much, much I'm working on some of this little white spots! My intention is get this page finished by the end of the year so that I can start a new project in the New Year for the Aimee Stewart SAL (can't wait, I accidently got two lined up)! 

And here's an update on a project that hasn't seen the light of day in quite some time. Dwarven Leader, artwork by Jankolas, charted by Paine Free charts (art work now retired)! The lovely Kim has been encouraging us all to work on our Tolkien themed works by putting a day aside each month for us to work.

 

Hopefully some time in the next week or so I'll be able to put up my New Year targets and sort out how badly I've done with all of this years targets.

 

And finally, Merry Christmas!

A little bit of colour

A little update on Apocalypse Princesses by Paine Free Crafts/Tess Fowler, and I'm absolutely loving working on this, I just wish that I had more time to, because it's such fun! You can almost, almost, see her hand taking shape! Hopefully I'll get some time this week and will be able to get another progress pic in before the Christmas madness kicks in.

And the fact that I'm mentioning Christmas madness also means that it's approaching that time again. The time of year where I start evaluating last years targets (mostly I completely failed) and considering next years.

 

Happy stitching all!

Another start

Because that's what I need, yet another start... but I signed up to the Paine Free SAL on facebook, and I do absolutely love this chart. It's Apocalypse Princesses by Tess Fowler, and it's just fantastic. I don't have much to show, but at least with starting with the black you can already see the very beginning of it coming together. Sadly, as we're in the run up to Christmas, and busy at work, I'm not going to get as much done as I would like to on this, but I'm hoping to finish the first page before the next SAL starts (another start, and technically I've agreed to do another as well). I am enjoying it so far!

 

Secondly, a little bit of progress of World Collection, but I got distracted by the SAL, I meant to get my next girl finished, but the distraction meant that I didn't!

A rare update

Firstly the obligatory scarf update. One finished, which will be for my grandfather for my Grandad for Christmas, and secondly, I've finally started on the scarf that's intended for me. The wool on mine hasn't come out quite as pretty on the photo as it does in real life, and unfortunately I can't photograph just how soft and cosy if feel!

Secondly, and update of Dragon Rider, it doesn't look like much progress at the moment... I'm at that funny middle phase where progress just seems really slow. At the beginning it looks like you've done loads because you're just working on a big empty page, then at the end it looks like it goes quickly because all the white bits are eroding, but in the middle you get the slog (least ways I do), where you almost have to explain what you've been working on this week. It's that blue bit at the bottom by the way. But progress is progress, and it has been hindered a little by the next project. 

I can't remember when I last worked on this, but it's got to be at least six months, probably a fare bit longer. I took this to craft group with me on Thursday because I wanted something a bit littler to take with me, and found that I was rather enjoying it, so I' thought I'd keep it out until I finish the next person, who is progressing rather nicely!

Bits and Bats

Latest update of Dragon Rider, I haven't got much to show, what with National Novel Writing month (which I'm insanely behind in) and all the scarves that I have to work on, my poor stitching is getting very neglected. And that's made all the worse by the fact that I was stitching on it last night to realise that one of the colours on the previous page was wrong, so I spent half of yesterday evening unpicking that colour and starting to re-stitch it. For some reason I'd stitched part of the blue sky in grey, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time!

 

And secondly, the continuation of the scarves... the one on the right is nearly finished, it's just what's left of that ball of wool. That was intended to for granddad, but I've fallen out with it a bit and don't like it as much any more so, once again, that will be donated and the little grey smudge on the left will instead be my Granddad's Christmas present. Plus I now need to make one for Ben as well, after he made me promise I would, so he has to choose his will for that at some point. You never know, I might actually get to knit something for myself one day, but I'm not counting on it!

Little update

First off here is Dragon Rider, finished the green that I was doing and there's now some brown in there, and the exciting thing is, that little smush of brown that you can see... that's the beginning of the dragon... I'm so excited that while on my sixth page I'm finally getting to see some real dragon (I'm not counting that tiny bit on the first page, because you'd never have known what it was if you didn't know. But any way, as this is now my focus piece (honest guv), hopefully I'll see this coming on in leaps and bounds in the next year... although stitching plans to be detailed later will probably put paid to that.

 

Secondly I have the beginning of my second scarf... this one is intended for my Grandad for Christmas... this is intended for him for two reason.

1. My gran tried to teach me to knit many years ago, but I was terrible and it always resulted in confusion and shouting, so as my gran is no longer with us I'd like to be able to prove to him that, better late than never, I've finally mastered knitting.

2. He's my granddad, therefore no matter how awful the thing I give him, he has to lie and tell me that it's lovely, which I'm kinda clinging to at the moment!

 

My stitching is probably going to take a bit of a hit this month... I've signed up to National Novel Writing Month and set myself a target of 1000 words a day, so by the time I've done that, then worked on Grandad's scarf, I can't see my getting much stitching done, but hopefully I will still have something to show this week, either stitching or knitting!

 

And finally, I seem to have, rather foolishly, signed up to another two SALs, like I need more projects than I already have. One is an Aimee Stewart SAL in the New Year, and I'm doing Tale of the Red Swans after Aimee said that she'd really like to see it stitched... which meant that even Ben said I had to kit it up and stitch it, so I've had to thank Aimee because for once I don't have to smuggle the supplies into the flat. Secondly I've joined in a Paine Free SAL as well, which is starting on the 1st of December, not quite sure which one I'm stitching for that... it depends on whether I chart that I'm waiting for is released or not. I'm hoping for Kidnapped Batgirl to be released, otherwise it'll be Apocalypse Princesses which I've had for ages.

Happy stitching all, and if anyone is joining in NaNoWriMo, good luck with that.

I've started knitting

Starting with my update of Dragon Rider. I've decided to make this my focus piece (due to it currently being the only project with an intended home). So the intention is to work on a page of this then a page of something else, and so on. This page will actually have some dragon on it. I've very excited!

And here we have Ben modelling my first ever knitted thing! I've made a scarf and I'm quite proud of myself, especially as it's only taken me 4 days, although the wool is ridiculously thick, meaning that it knitted up really easily. I had also started a second scarf, but I got that out today to see a mistake on it, so I'm going to have to start that again!

Pride and Prejudice reappears

Finally, an update, I've been very bad with my updates recently!

I took Pride and Prejudice on holiday with me so I actually managed to do some work on it! The rest of this page is cream, so it's easy stitching to finish this page now!

In other news it was my birthday yesterday (the big 30, sigh) and one of my friends got married on Saturday, so it's been a busy weekend. One of my presents from Ben was a pair of bamboo needles, so impressed bless him! Also a gorgeous bag, a framed print, latest Studio Ghibli (he knows me so well - I'm slowly collecting them all, this gets me up to 4) and Folio Society of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, it's like he's lived with me for 5 years or something! Then I went shopping and bought the shoes that went with the bag - Irregular choice, so dangerous. And a cloth bound edition of the Once and Future King... all in all a fantastic weekend and I'm now skint!

Colour!!!!!!

Look, there's colour, actual colour! Not much I know, but I'm so excited to see that Clara has finally got some colour. There's some blue in the feather (but you can't see that very well on the picture), and there's pink on her hat.