Lots of Stitchy Goodness

Last year when I was sorting through all my craft magazine deciding which to keep and which to toss, I came across this adorable series of monthly patterns and just had to make them.  My plan was to work on them every Tuesday when I was doing my weekly Skype session with my mother and Amanda.  This was around October, and I started with the December pattern to give myself plenty of wiggle room to get each completed in enough time to be framed and displayed in its proper month.

I managed to finish the December one in plenty of time, and then as is the custom, another bright shiny new project called my name, and since these are so small and can be finished quickly, I decided working on them could be put off for awhile.

The January one was finally completed and framed about a week into the month.

 February still isn't complete, but I pulled it out and will work on it today until it is finished.

Then, I think I might skip a couple of months and jump into working on May to give myself some time to get them complete.  Or maybe not. I work pretty well with looming deadlines, it's the "if I work on this 2 hours per week I can have it done in 6 months" kind of thing that gets me in trouble.

When I tried to get a progress photo of Basilisk last night, I noticed that the clips I'm using to keep the extra fabric rolled up and out of the way look a lot like spiders from this angle.  Creepy!  Good thing that isn't the way I see them when I'm stitching, or nothing would get done.

Am I the only one who sees this?  It's not so bad on the lighter one.  Maybe I should go buy another of those and get rid of the dark one?

Basilisk is really starting to come alive now.  When I take a step or two back, I can see the flowers and blue jay, and now the tree trunks are really starting to show up.  I can't wait to get to the next page and see the lady's face take shape.  I will probably put this one away for a bit next week though.  I really want to get Enchanted Reindeer finished by end of June, and it needs some attention so it doesn't fall behind.

New Frame and Stand

It's certainly nice to have a handy hubby around.  I've been struggling with my cross stitch using traditional hoops.  Those worked fine if I wasn't stitching using the parking method.  However, I found that parking was working out better for me.  Also, the projects I'm working on are rather large, and they were a bit cumbersome using a hoop.  The extra fabric kept getting in the way.

So Saturday morning I showed Paul some photos of nifty homemade stands using pvc, and asked him to build me a basic one.  So far it's working out great!  This cost about $20, plus a couple hours of his time.

My stitching is going much faster using this.  I've completed more than 1100 stitches on Basilisk in the past two days.  It's amazing to me to see what these look like when I take photos.  When I'm working on them, all I see is the individual stitches.  It's like seeing the pixels on the TV screen when you stand right up on it.

I've completed enough on Basilisk to not feel guilty working on a new project for an hour or so.  I'm doing a stitch along with a couple of friends and we're supposed to post progress photos every Friday on Facebook.  I thought this week's photo from me would only be of my supplies, but looks like I'll have some actual stitching done.

Can't wait to Amanda and Brandi's projects!

Just Pick One Already

As I do nearly every year, I started off January with lofty goals of getting loads of my WIPs completed.  I was going to work on this one, and that one, and the other one, and that guy over there, and that cute little one in the closet, and where oh where did I put that gorgeous one I just have to get done so I can hang it in the bedroom?  If you're a crafter like me and suffer from "ooooh look a shiny new project" syndrome, you know just how my January looked.

I started off on the right foot.  I pulled out all of the projects and organized them into their own little containers to make it easier to grab what I was going to work on.  I did my very best to add all the tools that would be needed into each container so that when it was grabbed, it could be worked on immediately.  I came up with all kinds of "games" to choose what to work on since there are so many, and I do tend to get bored if I work on a large project for too long.  I worked on way too many projects each day and, though with a few exceptions, got just the tiniest bit done on each one.  When January ended and I looked at what I had accomplished, my progress was spread out over too many WIPs, so it looked like I had done precious little.

Why can't I get it through my head that this "work on all of them" thing doesn't work?  I mean, I try it just about every year, and it lasts for about a month, then I remember that in order to see real progress on these big projects, I need to work on them for more than an hour a day, once or twice per week.

Keeping that in mind, I have chosen 2 of my big cross stitch projects to work on daily.  The first is being worked on 18ct Aida, and if I do just under 200 stitches per day, will be complete by the end of the year.  Or thereabouts, considering that I may not work on it each and every day.  I have only completed 1/2 of the first page, but this one is only 9 pages.

The second is being worked on 14ct Aida, and will be complete by end of June working just over 200 stitches per day.

I have also decided that my weekends will be dedicated to one of the many smaller projects I have started.  I will choose a new one to work on if, and when, I get bored with the current one.  No more weekly choosing.  I may still use the handy RNG though, since I spend way too much time trying to decide which one of them I want to show some love to next.  Currently, I will be working on Paul's Christmas stocking, which I started 3 years ago.  I got sidetracked by a bright shiny new project before I had gotten very far, and then this was packed away when we moved and hadn't seen the light of day until now.

I don't have much done yet, but you can definitely see the boy and the girl already.

I had originally planned to continue working on that mermaid until she was done, but when I started working on her last week, I remembered why she had been put away for so long.  I started adding beads the last time I worked on her, and then realized that I couldn't put it in a hoop any more because the beads would get in the way.  I tried putting her on a scroll frame, but the beads caused issues with rolling the work up.  I tried working in hand, and don't care for that at all.  Can you say tension issues?  I have a fairly large q-snap frame that I can put it on and only use clamps on the sides where there aren't beads, but the one I have is awkward and I have problems stitching with it.  I decided to just put her away until I figure out how to resolve this issue.

Of course, there are still the quilting, sewing, knitting, and crocheting projects to be completed too.  Not sure how I'll handle those, but I'll squeeze them in here and there.

Little Monthly Wall Quilts

Not a lot of progress on the stitching front to blog about today, so I thought I'd share a few photos of the little monthly wall quilts that I finished while on break from blogging.

I finished up the November, December and January quilts.

I've got some of the February quilt pieces cut out, but I'm just not finding the time to get downstairs to sew lately.  Sebastian is a little (well huge truth be told) terror and gets into all kinds of trouble if I leave him alone too long.  I need to just stick him in his crate to whine for an hour here and there, and get downstairs to work on these quilts.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow after my massage appointment.  Make some tea, turn on an audio book, and relax downstairs with some fabric and the sewing machine.

I Have A Serious Problem

I keep saying that I need to finish all these projects I have started, yet I am constantly starting new ones.  Oh well, I guess I just need to accept that I have a serious problem and go with the flow.

I discovered a new to me pattern company and I adore just about every pattern I've seen so far.  I just ordered the one below along with fabric to complete it, and yes, I am going to start it as soon as the supplies arrive.  I've even corrupted talked my friend Brandi into doing one of these with me.  All it took was showing her the adorable weiner dog patterns they had, and she was a goner.  I'd love to do this in beautiful overdyed floss, but I am going to use up some of the tons of DMC floss I have in my stash instead.  If I finish several cross stitch projects this year, maybe I'll treat myself to a new sampler pattern and overdyed floss next year.

As bad as I am at starting new projects, I am pretty good about really taking stock of the ones I already have going.  I really think hard about why the ones that have been sitting around for an extended period aren't being worked on.  I did that this weekend when I was supposed to be working on Time I.  I wasn't enjoying it like I was the other large HAED projects.  When I decided that it was because I was working them in tent stitch instead of full cross, I decided to "scrap" all three I started that way.  There isn't much work being tossed aside there; all three were started, then quickly left to sit while I worked on something else.  I will start each one over using full cross when I make some headway on other projects.

Once I put away Time I, I pulled out The Great Snail to work on instead.  I think instead of changing every weekend, I'll work on this one until I'm tired of it, then I'll switch.  Believe it or not, this is almost 3 pages complete.  Since I started on the lower right corner, I've been working on the partial pages at the end of each row and at the bottom of the columns.  I think if I do the next page up next instead of the next page across, I should start to see some mushrooms.  I'm loving the colors in the background, but would really like to see some detail show up so I don't get bored.

The other gift I finished that was shipped off today is the afghan I made for my niece's dorm room.  I love this pattern and maybe some day I'll make one for myself too.

And, as has been my custom lately, when I finished up that last knit/crochet project, I started a new one instead of grabbing one of the many others already in progress.  *sigh* I doubt I'll ever get better.  This is going to be a sweater for my husband.  I love the yarn this is made with (Malabrigo), it's so soft and squishy.  Most of the sweater is made in this textured rib, but there are a couple of less textured bands.  So far it's working up quickly, and I'm only working on it about an hour in the evenings before I pull out the reindeer cross stitch.  Let's hope hubby sees a new sweater next year.

Dancing Terapins

 Tomorrow I will be carting 3 boxes to the Post Office.  One box contains a gift that I don't have a photo of, and since it's a surprise I wouldn't post it anyway.  The other two boxes contain gifts that the recipients knew about, so I did get photos.

My son asked me to crochet him a hoodie with graphics from a Grateful Dead album cover art on it.  It took quite a bit of thinking outside the box to accomplish this, but I'm really pleased with the results.  I couldn't find a crochet pattern that would suit what I was trying to do, so I used my sweater knitting software, then tweaked it a bit to work for crochet.  For the graphics I used a cross stitch pattern generator, then crocheted it into the sweater body.  I think it turned out great and I hope he likes it!

I'll show photos of the other gift tomorrow (or whenever I get my butt in gear and blog again).

This week I am working on this cross stitch mermaid during the afternoons.  She really shouldn't take too much longer to complete.  I'm almost at the tail fin, then there are a ton more beads to add.  I'm trying to stitch at least one thread full of beads per day, and 3 threads of color.  If I get close enough to finishing her, I may just continue working on her next week too.  It will be nice to get a couple of these cross stitch projects off my list of "to dos".

I almost finished the bottom three pages on the Reindeer Ornament project last week.  I'm trying to get all the background heavy areas done first, since they are the most "boring".  Once I get to the reindeer and the sled full of goodies, this will fly by.  When working on it, the stitches don't look like much, just a bunch of pixels.  But, when you take a step back, the picture just pops out!  This is still on track to be finished at the end of May.

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave

Most of my cross stitch projects look like plates of spaghetti when I try to photograph them.  I'm trying to determine which way of stitching I prefer.

I started this one (Ornament The Enchanted Christmas) using a version of cross country stitching.  That's where you stitch with a color until you've completed all the stitches of that color on a page, or the entire project (extreme cross country).  I don't complete all of them on the whole project, or even on the current page.  I stitch with that color until the current thread is finished, then I go back to the beginning and thread up the color for the next unstitched symbol.  And so on, and so on.  Gridding my fabric really helps with this process so I don't lose my place.

I had tried parking on another project, but didn't have much luck with it.  With that method, you stitch one 10 x 10 square at a time, completing all stitches on one color, then bringing the thread up in the next stitch of that color in an adjacent square and leave it "parked" until you complete that square.  I decided to try again, only starting at the bottom of the project instead of the top.  When I tried it before, I thought it was taking me too long because I was constantly threading and unthreading the needle.  Turns out I am actually stitching faster with this method because it takes less time to park one color then thread up the next than it does to search for the next symbol of the color currently on the needle.  My only problem now is I have tons of threads hanging around that are bound to get tangled up.  I need to find a method of keeping them organized when I put a project away for any extended period.

The photo above is what my project looked like on Tuesday evening after I finished stitching.  I'll get a new photo tomorrow, and plan to show progress on this one weekly.

Below is what Stocking Walk As One looked like at the beginning of the week

And here is what it looks like after finishing up yesterday.  Not a lot of progress, but every stitch counts and gets me closer to a finished project.

I didn't work on the stocking this afternoon as I was finishing up a few other projects that are gifts and need to get in the mail tomorrow.

I did work a bit on The Kiss however.  Again, not a lot of progress for the week, but every little bit helps.

This weekend I will again be working on Time I.  I'll show starting and ending photos on Monday.  The handy dandy RNG chose another Mirabilia project to be worked on next week.  This one is a mermaid that I've been working on a bit here and there for several years.  Again, photo on Monday.