Restart and an update

Hey everyone! I hope you are having a great start to your weekend. I'm on a roll I think. I even got a quick nap in this evening. This week was a weird one for my stitching. I really tried to work on my 22 ct Fire Moon, but the way I have to have it set up on my stand, under the magnifier, I have to sit all hunched over in order to see it, and my back was screaming at me after only a few minutes. I did stick it out for an hour or two and only got 1 row done before I decided that my best bet would be to get a swatch of my 16 ct out and cut it to size and start over. So I did!

This is where I was with my 22 ct last time I worked on it.

And after restarting on the 16 ct here's where I got up to as of this morning.

Oh yeah I caught up and passed where I was, definitely much easier for me on the larger count, considering the 22 ct got worked on 3 times before that top picture. So I think I'll have a good chance of completing at least 1 page of this project this year.

On May 15th, my hubby had to go for his first colonoscopy, the poor baby didn't like the prepping for it one bit, not that I blame him. So I took the day off to be there to support him and bring him home once it was over. I took along one of my portable pieces, the Bugs Bunny bookmark, on 14 ct vinylweave. I had taken it with me the last time he had a procedure done, in February, but I forgot to take after pics, so this progress is a little misleading. Here is where I left off the last time I took a picture.

Just for reference, after the last procedure I had completed the D and started the first 3 rows of the right leg of the A. This is where I left off last Tuesday.

Unfortunately, I had to sit for a couple of hours waiting, I did a lot of people watching too, since the hospital cafeteria is a very busy place. I made pretty good progress for me in just a short stitching period. Eventually I'll hit on this for a weeks worth of stitching, it still hasn't come up on the number generator. Once it does come up, I'm sure I'll come real close to finishing it or perhaps even completing it and starting my Marvin the Martian bookmark, which is covered up by the vinylweave of this one.

We started the Train of Dreams SAL. We're working on it at least once a week and then posting our progress for each other to follow on our FB group. Since I'm also posting here, this is my progress after only about 2 hours of stitching last week when I was super busy.

I decided that this week I was going to devote a full day to stitching this, for right now it's mostly just black so it will stitch up pretty fast. I'm doing this one on 18 ct, so it won't go as fast as the 16 ct but infinitely faster than the 22 ct would have been. I must tip my hat to all of you who can stitch on linen and other super fine count fabrics. I just can't until I get a better floor stand that isn't quite so low to the ground, or a better, lower stitching chair.

This week I'm going to work on the birth announcement for one of my co-workers. She and I started together almost 2 years ago. We're having a baby shower for her next Friday, a luncheon shower at work, which NEVER happens anymore. I really hope she likes it. I want to see if I can get this done by Friday, probably not, but I'm certainly going to try.

Thanks to all who have left comments on my posts! I love hearing from you. For those of you in the US, Happy Memorial Day! and for those of you in other parts of the world, have a wonderful and stitchy weekend!

TUSAL #5

I let the new moon get away from me. This past weekend was absolutely insane for me busy-wise. I don't know what happened. Here's my ort jar for this new moon. I got lazy and just put it up on my project case this month.  If you are interested in getting involved with the TUSAL, head on over to Daffycat's page and sign up, it's never too late to start!

I do need to put a little update on my QS Fire Moon, I started over. I'll explain more when I post my update on Friday.

I hope everyone has a safe rest of the week, it's going by fast, or not, but I'm definitely ready for a long weekend!

It's Contagious!

Okay, so it's not really contagious, or maybe it is...decide for yourself.

I have been following quite a few blogs, as you can probably tell if you look at the list over there. ----------> And some of the posts I have looked at drooled over, are either knitted or crocheted. I used to know how to knit, very simple straight (don't even know the name of it) type of stitch. You know, in, wrap, over, out type of thing. I actually have crocheted a couple of blankets and many granny squares, but never knew how to connect them so they just kind of went away some where...I wonder if there's a black hole that sucks in old crafy leftovers, like next door to the one that is full of odd socks? Anyway, I digress, I saw on Milly's page a link to a ripple pattern that she is using to create a blanket (a Rainbow blanket!) for her car. So I went to the link she posted where she got the pattern from and it looks simple enough that a rusty crocheter, like me, could even follow it.

Well, last night I went to Walmart looking for general stuff I needed around the house, and I remembered that my store was to be one of the lucky stores that was going to get cross stitch stuff stocked. I went looking for it where the other sewing stuff has been for the last 12 years, and I noticed that the yarn was gone and no cross stitch stuff was in evidence. There were a few bins that had yarn on clearance but nothing else, it was spooky. For once there was actually someone there that I could ask where it all went. They moved it to where the silk flowers are?!?! Who would have even considered this as being sensible...anyway I found that the floss and cross stitch patterns were there already just waiting for me to come and get what I need.  Wait a minute, this was supposed to be about the yarn...in the clearance bins, there were 10 skeins of a nice variegated purple yarn that would make a very nice throw for me to use in the winter when I'm watching TV. So I got all 10 skeins and then bought a couple of crochet hooks. So I am now attempting to create this pattern from the instructions and my memory of what I used to be able to do.

But it's all your fault! If you all weren't so proficient at this knit-y crochet-y kind of stuff I wouldn't have even been tempted to pick it up again. I live in the desert for crying out loud! Who needs a blanket in the desert where it's 105 degrees every day in the summer!?!? LOL Sorry I just had to have someone to blame it on, because I certainly can't take responsibility for ANOTHER obsession.

I do have an update on one of my cross stitch pieces. Last week the lovely random number generator kicked out a 10, meaning I would spend the week working on my In God We Trust piece. Here's where I left off last time.

I was hoping to get all of the cobblestones done this week, but I got caught up in the crocheting and a lot of season finales on TV this week. I did get close to completing them. Here's where I am now.

I can almost see the puppy in that void already. Next time, I will get the puppy done too. And maybe my little headless Precious Moment boy will have hands and a face too.

I checked already for next weeks project and it looks like I'll be working on the QS Fire Moon. My first HAED, soon to be joined by the SAL Train of Dreams. We should be starting that in a couple of weeks. So I'm going to try to get a handle on the blanket thing and work on Fire Moon this week. So until next time, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and week ahead!

Second Finish in Time for Valentine's Day!

I'm so proud of myself! I'm not usually one to stitch really fast, I think I've said that before a time or two, but I now have my second finish of the year. I got both of the Valentine's presents done!

As you know the first one was for my daughter to give to her boyfriend. I saved "First Bass" for my wonderful husband. He's trying to figure out where to hang his new present now. I think it may end up being hung by the picture of his mom, who taught him how to play music at a very young age.

He's not the mushy type and I revel in the fact that he shows me he loves me every day of the year. So I don't want or need him to spend money on something that is just a thing. I'd prefer for him to make me dinner, as he usually does, and tell me he loves me. I am just waiting for dinner now. Mmmmmm smells good!

I also have been working on my HAED, QS Fire Moon. One thing I love about my camera is it takes really good pictures, that are also very very large. So when I'm editing them to make it so they can be uploaded, I first have them show the actual size. Well since this is such a small stitch size, and the threads are really dark, it's hard to tell if I've missed a leg on one of my stitches. Tonight when I blew this one up to actual size, I could see that I missed the finishing cross on one of the stitches on the second to last row. So when I go back to it, I have to complete that one cross. LOL

I am getting the hang of parking my threads. It's not as hard as I thought it would be. And I am not ending the thread at this point either. I am leaving threads hanging on the right side because that color might be close on the next page so I will already have that color started when I get to it. I'll see how it works once I actually get a page done. Notice I said WHEN, I'm not going to slack off and not finish this. It's a challenge, but fun!

Not sure what I'm going to work on tonight, or if I'm going to work on something tonight. Maybe I'll let my random number generator choose for me. So until next time, Happy Valentine's Day! And Happy Stitching!!!

Update...

I spent the evening working on QS Fire Moon. Got a bit more done. I think my eyes are about tired out from that. Dark colors are pretty hard to work with, especially at night. Here's an updated pic.

Even more of my first 15 days of the Cross Stitch Crazy Challenge.

I have been looking at fellow stitcher's blogs and seeing different things that I'd like to add to mine. As with anything computer-y or tech-y, I just jump right in and make changes without reading the manual. I have a hubby that I call Manual Man! He's my super hero. He reads tech manuals for fun (the weirdo). So I just go clicking around on the edit pages until I find what I want, then click on the preview to see if that's what I really wanted to do. And lo and behold! I found how to make the tabs show at the top of the page AND how to make additional pages, not that I have any other pages to make at the moment. Oh yeah, I hate looking stupid, so there are some questions I just don't ask in public. So maybe I'm getting better at this blogging stuff.

Anyway, tonight's posting is from Day 6 and Day 7. I have recently (like the last 6 months) been introduced to HAED (Heaven and Earth Designs) and of course like a lot of "novice" stitcher's I've been a bit intimidated by the sheer size and number of stitches, as well as the number of colors. So I bought a QS (Quick Stitch), it's still really involved, but not quite as large. My Day 6 start was my first HAED, QS Fire Moon.

I totally love how it will look when it's completed, providing I do a good job on it.

I have decided that I will be doing this one row at a time. Filling in stitches in the middle of already completed areas is just a bit too hard on my old eyes. So while I'm working on this completely intimidating pattern, I'm also going to be learning about parking my threads. It seems to be working so far.

I also found that the Q-snaps are great for keeping the fabric tight and helping me to keep track of the parked threads. I'm so glad I invested in them. I think I will be going back to The West (link over there--->) to get some more.

Day 7 is called "Here Comes Treble". It started out being for my hubby, who is a musician. But my daughter saw it and asked if I would give it to her boyfriend, who is also a musician. Well my hubby plays bass in a couple of bands and since Day 8 is called "First Bass", I'll give him that one alone. So this one is going to my daughters boyfriend.

I have made progress on this one since I actually worked on it a couple more times since the beginning of the challenge.

What I did was ask my friends on my Facebook page to pick a number between 1 and 15. Well two people chose 7 and so I worked on this one for a little while that evening. I absolutely love the richness of the colors in this piece. I bought the specialty floss to go with the pattern rather than using the DMC-ish (their words) replacement. This pattern, as well as, Days 8 and 15 came from Ink Circles.

The next night I did the same thing on one of the Challenge page, and again two people picked 7. So I worked on it again. Both evenings I had a couple of people pick 13 and then 12, so I did extra work on them the following night. I'll post those progress pics in a couple of days when I post the first shots.

I really like how this one is progressing. I think it will be really nice when it's done, probably not going to be done in time for his birthday, since it's this Friday, which incidentally, is also my birthday. So maybe in time for my daughter to give to him for Valentine's Day. We'll see how it goes.



I'm off to stitch more on Fire Moon tonight so I may add that pic later on. Tomorrow, I'll post days 8 and 9. Until then, Happy Stitching!