On the fence

After a week or so of stitching a bit whenever I can, I have made some progress on the fence and now you can see where the second little birdie is going to be. I had to force myself to do every stitch, it was so dull, colour and otherwise as well. I sort of lost my stitching mojo and I thought that if I find no joy in stitching, I should make myself do the joyless bits, like wooden poles and backstitching, the kind of tasks that normally ruin the stitching process for me. I did tire of this piece eventually, and went on other adventures, of which I will discuss in detail next week.

Boring bits

I know I told you how I was gonna work on the Lanarte kit I started a year ago, but didn't actually get around to post pictures. This was taken after a day or two after I picked it up again. Did work a bit more on the wooden fence in the background, stay with me, I will blog about it soon enough.

Cute kit

This is a kit by Lanarte that my mother picked for herself. She really loves small birds, especially song birds. All winter long she makes sure they have enough food in the bird feeder in our back garden. And a very busy feeder it is too! Every time I visit, there are a big bunch of feathered friends feasting. Which is why I gave her the Dimensions birdhouse I stitched earlier this year. I hope I can finish this kit before Christmas! 

Below is the progress I made in a month.

Almost mid-month April WIPocalypse report

March had been a pretty hectic month and a particularly unlucky one for our family, so I am glad it is over. Here's hoping it will never surface again. Not only were most of us really sick last month, my baby was also bit by a dog very badly. I will never ever get her screams of pain out of my head for as long as I live. Never. Ever. It's been almost a month since it happened, but I wasn't ready to talk about it until I could see it healing. She was bit on her thigh and most of the minor bruises are almost gone, but two big holes where the dog's fangs have pierced the skin are still healing and will take at least another month before they are closed. For now, we change bandages several times a day to make sure the wound gets some air too. My girl still refuses to look at it. It seems the horror of being injured is multiplied by the disturbing sight.

And now for the regularly scheduled stitchy news. 

WIPocalypse amendment

I have found the missing Lanarte piece I mentioned in my previous post and scanned her. Here she is:

As I started writing this post I realized I cannot bring myself to call my projects "it". So I had to choose a gender for cross stitch projects. It came to me that they can only be female. After all, they are very complicated, look delicate but in fact are strong enough to endure the test of time, they sometimes make your eyes water for no reason, cost a great deal more than you would have guessed, are effortlessly beautiful regardless of their shape or colour, and most men do not seem to appreciate them as much as they should. :)

Minor finish

I just managed to finish this small Lanarte kit. It wasn't very challenging, except that I had to once rip out most of the sky and it was rather annoying, so I had to put the project aside for a few months. I found it again in May and decided to complete it. I think it turned out to be really pretty.

First finish of the year

My bigger pieces are growing slowly so I decided to do a smaller project so I can brush up on my happy dancing. And here it is, a small Lanarte kit that has a sister (with poppies) and took me only a few days to stitch start to finish.
I took a deep breath and started stitching the hair on my ballerina. If you recall, the kit has floss for brown hair but I wanted her to be blonde. Most of the colours I have chosen I'm satisfied with, except for the darkest shade. As it were, the darkest colour takes up most of the hair, and it is more brown than blonde. It would be okay if it would only be a shade here and there, but it's too much, it makes her look like the girl was the subject of an unsuccessful bleaching experiment that went horribly early 80's. So I will frog that colour and probably blend a lighter shade with the original floss to make it work. I will keep you updated.
I worked on Feasting Frenzy too, I will give you details when I'm done scanning.

Minor progress

Again, this photo was taken with my phone camera, so it is not that good, but I have no other to share and the progress is too big for the scanner now. But I think you can still see the overall picture. It may look like I didn't work too much on the ballerina, but that is only because I did plenty of the white parts. I don't know about you but I hate stitching white on white. I wish the fabric was ecru or some other light shade.

I thought I had it rotated... sorry!

Ballerina progress

As you can see, it had reached critical mass, that is, I can no longer fit the whole thing in the scanner. :D You can see her knees now, which is also the bottom edge of the stitched area. Again, the kit makers weren't too generous with the fabric, but in now way is it a tight fit. It's getting prettier every day.
I also realised that not only the hair must be converted to blonde, but I must change her eyes to green as well. Yes, my girl's eyes are greyish blue, gut she insists they are green like mine. I tried to correct her a few times, but she is adamant. I leave her to think she has green eyes because I don't see much sense in arguing with a 6-year-old.

Start and progress

I have finally recovered my ballerina chart so I could work on more colours. There is a lot of floss blending and I really enjoy the effect. I made great progress! Soon she will outgrow my scanner.

In the meantime I have started yet another SAL. We're doing a Christmas project. Most of the members are Hungarian but everyone is still welcome if you are interested. There may still be time to buy the chart and start stitching! I am warning you though, it is much more floss consuming than it looks! I am almost at the end of my first skein, and now I must find a way to get some from abroad as the store that stocked The Gentle Art Sampler Threads is closed by now. Damn you, economy!
To see the projects check out the blog, you can find the image and link on my sidebar. You can find my posts under the label Jade.

I am doing several smaller pieces I cannot reveal just yet. In a shock, I realised that I am at the deadline of mailing my PIF gifts. Who knew a year can pass so fast? I had no idea. I may be late with some of them, I apologize in advance.

I have dusted off some of my older crafting tools. I have finished knitting a small poncho I started working on years ago and then put it aside. I also tried crocheting again, and I remembered why I quit in the first place. I just cannot seem to be able to make the edges straight. Does anyone have any piece of advice on that? I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but this is what my practice pieces look like:

Stitchy update

Here is my latest mini finish, the last freebie kit I got from Keresztszemes Magazin. Unfortunately, my subscription has expired and I cannot afford to renew it. Even more unfortunately, it seems that the magazine will disappear altogether. It seems the present state of economy is not good enough to make Hungarian stitchers able to make a cross stitch related monthly publication profitable. December's will be the last issue. I has a sad.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

 The good news is, I made some progress on the ballerina. I spent a couple of days at my parents' and I took this kit with me. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the original chart and only had the working copies with me. Which means I didn't have the key, so I could only stitch with the colours that I have already used, as those were the only ones I could pair up with the symbols. Doesn't really matter though, I still think I made nice progress.

Somebunny to happy dance

I have finished the Somebunny kit! Isn't she lovely? Mom and I are still arguing about the framing. She insists on red, but I prefer something light. We'll see what's available and what I can afford. 

Below is my ballerina progress. I wanna thank all for the advice you gave me on bleaching her hair, I didn't have the energy to check my floss stash to see the colours yet, but I will definitely do it this week. I was really sick and I am now recovering. Now it's DD's turn to sneeze and cough. Poor bunny is doing her best.