Fly away already!

I've been busy like a little bee. One of my goals for the holiday season was finishing Little Wings. I feel like I've been working on it since forever. I started off real well, making crazy progress day after day on that huge green dress. Then I hit a bumper on the road, with the little girl's dotty dress, the confettis of hair and the backstitched vines. I still got it out every now and then, stitched a bit on those annoying parts and put it away wishing I'd never have to suffer the irritating task of threading my needle for no more than just three stitches. In the meantime I was aware that I am about a week of devoted stitching away from completing it. So I made it my mission to finish until next Monday. I am doing really well too. Mentally, I am at the point where I hate even looking at it and keep wishing I could stitch something else, but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel and it makes me itch to go ahead and just finish it already.

Little ladies

My recent projects: the lovely pair of Lavender & Lace little girls, Emma and Isabella. I have started working on Emma's Garden ages ago, and I am still very nervous of touching it, as I dyed the fabric myself and I'm not a hundred percent sure I did a good job at it. Plus I am anxious in advance about the lace stitching at the bottom. Not like I can do anything about it, it's not like I even know what size 12 cotton looks like, so I cannot practice on a separate piece of fabric. Whatever, I will cross that stitch when I get there. ;-) Anyhow, I resumed working on it last week. It is done on 28 ct linen, 2 over 2. Isabella, however, is stitched on 32 ct marbled Zweigart linen, and she's done 1 over 2 to give her a more delicate look. I was a bit unsure about doing them in such different ways, but then I remembered that the designs are pretty different anyway. Isabella is a full body drawing while Emma is seen only from the waist up, so it's not like I could stitch them as a series like the Celtic ladies for example. I keep reminding myself that I should stop being such a perfectionist. I keep worrying what the end product will look like and beat myself up about every single x that doesn't look flawless. Fortunately I have learned to recognize when those moods are coming and I can remind myself to concentrate on the moment and just enjoy each coss as I stitch them. I will get there in the end.

Happy dance at The Wedding

As you may remember, I had this super secret project that I have been working on for two years. It was Lavender & Lace's The Wedding which I have tweaked a bit to fit my parents' 50th anniversary. I have finished in time too, except for the beading. This summer I took a deep breath, washed and ironed the piece, and then I spent two days beading, but it was worth it. Last week it finally came back from the framer's and went to live with my parents. I am very satisfied with the result, although I do not want to stitch anything white for a while. :) I changed the letters to numbers, and modified the hair colour of the young couple, plus I thought the veil wasn't enough so I added a blackwork in Kreinik's gold blending filament. In retrospect, I wish I would have placed the numbers a bit closer to each other, but it still turned out fine. Here is the end product, with some details for the veil.

Just the pictures

Back to blogging

I missed blogging, but due to recent rearrangements in my job I just couldn't find the time and/or energy to do it. It's been a long winter and I missed my sunshine. I mostly run on solar power. Also, I have more and more problems with blogger, so I started to experiment with Wordpress. I may move my blog there. I will let you know if I do. Here is a brief recap of important things that happened, told mostly in pictures. 

Progress and S.E.X.

I've been stitching a lot lately, obviously I cannot show you the secret project, but I can inform you that it is growing steadily and I even started another minor secret project I am about to finish and reveal. Here are my progress pictures and a photo of my recent purchases. Yes, I've been a bad girl and increased my stash yet again.

Little Wings progress

I looked through my WIPs and realized that I am not far from finishing Little Wings. I've just been putting it aside because I reached a point where some confetti like stitching and backstitching is to be done, and those are not my favourites. Anyway, I decided to woman up and do the birdhouse with the flowers and vines, and this is where I am right now. Again, I apologize for the picture quality and the lack of energy to rotate and edit my photos.

 I am close to finishing the little girl too. She is already very cute!

No need for words

Colourful plans and a finish

First of all, yes, I am very happy to report that I have my first finish of the year, and it is a big one: I have put the last stitches in the Lady of the Thread! Hurray! She is every bit as stunning as I thought she would be.

Finished and ready to be framed

This is what the working copy of the chart looks like now.

By the way, the chart is available for sale or trade. :)

Second: I started planning my next project. One more finish and I will be kitting up Rose of Sharon.

I'm not sure I like the colour of her dress though, so I started to look for alternatives on the net and found some pretty impressive projects. Some are on blogs and some are on the Mirabilia stitchers BB, but I wanna wait for the stitchers' permission to post the images before I display them all. Until then, here is one of the versions stitched by Anka, who graciously agreed to share this photo of her amazing stitching. She had not only changed the colour of the dress and the flowers, but stitched the column completely.

Ankaa's Rose of Sharon

A day's worth of stitching

Yesterday

Today

Update

Healthwise we are all fine right now. Tami is back in school and I am back on the job hunt. I am optimistic despite the incredible cold that is here and the huge amount of snow that is reportedly going to come this weekend. We have our flu shots and are taking vitamins every day. Let's hope the sick days are behind us for this winter.
Homewise I am getting better at doing chores. I also installed a makeshift hammock. I tied the old baby carrier sling to the edge of our gallery. My girl can use it to just chill or swing about. She absolutely loves it and spends most of her afternoons in it.

Can be a swing

Can be a hammock

She can watch the telly like this...

...or this

Stitchwise I have worked on my CJC projects in rotation and did a bit on the secret project as well. I did, however, spent most time with Little Wings and with every stitch it looks more and more stunning. Here, take a look yourself:

January WIPocalypse report

I spent most of my stitchy time working on my BAP items and starting the Crazy January projects. Here are my big progress photos and I will add my CRC scans later today.

Victorian Elegance by Dimensions Gold

Lady of the Thread by Lavender and Lace

Little Wings by Lavender and Lace

Can you get a ticket for speed stitching?

Here is my progress on Little Wings. I worked a little bit on the girl's dress but done mostly the woman's gown as you can see. I really love the pink ribbons, it gives me a nice change with all the greens. I have a few missing colours, I need to buy a few skeins, or just gather the ones that are kitted up in another design. For example, 822 is hiding in the box of my super secret surprise project. I will need to borrow some of that as I cannot afford buying duplicates. I wonder about stitching this design with alternative colours. Does anyone have any tips? Maybe give her a dark blue or purple gown and pink for the little girl?

Smoking needle

As you can see, I am still working on Little Wings. This design is unbelievable, it seems to stitch itself. I have made great progress on the green dress as well as the white of the little girl's skirt. I can hardly do anything else, I'm enjoying this too much! I cannot even remember the last time I was this happy with my stitching. It made me fall in love with cross stitch all over again. If only my human relationships were this easy to perfect!

Amazing progress

I really don't wanna pat myself on the shoulder, because it isn't me that is amazing, it's the talent of Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum that has made my progress possible. I spent only a couple of days on Little Wings and look at her dress! She looks so stunning! I don't know how I managed to complete so much.

Happy Holidays!

Just dropping in to say hello to all my dear friends, fellow bloggers and cross stitch addicts anonymous all around the world! I wish you all a joyful holiday season regardless of what holiday you are celebrating! I am all packed to leave for my hometown so I can hug my daughter again. I'll leave you until next week with a collage on my progress with Lady of the Thread, a recent photo of me, and one of my favourite videos of all time. This song makes me smile every time!
Loads of hugs for all,
:-*

U.F.O. no more

I made pretty good progress on the Permin kit but none on my Christmas sampler. My printer is out of ink, so I can't print the rest of the chart, and I cannot afford a cartridge right now. So I just had to stitch something else. i looked through my UFO pile and picked Lady of the Thread by Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum.

From Work In Progress

I started working on it quite some time ago but at the time it was too difficult for me to stitch on black aida. But now I am more experienced and I made great progress in surprisingly short time.  Unfortunately, as I neared the edge of her skirt, I realized that my inexperience shows on my measuring skills too, or in this case, the lack of them. I have about an inch of material left on the bottom of the fabric. Which means another tough case for the framer!

Well, still better than Ice Angel. With her, I'm not even sure if the design will fit on the fabric at all. It's a sad thought, because I've been working on her for how long, three years now? Shows you how important it is to do your math properly when doing the inch to centimeters conversion.