Candyfloss finish

Still dirty and wrinkled and snapped in poor light, but Candyfloss, the first of the Ink Circles Roll Your Own mandala series is finished. I am so fed up with mandalas I just signed up for the next series. Here is the link in case you are interested.

All the SALs in the world

I keep signing up for stitch-a-longs in the hope that one of them will bring back my stitching mojo, but no luck so far. I already told you about my Mirabilia group, the tulip sampler and the Ink Circles mandala series. This year I already signed up for a Halloween SAL by Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks, another round of Ink Circles mandalas, the Save The Stitches blackwork project, another blackwork design by Brodeuse Bressane, a band sampler and the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge on the PinTangle blog. In the meantime I have Abi's Summer Tree SAL, three HAED charts, about six Mirabilias, three L&Ls, two Dimensions kits, two Lanartes, three DMC kits, a Thea kit and a bunch of leaflet/magazine WIPs going on. I must be nuts. I know I said I won't make a fuss as long as I'm enjoying it, but I no longer do! Now I feel crushed under the sheer number of projects and feel like I have not accomplished anything in ages. I have a minor finish but I can't find any joy in it with all the others looming above my head. I have to get organized and force myself to produce a couple of big finishes before this situation is doing my head in. No more new projects for me! Okay just one: the Mojo Sampler by Abi Gurden. Maybe its name will magick the joy of stitching back into my life.

Exhausted

Tamara is not well, as soon as she gets better, another infection pops its ugly head up. I'm worried for her health, not just because of the illnesses, but also the whopping amount of medicine she has been taking recently.
To top it off, my sleeping disorder is back, so I get hardly any rest. I am trying to use the unexpected extra time productively. I'm re-reading some of the classic books that were mandatory literature in school, but being too young, I failed to understand and thus appreciate them. I'm reading Madame Bovary and next on my list is Catch 22.
I have done some stitching too. I spent two weeks under the spell of Red. It was weird but fun. I couldn't even think of another project. I still keep it nearby, but now I'm working on a Lanarte kit I started about a year ago. Nowadays I'm too tired to enjoy stitching. I make myself do it because the alternative would be sitting numb in a corner, staring in the distance and drooling quietly.

Tulip sampler SAL

Here is a progress picture of my latest project, a folk art style sampler of tulips. The chart was designed by a Hungarian lady, it is available for download on her blog in four languages, if you want to join the SAL, just click here and you can start stitching!

I'm working on 36 ct white evenweave, 2 over 2 with various hand dyed threads. I'm using more colours than what the chart calls for, simply because I may not have enough floss to finish the design with just one skein of each, and I can't afford purchasing more floss at the moment. Yep, still unemployed. But I'm stitching and positive.

...why not?

Aaand I have joined another SAL, because why the heck not? It's a Hungarian folk style chart, still available for download on THIS link. It looks absolutely beautiful and I encourage everyone to join us. There is also a Facebook group for the SAL, should you be more comfortable or familiar with that format. I know I will choose different colours, not sure what kind, but I cannot wait to sink my needle into this design!

Christmas-y finish

Some three years ago I joined a stitch-a-long for a "A Mon Ami Pierre" pattern. I had a lot of obsticles to overcome along the way, I messed up calculating the fabric size, lost my hand dyed floss once, ran out of it twice, considered giving up several times. Three years and perhaps six or seven skeins of WDW later I am happy dancing around the Christmas tree. Yeah. It was definitely worth it.

Summer Tree progress

I think it's about time I shared some progress pictures of the SAL of Abi Gurden's Summer Tree of Stitches. I am two branches behind, but I love my tree and enjoy learning every single new stitch. I just cannot get enough of them.

Joining SALs like there's no tomorrow

Being addicted to Abi Gurden's Tree of Stitches it was obvious that I would sign up for anything she had planned to throw our way. I have already stitched the original tree twice, and I'm in the process of picking colours for the third one. So when she announced the SAL for her Summer Tree of Stitches, I simply yelled "shut up and take my money" at the computer screen and joined up before even looking at the design. Which, by the way, is stunning and unique and calls out to me. I invite everyone to sign up and join us. Just click on the link above and get stitching! Here is the image to get your mouth watering:

The second SAL I signed up for is a special Inc Circles mandala design. We are invited to pick our favourite colours and stitch this beautiful design. You can get all the details by checking the designer's blog. There is also a Yahoo! group where we can share ideas and progress.

These are the colours I picked for this design, but I cannot make up my mind about which fabric to choose. Also, I don't wanna make the dividing line black but I cannot decide on what shade to use, plus, there is the difficulty to assigning colour families to shape families, so it is not as easy as it bloody seems and every time I go through this I have more and more respect for designers and all the hard work they put into their projects.

FYI the colours I picked are:

(from light to dark)

3608, 917, 915,

963, 962, 335,

153, 209, 3837

800, 813, 825,

I call this version Candyfloss. :)

Frog visit

Since a few members of the WIPocalypse SAL have mentioned that they are doing this thing called Mirabilia March, I have decided to concentrate on Circle of Friends more than any other project. I must be rubbish at concentrating, as I managed to make a huge mistake. I don't have dyslexia, but I somehow couldn't tell the difference between the numbers 745 abd 754, so what was supposed to be a nice, light yellow section, was stitched entirely with the flesh shade pink. I only noticed my mistake when I went on to work on the ladies' arms and realized I know this colour, and upon checking more thoroughly, I noticed I have two skeins of the same floss in my kit. So I had to frog the whole thing, and I swear to the goddess of cross stitching, I spent more time removing those stitches than I had putting them in in the first place. Below are the scans of the before and after phases of frogging. The photo of the correctly stitched piece will go to the WIPocalypse report later this week.

2012 - The year of the WIPocalypse

I have decided to sign up for Measi's WIPocalypse project. It sounds like a fun SAL, and if the world is gonna end, I sure don't wanna leave any UFOs behind for the cockroaches! :) I will post about it on every full moon, and I even opened a new page on my blog for it. The pictures on it do not show the latest progress, they are just the most recent pictures on my hard drive. I will probably not update those this year, because honestly, I am too busy with christmas preparations and such. 
Check it out and see if you can join us! You know, the more, the merrier!

Another WIP

I still didn't find the hand dyed floss for my x-mas SAL, so that is put aside in my UFO pile for now, but I will definitely finish it as soon as I put my hands on more floss. But since I was going through my UFOs I found an earlier project, that happens to be another x-mas SAL. At the time I couldn't finish it because I couldn't print the chart. I ran out of ink and couldn't afford a new cartridge. I know. Anyway, long story short, I got the ink, the chart, the floss, so I dusted it off and am determined to finish it this month. As you can see, I changed it to say 2011, and I plan to make it to a nice pillow for my girl this X-mas.

 The photo isn't the best quality, as I took it with my new cell phone. Yes, I have a new phone. The old one was kinda, well, old, and mom found a sweet deal at a provider, so she bought me a new one. I love it most because it has a big screen and a radio. And just look at the pretty pictures I managed to take with it! Of course, there is no way you can take a bad picture of such a pretty face!

What have I done?

Seriously. Is my Xmas SAL project cursed? I lost my floss! What is going on here? I know I had at least one more skein, but I cannot find it anywhere. It was right here, on my table, between the keyboard and the screen for ages. Along with dozens of other things, that, unlike my floss, are still here, gathering dust. All right, so I am not the tidiest housewife, correction, housesinglemom, in the world. In fact, I am sure I am somewhere at the bottom of the tidy list. But I always take care of my stash! There is at least one, possibly one and a half skeins of Raspberry Parfait floss located in my flat some place, I just don't know the exact spot. I spent the day looking for it. I found copious amounts of stuff I didn't remember I had, but the floss remains missing. I am fuming. In my day-long monologue I have used every curse word known to mankind and went on to invent a few new ones. Still the floss is missing. I swear, there must be an evil little goblin sneaking in every once in a while and relocate my stuff as a prank.

SAL progress

Finished the big ornament on the middle, moving on to the one next to it.

A snowflake a day keeps insanity away

I stitched on my Christmas SAL piece at nights, I managed to do a snowflake a day, we sill see if I can keep up with that!

Wednesday, Friday

 I still have only my phone camera at my service, so these pictures aren't perfect either, but they are pretty good for showing the progress I have made. Not much for two day's stitching, but I have spent most of my days running around town, either looking for a job or standing in line in front of various office clerk desks to get stuff done. And next week I will probably have to do at least twice as much.

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:

36

I'm back and I'm blogging again because I don't really have anyone else to talk to.

When DD and I wake up in the morning, the discussion usually starts with her going "mom, wake up already, the sun is shining". Yesterday her first words were "happy birthday mommy"! How adorable is she to remember my birthday first thing in the morning? Even I didn't remember that! And neither did most of my family, actually. :( How sad is it that I get more b-day wishes from strangers on my Facebook wall than from the ones who knew me all my life?

I have managed to do some stitching on Feasting Frenzy. I joined a SAL on one of my favourite groups, Stitching Sisters. This month we have a bird/insect themed SAL so I jumped on the opportunity to dust off FF and join arms with my online siblings. I hope to make some really nice progress and maybe even finish!
Today I even managed to fall in love again. No, it's not a guy, I've had quite enough of them for the time being, thank you. It's - what else? - stitching. Heaven And Earth Designs, to be exact. I tried to avoid their website for months, knowing that a, I cannot afford a new chart, b, I already have some of their designs in my stash that I didn't even start, c, I have a HAED WIP I haven't touched in a year, d, I signed on for the HAED bookmark SAL 6 months ago and haven't even started yet. I only printed the first parts of the chart.
But I visited the page today, and oh my heart, it's captured again! Mostly by Linda Ravenscroft's work, who as long time readers of this blog may already know, I'm a big fan of, but also a few more designs. Here, let me share some lovely pictures that have captured my attention.
I will upload these and the rest to my HAED wish list to my picasaweb album later today.
Okay, what else was I gonna chat about? Oh, yes, I have experienced an unusually large amount of hair falling out every day in the past months and I got fed up with it. I tried all kinds of home treatments but none of them really stopped my hair getting thinner. So I decided to take extreme measures and visited an expert. He started my treatment earlier this week. It is rather painful and there are no guarantees it will work, but I am hoping for the best. He is injecting minor doses of steroids into my scalp. I am terrified of injections so you can imagine how desperate I got if I signed up for this treatment. I have the next one scheduled in four weeks and we should see results by the end of summer. I really hope it was gonna be worth it.
I have also been hitting the gym in these few weeks. I just realized that I gained 5 pounds, which would not be a tragedy as I was too thin anyway, but all of it is on my butt and thighs, so I can no longer put on most of my pants. I have to admit it, it came pretty much as a shock to me as I didn't recognize the process of gaining weight, as much as I could tell, I have been eating exactly the same amount that I always have. Which is why I am not going on a diet or anything, I just work our 2-3 times a week in a local gym and also do some exercising at home as well. I know I wouldn't put on a bikini right now. I look like those funny kiddie books where you can mismatch the top and bottom half of the body. No fun at all.

Another giveaway!

Robin is celebrating her blogoversary by organizing a giveaway! Click HERE to check it out and enter the draw before Thanksgiving!

I finally finished part 7 and 8 of  my Christmas sampler and scanned it. I'm not sure if it will fit in the scanner next time! I didn't print part 9 yet, I might need to buy a new ink cartridge before. Which worries me, as it's rather expensive. There is the option of having the cartridge refilled, but I heard some cases when it was done so badly it spilled out of the cartridge and ruined the printer. Anyone knows anything certain about this topic? I have no idea, just rumours but no facts.

I got another great package from Granma Jane, again two issues of the Stoney Creek Cross Stitch magazine and a hand made Christmas tree ornament as a bonus! Plus I got some nice postcards from an exchange in one of my favourite Yahoo groups. And I even treated myself to a Heritage kit by John Clayton that I wanted to stitch since the first time I saw it. And since I've been browsing those kits I decided to make a collage wish list just for fun!

Lazy needle

I haven't been stitching a lot lately. I got a bit lazy with my Christmas sampler, so now I'm stitching part 7 and 8 together to catch up. I can't take my time because part 9 is already available on Carole's website.
I don't know why I'm acting as if I didn't know what to do with all the empty hours of my time, but I did sign up for a HAED stitch-a-long as well! Not sure what made me do it, don't even ask! HAED simply makes me weak. I cannot resist their beautiful designs! Misery and cross stitching likes, what's more, craves company, so if you want to sign up, you can do that on the HAED message board, come along!
I spent four days at my parents with my amazing little girl. I missed her so much! She got better, waved her cough good-bye, so she is back in kindergarten again. Good thing too, she simply loves that place.
By the way, on this picture she is sitting on Granpa's head. Yes, she's allowed to do that. When she is at Gran's house, she is allowed to do whatever she likes. I'm not particularly happy with that, but what can I do? I need their support.
For the four days I dusted off an older WIP and took it with me. I worked on that single project for the time I spent there. Tamara was really delighted by my choice, because she loves tigers just as much as her mommy does. Here you go, this is my latest progress picture:

On my last day the family doctor gave me and my daughter the H1N1 shot. I never got a flu shot before. I didn't want this one either, but after I heard news that a few miles from my hometown an elementary school was temporarily closed due to a mass outbreak, I changed my mind. I thought, it is simply not worth taking chances. The doctor assured me that the vaccine is strong and has only minor possible side effects, such as light fever, muscle pains, tiredness and slight pain at the spot of the shot. Tamara did develop some fever and seems very tired and sleepy most of the time. In my case it's only the muscle aches and my right arm is very much in pain. I can feel a small lump under my skin where the shot was injected. I put some warm wet cloth on it, it does ease the pain a little, but I still can't do my washing dishes or ironing.

I think I have the perfect excuse to just sit on the couch and stitch a little.

Happy Halloween!

I wanna wish all my friends happy Halloween and/or Samhain!

This is what my Christmas sampler by Carole looks like right now. I just printed part 7 and hope to stitch it tomorrow.

I worked on the Permin butterfly kit too. As you can see, I will soon finish the central section and will start to literally stitch outside the box. :)

I have made such a great progress I keep surprising myself! But finally I can dream of buying new stash without feeling guilty about my ever growing WIP lineup. I already know that I will buy me a new kit by Permin of Copenhagen. This above picture is nice but not really my cup of tea. My husband chose it, that's why he's the one who will be getting it. Me, I would like to have one of these on my wall:

 What do you think? Are they lovely or what?

I will go and set up another wish list on my web album now. That's what I always do in times of turmoil. Today I helped my husband pack his things, he is leaving. We are about to write the official letter that we must hand in to the court... that is, we file for divorce. I feel rather strange now. Half of me is scared of what is going to happen, and the other half cannot actually believe that it is really happening. I'm 35 and I am about to divorce for the second time. It's hard to not say "life sucks", even if I know that it really doesn't. My parents help me despite all our arguments, I have a most amazing child, I'm more or less healthy and still young. I have a roof above my head and food in my fridge, I have 24 hr online connection to the world, HBO digital, a multi-functional scanner/printer/fax machine and enough stash for the next decade. I have friends in all continents. I speak two languages and can kinda read two more, and my IQ is so high Mensa needs extra tests to specify it. I'm tall and thin and have excellent skin. And yet... life kinda sucks right now.