I love how when it rains, it pours.

I got my next shipment today from 123 Stitch! Now I have everything for Sunflower Fairy, and also more importantly, the Rocky Mountain Threadworx to continue on with Warrior! I don't really like having more than one project going on at once, so I'll continue with Warrior til I run out of thread again, and then plug away at the super secret project. Because I love a floss toss as much as anyone, here is a picture of all the materials for Sunflower!

ooohh. ahhhh. Only thing not pictured is the victorian gold beads, which I have in my stash somewhere. I'll probably start her after my current projects are done!

woohoo

Finally got my first order from Stitching Bits and Bobs today. Only took a month through the post. That's the longest yet. Unfortunately it doesn't contain the Rocky Mountain needed to finish Warrior, but it does contain the Secret Project kit, so I started on that. I'm using 28 count Hand Dyed jobelan in Chai Tea. I wanted to use Sand Castle but I must have used some of it for something, since a chunk was cut out. oops!

Happy to have something to work on, at least. So I'm waiting now for my shipment from 123 Stitch! to arrive (mailed March 12th), which contains everything for Sunflower Fairy, another order from Stitching Bits and Bobs (mailed March 24th) that contains all my stitching aids and other goodies, AND I may have ordered some more threadworx from 123 Stitch! (mailed March 25th!)  the other day so I can continue on with my signet dragons. I'm going to do Paladin in Lava Rocks, and the little signets in various colours I picked out.

I may have also bought Subversive Cross Stitch book when I put in my Amazon order for a book I've been waiting for to come out lol. It's my birthday month, I can waste money if I wanna! Anyway, I'm glad I finally got the first order in the mail today, I was super worried that it got lost. Month in the post was just too long!

Absolutely nothing.

No shipment from anybody this week, so I've done no stitching. I'm kind of bummed I won't have Mystery Project done for my friend when I wanted it to. On Monday if it's still not here I'm going to have to email the ONS and ask if there's any sort of tracking. Monday it'll have been a month, and that's not right. Usually it's 2 weeks TOPS to get here. Oh wells.

Probably a good thing anyway, as I need to give my wrist a rest. That's it for now!

Finish!

So this was VERY quick to stitch up, and as you can see, I did have enough Mosaic to finish it. Happy dance. If you looked at the pattern you can see that I left out a part. It didn't look right? to me. Plus I don't think I would have had enough thread to finish it anyway. :D

Hellooooooo Tuesday.

Crisis averted, I think. Since I can't work on Warrior right now, I pulled out some Threadworx Mosaic I had kickin' around and the FireWing Designs little signet dragons. I decided on Umbral, bottom left!

I'm using a 28 count Annabelle in Ice Blue for it. I'm HOPING I have enough Mosaic to finish it LOL. I might be in the same boat as Warrior! They stitch up pretty quick, but I found out right away that even being one stitch off can throw the whole pattern. I had to frog a whole section because of it. :( Not cool!

Monday reporting in!

Well, I ran out of Rocky Mountain, and nothing in the mail today. I guess I'm stuck til the shipment arrives. Anyway this is how much one skein did on the pattern.

Whole wing done!

That is it for now :)

Another Saturday flies by

Seems my Saturdays just fly on by. I did get a good chunk done on Warrior while watching a Teletoon Retro marathon of She-Ra. :D

Only one problem. Running out of Rocky Mountain. I only ordered one more, but I think I need 2. Blah! That part just there has almost taken one skein of it. Stitching one by one like that uses up way more fiber than I anticipated. I'm happy with the progress, though! I love seeing the colour changes in it.

My next stitch day is Monday, where I'll use up the rest of the fiber, and then pray my orders from Stitching Bits and 123 Stitch have come in. The thought of not having anything to work on is frightening!

That's it for now :)

We are all Warriors

So I started Warrior by Fire Wing Designs tonight. I'm using 28 count Queen Anne's Lace jobelan with Threadworx Rocky Mountain fiber. Here is what I've got done so far. Unfortunately the lighting isn't that good at 1:30 in the morning, and I'm using my blackberry to take the pics. Anyway, so far!

I'm really digging the threadworx. It's my first time using it. Here is me trying to get a closeup of the colour changes, which I don't think I did too well

I'm doing each stitch one by one as I go along. I thought it would be super slow, but it's actually not that bad. I do have someone in mind to give this to when I'm done and framed it. He reminds me of a Warrior.

My first shipment from Stitching Bits and Bobs still isn't here. Canada Customs can be so slow sometimes, and I'm getting all paranoid about it. What if I don't get it at all? I haven't had a problem with this before, so I don't know why I get all crazy. I just need to be patient. I just really want to get started on the kit I bought for a friend. At this rate I won't have it done for when I wanted it. Oh wells.

Ah well. I need to drag this tired body off to bed. :)

Ho Ho Done!

Prairie Schooler 2010 Santa is done! I started him March 1st, finished March 16th.

He's done on a 28 count Khaki Linen, I forget the exact brand. DMC fibers as per pattern, and a lot of Weezi's hairs weaved in for good measure. I skipped the border. Duno why exactly. I guess I like him as is. He's cute. I don't want to see that much red again for awhile :)

My "weekend" progress.

Monday and Tuesday are my weekend so I try to get as much stitching in as I can! Monday was a slow start as I went out with my Mom, but I got a lot of stitching done in the evening/early morning. I think I ended around 1am. I did not get a picture then as I basically dragged myself to bed at that point.

Today I continued on between loads of laundry and time spent with the Furbabies.

Oh lookie there :D he's almost done! I didn't receive my order yet today, hopefully tomorrow. I did, however, get a bonus in the mail from my Grandma for my birthday, which I promptly spent on you guessed it, more stitchy things. I made this deal that I wouldn't buy any more patterns and fabric/fibers til I'm done the 5 on my list. I found a loophole in that what I ordered today isn't exactly patterns! new needles and needle minders and thread pallets Oh MY! I'll be sure to get pictures of all my incoming stash as I get it.

I normally don't try to work on more than one project at a time, but I think when the new stuff comes in, I'll work on the super secret project and maybe one of the dragons.

Tomorrow it's back to work with me. I'll probably get Santa done at some point during the day, and then I might kit up Warrior. Just have to decide which fabric to use with him.

Saturday!

I can't think of a better way to spend a saturday afternoon than to be stitching in the La-Z-boy, Emma on one side, Weezi on the other, and watching my friend from Australia streaming games for me. Right now it's Fallout New Vegas.

I always think I'm not doing much in the way of progress, especially when there's lots of one colour. This Santa certainly has a lot of red. But looking back on the pictures, I have!

Todays picture:

He's skiing! Something I've never done, or want to try lol. Flinging myself down a mountain on two tracks of wood with a couple poles doesn't really appeal to me :)

I couldn't do as much as I wanted, as I have to make sure I don't overuse the wrist again. Sucks that I have to limit myself. Anyway! I'm happy with the amount I've done. My next stitch day is Monday. Sundays are just too busy for me to get much of anything besides work done. :)

Ahoy

Didn't get much done on Santa today, as I ended up sleeping most the morning, and have clients early this evening til 9:30 tonight.

With Weezi always hanging out on my lap when I stitch, I'm starting to weave his hair into my work more often lol. What do they call it? Exotic fibers? :D

I finally found an ORT (old ragged thread) "jar" that fits my theme of orange cats. I saw this at HomeSense and had to have it. At first I didn't know what I was going to use it for. I just knew I wanted it. It's been sitting on a shelf all lonely til I decided I needed something for those little threads I keep throwing all over the place. So here it is, Ort and Weezi.

I like how they're both so happy looking.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get more done. Sundays are my super busy days so I don't get much of anything done except work. :) If not tomorrow, then Monday it is!

The past.

I was with a client tonight who loves all things needlework, but especially knitting. She used to spin her own yarn and even now still has some sheep. She showed me her spinning wheel. She showed me some cross stitch that her and her sister have done over the years, and it got us talking about how they really should teach the needle arts in schools, like they used to.

She told me that when she was in school in Holland, all the girls had to stay behind after school was over to be taught knitting and stitching. She remembers how the boys could go home, and they would mock and make faces at the girls as they were leaving. Kind of a "ha ha" moment for them. The boys were so rude. :)

People just don't do needle arts like they used to, and it's such a shame. I was 16 when I taught myself how to do it. My family and I were getting ready to go camping and we stopped off at a small mall that had a craft store in it. I bought a small kit for something to do. My Grandma tried desperately to teach me how to knit or crochet, but I just couldn't get my head around it. I felt kind of a failure (even though she never thought I was!) so when I saw this cross stitch kit, I figured I'd give it a go.

Don't ask what the back looks like :) But that was my first one. I look at it now and laugh. I can do so much better! Look how bad those eyes are haha. It took ages for me to actually finish that. I think it sat in a drawer for a couple years. I did eventually finish it, and my mom bought me a second kit, from the now out of business Crafts Canada.

Can you see where this is going? :D This one took less time, and after that was done, I made this from my dad. It was from a Mary Maxim Catalog.

I used to work a lot from kits, because that's really all that was available to me. I didn't know of any Local Needlework Stores (LNS). For awhile I even made my own patterns, but it was always on white 14/16/18 count Aida. Wasn't til I joined a Cross Stitch community on Livejournal that I realized there was more to stitching than just kits. You could buy patterns and your own fibers and fabrics. Beads! Blending Filaments! it was amazing. I didn't have to work on 14 count Aida anymore!

I first tried out something other than plain old aida when I went to Michaels and bought 28 count mushroom coloured evenweave.

I *think* the pattern is/was a freebie from EMS but I just looked and it's not there, so I'm not 100% sure. My grandma currently has this one. I used the white/mushroom evenweave a lot in my earlier works, because that's all I could get my hands on. Michael's isn't exactly an LNS.

The only LNS around me is about an hour away, and it's more knit than stitch. I tried having them order me in patterns and threads and fabrics, but it took them like 6 months to get SOME of it in, and the prices were pretty bad. :( A Caron's Wildflowers which is 3.30US they charged 12 dollars for. I felt bad that I couldn't really give them my business, thus making it even harder for them to stay in business. It's tough out there for LNS.

I've come a long way from working just from kits. Now I use mainly hand dyed jobelan, hand dyed threads, and have favourite designers. I think that's enough blast from the past for me! Don't laugh too hard at my earliest attempts :)

and life goes on.

Santa is coming along nicely. The first picture I can't remember when I took it. But this is quite normal in my home. the cat sleeping on my lap while I try to stitch. In this picture Weezi is also curled up in my lap quilt that my great aunt made.

He's one special cat. He and his siblings were found by a Lady up here who hangs around the Cabo San Lucas Humane Society. They were 4 weeks old in a box left to die, because there really isn't enough time or money to save every pet there. She took them to a friend who fostered them down there, and when they were old enough and had all their vaccines/neutered flew them up to Canada. He's my big baby.

I took this picture of the Santa progress just now.

Coming along nicely! I love those scissors. I believe they're by Dinky Dyes. I saw them at my favourite ONS and just had to have them. They go nicely with my Hollywood Pink Namaste Buddy Case.

I also ordered all the materials for Sunflower Fairy today from 123 Stitch! I'm considering it a birthday present to myself. I also added another Threadworx fiber to the order. I have one skein of Rocky Mountain, but I think I need two for Warrior Dragon. At any rate, I have everything I need now for my project list. My order from Stitching Bits and Bobs should be here either tomorrow or Monday. Every time I get stuff in the mail from them it feels like Christmas!

I think that's about it for now! :)

2011 List!

I was going through my stash today and mentally noting what I'd like to accomplish this year. I have a lot of hand dyed jobelan in 28 counts to work with. Here is a short list, minus one as it's going to be a gift for Amanda and she's on here. I don't want her to know what it is til she gets it!

in no particular order!
Current Project Prairie Schooler 2010 Santa
1. Mystery Project wOooOoooo!
2. FireWing Designs Paladin
3. FireWing Designs Warrior
4. Lizzie Kate Cat Lessons for People
5. And From Cross Stitch and Needlework Sept 2009 Mirabilia Sunflower Fairy (Still need to order materials for it!)



So yeah! That's it for now. Of course, reading so many stitching blogs from my favourite designers isn't helping! My list is sure to grow, but for now, I think that's a good start :) Unfortunately I can't stitch as much as I'd like because my poor right wrist that I use the most tends to get RSI in it, so that limits how much I can do each day. I have to remember to take frequent breaks!