OhSewCrafty

2019 WIPocalypse: February

February started with Winnie the Pooh... I gave it 3 days and got 2000 stitches.  

It was a great stitchy weekend!  I really should go back and do some backstitching and french knots though.  For one, it might motivate me to finish this piece, since the backstitch will make the characters pop.  Also, the chart has about a zillion french knots.  

So I had an extra 2 days in my rotation.  For the first I split the time between Charmed Santa (to get a finish ) and my TW Fantasy Triptcych, ~ 250 stitches for Magical Stitches homework.  

For the second day, I decided to fit in Spooky House because I was so close to the page finish last month.

It was a good evening!  I finished the page, and even did most of the backstitching.  Granted, it was a partial page, but still a small victory, and it counted for 2 Magical Stitches tasks.

Then it was time for Bird of Happiness. Before:

After 3 days (reached my goal early):

It's almost done except the neck/head and the backstitch.  I was thinking this project was a good candidate for a birthday finish (in April), but there's not really much left so maybe I'll finish it in March. This project is so much fun to stitch, with the rainbow plumage; it will be a bittersweet finish.

Celtic Winter got 5 days.  Previous:

Now:

The darker colors are worked down to line 200 of the chart, the others to 190.  I enjoy stitching on this project, the colors are lovely and it's easy with long columns of color, as mentioned, but the dress/cape assembly is rather huge and monotanous.  The good news is, once the dress/cape bottom is finished, the rest of the pattern should work up quite quickly.   The chart goes down to line 234.  I am impatient to start the mandalas and see how my color conversion works out in that section.  

Then it was time for my Christmas village.  Queen Anne House got 2.5 days and that was enough to finish .  They were a couple of long stitchy days since I was motivated to finish, also racking up the stitch count for the Basilisk attack in the School of Magical Stitches!   

The beading on Queen Anne took a long time, 8 colors and most are petite attached with full cross.  1946 stitches were required to finish, including the border, backstitch, beads, and ninja stitches.  Then Palace Theatre had another 2.5 days.  I worked up from the gridline at the bottom and made it past the center line into the top half.  This piece is more fully stitched, so I'm hoping the beading will only take a day or so.  Of course, I need to finish the second story, the fancy roofline, and extend the border snowflakes as well.   

After that, I rotated to Teresa Wentzler Fantasy Triptych and gave it 3 days. Previous progress:

Now:

So I got ~1200 stitches, or 1450 including those from earlier in the month.  Those stitches were hard won, let me tell you!  The frog was in the house, then my son got sick... ugh, well February ever end?  I should be able to finish the greenery on this page next month.  Then there will be a choice: work right, start the knight block, and finish the page, or work left towards the center line (gridded), into a different page, and do more of the castle block.  I think the latter course holds more appeal.  I would love to have the Castle block behind me as I think the side blocks will be much more interesting (with characters).  

My last focus piece was Joan Elliott's Christmas Teddy.  Previous progress:

It was stitchathon weekend (Cross Stitch Finish Line FB group), so I gave it 3 days, starting Friday night and I had over 2600 stitches by Sunday evening.

It helped that Saturday was a gross day, perfect to stay inside and enjoy a stitching marathon.  This project is a joy to stitch, I just love Joan Elliott designs, hardcore.  The bottom right quadrant is mostly finished, though I need to finish the bird, do another ball, candy cane, and more ribbon.  I'd like to start backstitching, but there is a lot of gold metallic charted throughout, so that needs to be stitched first. 

Question of the month: What do you listen to while stitching?  I like to listen to music, mainly off my Itunes library, or watch/listen to Flosstube.  Sometimes, after those very busy, noisy days, I am cool with silence. 

We still have another 4 days this month.  The new magical stitches homework is gloriously open (200 stitches on anything)  So, I think I will continue on Christmas Teddy, see if I can get that quarter finish, and alternate with Save the Stitches, as it's the only WIP that I haven't touched this month.  As for March, my planned focus pieces are Bird of Happiness, Mill Hill Village, Celtic Winter, Save the Stitches, and Pooh, plus 3 days for the Fantasy Triptych.  In March for my bonus days at the end, I would love to take out my diamond painting, it's been far too long since I "dotted". 

Stitching HD: Queen Anne House

• Pattern: Mill Hill Christmas Village Queen Anne
• Materials: 28 ct stormy grey jobelan, DMC & Mill Hill beads as kitted, Kreinik #4 color 32
• Size: 5" x 5" plus 1.5" border
• Time to stitch: 7.5 days

Presenting the Mill Hill Christmas village again, with the third and final row finally underway, see those snowflakes worked around the bottom left corner? 

I really enjoyed stitching this pattern because I love the Victorian style of architecture.  I'd move into this house in a heartbeat, if I could.  Stitching the Kreinik snowflake border was kind of a slog though, since I had to do 7 repeats.  Fortunately, I worked the border down on the right side of the piece, last year, so future border stitching won't be quite so extensive.  

The beading took awhile too, 8 colors of beads, and most are petite (size 15) so attached with a full cross.  Actually the directions said to sew one of the size 11 beads with a full cross but I assumed that was a misprint and did it with a half cross like the other size 11's.  The pattern is well done, of course.  I love the Christmas tree effect in the lower left windows.  Also, I think the backstitch is very effective in this piece.  The wrought iron gate is cool and the candle flames in the windows are lovely.  

The materials, as kitted, are fine, though I had to toss a few of the beads since they were malformed or whatever.   There are 7 bead loops to form the red bow on the wreath, that was a little fiddly, I tacked down the loops to make the bow shape, then added an additional green bead to the backgroud since there was empty space remaining.  Additionally, there are a lot of bead swags (12), with the emerald beads, those are also tacked down.

It's great to be stitching on the village again, and at an accelerated pace.  I'm on track for a midyear finish and that will be amazing!  

Stitching HD: Charmed Santa

• Design "Father Christmas" by Sandy Orton for "Charms of Christmas" by Leisure Arts
• Materials: 32 ct raw gold belfast (opal), DMC, Kreinik #4 002HL and blending filament 002HL, brass charms
• Size: 8.13" x 11"
• Time to stitch: 32 days 

Presenting my second oldest WIP, now finished, Charmed Santa!

I can't believe this project is finally finished.  It's not large, but it is mainly full coverage plus fractional stitches, blended floss, metallics, extensive backstitch, a few french knots, and charms.  The pattern is very well done, but it's in color, with colored backstitch lines, not my preference.  The face section of the chart is enlarged, which is helpful.  There is separate backstitch chart for the final backstitch step, the diamond mesh toy bag.  

Oh, the backstitch... there are 12 different backstitch directions, with several different colors of floss.  The backstitch came close to burning me out, a few times.  I did make a few modifications like a darker green to backstitch some of the leaves, so they would be more visible.  For the diamond mesh bag, I used pearl cotton 12, long stitches for the interior and couched around the edge.  This pattern was in my stash for a long time, but a peek at the toy sack section of the chart (teddy bear, doll, horse, boat, etc), was quite intimidating.  In 2017, I decided I could handle it, so I started it as a Maynia project, thinking it wouldn't take too long because it's not that big.  I was clearly deluded!  

I chose to stitch this on raw gold belfast since the model was stitched on a neutral brown fabric and gold glitter is perfect for Christmas.  And I love belfast.  But the fabric was a little challenging with the sparkles obscuring the threads at times.  I did get an Ott light for Christmas 2017 and that made a big difference.  The floss used is all DMC, but several floss blends are used that create the look of soft vintage colors, very interesting effect.

I opted to use high luster metallics (in the border) because I wanted them to stand out against the sparkly fabric.  They were difficult to work with at times, probably my fault for cutting my thread lengths too long.  As for the brass charms, they are not listed with the pattern materials, so I had to source my own.  I looked very carefully at the model pic to determine the size of each charm (relative to the stitches) and used that information to shop at FancifulsInc.com, my favorite source of brass charms.  

My favorite parts are probably Santa's face, so sweet and charming.  The teddy bear with his red ribbon is precious.  The harlequin doll is cute.  The color selection is extensive, but not overly so, and I think all the coloration especially with the blended floss, is gorgeous.  I like how the pattern charts many fractional stitches, which only makes sense, if you're going to the trouble of backstitching everything.  

And now I'm back to 8 WIPs.  It feels good to be in the single digits!