February is the shortest month, and my stitchy bug ran amuck for days here and there, but I still worked on a bunch of things.
February started with Stargazer, because I just can't put her down, I love working on her so much! I gave her 2,135 stitches over 2 days.
I'm basically working her skirt down from the waist. It's fun to see all the swirly "tracks" in the pattern; eventually she'll be very sparkly with beads.
Next up was Alice in Wonderland. Progress is weirdly patchy since I was doing a color challenge for Enchanted Stitches, but I did manage 1,465 stitches over 4 days.
I did a lot of border stitching and worked on several blocks, but mostly the White Rabbit. I also backstitched most of the "Alice under stairs" block.
After that, Toy Story Cast got a turn, I wanted to give it a lot of love because it's for my son and February is his birthday month. I wound up stitching an awful lot on it because it was the final battle of the Myth & Magic Stitch Wars, Round 11, and that is my fastest stitching project at the moment with the large blocks of color. Well, my team won the battle, and I got 2,602 stitches over 1.5 days.
I started with backstitching on Woody, Zurg, Bullseye, and Slinky dog. Then I worked a lot on Stinky Pete and started Porky, who is at the far right edge.
I worked on Alphabet Inspirations a single day, gave it 525 stitches, which included fixing the backstitch on "Ask gently", also stitching "Create harmony" and "Dream". I love this though it's a little boring with the colors (dark grey and dark red). Oh well, that is what I chose with consideration to how it will look in my dining room (with the red walls).
One weekend, I took a little break from my WIP goals, started and finished another ornament in a day, 731 stitches. It's Love on Ice by Danielle Van Nuys / JCS Ornaments 2020, stitched 28 count white opalescent Cashel, and I think it's over the top adorable. I'd like to full finish as shown in the magazine, a pillow with beaded fringe.
Easter Bunny House got some love on a single day and I did 1,008 stitches though it doesn't really look like much since I had to frog some. Darn color challenges! Nevertheless, it's coming along.
After that, things fell off the rails, a lot. I read several books, spent too much time gaming, and suffered a huge plumbing fiasco at my house. We thought the damage was minor at first, but then we started smelling mold and called in the professionals. And we lost walls, ceiling, and floor. Also, I'm putting more time into fitness this month, I started physical therapy for my ankle which I fell on and had a level III sprain in January, and I'm doing an abdominals challenge everyday. Anyway, I digress.
I managed 1,565 stitches on Victorian Carolers, over 3 days. Tons of ninja stitches on the top 2 pages needed filling in, and I worked into the bottom page on the right edge. In fact, there's only about 25 rows to go, to the bottom of the chart where I worked the tree down. There's quite a lot of negative space on the lower pages, which is meant to be snowy ground and unfortunately that won't work on my fabric since I used an ecru. So I might fill it in with PB10 for a little sparkle.
Cupid got 2 days of attention, 748 stitches, and the penultimate reindeer of my collection is finished! Finish post with more pics is forthcoming.
I gave 1.5 days to Fata dell' Aurora and 1,501 stitches. I really love stitching on her, perhaps my favorite WIP at present. Mostly I'm stitching the skirt down to the bottom of the chart, but I added a few colors on her little bodice and started working on the shadow tone at the bottom of her leg. Progress is kind of patchy because this pattern calls for several petite treasure braids which I don't have yet. She'll be incandescently gorgeous, eventually.
On the 27th of February, I finally completed my February ornie for the JCS SAL, Santa by Autumn Lane. It's stitched on Golden Promise Belfast by Silkweaver, took over 1500 stitches including TONS of backstitch counted for half and 3.5 days since I started in January.
Question of the month: What stitch-a-longs (SALs) are you participating in this year? The JCS SAL with Serendipitous Jo via FB, mainly. I don't do mystery SALs, as a rule, because I only what stitch what I love and frankly I don't whether I'll love it until I see it finished. I'm also working on the Alice SAL from last year, with some modifications to make it mine.
Plans for March: Round 12 of Myth and Magic Stitch Wars begins tonight. So I'm hoping to step it up in a big way. I'm hosting a March Madness tournament in my FB group, starting with 8 WIPs that will battle for dominance. As for particular goals, they include:
•Finish Bats Bugs Halloween Panel
•Stitch Gryphon up to backstitching
•Stitch E & F on Alphabet Inspirations, with Semisane Alpha-my-Bet SAL
•Finish Alice SAL top row with borders and backstitch
•2k each on Toy Story and Stargazer
•1k on Broomstick Fuel (new start)
I love Stargazer on that fabric. Every time I stitch a Mirabilia I fall in love with Nora all over again! Her fabric designing is just magical.
I agree with you about mystery SALs, I've been disappointed too many times to want to do them. Even Alice let me down by using a non-Tenniel illustration and the Tweedles who are not even in the first book while ignoring the Caterpillar! But I will finish it at some point this year!
Posted by: Joanne P | March 01, 2021 at 02:44 PM
I think you did very well on your stitching, even if you had a couple of down days. We're all allowed some non-stitchy days, I'm just sorry yours weren't much fun. Hope March will be better!
Posted by: Leonore Winterer | March 07, 2021 at 04:05 PM
Oh my, so many lovely pieces and nice to see the progress on them. Santa is so adorable!
Posted by: Astrid | March 23, 2021 at 12:46 PM