Sunday, August 17, 2014

1st Page Finish!

Yes, it is obscenely late (or should I say early?), but hey, it's the weekend, and I finally finished the first page of my first HAED! : )    This is the start of  "Quiet Time" by Sara Butcher:




In order to avoid lines in the finished product, I continued some colors onto the adjacent pages, so I have a small amount of pages 2 and 6 already completed.
Just gridded several other pages, and am excited to work on page 2! ( :  Now to bed!

Sunday, August 10, 2014

WIPocalypse Check-In: August

Hi all,

Lots of fun progress to report!  I've been on a crazy stitching kick, especially the last couple days now that my new patterns have arrived.  I'm very ready for some new starts! : )  I am forcing myself to wait until I finish the gifts I am currently making....so difficult, but it's helping me find the motivation to work on my current WIPs. : )

The topic for this month is: Tell us about your oldest and newest WIPs.

My oldest WIP is "Aurora Cabin", which I started back in May 2009, then left it as a UFO for 4 years while I completed my undergraduate degree.  I picked it back up in October 2013, and am hoping to see a finish on it by May.  It is one of the patterns I am tackling as a part of WIPocalypse, and this month it went from here:


To here:


The sky is going so quickly after all of the confetti of the trees and mountains!

My newest WIP is "Napping Kitten" which I started in June (will be a Christmas present for my sister.)  It went from here:


To here:


I am also working on "Checking His List Stocking", which went from here:


To here:


And, last but not least, I am working on my first HAED, "Quiet Time."  I did not have a page finish, but it is about there, so hopefully I will be able to share one with you in the next couple of days!

I am thrilled because today I have absolutely nothing to do besides a little housework (when does that ever happen?) so for the rest of the day I plan on stitching, stitching, and stitching some more!

Friday, August 8, 2014

New Stitchy Stash! :)


Exciting stuff! :)  Now that I am stitching more than in previous years, I have been keeping an eye out for new patterns I might like to stitch after I finish my current WIPs.  I was lucky enough to receive some unexpected award money through the university for my thesis work, and while most of it will be going to pay for necessities and books, I decided to also treat myself to a "small" stitching shopping spree.  Thanks to some awesome lightly-used finds, I was able to get a surprising amount for my budget, which made me very very very happy!  This is what I ended up with:


Two books of designs by Joan Elliott: Bewitching Cross Stitch and Christmas Cross Stitch Treasures, and the Summer 2014 issue of Stoney Creek magazine (annual Christmas issue!  Can you tell I have Christmas on my mind?  It must be all the stitched presents I'm tackling this year.)  And because I like multiple patterns in each of these collections, I shouldn't need to buy any new patterns for at least the next three years haha!  (We'll see how that works out!)

Stoney Creek also has a cute Halloween pattern available for free (!!) called "A Frightful Welcome," so I ordered that along with the magazine (and decided to go ahead and purchase the fabric and glow-in-the-dark Kreinik for it as well!):

I think this might be my next new start after I finish stitching up presents for this Christmas.

Hope everyone is having a good end to the summer! It's hard to believe that school starts back in two weeks!