Adrift, Pages 5 and 6

Behold! I have finished the first line of pages.  

These are pages 5 and 6.  (Six was a partial page).

It has only taken me 6 months to get this first line done.  Mother of dragons, what the hell have I gotten myself in to?  6 pages .... of 42!   I'm going to be working on this piece for years!

BUT, the next page the mermaid makes her entrance. I'm excited to begin stitching that.

I still have my owl kitted up and ready to start, and I had intended to do a page of it as a break from all of the muted colors, but I'm so excited to start the mermaid that I think I will just soldier on.   I'll maybe take a break at the end of this row of pages.

In any case, enjoy!  I feel like I've accomplished something, even if it is only sky.

~Rai Rai

Adrift Pages 3 and 4 Complete

After absolutely blazing through page 3,  I thought I would keep going and post pages 3 and 4 together.  And then life hit me, and it took me over a month to complete page 4.

Admittedly, this photo isn't the greatest.  The cloth is so large that I have to fold it over and over and that's what gives it this rather messy look.

I have a few closeups that I also took.  You can see a bit of a blending better in this.

Apologies for the big shadows over the right side.  But you can see the blending of the colors of the sky a bit better. Plus there is a little bit of Krenik in there, that gives the sky a hint of a shimmer. It's really pretty and I wish this photo did it justice.

I'm on to page 5 and 6 (6 is little more than a block, so really shouldn't be counted as it's own page) and then I am done the first row of this goliath!   I'm pondering taking a break at the end of each row and just doing a page of something completely different, like the Winter Owl.  I feel like I need a hefty dose of bold color after working on such muted colors.

Anyway, enjoy! Hopefully page 5 won't take me long and I will have an update for you in a couple of weeks.

~Rai Rai

Adrift Page 2 Completed

Nothing much to see, except sky, sky and more sky.  There will be a total of 5 pages of sky, and then a few pages of water before the mermaid starts to make an appearance.

I wish I had something more exciting to show off, but when it's done, then man, these glum updates will have been worth it!

~Rai Rai

Adrift: Page 1

Page 1 has been completed to mixed reviews by me.

I don't have Magic Cloth for this, so I'm doing it on Lugana, which means I have to grid it, to keep my sanity intact.  When I work in grids, I usually do a column at a time.  But for some reason, this time I was three columns in before I realized that I could see the line where the columns had been.

This does not please my little OCD heart.  From the fourth column on, I would do a stitch every second line when it came to the end of the column, and that seemed to even out my columns and blend them in a lot smoother.

But I still have three columns.  

Has anyone encountered this particular problem?  I'm hoping that as I work on the rest of these, that some miracle will happen and the lines won't seem so blatant to me by the time I am finished.  But I'm fearing that I will have to redo these three columns.  This thought fills me with dread.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this, or make it look less columnish, I'm very interested to hear what you have to say.

This is my 3rd Heaven and Earth and the first time I've encountered this particular problem.

I shall persevere and start page 2.  But I know me, and those three little columns are going to bug me. 

~Rai Rai

First Finish of 2014!

May I present to you the Rose of Sharon in periwinkle with yellow roses.

Although this isn't the first conversion that I have done, this is my favorite by a long shot!

I changed the roses from pink to yellow, her hair form blonde to brunet and changed her dress to periwinkle with a yellow sash.

The changes were as follows:

670 to 156

680 to 155

729 to 340

745 to 341

746 to 3747

931 to 729 + 680

932 to 676

3752 to 745

3756 to 746

223 to 725

3721 to 3852

819 to 3078

224 to 744

This is Rose in her original colors:

 

She is my first finish of 2014, and quite possibly my only finish, as I am about to embark upon a 32 page Heaven and Earth "Adrift".  

I hope to post updates per completed page.  But sadly there won't be much to see until I have about 7 pages finished.

Rose of Sharon will be traveling to L.A. to adorn the wall of a much loved cousin who has just bought a house.  Her name is Sharon.  Appropriate, no?

~Rai Rai

REDRAW!!!! REDRAW!!!

So I was at a bit of a loss on how to decide a winner, so I did it the only way I new was fair.
I assigned everyone a number, then I put the number onto squares of paper, which I then put into a bowl.

I then offered it to the parrot, who, being the difficult bird she is, at first wanted none of it.  Then, with urging from Mr. Rai Rai, she then pulled a mouthful out and flung them to the floor.

So after collecting all the bits of paper and re-placing it into the bowl, I offered her the bowl again.
This time she pulled one number.

Number 39, which was assigned to:  SUMMER from My Craft Corner!
However, she has respectfully declined the prize, so I drew again and this time came up with number 55, which is Bramble from Bramble Bunny Stitches.


Congratulations, Bramble.  Your prize is a scissor fob, made with swarovski crystals and seed beads.  When the light catches it, it makes the most beautiful rainbows.

 

For some reason, this doesn't want to flip to the correct side, so the photo is upsaide down, but you get the general gist.   

I will contact you privately to get your mailing address and get this in the mail to you asap.

And for those of you that didn't win this, I've decided to make a crystal scissor fob and run a competition for every 50 new followers.  That means when my followers hit 100 (if that ever happens, ha ha) I will make another fob and do another draw (excluding previous winners).

So, welcome to all of my new followers and for those who commented.  I've enjoyed meeting all of you!

~Rai Rai

Where in the World Have I Been?

I'm back from Vacation!  My husband and I FINALLY got around to having a honeymoon, so we decided on a cruise to the Caribbean. It was our first cruise, but it most certainly will NOT be our last!

I thought I would relax on the deck of this gigantic ship and stitch until my fingers fell off, but in reality, I hardly stitched at all. Maybe all told, less than 100 stitches.  I couldn't tear my eyes away from how beautiful the ocean was and how blue it was.  It was like a mood stone that hovered between deep electric blue to an almost emerald green.  It was spectacular!

The first photo was off our balcony while anchored in the Bahamas, and the other two were while we were in port in Turks and Caicos.  (Where we saw both a Barracuda AND a shark while snorkeling and found an old cannon with a myriad of the most colorful fish swimming in and out of it.)

Anyway, enough bragging.  Lets get back on topic... stitching!

It's nice to see so many new faces! Welcome to my blog!  Please give me a couple of days to get back to all of you and follow your blogs.   Also, I promised a small gift raffle if my followers reached 50.   The Grow Your Blog folks would like all gifts to be awarded on Feb. 15th, so I will honour their request.  Any new followers before Feb 15th will automatically be entered and I will announce the winner of the gift on the 15th and will ask that person to contact me privately to give me their address. I will ship anywhere in the world.

I just got home last night, and I have spent a good hour stitching, so I hope to have an update of The Rose of Sharon for you within a few days.

~Rai Rai