Hello Again!

 It’s been a whole year since my last post. I am healthy and well.  AND I had a finish. 

Wind Moon is done.  I’m well into my next project, which is Elizabeth and the Prisoner of Woolhouse, regular size

I seem to have lost interest in blogging, so I can’t say I’ll post much more. Maybe when I have a finish. But I wanted to post Wind Moon, since there were a few of you following her progress. 

But for those of you who followed and commented, thank you!  

Rai Rai 

Well I Wasn’t Supposed To Be Gone This Long

 Hello fellow kindreds.  First off, an apology for taking so long to update my blog, almost a year!  

The curse of 2020 hit me like a Mack truck and in spring I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  So surgeries and then treatment has consumed my life this year.  Ladies, I can’t stress enough the importance of mammograms. Mine was caught on a routine mammogram. It was caught early, which is good, but even in the early stage the cancer was an aggressive type.  So I continue to slog through treatment and hope for the best. I’m currently undergoing chemo and in the new year I will undergo radiation.  I will be on medication for the next 5 years and I hope fervently that this is just a bump in the road and not a carousel ride. 

My stitching was affected, naturally, but I do have a finish to share with you.  

This lovely is called Harp Angel and she is for my grand niece.  I chose her because of her red hair, something she has in common with the little girl who will own her.  This pattern had the worst confetti out of any pattern I’d ever done.  I ended up stitching on the diagonal, something I’d never done before, and parking, but going row by row, which is also something I’d never done (the row by row, not the parking). As a result, the progress was sloooow.  I would try to average 200 stitches a sitting, but even that was hard sometimes. To say I am glad that I am done this project is an understatement.  My hat is off to all of you working on a Josephine Wall pattern.  This one gave me a run for my money. 

I’m back to working on my old friend, Wind Moon. I want to get at least a row done on her before I start a new project, which I haven’t yet decided on. 

This may be my only post for 2020, but I will post an update of Wind Moon when I get to the end of the row.  I’m currently averaging about 1000 stitches a day. 

Well that’s all I’ve got to report at this point.  I hope it won’t be too long before you hear from me again.  

I hope you are all staying well and avoiding Covid.  I feel like our hobby has prepared us for long nights in, watching TV and stitching.  We’ve got this, kindreds!  We’ve got this!

Last Post of 2019

And I have a page finish.  This makes 26 HaED page finishes this year, plus two Christmas stockings.  All in all not a bad year of stitching.

This is page 24;9& Wind Moon, started December 14 and finished December 29 for a total of 7520 stitches.

I’m going to put Wind Moon away for a while now but I promise she won’t be in hiding for a full year before I work on her again. I am hoping to work on her regularly this coming year.

I’m going to take a small break from HaED and work on another. Christmas stocking.  It’s for my sister and she has a great love of owls.

What an end to what has been a crazy, busy year.  We sold a house, we bought a house, we moved, we landscaped, we planted. I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labour in 2020.

Thanks to all who visited my little room on this vast and endless internet.

I will see you all in 2020.

Advent Calendar

This is a non stitching post, but I wanted to share the advent calendar that I made for my scotch loving husband.

It helped that we had guests from Scotland this past summer and they were lovely enough to bring me 25 little sample bottles of scotch.

Then I was looking for inspiration as to how to make these into an advent calendar.  So I bought some little tubes and cut them down to size.  Then I made 25 little felt stocking that I bought as a kit from 123stitch.

Assembled them with The help of Kip.

And voila! 

To say it was a success is an understatement.
He’s a pretty happy husband.

Wind Moon Row Finish

Page 22: 7440 stitches: September 26 - October 06. (19th HAED page finish)

Page 23: 7161 stitches: October 06 - October 18. (20th HAED page finish)

Page 24: 7068 stitches: October 18 - November 9 (21st HAED page finish)

Page 25: 7161 stitches: November 10 - November 20. (22nd HaED page finish)

Page 26: 7068 stitches:  November 20 - November 26. (23rd HAED page finish)

Page 27: 7161 stitches: November 27 - December 06. (24th HAED page finish)

Page 28: 5394 stitches: December 06 - December 14 (25 HaED page finish)

End of Row 4

I am now 50% done his project. 

I hope to get one more page done before the end of the year and the page count starts again. But I think 25 page finishes is pretty respectable. 

I’m spending the evening bobbinating 90 bobbins for a new project, which I will announce in the new year.

I hope to see you all one last time before Jan 1.

QS Bubbles and A Few Other Things

Hello my kindreds, it’s been quite a while since my last post.

So what’s new in my stitching world?  Well I finished my 16th HaED page with 5689 stitches, my 17th HaED page with 5467 stitches and my 18th HaED page finish 2698 stitches, which means that QS Bubbles, stitched 2 over 1 on 20 count Lugana is done.

I just love this unhappy little fish.  He’s going to adorn my bathroom.

I also entered Generations into my local fair and guess what happened?

I also made a little bib for a new coworker who has gone off on maternity.  

I wish I’d had longer to make her something a little more fancy, but she did love it. Bibs always make a nice little baby gift.

And last but not least I finished the final stocking in a trio of stockings I made for my friend who so graciously hosted us when we were in England.

I tried to keep the theme the same as the stockings for her siblings, so I used the same snowball edging and polka dot tulle.  I hope they like the stocking. I will be mailing it on Monday.

So now you can see why it’s been so long since my last post, I’ve been stitching like mad. And now I’m finally back to my long neglected Wind Moon.  I plan on stitching her exclusively until the new year, but it might be a while since you see me again because becaus I will post an update on her once I have a row finish, which is 7 pages from now.  But I hope she is worth the wait.


Until then, happy stitching everyone.

QS Bubble Row Finish

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I know, I know, it’s been simply ages since I’ve last posted, but I have sold my house, bought a house and moved, so it’s been busy (read: hellish) for the past several weeks.

So first, QS Bubbles. 

13th HaED Page Finish was March 15 with 7840 stitches

14th HaED Page Finish was on June 5 with 7220 stitches

15th HaED Page Finish was on June 11 with 3620 stitches.

There are two other fish QS that I plan to stitch to hang in my en-suite. They will go perfect in there.

Speaking of en-suite, I can’t tell you how much I am in love with the new house. We sold and bought literally on the same weekend.  This house is so big and so pretty, I’m amazed that it was in our price point. 

I’ll just share a couple of photos with you. 

The kitchen

The door to the en-suite 

The tub in the en-suite ♥️♥️♥️

This amazing pantry which is the size if my first rental.

I can’t believe it’s really mine and I keep pinching myself.  But there is landscaping and curtains and lots to do, which will keep me busy. 

But I still manage to get a couple of hours of stitching in a night, 

QS Bubbles, Page 2 and 3 are Complete.

This is Page 2 (7440 stitches) and page 3 (3626 stitches)This pages my 11th and 12th page finishes for this year.

This is such a fun little pattern.  It’s literally keeping me sane at this point in time.

On a personal note, the house is still for sale. We’ve had one of the slowest months in real estate in years.  I really thought this would be a quick process, but it drags on.  Fingers crossed that by my next update I will have a sale to report. Anybody want to buy my house?

QS Bubbles Page 1 is complete,

This is my 10th HaED page finish of the year.  7840 stitches.
I can’t endorse Sulky Silver enough for gridding with.  It leaves no lines ince it’s pulled out, whichwas an issue for me when I used fishing line. I’m now obsessed with collecting every colour of Sulky Silver that I can find!

House is still for sale with no bites.  😞. Hopefully soon.   Hopefully.

Until then I will stitch the day away, with my helper.

Generations (mini) is complete

4 pages to this finish. One full page and 3 partials.  This is my 9th page finish of the year. (Partials included)

I had planned on getting back toWind Moon, but I currently have my house for sale and I packed it away, not anticipating I would complete Generations so quickly.  So I am going to start a little “quick stitch” to tie me over until after the move.  So my little interm project is going to  be...

 ,

QS Bubble by Linda Ravenscroft.  It’s 6 full pages and 3 partials.  Since I am currently participating in a Stitching Olympics where we are only allowed to have one project at a time, I will have to push this in front of Wind Moon.  But this should be fast and I should be back on to Wind Moon by early summer (I hope) and then she will have my full attention.  

I love this little Bubbles pattern. I also have the companion piece, with little sea horses and I hope to hang them in my main bathroom when I’m done. 

Well that’s all the news I have.  I will have to get to a desktop to add the new project to my list on the side, as I can’t seem to do it from an iPad.

Hopefully see you all soon with my first page finish of Bubbles. 

2 More Pages Finished

 

Pages 4 (7938 stitches) and page 5 (1274 stitches) are complete.  Row 1 is now complete.  Just one more full page and three more partials and this baby is done, done, done.

It’s been snowing heavily here, which means that I’ve spent a lot of time stitching. I’m already well into the next pages and I hope to have a project finish in about 3 weeks.  It’s  an ambitious prediction, but I’m up for a good challenge.

There is t really much else to report on, so enjoy the pictures and I hope to see you in 3 weeks.

Generations Pages 8 and 13 are Ccomplete

This is my 3rd page (7315 stitches) and 4th page (1925 partial page) finish of the year.
I only have 2 more full pages and 3 partials and this project is done.  I started it as March so hopefully I will complete it around her anniversary.  The line you see on the piece is from the q snap. This will disappear long before framing. .

It’s been a real struggle to find time to stitch because we are putting the house on the market and moving to a smaller town about1/2 hour away.  I can’t believe what an incredible amount of work it is to get the house ready for market, not to mention time consuming.

And to add pressure I joined a group SAL with mini challenges, like a 90 day stitch every day challenge. So far I’ve managed to stitch daily, but it has been a challenge.

I’m looking forward to having this done and framed and I’m very much looking forward to getting back to Wind Moon.

73% done this project is like music to my ears!

Generations, Page 8

First finish of 2019!  Generations, page 8. I am now 59% complete.  The next page will finish that adorable little rascal foal.
This is my first attempt at updating my blog from my iPad. So far so good.  Updating blogspot from a tablet used to be so arduous, but the last time I tried was a few years ago.  It appears some changes have taken effect since my last efforts.

Last year I finished the year with 20 page finishes, plus 2 stockings.  Not bad at all.

I’ve joined a year long stitch-a-thon and I’m hoping it will help keep me focused on stitching, because a man by the name of Arthur Morgan sidelined my stitching for nearly all of December.

My plan is to finish Generations and then focus on Wind Moon for at least a row. Maybe even two rows, but honestly , that’s an awful lot of blue to focus on for so long.  With this challenge the onus is on to finish a project, so it’s a one project at a time challenge. You can, of course, work on more than one, but you only get credit for one.  Wish me luck!

Well, my kindreds, I wish you a Happy New Year.  May 2019 be filled with happiness, security, floss, fabric and patterns!

Generations, Pages 2, 7 and 12 are Complete

There is quite a bit of confetti in these manes, let me tell you, but I can't express in words how much I love the foals little black mane that sticks straight up.   It's adorable. And did I mention I am now 1/2 way through this project?   I love the halfway mark, it always gives me a sense of accomplishment!

I'm hoping to have one more update by the end of the year so I have three more pages in which to tally for my yearly stats, but I won't come anywhere close to last year.  But I'm okay with that. I only ever keep track because I'm curious as to just how much stitching I actually do. And I realize that I do a lot.  An awful lot.

Normally I'm quite hard on myself for making myself switch up projects when I get to the end of a cage, but this next page has the foal and the mares face and I just cannot leave them faceless.  It's such a peaceful, beautiful pattern that I think Wind Moon will have to wait just a touch longer.  But she will be back on my stand in the New Year.  I've committed to accepting that she is a multi year project and when I pull her out I will likely stitch a row before she goes back into storage. 

Anyway, the weather has turned and now instead of air conditioner stitching, it's stitching under a blanket with a cat on my lap for warmth kind of days. My favourite kind of days, to be honest.  Especially when rain is hitting my windows, because then I feel I'm exactly where I should be, which is snuggled up with a needle in hand. 

I hope to see you all one more time before the new year.  Wish me luck!!!

Pages 1, 6 and 11 of Generations

After my epic trip to England and Scotland, where I really didn't stitch much, except for on the plane, my stitching bug is back with a vengeance. All I want to do is sit and stitch.

This is the first time I've ever stitched down a pattern and not across. I absolutely had to finish the beautiful face on the horse, it seemed a crime to leave the nose and lower face unstitched.  This is the full length of the piece.  Usually I would switch it up for Wind Moon at this point, but since this project has been neglected for so long, I think I'll stitch another page at least.

I just started using easy guide needles.  They are a needle with a tiny ball on the end of them.  OMG, love, love love!!!   Easy Guide Needles 24 and Easy Guide Needles 26.  They aren't cheap, but they are sooo nice to stitch with.  They just sort of find the hole in the fabric by themselves, with very little work from me and they cut down on thread splitting or accidentally catching a bit of fabric that belongs to the next hole.  The only criticism is they are nearly impossible to thread through stitched threads for finishing a thread, but I keep another needle handy and just thread it in order to run my thread under my stitches.  I'm trying my best to post a link to where to buy them.  Fingers crossed it works.  This is the only actual cross stitch store I've been able to find them on.

Let me know if you've ever tried them and what you think.  

Row Finish for Wind Moon and Much, Much More

Hello Kindreds,

This row took me forever to complete, mainly because I started Generations in the middle of it, then made "Welcome Friends" for a wedding gift, then made two Christmas stockings.  So I was a little bit distracted. But here it is, 6 and a half pages of Wind Moon done, completing row 3.  Her lovely face is finished as well as the bulk of her hair, and in the next row I start on her wings and her beautiful, beautiful dress.

She doesn't look so stark in real life, she's very lush.  I tend to have these row finishes very late at night - it's just coming up to 2 in the morning, and I think the light I use to lay the work under is very bright, which leads to the starkness.  But I can tell you, she is very lovely up close.

As I mentioned, I made a wedding present, "Welcome Friends" for friends of ours whom we will be staying with in Scotland, but for our lovely hosts in England, I made stockings for their two children.

I wanted to have a snow motif that connected the two, so, with the help of a dear friend who sewed these for me, we picked out the fabric you see below.  Alice's stocking is backed with a grey/blue velvet with a blue polka dot tulle over top (the polka dots symbolizing snowflakes). Monty's stocking is a red velvet backing with these adorable cotton balls that look like snowflakes that line the seam of the stocking.  The inside is lined with a pale blue polka dot cotton fabric. I think they turned out perfectly.  I hope they like them!!

We just had our summer fair and I entered Adrift, Meeting on the Turret Stairs and Welcome Friends. It was the first time I've ever entered any of my work into a fair and guess what? I won all categories, with Adrift taking home the best in division.

This is a terrible photo, because she was laying flat on a table and the lights were directly above her, which makes her look really red, but also puts some strange circles on the piece.  But this is what I saw when I went through the fair on the day before it closed.

People were really amazed and I felt really proud bringing home those ribbons and cash prize (A whopping $9)  It's nice to be able to show people what cross stitch is capable of being.

I'm on my way to England and Scotland this Friday and I haven't decided what to take with me.  I bought a little HaED quick stitch, so I'm either going to take that or Generations, which I haven't worked on in ages and I need to get cracking on that.  I guess it will come down to the night before and how much room I have in my carry on as to what I will take. I hear the weather has cooled there, thank goodness, so it seems the perfect time to travel.

Happy stitching to you all and I'll see you all when I get back, at the end of September.