Page 8 of Snow Stocking has been Completed

I think the count is off of my stocking.  The pattern says 236 x 331, which equals 778 116 stitches.
Incidentally, the mini Snow full pattern says the dimensions are 325x229.  So something is definitely awry.  All I know is my complete bar says I'm at 50% complete, but there is no way that I still have 50% of the pattern to complete.  I only have 3 partial pages to complete.  It should say closer to 75% complete.  Oh well, I'll just keep tallying up my stitches until I have 100% complete.  Then it won't matter. 

I managed to get some good stitching in, even though I've been working a lot.  I'm back on Adrift, but I don't think my needle will be smoking on this next page.  Don't get me wrong, time permitting, it will be.

I'm getting so eager to just finish these two projects.  They are both so tantalizingly close to completely.  After Christmas I will frame. I will have 2 HaED's to frame, my owl and Adrift, but I can only do one at a time. I'm thinking Adrift first.

I was at my stitch-n-bitch yesterday and I caught a snippit of a phone conversation from  a lady who had sent her work in for framing and the framer had used some sort of "protection" on the piece.  Only she had used Waterlillies floss, which, if you've ever used it, you have to a. wash first to color block it or b. to keep the color vibrant, don't wash it, and then stitch your piece carefully so you don't need to wash it when it's done. Well, I guess she had chosen option b, but suffice to say, her colors had all bled, absolutely ruining the finished product.  She had phoned in tears asking if there was anything she could do.  I didn't hear the advice given, because a gaggle of giggling ladies were calling to me, but I couldn't imagine having something happen like this.  Because there is so much red DMC in the Owl, I hadn't planned on washing him - why chance it?  But now, I just may have to specify to not treat him at all when framing.  I've never heard of such things, but then again, I've had very few of my pieces finished.  I just...I don't think I could emotionally recover if one of my pieces, especially a HaED that I've worked on for years, were to get ruined by someone else.  Or even myself. It's definitely left me wary!

I'm just curious if anyone who follows this blog has had a similar experience?  If so, what did you do?

Was there anything TO do?

Adrift, Page 32 is Complete

I am now 92% complete!  I'm in the 90's!  I think this is the fastest I've ever stitched a complete page. I started this on Nov 24 and finished just after midnight on Dec 1.  To be fair, it was less than 10 colours, the majority of it being 3371, so it was easy to put all of the other colours in first, and then just watch season 2 of Poldark and not even have to think about what I was stitching. 

Another bonus is, I've discovered on Ezpdf Pro, that I can crop the sides of pages, so I can crop the white space between pages out, set up the tablet to read two pages at once, and voila, I have very little break on pages and can just continue on with stitching. A far cry from Goodreader, which made us flip between pages and then always defaulted to the bottom of the previous page and the top of the next.  It's these little user friendly details that make all the difference in an app.   If the programmers at Goodreader were smart, they would tap into this market. 

I'm back on Snow, it's about a 3/4 page, but I'm about to start the December rush, where I work almost non-stop, so I'm not sure how much stitching I will be able to do.   But come January 9, I start a new job, with a dedicated schedule!  No more 12 hour shifts, no more 7am-7pm, or worse, 7pm-7am.  I will be doing 8 hours, which will leave me dedicated time to stitch.  Of course I won't have those marathon nights any longer, where I was shifting from day schedule to night schedule and I would just sit and stitch for hours (goodbye 1500 stitches a sitting)  but the new job is a good thing.  It will be nice to have a routine and a set schedule again.   January 9th can't come soon enough.

I hope to have an update of Snow soonish for you all.

Snow Stocking Page 7 Complete

44% Complete for this project.  It's like music to my ears.  This was my last full page, all the rest are partials, so it's all downhill from here!

Just a quick update tonight, because my husband is cooking pizza and that trumps blogging. I have about 20 minutes to get this up and posted and the clock is ticking! 

I'm back on Adrift, and I'm expecting this next page to be a quick stitch. 

I have to say, for Adrift, I'm working on Lugana, and for Snow I'm working on 18 ct Magic Guide. Although, for me, Magic Guide is less hassle as you don't need to grid, I find Lugana more pleasurable to stitch on.  I find with Aida I have to stitch a tighter stitch, and it strains my fingers. 
Has anyone else encountered this?

My next projects will be on Lugana, I think I'm pretty much done with Aida.

Curious to know what everyone's favourite cloth is to stitch on? Linen? Lugana? Aida?  Anyone have a preference?  I personally find Lugana softer, but the downside is sometimes stitches can slip under the weave and I have to really watch for that happening and correct it as I go.  Otherwise, I quite enjoy stitching on it. 

I'd love to hear what you like/don't like about your fabrics.

I smell pizza, so sorry to cut this short...but pizza!! 

Adrift Page 31

Not much of all to see, but it sure was a fast, easy stitch.  Here you see the finished length.  Only 4 more page to go!

As an early Christmas present to myself, I bought myself a Samsung tablet, so I can run Ezpdf Pro on it.  What a difference a device makes.  No more crashing, no more sucking the battery dry in 3 hours.  I don't know why I didn't do this sooner!  Although I did like Goodreader on iPad, I really, REALLY like the search feature on Ezpdf.  I reached out to Goodreader and threw all sorts of suggestions at them from asking if they would consider expanding their search feature to cater to the x-stitchers who use their app to publishing a Goodreader Lite, which focuses on the highlighting and search feature and market it specifically to the stitchers, but no bites, other than polite thank you's.  So, as the saying goes, if you can't beat em, (or convince them to cater to your niche), join 'em.  I'm really hapy with my Samsung.  Honestly, stitching is all that I will be using it for, so I won't suck up battery life using other apps, I will have my iPad for that. And it's given me piece of mind for when I travel, I won't have to worry about my app eating my battery mid-flight.

That's all for now. I'm fighting a cold and a slight ear infection, so it's back to the couch for stitching and cups of tea.  I'm back on Snow, so hopefully I will have an update for you in a few weeks.

Snow Stocking Page 6 is Complete

With a closeup by special request by Thistleberry!   Just the tiniest peek-a-boo of her wings and part of her arm.  I just noticed that my next page will be my last full page, the rest are all partials - some of which are more than 50% of the page, but still....   There are 5 pages left of this project and 5 pages left on Adrift.  Which means 2 finishes at once, which means TWO STARTS!!!!

It really is amazing how long these projects take to complete, isn't it? But I'm glad, because with Mirabilia's, which I loved to do, I could bang them off in 2-4 months, and it was just getting too expensive.  The upside of that was I could do whichever caught my eye.  But with HaED's, I have to choose carefully, because it will be a multi-year commitment, and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of one that I fall out of love with.  I'm stubborn, and would finish it anyway, but it would be arduous and not a labour of love. 

Well, the sooner I can get this posted, the sooner I can start my final row of Adrift.  So ta ta for now and I will see you in a couple of weeks. 

Adrift Page 29 and 30

Apologies on the quality of photo.  She is now so large that I have to lay her out on the floor, unfortunately it doesn't make for the best lighting.  In this photo, she looks a little monochrome, and in reality she is vibrant!  She is also very heavy.  I'm worried she is going to bend my stand.  I now only keep her on the stand when I am going to actively stitch.  You don't really think about how heavy these large projects weigh once you're nearing completion.  I can't imagine the weight of a 99 page pattern. 

We have a row finish!  The next row and a partial row is all that is left to do.  86% complete.  Next page I'm hoping to hit 90.  The light is now at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

The stitching for the entire row is going to be fast, because there is so much of dark ocean, which is only about 3-4 colours. Just a tiny bit of tail remains.  I'm so looking forward to having her done. I was going to just stitch her until complete, but I must admit, all of those dark colours leaves me needing to stitch some light colours, so back to Snow I go.   It's just a partial page, so it shouldn't take too long. 

When I'm done with Adrift, I promise to lay her out under proper lighting in order to get a good photo.

Hopefully I will have an update of snow in a week or two.

Snow Stocking, Page 5 is Complete

Her lovely face is now complete.    That being said, this will not be completed for Christmas, like I had hoped. Well, it could be, if I worked exclusively on her, but Adrift is calling and her calls are so loud! 

The best thing about working on a smaller project, is when you have a page finish and you update your Progress Bar, it jumps a huge amount.  With this update, I went from 28% to 35% finished.  I'm used to a measly 3% per page with Adrift.

Because I'm getting close to a finish, I'm seriously looking at what patterns I want to work on next. There are just so many, purchased and yet to be purchased.  But I've got my eye on one that I might request as a mini.  I think it will translate well into being a mini.  And I've got a couple that are serious considerations, including one that I have been sitting on for years.  I purchased it online before I ever knew what Heaven and Earth Designs was, and when I got it, it was so big and intimidating that she went immediately into a drawer.  A clean out of my old supply drawer to move into my snazzy new cabinet revealed her again, and I've gone back again and again to her. So she is a clear contender now.   No names as of yet, because I haven't made my final decision, but it's kinda fun looking through the HaED site and my own stash to see what I want to do next.  

As for today, it's Sunday, my Stitch-n-Bitch day, and it is going to be a full house. 

Happy stitching, kindreds.