My Last Update of 2016. Page 33 of Adrift.

Adrift Page 33 is complete. I stitched through adversity to get this done before the New Year.  Adversity, you ask? Why yes, adversity.  To be more specific, my stand broke.  It broke Christmas Day.  The bolt that keeps the Q-Snap tightly held, so I can stitch, stripped, rendering it a challenge to stitch the last 3 columns of a really bloody heavy piece.  After a complete and total meltdown, which may or may not have included several words not fit for this blog, my solution was to shove it into the stand anyway, and then balance the bottom on a tin box, which was balanced on my lap.  It kinda, sorta worked as long as I sat veeeeery still and did.not.move.  Because the tiniest move would send Adrift tumbling out of the stand and onto the cat, who was trying to sleep peacefully on the rest of my legs. He eventually left in a huff, after Adrift fell on him about 10 times or so.   But on the plus side, I think I've invented a new thing - Cross Stitch Yoga.  It challenges you to sit as still as you can while stitching 7000 stitches.  And because I had a blanket on my legs, after a while it became Hot Cross Stitch Yoga. It's a thing, I tell you!  I'll probably end up famous because of it, and you can all say you knew me when...

Back on planet reality, I ended up going to Sew and Sew Uk and just buying a Lowry.  I have to say, it was a pretty good price, too!  I was expecting to really pay through the nose, but they were having a Christmas sale, and because I was a brand new customer, I got another discount.  So I ended up paying 77 pound sterling for the frame AND shipping, which, translated to Canadian funds, is $127. Not too shabby!  My current stand, a K's Creation, the owner has offered to replace the broken piece if I send it back, or just buy a new piece for $50 usd plus shipping.  I might still do that, and have a second frame on standby in case something happens to the Lowry.   Like me stripping the screw.
It will also be a frame that I can loan to guests who come and stitch.  

Now, back to Adrift, in the bottom picture, that line you see is just from the Q-Snap, it won't be permanent.  I hurriedly took a photo as soon as I was done because I was boiling from Hot Cross Stitch Yoga, and dead tired.  So I took a photo, packed it away and went to bed.  I know many people are worried that Q-Snaps will damage their work, but it won't.  Not permanently.

So, I think we can all agree that 2016 was a pretty crappy year, the one thing that I did get done was a mountain of stitching.  On this, the last day of the year my stitch tally stands as such:
Adrift: 13 page finishes
Snow Stocking: 8 page finishes
Winter Hat Owl: 6 page finishes. 
Giving me a grand total of 27 HaED Finishes.  Then there was the little Thing 1 and Thing 2 bibs that I made for my co-worker.  She had boys, by the way.

So even though 2016 was not the year we will look back on with "undiluted pleasure" to quote the Queen, I can at least look at this year and think to myself that I will never beat this record.  So the year isn't a complete loss.

I wish all of my kindreds who read this little blog a Happy New Year.  May your needles stay shiny and sharp, may your scissors never be confiscated by security at the airport, and may you stitch, stitch, stitch.

I'll see you all in 2017, or at Hot Cross Stitch Yoga.  

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.