Together Forever - Love Thy Thread - FINISHED - 13th November 2014

Happy dancing for a finish on Together Forever I just need to add the bride and grooms names and add the date of their wedding.  Stitched on 20 count white aida 2 over 1 full crosses.  Silver balloons stitched with Petite Treasure Braid PB58, blue flower stitched with Sulky Metallic Thread and outline stitched in black silk from Thread Pickerz Silkz.

Keep stitching and smiling

Treasures SK SAL as of 11.07.11 - Page 1 Complete!

Firstly I want to thank people for voting in my poll and commenting on my previous post.  I have decided that I won't be selling my patterns before I stitch them but will keep them.

Now onto the fun stuff.  I've finished page 1 of Treasures SK SAL and I'm really happy with the result.

I decided I wanted to keep on stitching until I'd finished the page rather than rotating a piece each week and it feels really good to have a finish (even if it is only a page finish!).

I'm also really pleased as well as I have been gridding with Sulky metallic thread in dark blue.  Up to now I haven't completed enough of a project to be able to take the gridlines out but on Treasures I have now taken the gridlines out and I'm pleased to say the thread came out very easily and didn't leave any marks behind.  So if I can get away with it on a project with so much white I am sure it will be fine on all my other projects.

So the stats for this project are 7,350 stitches completed which is 26.49% complete.

So this one can go on the back burner now until I get the next page which I don't think is until September so I'll have plenty of time to get some stitching done on my other WIPs.

I've also started knitting a blanket for my best friend who is expecting her third baby.  It is a design called Sampler Blanket by Debbie Bliss and I have treated myself to the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino wool to knit with.  It is absolutely gorgeous to knit so soft and lovely.  I may have to keep the blanket for myself in the end!

I'm not sure if I mentioned that I had signed up for half yearly goals on the HAED BB.  I set myself small goals this time which were to complete 1 page of Treasures SK and 1 page of Believe QS and obviously with this post I have completed one of those goals.

I'm not sure what I am rotating onto now or whether I'll just concentrate on some knitting for a while.  Once the blanket begins to take shape I'll take some photos.

Believe as of 12.06.11

I've been working on Believe this week and I'm really pleased with my progress.  I've managed to do just under 1,000 stitches and it is now 22.56% complete, the only trouble is I forgot to take photos of each individual colour as I added it and I am not sure how many colours I've completed.  The left side of the body is almost full now and it's looking great.  I'm beginning to think I will have to complete the whole background though.

Hickory Dickory Dock & Blue Rose Fairy as of 05.06.11

I was off work last week and managed to work on two projects.  The first was QS Hickory Dickory Dock I completed just under 500 stitches and this is how it now looks.

I then spent some time on the HAED BB QS SAL Blue Rose Fairy.  I did just over 2,100 stitches which means I have now completed 8,337 of 34,595 which is 24.1% complete.  One of my BB yearly goals was to complete one page of this and although I haven't physically completed one page I have done an equivalent amount of stitches so I am counting this as having completed this goal (although I don't think it will count on the BB).  I've done quite a lot of the sparkly stitches which aren't showing up on the photo but for the first time in a long time I am actually enjoying working on this which is good.

We should be getting the information soon about the SK SAL.  I chose the black and white SK called Treasures.  I'm looking forward to working on another black and white as I love working on Shy Baby.  Here's a reminder of what Treasures looks like.

Shy Baby as of 10.04.11 - PAGE 3 COMPLETED!!

So lots of things to update on this week.

I decided to work on Shy Baby this week even though it should have been the HAED Freebie SAL.  I love working on Shy Baby and even though she isn't in my current rotation I just knew she would help me get my stitching mojo back and I was right.  I managed to do 2,500 stitches on her and completed page 3.  You still can't make anything out but when I compare it with the actual picture I can see images starting to form.

I've made good progress on Little Boy Blue, I've now finished the back, front and both sleeves. The sleeve was supposed to be all stocking stitch apart from one row of pattern at the top of the sleeve but I decided to add in a couple more rows of pattern one of which was in the main design and the other I made up myself. I love how easy it is to make pattern and texture by just changing whether you knit or purl.  So all I have to do now is pick up stitches to do the neck and stitch it up.  I'm going to wait for my mum to come back from holiday though as she is an expert at this and I don't want to mess it up by tying to do something I don't know how I'm doing.  I'm really starting to love knitting and have a whole host of things I want to knit. I absolutely love some of the colours that you can get in sock yarn and would love to knit myself some socks. I wonder though why it is specifically called sock yarn - can you use it for other items or only socks? Any experienced knitters who can answer this I'd be very grateful.

One of my 210 in 2010 goals is to bake all 196 cupcakes from the recipe book 200 Cupcakes. I know it doesn't make sense that there are only 196 recipes but there is a main recipe on each page and then an alternative recipe except for four recipes which are for things like cinnamon butter to dip the cupcakes in. So there are only actually 196 cupcake recipes. Anyway after all that waffle I showed my sister the book and she requested that I make the Mini Simnel Cupcakes next so as I am a good big sister and always do what my little sister says (apart from when she tells me not to buy anymore stash!) I made them a couple of days ago. They have mixed fruit in them and you put a teaspoon of cake mixture in the case and then a little round of marzipan and then put some more cake mixture on top, you then bake them, leave them to cool, top with more marzipan and toast under the grill. To be honest I was a little disappointed with these. I absolutely love marzipan so expected to love these and they were nice but they weren't delicious and I'm not sure I would make them again.

So I'm going back to Masquerade and hopefully I will be able to make some visible progress.

Blue Rose Fairy as of 11.03.11

This week has been the HAED BB SAL and this is my progress on Blue Rose Fairy.

I managed to do just under 1,500 stitches on it this week which means it is now 16.45% complete.

Only a short update today as I am feeling a bit delicate as I've been in bed with food poisoning for the last 24 hours.

Samuel as of 04.03.11

I've been working on the picture of my Son for the last few days.  Here's the up to date picture.

It's still quite abstract at the minute but when I compare the photo to the stitching I can see his ear, his mouth and his eye.  I am still not sure about the colours that I'm using but I am putting my faith in Michele's years of charting experience that it will look right. 

I've done 1,905 stitches on this since my last update which brings it to a total number of stitches done of 4,421 which is 4.55% complete.  At this rate I'll have it finished for his 18th Birthday!!

I don't know if you've seen the poll on the left hand side but I'd be grateful if you could vote for which project I will start next.  As I write this blog post there has been 9 votes and 3 projects have each got 3 votes.

Still have quite a lot of items for sale or swap if anyone is interested.

Nx

Believe as of 20.02.11

Here's my latest update for Believe.  I've completed another two colours I've done just over 1,000 stitches which means in total I have now done 3,508 of 29,250 which is 11.99% complete.

Just to remind you as well I still have lots of items for sale or swap on the Sale or Swap page.  Thanks for looking.

Blue Rose Fairy QS - 2011 SAL - as of 06.01.11

So this week I started stitching the 2011 SAL.  The chart I chose was Blue Rose Fairy and the finished item should look like this.

I am stitching her on 20 count white aida 3 over 1 tent stitch and here is a picture of the progress I have made so far.  I have completed 1,959 of 34,446 which is 5.69% of the total complete.  My BB goal is to complete 1 page and I have completed 24.99% of this goal and my blog goal is to complete 2 pages and I have completed 13.33% of this goal.

Samuel as of 17.12.10

I started work this week on the photo of my son which I paid for Michele from HAED to chart for me.

Here is the original picture.

I didn't start in the top left hand corner as I usually do but actually started on his face as I want to see how well this turns out. I am a bit unsure about the colours so far as they have been quite dark pinks, salmon and terracotta. I have faith in Michele's work though and I am sure that once I get a bit further and see some details emerging it will be as amazing as the art she charts. Anyway here is my progress so far with this.  The blue lines you can see are the Sulky Metallic Thread which I am so far finding really great to use.  I have unpicked one row of gridding so far and it came out very cleanly and easily, I hope it continues to work so well.

So I have currently completed 2,516 of 87,953 stitches which is 2.86%.  My goal is to have completed 20% of this project by the end of 2011 so this means I have 17.14% to go which is the equivalent of another 15,074 stitches.  Another way to look at it is that I have completed 1/10 of my goal which I am quite pleased with (especially as it is still 2010!!).

I am super excited this weekend as tomorrow is the drawing for the HAED "lottery".  The winner gets to choose 25 charts, if I were to win I would be so happy but would also be sharing the prize with my sister to one of us would get 12 charts and one of us 13 charts.  Also all the participants get a free chart tomorrow regardless of whether they win so I'm really looking forward to seeing what the free chart is as well.

I'm also currently playing Christmas Bingo on the HAED BB and up to  now have 1 out of the 10 needed to win.  I'm not hopeful that I will win on this but it is fun taking part.

New Starts

Well this is the first post for two weeks.  Last week I was away for a few days and the cottage we were staying in just didn't lend itself to stitching.  I couldn't find a comfy position to sit in and stitch and the lighting was awful so I didn't do more than a couple of stitches all week.

This week I decided I didn't have enough projects on the go and added another medium project and a small project.

The medium project is a Christmas Stocking for my little boy.  This is a picture of the final product.

And this is the progress I have made on it this week.

 

I decided I wanted something quite simple to work on as I want my son to have it for Christmas 2011 and if I did a HAED stocking he would probably be 18 before it was finished!!  My intention is to do stockings for myself and my husband as well when I have finished this one.  These will be HAEDs though, I want Cherished Christmas Stocking and I am going to do the Treasure Dragon Stocking for my husband.  If I get all these three done then I may at some point in the future do the Faithful Friends Stocking for my son.

I have also tried gridding for the first time with Sulky Metallic threads, will see how it goes before I try gridding one of my BAPs with it.

The second small project I am working on is a birthday card for my niece.  She is 5 at the end of October so I have just over 3 weeks to get this done.  Hopefully my son will let me get some stitching done during the day so I can achieve this.

I have also this week fallen in love with this Amazing Color by Needle Delight Originals.  There are lots of amazing designs but this is my current favourite.  It is so different from anything I have stitched before or have in my stash.  I have been restraining myself very hard so I don't buy it.  Really want to get a finish before I buy or start anything new.