Replacing Alice

So here is my first photo of Faces of Faery 88 (FF88) by JBG. I started her to replace Alice on 18 September 2010. She is stitched on 28ct lilac lugana, one over one, whole crosses. She has quite a lot of large blocks of colour so she stitches up quite well, but I have had to make a start on her eye to relieve the boredom of all that 945 on her forehead! Isn't that eye great - it's not finished yet but it's effective already!

Catching up .. and giving up

This past week I have been back working on Aurora's Garden. I haven't done any stitching on her for quite a while but took the opportunity to do so with the HAED slow WIP stitchalong. There are some really odd colours in her face - like lime green! and her hair is quite bizarre too but they work. It's only when you stand back that you can see how it works. I'm really pleased with how much I got done, so here is a picture of her now:

Aurora's Garden as at 17 September 2010

Bad new this week though :-( I started to stitch again on Alice but I really wasn't happy with the coverage I was getting on the 25ct with one over one. There was just simply too much show through on all the dark colours, whereas usually this is only an occasional problem with black. So reluctantly I have decided to scrap her altogether for now. There is no point carrying on with her when everytime I look at her all I can see is the gaps :-( I can't face restarting her straight away so I am going to have a new start instead, something smaller to pick up and down between Vanity and the other SALs. So, I am going with Faces of Faery 88 by JBG. Purple again but quite a lot of large blocks of colours so hopefully she will stitch up quite quickly. I'm going to do her on 28ct this time, NO MORE 25ct for me!!

Busy doing nothing ...

Well I've had a week of just that! I managed just four hours actual stitching time on Alice this week, and then spent the rest of the week prepping up Vanity - sorting threads and gridding fabric. I think it took me the best part of four days but it is a large design. I've ordered threads but some are out of stock so I haven't quite got them all. I also ordered some new bars for my NeedleNeeds frame as I don't have any wide enough. They were out of stock too but should be with me at the beginning of next week.

So now I am putting Alice away for a while. I am going to make a small start on Vanity this week. T and I are doing this as a mini-stitchalong and we've even got our own forum on Craftbubble! Then the week after that will be the second HAED SK stitchalong, so back to Sunny for a week.

As it's all change, time for some more photos. The first one is Alice and the second one is Vanity, prepped and ready to go!

Alice at 31 July 2010

Vanity ready to start

Don't you just hate it when ...

life gets in the way of your stitching? Well, that's how it has been this week and I've barely stitched poor Aurora. Instead I've seen Eclipse and I've also read the Twilight novella both of which were good. It's been a mad last week of the school term with stuff going on every day and I've had a great weekend in London seeing a show and shopping my socks off!

But, on the downside, I have totally lost my stitchy bug, I can't believe it :-( I've only managed 4 hours stitching this week and now I should be moving on to Alice again but I just can't summon up any enthusiasm at all. I've done so little stitching on Aurora it really isn't worth taking a picture!

Alice is still sat in my stitching bag, it's late and there is no chance of stitching tonight. Hopefully if it get her all set back up on the frame I'll find my bug again. I've got two weeks stitching on her until the next stitchalong, and back to Sunny again, so hopefully that wandering bug will be back soon.

making a start .... with some half yearly goals

Well I've hit 40 and decided that I would do something a bit different this year. Quite why that means I've started a blog, I've no idea. Not normally the sort of thing I would do at all! I guess it is just an extension of the paper stitching diary I have already been keeping for a few months - just with more photos! Anyway, this is one first for me.

Another first is that I've set myself some half yearly goals on the HAED bulletin board. I've never done this with my stitching before, I've always just gone with the flow and picked up projects here and there as I've fancied. I've started things when I wanted to and that's probably why I have a box full of UFOs! I'm only stitching HAEDs at the moment, nothing else seems to be grabbing my attention. There are so many designs to chose from I don't think I will have enough time ever to do all the ones I want to. The tiny crosses are sooooo addictive and the satisfaction you get from finishing, knowing that you have completed over 25 thousand stitches, is great. I've already got a collection of charts waiting to be stitched but they will have to wait their turn as the goals for July to December are:

1. Finish the Sunny SK
2. Finish Aurora's Garden QS
3. Complete pages 1-4 of Alice Descending (two whole and two partial pages)

I'm not sure how I will get on with these goals but I'll give it a go. I am fairly sure I will finish Sunny and Aurora, it's just whether or not stitching in a rotation of 3 projects will let me have enough time on Alice to get the pages in. I'm aiming to do a week on Sunny, a week on Aurora and then the other two weeks on Alice. Any fifth week in the month I will probably spend on Alice. I suppose if it gets near the end of the year and the finishes aren't looking likely then I can always drop Alice out so that at least I reach two out of three.

Here are all three projects at their current stages, they are all stitched on 25ct lugana, Alice on cream and Aurora and Sunny on antique white:

Alice Descending - HAED Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Sunny SK SAL - HAED Myka Jelina

Aurora's Garden QS - HAED BK Lusk

I'll probably post update photos at the end of each project's week of the month, but I'll see how it goes.

And of course I am already planning my next couple of starts, probably Pink Lightning for my main project (this will be the biggest HAED I will have attempted) and also one of the Faces of Faery as a smaller project. Whichever ones I decide on they will probably both be by Jasmine Becket-Griffith as I really love her stuff. I've already got some baby pink 28 ct for Pink Lightning (I've not tried 28ct before so it should be interesting) and I think I might get a bit of lilac as well as a couple of the Faces are quite purpley. I also need to get another set of bars for my Needleneeds frame as I don't have a wide enough pair but I think I will get them when I go to the Ally Pally craft show in October with T.

Right, enough waffle time to get on with it.