New Year, new project, new goals

It's been a long time! I just couldn't face anything for a while after the disaster on FF88. I ended up having to just bin her :-( I knew that I wouldn't be able to carry on stitching when I knew there was a messy bit - my OCD just wouldn't let me lol

So, on 2 December I started a(nother!) new HAED. This one is Porthole of Fantasy 1 and I love her! She is being stitched whole crosses, one over one on 28ct bone jobelan. I finished the first page last night and I'm really happy with progress so far. It's a good mix of blocks of colour and confetti stitches and there are also some sparklies in her. I'm looking forward to page two as that has the beginning of the pink dragon on it. Here she is:

Porthole of Fantasy 1 JBG at 4 Jan 2011

So .... the New Year is upon us already. Last year went sooooo quickly! Therefore, time to think about new things - new starts and new goals.

First, the new HAED sal has started, this time it's a year long and I have chosen to stitch the QS of Curl Up with a Good Book by Spangler. Surprisingly for me, I haven't started him yet and, in fact, haven't even got my threads! I really want to get some more done on Porthole (and hopefully finish her) before I make a start and if that means joining the sal in March, then *hey* whatever. As long as I post six wip photos through the year then I will be eligible for the other charts, so perfectly achievable :-)

Talking of the perfectly achievable, it's time to think about my stitching goals for the year. My addiction to HAED is as strong as ever and I cannot see myself stitching anything other than them again this year, their pull is just to hard to resist! So, I need to decide what my goals will be. So far, I've got these in mind but I do have a few more days to make my mind up:

• To complete Porthole 1, currently one page done of six (two of which are small partials).
• To complete the Sunny SK sal from last year. I've just started page 2 of 3.
• To start Curl Up and complete at least one page and two pages if possible.
• To complete at least two pages of my Wall, Dragon Charmer. Currently at about half a page done.
• To start and complete at least one page of a new BAP start. This will probably be The Three Fates by JBG but could change nearer the time lol!

More than enough to keep me going for a year I think!

A small breathing space

.. away from FF88 this week. Tomorrow the Board SAL starts again and I think I will make an early start on Sunny today to get away from the total disaster that is my Faery :-( I have started to prepare a new piece of fabby and I've ordered a couple of threads to restock what I used on the other one. So, I guess I'm 99% certain that I will restart her. I just can't face it yet. Hopefully having a week on Sunny will help.

Or maybe not ..

I've had another look at FF88 and I'm just not sure that I can live with it. Every time I look at her I can just see a huge muckup. Quite frankly, if I stitch on her for goodness knows how many more hours and still feel like that, then it will all have been a total waste of time. So, it's looking likely that I will restart :-( I've got some more of the lilac 28ct and I've ordered the two threads that I've already used a fair bit of. I'm off to see Harry Potter tonight so no stitching for me .. maybe a break away from it will help me decide what to do.

Disaster avoided

... I think!

I was finishing off the column on FF88 last night and I found a hole in my fabby! It looked like the top bit of the weave going horizontally had either snapped from my gridding or I'd snipped it. So when you stitched over it, the stitches collapsed into each other.

At 1.15am last night, that was so not funny. Unpicking the bottom of the page was not an option. Nor was starting again, not now that I am nearly a quarter through!

I looked at it again this morning, and even got the magnifier out lol. I ran the same colour thread up down and across all the stitches at the back all the way round the broken one to create a sort of patch and to hold the stitches in. I then took out the piece of gridding that seemed to be supporting in and held my breath. Luckily the stitches seem to be holding and, when the underneath page is stitched, it should be even stronger.

Lesson learned! Do not grid so tightly and be careful with scissors!

Here's looking at you ...

It's been a while, but I'm back to stitching FF88. After the nightmare that was the confetti stitching on Sunny, I think that the last thing my needle wanted to do was Dragon Charmer! So FF88 it was. I am loving her! The eye has a ton of colours in it but it really was worth it. The eye just draws you in. From close up it doesn't look that great but from a distance, and in a photo .. well, you can see what I mean. There is just another three and a half partial columns and I will have finished the page. I am still parking amongst my previous cross-country stitching but the next column is the last one that should cause any problems.

Faces of Faery (JBG) 29 November 2010

I think I will stay stitching her for a while as I really would like to get something else finished this year or at least be near to it. Ideally I would like to get Sunny and FF88 done but it's not looking good! FF88 has three more whole and two partial pages, and I have only just started page two of three for Sunny. A bit over-optimistic as usual! And the trouble is they have started to release details of the next SAL and there is a Spangler draggie in there. It is going to be very hard to resist! Just waiting for details of the last two charts and then I will have to decide. I could do without another new start but hey, the more the merrier :-D

In the meantime, I've been buying again. This time another JBG - The Three Fates. I am going to reward myself by starting this once I have finished FF88 and Sunny.

(c) Heaven and Earth Designs 2010

I'm still waiting for the Snapdragon Faery QS to be released, but that will be another definite one to add to the stash. And then of course there will be a Christmas sale and I'll just have to pick up a couple of charts then, won't I? :-D

It's a little bit Sunny

It's been a while since I've been on here but I have been stitching - honest! I've had a couple of weeks on Sunny this time around, the SAL week and also an extra one to try and catch up with myself. I've now found that her hair is a right *whatsit* and is a pain in the parking! Sorry the photo is so messy, but I stopped mid-column (in disgust really) and so there are parked threads everyone. It really is a nightmare changing from cross-country to parking midway through a project so I really must make sure that I stick to parking from the start from now on!

Anyway, off her now for a while thank goodness. I'll get back to her in December for another week. I was going to go back to Dragon Charmer but I've got the urge to do FF88 so I'm going to work on her for a while.

True to form I am thinking about my next project! I've picked up some gorgeous hand-dyed lime green 28ct jobelan and I'm going to have a go at one of the Ink Circles patterns called Cirque des Carreaux shown here. I've ordered some hand-dyed threads to do it with. They are Carrie's Threads in Berry Swirl. I've got to wait a couple of weeks for the threads to come from the States so I am hoping the colour combination works although I am now wondering a bit about the blue! I went for a clash rather than co-ordination - can you tell!?

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!