Monday, October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween!

I was very pleased to be able to finish Lizzie*Kate's Spooked before Halloween this year, with two days to spare:


The fabric is Silkweaver's Halloween Haunting on Belfast, which I just loved for this design. I have a fat eighth left over, so I might try to combine all the bonus charts that came with these into one design and stitch them on the same fabric.

I'm going to wait one more day to start the next model so I can finish up the first two parts of Ship's Manor's Beautiful Sea Quaker SAL. I'd been trying to resist buying this, but I finally gave in last week and ordered the chart and thread pack. However, I didn't feel like waiting for the threads to arrive, so yesterday I went stash diving and came up with my own colors and a Silkweaver solo on Belfast for the fabric. I should be able to get caught up today; here is where I left off last night:


Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween, and a great stitchy week!

Monday, October 24, 2016

Keeping up!

I have finally found a SAL that I can keep up with, which is the Tempting Tangles Welcome SAL. Each part so far has been nice and small, and with two weeks between releases it's been very easy to keep up. Deb has hinted that parts 5 - 8 will be more challenging, so we'll see how they go when we get to them. Here are the first four parts, on a SW solo 32ct piece of Lugana:


I have made some more progress on Stone Roses, but this one is a bit difficult because the colors are so similar, which makes keeping count harder. So I work on it for a while, and then I switch to a less complicated piece with more colors. Here is the latest update:


As Halloween is just a week away, the other design I've been working on is Lizzie*Kate's Spooked. I'm hoping that I can get it done before Halloween, but it will be cutting it close. Here is where I left off last night:


Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Monday, October 17, 2016

Started an oldie...

...but a goodie, Stone Roses by Mirabilia. I have to admit, this isn't one of Nora's designs that grabbed my attention right away like a lot of her others, but after seeing some WIP and finishes pictures over the years I've come to like it a lot. Then about a month ago I received this great piece of fabric from Polstitches, called Dapple, on 32ct opal linen; the design is actually printed onto the fabric, so each piece should look the same:


To me it looks like a watercolor painting of a garden, and ever since I got it I've been trying to think of which Mira I should stitch on it. Then a few days ago it hit me that Stone Roses was meant to be a statue in a garden, and the two came together like they were meant to be! The background has color and movement, and will be a nice contrast to the muted tones of the design:


The main color in the statue is white, but I've replaced it with Waterlilies Opal, which has just a hint of pastel colors and made me think of marble. Here is my progress after the weekend:


I'm hoping to get a lot done on this in the next couple of weeks, then I'll have to get to work on a model for a while.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Monday, October 10, 2016

Small finishes

I'm making good progress on the Tempting Tangles model, so once in a while I take some time for myself to work on my own things. One of these I've already shared--it's JBW Designs French Country Witch, but now it's been ironed and a better picture taken. This was stitched on a leftover piece of SW Swirling Storms Belfast, using Silk'n'Colors Limehouse:


Also stitched on the same fabric is JBW Designs The Witch's Hat, this time using Silk'n'Colors Halloween Confetti, which is my absolute favorite Halloween floss:


The Thread Gatherer is having a contest in which you use any one color of their threads to stitch one of five JBW Designs charts, and these are my entries. The winner gets $100 to spend on their threads, so that would be be a great prize!

I also finished the third part of the Tempting Tangles Welcome SAL, which was released last Friday:


This is a really easy piece to keep up with, as the parts are small and come out every two weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing the next part now.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Monday, October 3, 2016

Got a couple of models back

As mentioned in my last post, Karen was sending a couple of my Rosewood Manor models back, and last week I had the fun of opening the big box to see which ones they were. The first was Bucklebury Sampler, which is probably one of my favorites:


The second was Spring Has Come, which was released as a three-part mystery:


This one was done on a pre-printed fabric from Fabric Flair called Yorkshire Roses, which was neat to work with:


Last week I was able to finish up JBW Designs French Country Witch, which I stitched on a SW Swirling Storms Belfast remnant using Silk'n Colors Limehouse (I still need to iron it, so excuse the wrinkles):


I've been working on the Tempting Tangles model since last Thursday, but I did take yesterday off to work on Deb's Welcome SAL. She has a FB group for this 16-part stitch-along; you pay $5 for the whole thing, and post in the group as you progress (you don't have to be in the group to get the charts, just contact Deb at temptingtangles@gmail.com). Two parts have been released so far, and I was able to get caught up in one day:


I'm having fun playing with colors on this one; it lends itself nicely to personalization.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!