Snow Queen got a little love

A couple of weeks ago I went up to The Stitching Bee for the first meeting of the stitch group I joined. I decided to take my Nora Corbett Snow Queen WIP with me, because the model I'm working on for Karen is a secret. I can't believe that I started this four years ago already! It seems like once a piece goes into the Bucket o'WIPs, it is doomed to stay there for all eternity!!

However, this little gem has now been rescued, and is small enough that I should be able to finish it this year, even if I only work on it a little bit at a time. Here is what it looked like upon its release from the Bucket:

And here it is after a bit of love:

Okay, so it's hard to see much of a difference, but it's there!

Speaking of The Bee, Kendra is having her annual Door County stitching retreat the weekend of November 8-10; this will be her 10th year, and promises to be loads of fun. This will be my third time attending, and this time I'm bringing my mom along, so it should be even more fun for me than usual. My mom and I laugh like loons when we get together, though I suppose we'll have to try to tone it down a bit so we don't scare anyone!

For now I am off to work on the model; hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

It's done, it's done!!

The stitching for my Pretty Little Things box is done! I finished it up last night, and this morning I am getting it ready to mail to Judy Odell, so she can work her finishing magic on it. The wait to get it back is going to be agony! ;)

Here are some pictures of this little beauty:

The cluster of crystals at the bottom right in the picture above is what I'm hoping Judy will be able to use for the handle on the box top.

In other stitchy news, I have now received the next model for Karen, so I will be starting that later today. Unfortunately, I won't be able to share anything about it, and there is a time rush on it, so I may not have much to blog about for the next month or so.

I did go to my stitch group up at The Stitching Bee yesterday; it meets the third Tuesday of every month, and yesterday was the first one. I decided to take my 4-year-old WIP of Nora Corbett's Snow Queen with me, and made some progress. I'll post some before and after pics in my next post; it'll be interesting to see how much I can get done on a piece that I work on once a month for a few hours.

Hope everyone is having a great stitchy week!

Four down, one to go

I have finished four of the five panels needed for my box, and have started to outline the fifth one. Here is where I left off as of last night:

I'm thinking that I will put my name and the year in the top left corner of the panel at the top left of the picture. I have emailed Judy to let her know that I'll be sending this her way in a week or two, so hopefully she'll be ready. ;)

I was hoping to have this done by now, but I didn't do much stitching last week, as I lost my sweet butterball Sabrina on Tuesday. Her kidneys had been going downhill, and she had stopped eating for several days, so it was time to let her go. Even though I only had her for two years (her original owner gave her up after 13 years!), I loved her as much as any of my furbabies. I will miss her terribly, but am still glad I took her in.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Enjoying the process

I've continued to make progress on my Pretty Little Things box, and am just loving this project! I think a lot of the enjoyment is coming from stitching something without a strict pattern; I'm having a lot of fun choosing which items to stitch and where to stitch them. I even created a pair of earrings, because none of the charted designs would fit in the space I had remaining.

Also, once the larger designs have been stitched, I'm going back and adding some bling to fill in some empty spaces. Here is an example of that:

I had some crystals and beads in the upper left corner, but they snagged on my Qsnaps when I moved them, so I'll go back and add them later.

So far, I have two panels completed, and I have two more outlined and ready to stitch. Then I just need one more of the larger panels; it's looking pretty likely that I'll get this done before I need to start another model for Karen. Here are some more progress pics:

Oh, and speaking of models for Karen, here is one that I stitched that has just been released, called "Crosses of the Kingdom":

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Pretty Little Things progress

This past weekend my husband and son were out of town, so I hunkered down in my craft room with season 2 of Once Upon a Time on DVD and stitched until my vision blurred! ;) One panel of my box is almost done (I'm planning on adding some bead swirls to fill in some of the open spaces, but the main pieces are stitched), and I've started on the second panel:

A couple of close-ups, to better show the bling:

I'm really enjoying stitching each design, as I get a sense of accomplishment each time I finish one, and I still get to look forward to seeing the whole piece completed.

On the non-stitchy front, I caught a couple of visitors to our butterfly bush this past week. The first is a hummingbird moth, and the second is pretty recognizable:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

My new project

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have started another project for myself, and I'm hoping to finish it before I get back to model stitching for Karen. Last year, I did some stitching on a project for Judy Odell, who does amazing finishing work on her pieces. The project is called Shelley's Jewelry Box, and here is the finished piece:

In return for doing this stitching for Judy, she will be doing the finishing on the box I stitch; this is very exciting to me, because my finishing skills leave much to be desired! So, I finally decided what I would like to stitch on my box--Nora Corbett's Pretty Little Things. Here is my start after a few days:

I'm looking forward to seeing this grow, as I'm just picking motifs as I stitch, depending on where they fit in the best. I'm also going through my stash of embellishments, looking for sparklies to enhance the finish!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Couldn't wait to share!

I just put the last beads onto Faerie Spring Fling, and this gorgeous girl is now finished!

I enjoyed working on this one so much, that I'm almost sorry to be done! I sorely wish that I could start on Faerie Summer Love right away, but I have another project that I really need to get started; more about that in my next post. :)

Thanks for letting me share my happy dance with you!

Getting my dancing shoes ready...

...as I should be able to finish up Faerie Spring Fling in the next few days! Here is the latest update:

This piece has been such a joy to stitch; the colors are so bright and cheerful and fun to work with! Now I am starting to look forward to stitching the next one in this series, Faerie Summer Love.

Stay tuned for a finish in the very near future, and have a great stitchy week!

Found my mojo!

I was finally able to finish the wings on Faerie Spring Fling this past weekend; for some reason, finishing the wings on a Nora Corbett/Mirabilia always feels like a big accomplishment, and this one was no different. Maybe that's why the stitching flowed so nicely for the remainder of the weekend! Here is where I left her last week:

And here she is as of last night:

I did play around with the wing colors a bit, and am pretty happy with how they turned out. All of the colors in this are just so pretty and nice to work with. If my mojo stays with me, I'm hoping to have this one finished within the next couple of weeks.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Working on wings

I think I might be enjoying this break from model stitching a bit too much, as I haven't even felt like working on my own project very much! I've been doing some housework, reading (a lot!), spending too much time on the computer and just generally lollygagging around!

However, I have made some progress on Faerie Spring Fling; here she is as of last night:

I'm playing with the colors in the wings, as I didn't really like the way they looked in the chart photo. I think I'll like them when I'm done, but it's always hard to tell until the last of the backstitching is done.

I really need to get to work on this one, because the third seasonal fairy, Faerie Summer Love, arrived yesterday. She is a beauty, and I will be starting her as soon as this one is done. I'd like to get them completed before the autumn fairy is released. I've already pulled the floss and picked a fabric for Summer, so I'm ready to go!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!