Summertime stitching slump

 August hasn't been a great month for stitching, and pretty soon the fall yard work/cleanup is going to cut into my time but for now I'm going to try to get back into the groove for a while! A new Mirabilia model arrived a couple of weeks ago, so that will be my focus for the next couple of months.

Speaking of Mirabilia I received an email from Amber at Rensel Studio with some mat/frame options for Princess Elliana. After a bit of shuffling things around this is what I chose:

Now the real waiting begins; I doubt I will see this again until the end of the year at the earliest as Jill and Amber are swamped with even more work than usual right now. I can't wait to see how they decorate the mats--so many fun elements in the design to play with!

I spent another weekend working on Cinderella Castle, and now I think I remember why I've put off stitching this for so long--the fireworks are a pain! They are done with two strands of Glissengloss Prizm Holographic thread; to avoid knotting I pull it through the fabric a lot more slowly than regular floss so it takes longer to see results. Add to that the counting required over the dark fabric to get the placement right and the size of the finished fireworks and I'm looking at several weekends just to get them done. On the plus side once they're out of the way the castle itself should feel like it's stitching up quickly! Here is my meager progress as of now:

My temperature SAL continues to grow, now almost three quarters of the way through the year:

I do have a small finish to share, which is Joan Elliott's Luna Biscornu. I chose black Belfast for the fabric and I love how it makes the colors almost glow:

Not sure when I'll feel like attempting to finish it into a biscornu as I've never done one before, but it'll be waiting when I'm ready. Or maybe I'll send it to SewMuch2Luv and have her use it in a stitching bag...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

She's done, again!

The last time I posted I said I was hoping to finish Princess Elliana by the end of that week, but it turned out that was a bit too optimistic. It took until Wednesday afternoon of the following week to do, but she is finally done (for the second time)!

I knew that I wanted to send this to Rensel Studio for framing so I emailed them right away and heard back the next day that I could send it any time. So last Thursday she started her journey to Utah and should arrive today. Amber said they are even more backed up than usual, so I don't expect to see her again until the end of the year at the earliest.

I spent last Thursday putting things away in my craft room and running errands, and most of Friday was taken up with cleaning so it was Saturday before I stitched again. For the last couple of weeks of Elliana I hadn't been stitching a temperature square each day because I just wanted to get her done, so I was 15 days behind on my temperature SAL; it took most of Saturday to get caught up again:

We're only a couple of days into August and I'm already dreading the coming of winter! I've seen geese flying overhead, a few early leaves on the ground and the high temperature yesterday was only 70F--ugh! I'm not going to enjoy this SAL nearly as much as the cooler colors start to come back...

I was planning on starting a Rosewood Manor model yesterday but I couldn't quite get in the right mood for it so I picked up a project that I hadn't worked on since April 2019 and made a start on the castle:

I'd like to make this a weekend project, but I've said that before and it doesn't usually last very long so we'll see how it goes. It's such a gorgeous design and I've had it for close to 20 years now so it's really time to get it done.

Marilyn asked for pictures of Murphy and Roxie so here are a couple I took last week. Almost all of Murphy's pictures are taken in the chair behind my craft table because that's where he spends the majority of his time:

Roxie needed her thyroid medicine refilled early last month so we had her weighed and she was down to 37.3lbs. She had been losing 8 to 9lbs between refills but this time she only lost 2lbs. I guess it's just like with people--those last 5 to 10lbs are the hardest! The vet looked her over and said that she still needs to lose 10lbs, so the original goal of 28lbs was about right. Here she is as of yesterday:

This photo from early March has her in a similar pose and I think it shows a pretty drastic change:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Hoping for a finish this week

I spent a good portion of this past weekend working on Princess Elliana and I'm starting to think I might be able to have her finished within the next week or so. I need to extend my Qsnaps one more time to work on the far left side of the dress:

I didn't add the squares for the weekend to my temperature SAL yet as I'm spending all my stitching time on Elliana, so I'll update this as soon as Elliana is finished:

The Tempting Tangles Quakers in Scotland SAL has now had 10 of the 16 parts released, but it's too hard to try to crop the photo to show all of the parts so far so I'll just share the top half (8 of 16 parts) here:

I was supposed to have received a Mirabilia model this month but I just had an email that said it would probably be another 4 to 6 weeks, so now I plan to start a Rosewood Manor model once Elliana is done, and I might even be able to have it done by the time another model arrives--fingers crossed!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Finally got some framing done

My husband often gives me gift certificates to my favorite framer for our anniversary, my birthday and Christmas and I hadn't taken anything in for some time so I had quite a bit waiting to be used, so I finally took some things over last month and was able to pick them up last week. Two were stitched pieces, one of which was Lizzie Kate's Frightful Mystery Sampler:

This one will join my other L*K Halloween designs once I can figure out how to rearrange them to make room (there are other Halloween pieces to the right of these):

The other one I took is a Vervaco design that was a free SAL on FB, and it just makes me happy to look at it as I love kitties and the flower colors are so pretty:

The other two pieces I had framed were paintings by Nora Corbett that I bought quite a while ago. The first is close to being my favorite of her art that I've acquired:

And a "spooky" girl who kind of reminds me of a gargoyle (which would make a great series of Nora Corbett pixie-size designs!):

On the stitching front I'm making progress on Princess Elliana, and am hoping to have her done within the next few weeks:

And the temperature SAL is now more than half way done:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week, and stay cool out there!

She's so big!

I've been stitching away on Princess Elliana, and every time I finish an area I look at all the areas left and it seems like a lot! And today a new design was released that I really want to stitch as well, called Miss Dancing Flower:

The colors and textures remind me of Princess Elliana and are what I love to stitch the most, so she might be my next start when PE is done. Speaking of which, here is Elliana as of last night:

Still a lot to do, but I'm already thinking that I'll send her to Jill Rensel for framing when she's done.

It's been a pretty nice June so far, and my temperature SAL has acquired some red:

It's been fun seeing new colors appear, but now I'm already dreading seeing the greens and then blues make a comeback later this year. Plus, it seems like working on this every day makes it seem like the year is passing by even faster than usual; almost halfway through already...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

No models in the house...

...for just over 48 hrs!! Last Wednesday I finished a Rosewood Manor model, which I mailed back on Thursday morning. Spent a little time basking in the feeling of freedom, then received the next model from Karen on Saturday afternoon--that was some short-lived basking! However, there's no deadline on the new one, and Karen knows I won't be starting it until I finish the Wichelt model that should be coming later this month, so it's all good.

I've been catching up on house and yard work, but I've also spent some time starting Princess Elliana for myself:

I changed my mind on the fabric again and went with a piece of PTP Crystal DaVinci Belfast. It's similar in color to the recommended Peaceful Purple linen, but has some patches of orange that I think will go really well with the yellows/oranges in the dress. Hoping I have most of the month to work on her before the Wichelt model arrives.

Carolyn Manning's Daily Temperature SAL is still progressing; can't believe we're now into June!

In non-stitchy news I am happy to report that Roxie has continued to lose weight at a really good pace, and might actually reach her goal weight within the next couple of months. When we took her in on December 31 she was 58lbs:

By February 21 she was down to 49.9lbs:

And by May 6 she was down to 39.2lbs. I don't have a picture from that day, but here she is as of this morning:

Originally we had said she needs to lose around 30lbs, which would put her at 28lbs. When she goes in for her thyroid recheck we'll have the vet assess her and tell us the goal now that she's closer to being the right weight. She has so much energy now, she's like a different dog!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Quakers in Japan...and Scotland!

Last week the final part of the Quakers in Japan SAL from Tempting Tangles was released, so now I can share the full model:

I think this one is my favorite of the countries that Deb has done so far. The current country SAL is Scotland, which has had four parts released to date:

My temperature SAL continues to progress, and May has been beautiful so far, though it's cooler now and probably will be for a few days:

Saturday my Princess Elliana chart arrived, and so far I have been able to resist making a small start on her as I'd really like to finish the Rosewood Manor model first. That is actually stitching up faster than I had anticipated, so I might be able to finish it with two or three weeks left before the next Mirabilia model comes in, then I could stitch on Princess Elliana guilt free for a while. I was going to use the recommended fabric for her, but the more I thought about it the more I leaned towards using something different since I've already stitched her on the purple. In the end I decided to use PTP Crystal Demoiselle, which is a pretty blue with subtle touches of pink and yellow:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Only one model in the house!

I finished up Mirabilia's MD172 on April 17th, and it was approved and sent back to Wichelt last Monday, which is always a good feeling. Even better is that I now only have one model currently remaining to stitch, though it is a rather large one for Rosewood Manor. Last year I took on a bit more than I was comfortable with, and felt like deadlines were looming larger than I would like so it is nice to have cleared my "work" table of all but one design. This model will probably take me well into July, so I have asked Wichelt not to send me anything until at least the end of June and I feel considerably lighter than I have for some time.

I spent the weekend after I completed the Mirabilia working on the Duchess of Rouen for myself, and I finished her massive hair:

After all that white and gray it was a pleasure to make a start on the colorful flowers in all that hair:

I'm remaining up to date on the temperature SAL, which currently looks like this:

Looking forward to a new high temperature square any time now...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

At last!

Last fall I was working on a large Mirabilia design, and as she was finally released today I can share some pictures. This is MD169 Princess Elliana, and the one word that most came to mind as I worked on her was "glorious":

She uses about 60 colors of floss, including all 35 of the newest DMC colors, and she took about 10 weeks to stitch. I took progress photos about every two weeks, so here is how she developed:

The fabric is Wichelt's Peaceful Purple, and it is really perfect for the design. Usually I would be thinking of a hand-dyed fabric for a Mirabilia, but if I stitch this for myself I would use the recommended fabric. It's a gorgeous color, similar to DMC 3747 but maybe a tad darker.

This is the one that had quite a few errors in the chart (so many colors probably made it difficult for the graphic designer to convert Nora's hand drawn chart into a computer program), including one I didn't catch until it was almost done. The large purple roses had an incorrect color, a dark pink, and they were a bit of a pain to fix because I had already beaded most of them, but they ended up looking much better. See if you can spot the change:

I really want to stitch this one for myself as she is probably one of my top two or three favorite Mirabilia's to date, but for now I'm going to finish the current Mirabilia model (which should hopefully be done by the end of the weekend) currently scheduled to be released in October.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!