Getting Batty-er!

Last Monday the next two charts in Amy Bruecken's A Little Batty SAL arrived and I spent most of the week getting them stitched up:

It's such a fun design to work on that the stitching goes quickly and now I have to wait another two months for the final three charts to be released. If they go as quickly as these did I should still have time to get them done before Halloween.

On Thursday part 8 of Cecilia Votta's seasonal SAL came out, so after I finished Batty that afternoon I spent that evening and Friday getting caught up:

Then I should have gone back to Simplicity Vintage but I got distracted by the news that Heart in Hand will be releasing a new Tiny Town at the Needlework Expo next month, and it's the Halloween Tiny Town! Cecilia showed a sneak peek on a live stream she did with Fat Quarter Shop, and I absolutely love the design:

Since I was so excited but obviously couldn't stitch it yet I did the next best thing and started HIH's Doodles: Halloween which I had picked up at my LNS about a week ago:

I'm going to take two (or three) more days to get this done and then get back to work on the Simplicity kit--although I just remembered that the next part of the Dragon's Blood SAL will be released on Thursday so I'll probably do that first...

Also on the live stream they mentioned that Cecilia did a small free chart for the shop, which can be found here; it's a cute little Christmas ornament that would stitch up very quickly (you can actually see it in the screenshot from the live stream).

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Simplicity Vintage fun

I've now spent a week working on this Dimensions kit and am happy with the progress I've made. It's a bit slow going in places as I'm trying to smooth out some of the lines and not leave obvious blank spaces that seem to be a part of Dimensions designs since they don't use any partial stitches in their charts; this is how it looks as of last night:

Just for fun I took a couple of photos of the figure on the left before and after back stitching, because I always enjoy seeing the difference it makes:

I was a bit disappointed to realize that the fabric I chose must have been mislabeled--it says it's Edinburgh linen but it must be Belfast as I'm getting 16 stitches/inch instead of 18. If it had been Edinburgh the stitched design would have been very close in size to the paper pattern, but now it's going to be a bit larger; not a huge deal, but I might have picked a different fabric if I had realized this sooner. 

I did take a day to stitch part 16 of the Dragon's Blood Mandala so I could stay current:

The next two charts in the A Little Batty SAL were mailed last week, so hopefully I'll have them very soon and can get started--they'll make a nice break from the Simplicity piece.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

If I could only stitch faster!

There are just so many things I want to stitch and never enough time to do them all--the lament of stitchers everywhere! I would really like to get some of my current WIPs finished, but then the lure of a new start calls and I can't resist...

In this case I pulled an old WIP out of the bin that was originally started in 2008, then had a brief reappearance in 2014 before disappearing again for the last eight years; this is from 2008:

 Then before and after a week of stitching in 2014:

And as of last week after a few more days of work:

I am really enjoying working on it again, though the chart does not have darker grid lines marking squares of 10 so the counting is a bit harder than it should be. I was planning on making this my focus for a while in between SAL parts but then another project that I've had in mind for a few years started calling to me and I finally took the plunge and started it.

This is a Dimensions kit that is a replica of an actual Simplicity sewing pattern; when the kit came out in 2018 I started looking around for the sewing pattern with the idea that I would have them framed together. I did find a pattern but the cover wasn't in the best shape so I couldn't get too excited about it; then just by chance a couple of weeks ago I did a search for the pattern and found one in much better shape. Ever since then I've been excited to see my idea come to life so yesterday I pulled out the kit and made a start on it:

I am changing the gold dress to the original blue because it's supposed to show how you can get a "party-pretty look" by adding the "bouffant tie-on overskirt" to the simple sheath--I just loved the phrasing of that! So for now the plan is to work on this and the Witch Hollow piece in between SAL parts and see where that takes me for a while.

Speaking of the SALs, I am still current with all three (I finished The Rooky Woods but started A Little Batty so I'm still at three); the next two parts of A Little Batty should be out within the next couple of weeks and I am ready for them:

I'm stitching this one on 32ct linen Fragrant Lilac Collection by NicholasFlamelDesign on Etsy, since the called-for 20ct linen over-2 didn't really appeal to me. I also changed the checkerboard pattern from black and white squares, and then had to change a few other things to make that work.

Here is the Cecilia Votta SAL, into the summer months now:

And the final SAL, Dragon's Blood Mandala at part 15 of 25:

Last Friday I received the revision for the Mirabilia model and got most of it done on Saturday--just had to wait until today for a question to be answered. Now I have an answer and will be finishing it up today--hurray! Always a great feeling to send it off and have no current models in the house.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!