I cheated, but just a little

I worked on the Vervaco mini secret SAL this past weekend and almost finished the vase on the top shelf. It only needed a couple more hours of work to complete the greenery, so I cheated a bit and finished it this morning:

Those pink flowers were charted to be the same as the other batch of yellow ones, but I had some nice pinks in my floss box for another design so I decided to add a bit more color to this piece and I'm really happy with the result.

I actually would have finished this last night except that I spent a couple of hours on Saturday driving up to my LNS for a Nashville Market show. There were quite a few designs that caught my eye this time; I had already placed an order for several items, and then picked up just a few more at the shop. I love the Meow and Woof blocks by Hands on Design, so I pre-ordered those, and I like the Scary Apothecary series but I was really trying to resist them--until I got to the shop and saw them in person and just had to have them!

As I love Halloween stitching I also picked up new ones from Praiseworthy Stitches and Glendon Place; GP's Phantom Plantation is now my favorite of Cheryl's haunted houses so far:

Those cute little buttons are from Puntini Puntini; not sure what I'll use them for yet, but I know I'll find the perfect project at some point.

Also got a couple of Ink Circle charts that looked like they would be fun to play around with using various color combos, and a sweet little design by Blackberry Lane Designs:

Finally, I had pre-ordered a couple of the new PTP fabrics and they actually showed up that day, which was lucky. These are Demoiselle and Memory on Belfast and opal Belfast:

I can see Demoiselle becoming one of my new PTP favorites, as it would look good with a lot of Mirabilia designs, especially the fairies--I might have to dig Adia out one of these days...

As for my Enchanted Alphabet, I went with option #3. I almost chose the first one, with the deep purple mat, and even wrote the email with that choice, but the more I looked at it the more I thought it would draw too much attention towards the little girl and away from the letters. I think the third option will bring forth the letters a bit more, as it pulls the colors from them really nicely. Honestly, with Jill and Amber working on this I don't think there is any such thing as a bad choice.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Past the halfway point

Unbelievably, I am still sticking with my plan to work on the Vervaco mini SAL only on the weekends; it's been five weekends now, so that must be a record for me! I didn't post last Monday, but here is how it looked then, with the sleeping kitten complete and a vague outline of a third cat:

And as of last night, with another adorable kitty completed:

I'm thinking it will take another four weekends to finish, though if I'm fairly close to being done on a Sunday I might just keep going into the week to finish it.

Last month I took a day to clean up my craft room; my stitching table was slowly getting buried under a pile of finished pieces, WIPs in Qsnaps and patterns, floss boxes and rings of overdyed flosses for the various projects. One of the finishes was Enchanted Alphabet, which I ironed and then finally sent off to the amazing Jill Rensel for framing. I was so excited when Amber emailed with some choices for the frame and mats! Here are the options she sent, in the order they were in the email:

#1:

#2:

#3:

I was initially drawn to one of these, but as I was typing my reply to her email I started to change my mind, and ended up with a different choice. I'm curious what others would choose, so I'd love it if you would comment and let me know which one you would pick; I'll share my final choice next week.

So now the waiting starts to receive a photo when Jill and Amber are done with it, which probably won't be until sometime in May at the earliest (and more likely June) as they get so many pieces. They will be doing some painting on the mats, which I leave entirely up to them; all I told them was that as I stitched it I was thinking that it looked like the letters were flowers growing in her garden, so I'm excited to see what they come up with.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Sticking with the plan

Another week of work stitching and then a weekend for myself--can't believe I've stuck with it for two weeks now! I have definitely felt the urge to work on something else, both WIPs and new starts, but I am really going to try to finish the Vervaco mini SAL before moving on to another project. Here is where I ended up after this weekend:

Once I finish the sleeping kitten part 1 will be done. Part 3 arrived last Friday, so the whole design has now been released; Leonore, hopefully you received all three parts last Friday?

Since that is all of the stitching I can share for now, I thought I'd give an update on my little Murphy, since Marilyn was kind enough to inquire about him. He has definitely settled in and has become a much-loved part of our household; even the cats have gotten used to him! Here is Gracie sharing a patch of sun with him:

And Maxie sharing her couch:

The polar vortex went through our area, and that was hard for Murphy as he has a very short, wiry coat and his feet would start freezing after just a minute or two outside; he wasn't thrilled with the jacket I got for him, but he lets me put it on him anyway:

He spends most of his time warmly swaddled in the chair behind my stitching table:

It's been fun watching him grow more secure in our home and having more of his personality come out; I feel so lucky that we found him at the shelter, though it makes me sad knowing that there are so many wonderful animals out there that haven't found their forever homes yet.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Weekend stitching

So far I'm sticking with my plan to do "work" stitching during the week and then my own projects on the weekend--one whole week!! Unfortunately I lost part of the weekend to errands, but I was able to finish the flowers in the vase on the shelf below the kitty:

Working on the flowers was really enjoyable, as the cheerful colors are a big mood booster here in wintry Wisconsin. Part 2 was sent out last Friday, and it consists of a cat and another vase of flowers to the right of this fellow. It's called a mini SAL, but it's actually quite a bit of stitching, and very nice for being totally free.

I have also signed up for their main SAL which starts March 8 (though I know I won't be able to keep up with it as it is released), and I've received the kit that I ordered from Crafty Kitten:

If you're interested in either of these you can read more about them on Vervaco's site.

This weekend I received a copy of Rosewood Manor's By The Numbers, which I stitched and which will be released at Market at the end of the month:

Karen has three other releases and a cookbook/chart compilation which looks awesome!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

I couldn't resist!

I recently joined Vervaco's Secret SAL group on FB, and have ordered the kit for the large Lanarte design that will be released in parts starting on March 8. In the meantime they have offered a mini-SAL consisting of three parts, and the first part was released last Friday--it's kitties! I wasn't going to start it right away, but I have no resistance against kitties so here is my weekend progress:

I think I'll spend today filling in the first cat and then get back to work on the current model; I'll try to do "work" stitching during the week and then work on this on the weekends (for the most part!)... The mini SAL is available at no charge, and they give you DMC numbers so you can use your own threads and fabric; check it out if you like kitties and flowers: Vervaco SAL

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Two wings down, two to go

I was right that the wings on Miss Dragonfly were going to be time consuming; I've managed to finish two of the four, and made a start on the remaining two. The back
stitching between the wing segments adds quite a bit to them:

And it makes for nice, clean lines over the partial stitches along the edges between colors:

That's part of the reason I'm looking forward to finishing the two bottom wings, so I can back stitch the arms, which look kind of wonky right now. Here's where I'm at as of last night:

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to finish the wings before some models come in; I should be receiving three Nora Corbett pieces tomorrow, and a Rosewood Manor design later this week. One of the NC designs has already been stitched by someone else, but Nora decided after they had already gotten it back that she wanted to make some changes, so I'm going to be frogging and re-stitching part of it; it needs to get done as soon as possible in order to be ready to be released on schedule, so that will be all I work on until it's completed. Might not have much to share for a while.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Miss Moth is finished

I was able to finish her up last Friday, which was exactly two weeks since I had started her:

I was worried that I was going to run short of the bugle beads, but luckily had enough with 10 to spare--phew!

After a bit of waffling around I decided to start Miss Dragonfly next, as I already had her kitted up with Miss Moth, so here she is as of this morning:

The wings on this one are going to be a bit time consuming to get nice, clean edges between the segments, but the rest of the dress should go quickly; I'm going to make myself work on the wings first to get them out of the way.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Time for the Waterlilies

I have been good for the past week and stuck with one project, Miss Moth. It's actually been pretty easy, because there are so many pretty colors in her that really don't show up in the chart photo; every time I finish a section I want to start the next one so I can see the colors come together! Here she is as of this morning:

The outer skirt is mostly stitched with Waterlilies, and I'll be starting that today; silk floss is always such a pleasure to work with, and it's fun to watch the variegation play out as you stitch.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

The lure of new starts

Last week I finished Portrait of Antique Vines (except for the three treasures which I have since ordered) and I am very happy with the greens I chose; here it is in the original pinks:

And in green:

I was going to start Zelda when I finished PoAV, but after taking the tree down and getting some cleaning done I just wasn't in the right mood for her yet. Besides that, I'm going through my usual "no model in the house--I want to stitch everything!" phase, so now I have two new starts!

The first is a Janlynn kit that is kind of far removed from what I usually stitch, but I saw it several years ago and just really liked it for some reason; after searching for a while it finally popped up on eBay and I was able to get it about a year ago. Here is my small start on a piece of PTP Zephyr Cashel:

The second start is in my usual milieu, Nora Corbett's Miss Moth (erroneously titled Miss Moss on the chart) on an opal Lugana Solkweaver solo:

Once I get the treasures for PoAV and sew them on I'll have another set of Qsnaps open, so I'll probably put Zelda on them--at least that's the plan right now...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Phew, it's done!

I am extremely happy to report that Enchanted Alphabet is finished! I had more than enough floss (I probably could have gotten one or two more letters out of the remainder), and the rearranged letters fit onto the fabric with enough left over for the framer to work with:

I was thinking of sending this to Jill Rensel for framing, but I just don't know if I want to wait 3+ months to get it back, so I'm torn. Plus, I like taking pieces to my local framer and seeing all the options right in front of me. Hmm, I guess I'll iron it later this week and see which way I'm leaning at that point.

After I finished I went back to my version of Portrait of Antique Vines, which I hope to finish this week:

This past Saturday I received the latest Mirabilia, Zelda, and I plan to start her after this one is done; or I should say after this one is done and I get the Christmas tree taken down and some cleaning done...sigh.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!