A bit more progress

I didn't stitch as much as usual last week, so progress on Charlotte slowed down a bit. Here she is as of last night:

I was able to get more done on the weekend than I did last week; can you guess what movie I watched while stitching? ;)

I'm hoping to get more work on her done this week, and to finish within the next couple of weeks. Mirabilia Moon Flowers should be on the way to me soon, and I don't want to start it until Charlotte is complete.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Charlotte progress

In the midst of a frigid Wisconsin winter, it's been nice to work with the bright, cheerful colors in Charlotte, and I made pretty good progress this past week:

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish her up in the next couple of weeks. I was thinking of starting another Mirabilia after Charlotte, because I re-discovered a gorgeous piece of fabric in my stash, and it occurred to me that Cottage Garden Fairy would be perfect on it:

The fairy would fit pretty much in the inner circle on the fabric, and I think it would look like she's in the midst of a moonlit garden. The fabric is a hand-painted X-scape by Sugar Maple Fabrics (SMF); I think she used actual leaves and grass on the fabric, in the bright sun, to get the effect she did.

So I thought this would be my next start, but then a new Mirabilia came out, and now I think I want to start it:

It's called Moon Flowers, and I just love the rich colors in this one. I decided that this one is SMF-worthy, so I pulled a few pieces out for a floss toss:

I'm going to use the piece on the left, called Northern Myst, as it pulls the colors from the design and is opalescent, so it will look like a starry night sky. Now to finish up Charlotte, so I can start this one once I get the chart.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Home from the framer

Last Friday I got the call from my framer that my July fairy was ready to be picked up; I was there about 20 minutes later! Picking up a framed piece always feels like opening a gift on Christmas morning, and this one was no exception.

I chose a red, suede mat to complement the color of the dress, a neutral beige inner mat to bring in the ribbon colors, and a brushed gold frame to highlight the gold beads:

She's now proudly hanging in my "Mirabilia" bedroom, which is slowly running out of wall space!

Since it felt so good to finish one of the WIPs on my original list of those to be "slain", I pulled out another one from the list: Mirabilia's Charlotte. This one is being stitched on Sugar Maple Fabrics Shimmering Nightshade, and here is what she looked like when she disappeared into the Bucket o'WIPs a few years back:

Here she is as of last night, after a week of stitching:

I love that the fabric has the teal, chartreuse and red from the dress in it. I have one more piece of this gorgeous linen left in my stash, just waiting for the perfect design to come along.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Needle Nook Book

Judy Odell of Just A Thought Needlework Designs will be presenting a class at Nashville Market later this month, with instructions on how to make her Needle Nook Book (I love that name, it's so fun to say!). Here's a picture of the class piece:

And the inside:

To show the versatility of the finishing, she put together a couple more Nook Books to show at Nashville; this is one, which is a great design for it (I think this was a freebie from Cherrywood Design Studio):

And here is MINE, which I will be receiving after Market! The design is "Purr Like You Mean It" by Designs by Lisa:

I'm not sure of the distribution of this one; I think that shops that attend Market can take the class, and then will be able to host a class/sell the instructions. I'm sure more information will be available after Market.

Here at home, after finishing my July fairy I stitched up this pretty little piece for my friend Donna:

I'm actually at a bit of a loss as to what I want to work on next. I have so many WIPs I could pull out, but then I get the urge to start something new...such a difficult dilemma!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

July's Amethyst Fairy is now a Ruby Fairy

I finished her last night around 9pm, and I'm so pleased to finally have her done:

As near as I can tell right now, I started her either at the end of December 2005 or the beginning of January 2006, then put her away in the Bucket o'WIPs later in January 2006. Nine years in the Bucket, and all she needed was a few weeks of work!

If I had it to do over, there are a couple of changes I would make, but all in all I'm happy with the conversion. Sometime this week I'll try to add a page to my blog with the changes I made.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

That's a big dress!

I was so excited when I finished the wings on July's Amethyst Fairy, as the one wing is so large, and I used blending filament for the whole thing, which isn't the most pleasant thing to stitch with. However, I think the size of the wing drew my attention away from the fact that the dress is also pretty darn big!

I've been working on it pretty steadily, and it doesn't feel like I've made much progress. But when I compare the picture from this week to the one from last week, I can at least see progress:

I'm starting to doubt that I'll get her finished this month, but hopefully early in February. I guess she would be an appropriate finish for February, with her Valentine-y colors. 

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Ruby progress

I spent the weekend working on my fairy's dress:

Getting the wings done felt like such a big accomplishment, but now there's been a bit of a let-down to realize there is still a lot of dress to go. However, I will keep plugging away until I have a finish!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A mini happy dance

Last night I finished stitching the wings on my July fairy, so I am now finished with the blending filament--woo hoo!

I spent Tuesday taking a break from the wings and playing with the bling, trying to choose bead colors. I'm pretty happy with the results:

Now it's on to the bottom of the dress; it would be nice to have this finished by the end of January.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!

Making ort-aments

For so many years, I threw away the thread snippets, or orts, that I ended up with while stitching. Then, a few years ago, I came across the idea of saving those orts and using them to fill a glass ornament. So midway through 2012 I started saving my orts, and at the end of that year I put them all in a labeled bag; I then did the same thing in 2013, and had a jar full of orts from 2014. I finally went out and bought some clear glass ornaments and some metallic pens to paint the year on them, and here is the result:

The ornament on the far right contains DMC labels, which I recently heard someone mention doing. I just wish I had flattened the labels before putting them in, so the insides didn't show so much. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the project. It was fun putting the orts in the ornaments, and coming across piles of colors from certain projects.

Another year-end task was to get my stitching journal up-to-date; I found out that I hadn't updated it since last March! 

While doing the updating, I realized that I had only stitched two Nora Corbett designs in 2014, Faerie Summer Love and Gigi. This, of course, made me want to stitch on a Mirabilia design right away! On Saturday night I finished a model for Judy Odell, so yesterday I pulled out Mirabilia's July Amethyst Fairy, which has been sitting in the Bucket o'WIPs for many years:

Having a July birthday, I remember being very disappointed when this design came out as an Amethyst Fairy, as my birthstone is ruby:

I set out to convert her to a Ruby Fairy, which wasn't easy! However, I'm pretty pleased with the result so far, so I would really like to finish her up before I move on to another project. I did just a bit of work on her yesterday:

I remember now why she ended up in the Bucket, as the wings are a blend of floss and blending filament, which is not great to stitch with (and the wings are huge!). But I am determined to persevere this time! As an added incentive, she is one of the original 20 WIPs that I set out to "slay" back at the end of 2011. I have gotten pretty far off from that original goal, but I do still know that the list is there!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Happy Halloween finished...

...and on its way to Donna. This turned out really cute:

The fabric is Silkweaver Mocha on 32ct Lugana, and it only used six floss colors (the chart calls for only three colors, but Donna wanted to add more color).

When I kitted this up for myself I chose PTP Haunted for the fabric, and I'm going to use over-dyed threads to add some more visual interest. The carvings will be stitched with a gold, so it looks like the pumpkin is lit up, and I've got a fun multi-colored silk to use for the border. I might even use some glow-in-the-dark Kreinik for the wording. Here's a picture of my supplies:

It will be a while before I can start it for myself, as I'm currently working on a model. Once that is finished, I don't really want to take on any more obligation stitching until after my trip to Italy in May. I really need to start getting prepared for that; it seemed so far away last May, and now it's only four months away! Actually, this design might be a good one to take with me, since it would be small enough to work on while traveling.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!