Lost a stitching buddy

I've been pretty sad for the past month as my stitching buddy Gracie crossed the Rainbow Bridge on March 1. She was almost 14 and she'd been declining for the past year or two but it was still sudden when it happened and I wasn't as prepared as I should have been so it's been hard. This morning was the first time I felt able to look through some of my pictures (and now I'm crying again!) so I could share some of my favorites of my beautiful girl sharing her napping table with me:

 

So many good memories of time spent in pure contentment; I miss her so much.

I haven't really felt up to working on the model lately, though I'm going to have to make myself soon or there's going to be a problem meeting the deadline. I spent some time working on Tempting Tangles Dragon's Blood Mandala Mystery SAL because it only uses one color and that made it easier to work on when my concentration level wasn't really up to par; I got caught up with the releases so far and have now completed eight of the 25 parts:

I'm also still on track with Tempting Tangles Rooky Woods SAL, which has 13 of the 20 parts completed:

One other design I've been working on is a wedding piece for my friend's daughter who is getting married in August. I switched up the fabric and I'm still not sure how I feel about it so I don't know if I'll actually give it to her or just buy a gift but there should be time to finish it and decide well before the wedding. Would love to hear your thoughts on it:

And finally I just recently finished part four of Cecilia Votta's Seasonal SAL, which has moved into spring (even if this past weekend was more like winter here):

In honor of my Gracie I'd like to give away Madame Chantilly's Cats in the Rain--the gray and white cat she's holding was definitely Gracie in my mind when I stitched this:

The chart does call for yellow and blue instead of pink and purple, and I made a few other minor changes but you get the idea... I'll pick a winner next week and will mail it anywhere in the world; be sure to check back to see if you've won--I will include my email in that post so the winner can contact me. Until then please give your furbabies (or featherbabies or scalebabies or...) an extra cuddle.

Lady of Mystery is feeling neglected

I'm a bit sad to say that I haven't worked on LoM for the past few weeks, but I'm hoping to be able to spend a little time on her next month. I made a small start on a Mirabilia model that I need to get back to but I wanted to get caught up with a couple of SALs and I also took a week to stitch a small-ish model for Sue Hillis that will be released at Market in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of models and Market I see that one I stitched for Rosewood Manor quite a while ago will finally be released there:

I loved the colors in this one, which I think were Weeks Dye Works. The vase looks very cool, but it's pretty big and was a lot of stitching (though easy to count and fill in with only two colors, compared to all the colors and designs within the flowers).

I did finish Heart in Hand's Big-Hearted Tiny Town a couple of weeks ago. I'm not usually a big fan of pink but it does work very well in this design:

I wanted to get this one done so I could send all three to the finisher who will be making them into drums:

When I see all three together it makes me wish I had stitched Christmas on 36ct fabric like the other two (or at least 32ct instead of 28ct)--it looks so big in comparison! But as more are released in the series I'll try to get a variety of fabric counts in there so there'll be some of every size.

I almost got behind on The Rooky Wood SAL (which might have been the death knell for staying with this and getting it done on schedule!); I did manage to stitch part 10 right before part 11 came out last Thursday, and then I did part 11 right away so I've made it past the halfway point now:

Since I knew I'd be receiving part 3 of the C. Votta SAL this morning I didn't feel like pulling the model out for just a couple of days so I decided to play around with another Tempting Tangles SAL, Dragon's Blood Mandala Mystery. It calls for one color of thread; the model uses Dinky Dyes Fireside silk but I wanted to add a bit more color so I chose Waterlilies Arabian Nights, as well as a touch of braid and a few beads for some sparkle:

My plan now is to spend today and tomorrow completing part 3 of the C. Votta SAL, then getting back to work on the Mirabilia model for at least a couple of weeks of uninterrupted work.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

That's a massive skirt!

I didn't work on Lady of Mystery a lot last week (darn cleaning and errand running take up so much valuable stitching time!) but I did work down to the bottom so I can now see just how much work filling in that skirt is going to be--shocker, it's a lot! There will be about another half inch of dark blue below the lowest swath of medium blue, and the bottom right portion extends all the way over until it's even with the border frame. I now realize that there is no way that I can get this done before another model arrives, but I will keep plugging away a bit at a time. Here is my current progress:

I did spend some of my stitching time last week completing Heart in Hand's Patriotic Tiny Town, on PTP Feldspar Edinburgh:

When I first saw this one it didn't appeal to me as much as the Christmas town, but seeing it stitched makes me like it a lot more. It really is pretty tiny on the 36ct linen; I did Christmas on 28ct and it looks a lot bigger in comparison:

And Saturday I made a start on the third in the series, Big-Hearted Tiny Town:

I'm doing this one on 36ct linen as well, since I found this color that went so well with the design; it's from the Eggs Collection by Nicholas Flamel Design on Etsy. I've contacted the finisher who made the drums for the model photos on these charts and have arranged to send the three pieces to her when they're completed; I just don't enjoy doing finishing work, so I thought I'd have it done so I can enjoy seeing these in my craft room.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

The race is on!

I heard from Wichelt last week and should be getting a new model in a couple of weeks, so now it's a race to see if I can finish lady of Mystery before it arrives. I'm thinking probably not, but I'm hoping it's close enough that I can just wait to start the model until I do as I really don't want to put her aside and have her go unfinished for a long period of time. I would like to send her to Jill Rensel for framing, and since that can easily be a 6+ month process the sooner I send her the sooner I'll get her back. 

The border is now complete except for a few beads and I'm getting into the larger part of the dress so progress will look slower from now on:

I'm using beads for the scrollwork on the dress, because you can never have too many beads:

I do have to wait for some more Qsnap extensions that I've ordered to arrive so I can have the entire piece in the frame once I finish the part of the skirt in the first photo, or if they don't ship soon I'll have to take another frame apart to get some more extensions. I hate to do that though, because then the piece that's in that frame is more likely to get set aside and end up in the never-ending WIP pile...

In SAL news I did finish the next parts in two that I'm working on; this is part 9 of The Rooky Wood:

And part 2 of Cecilia Votta's seasonal SAL:

Yesterday I made a start on Heart in Hand's Patriotic Tiny Town:

I wanted to get this one started because the third in the series, Big-Hearted Tiny Town, will be arriving today and I'd like to try to stitch these as they are released. I really enjoyed Christmas Tiny Town and the other two are just as cute--in fact I think Big-Hearted might be my favorite of the three so far.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Lady of Ice is taking shape

I have been stitching like crazy on my conversion of Lady of Mystery; when you don't have a photo of what a final design will look like there's a huge sense of anticipation that makes you want to just keep going until the full picture emerges. I'm at three weeks of work now and I'm well past the halfway point, though her dress gets pretty big at the bottom and that's a lot of solid stitching that will take longer than the open scrollwork in the top half. Here she is as of last night: 

I went with blue for her dress, which is why I didn't want to say anything before I had some progress to show as I know a lot of people would think there needed to be more difference between the fabric and the design, but sometimes subtlety suits a design better than "pop". I think she looks like she's at one with the night and the frost garden around her, and am very happy that she's turning out pretty much as I pictured her in my head for several months. 

I did take a couple of days away from her to work on a couple of SALs; the first was part 8 of The Rooky Wood:

The second was the first part of Cecilia Votta's seasonal SAL:

Both of these have parts being released later this week, but until then I'm hoping to get a lot more progress on my lady.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Lady of Mystery start

Last week I mentioned that there were a couple of Mirbilias that I've been wanting to start, so after posting I pulled out Lady of Mystery and decided to finally get her ready to go. I have thought about this one a lot over the past several months because I had a hard time picking a fabric for it; it needed to be light enough for the dark scrollwork to show up well, but dark enough to be "mysterious" and I couldn't find anything that meshed with both in my mind. I then worked out a conversion to make the dress green, but still couldn't find a fabric I liked with both the dress and border, so I started thinking about what dark background I could use and it occurred to me that if I went really dark I could use light threads for the border and make her a Lady of Ice, so that's what I've tried to do. I'm using Kreinik braid for the border and Petite Silk Lame for the hair and so far I am really happy with the way it's turning out:

This is what the original design looks like:

I have colors pulled for the dress but I have a feeling people might think they're not going to work so I'm going to keep them to myself for a while. I have a vision in my mind and as long as it works for me that's what matters, but I don't want to second guess myself before I even start. 

I might take some time this week to start Cecilia Votta's SAL for 2022, as I really enjoyed doing her Advent SAL last year. This year she's doing a seasonal piece, and the first part (which is free) has been posted in her FB group. This is the layout preview with the first part stitched:

I have the threads and fabric ready to go, now I just need to pull myself away from Lady of Mystery and get it started--I don't want to get behind right at the start of the SAL or I'll never get it done.

I also have another SAL kitted, this one by Ship's Manor called Folk Art House SAL. This one sucked me in with the floss colors that Erik posted on FB, as they are so bright and cheerful:

Here's what the border will look like:

So far I've received the chart for the border, so I'll try to get a bit of that stitched this month. I very much doubt I'll be able to keep up with this one on a monthly basis, but I look forward to working with those colors as the mood strikes.

Hope everyone has started the New Year well, and wishing a great stitchy week to you all!

Still stitching like crazy

I still have no models in the house and I am still really enjoying it--I don't remember the last time I had over a month to just work on whatever struck my fancy! It might be a bit difficult to buckle down once I get more "work" in, but I am ready anytime now.

I finished Madame Chantilly's Cats in the Rain a couple of weeks ago, stitched on a Silkweaver solo Belfast linen and personalized to look more like me and some of my cats:

Once that was done the urge hit to stitch another block on my colorized version of Black'd Skie, which I finished about a week ago. This piece is right at the halfway point now:

A project that I've had in mind for several years has been Just Nan's 12 Days of Christmas WhimZi, which has the 12 designs in a size meant for her WhimZi frames (which are no longer sold but I bought when they were available). While looking for a fabric for another project the other day I came across my stash of Tattersall linen and thought how fun it would be to use it for the 12 Days:

I've now stitched the first day (except for the metallic used to outline the purple number box) and it fits pretty well in the square:

I'm toying with the idea of adding a border of metallic thread and/or beads between the stitching and the fabric border but I'll think about that after I have a few more squares stitched. I would still like to do these individually as well, to hang on the tree, but I think they'll be really pretty together like this. There is a lot of fun detail in these, which is amazing considering they're only 29x29 stitches.

Finally, last Thursday part 7 of The Rooky Wood SAL was released; I thought I had finished it last night but then realized that I had forgotten the crescent moon cut-outs on the shutters so after a few minutes of work this morning it's now done (except for a few areas I'll do when the adjoining parts come out):

There was a snippet of the house when this mystery SAL was announced and it's what made me want to stitch it; it has not disappointed as I think it's adorable and am looking forward to seeing the whole house completed in parts 10 and 11 (I'm assuming a bit there...).

Not sure what I'm going to work on today; I could start Day 2 of the Just Nan design, I have a couple of Mirabilia's that I'd like to start sometime, I have Heart in Hand's Patriotic Tiny Town ready to go as well or I could start another square of Black'd Skie--too many choices, never enough time...

Wishing everyone all the best in the New Year!

The Snow Maiden

Mirabilia MD179 The Snow Maiden was released today so I can finally share pictures of this icy beauty:

 

I love the description from the Mirabilia site: "Her name is Snegurocka. For many years, there have been plays and music written from this Russian fairy tale about a girl made out of snow."

Not sure if Snegurocka is a misprint, but when I Googled I got results for Snegurochka. I've never heard of her but I like the story, even if it's kind of sad (the one where she gets a warm heart and then melts...).

Fun fact: when I stitched her she was called Snow Storm Queen.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

The easy part is done

The Hands on Design Cookie Exchange SAL started last Wednesday with part 1, followed by part 2 on Friday and part 3 yesterday, and I managed to get all of the parts stitched on the day they were released:

 

I did make a few very minor changes, including using a Rhodes stitch for the holly berries instead of the Smyrna stitch that was called for; it made for nice, rounded berries:

So that's the easy part complete--now we get the finishing instructions tomorrow and that's the part that I'm not very good at! I'm hoping it'll be simple enough for me to do a decent job on as it would be nice to add this to my decorations when I get them out later this week.

On the days between installments I finally got around to starting Madame Chantilly's Cats in the Rain, which I am changing up a bit:

There are nine cats in this design, and while I've never had that many at one time I did have eight in my house for several months back in 2011/2012 when my mom lived with us for a while and brought her four cats. Here's a picture taken at feeding time (otherwise they would never be this close together!) of all but one of the kitties:

This week I need to get some cleaning done and then get the Christmas tree up and decorations out so stitching time will be curtailed, but I'm hoping to get Cats in the Rain finished by the end of next week. That would work out well if I end up getting a model from Wichelt in the next couple of weeks; I have really enjoyed having some time solely for my own stitching, and now am getting ready to get back to "work" feeling refreshed.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!