The Girl that Stitches

I’m still going on Challenge #2!  I've managed to keep up with the average of one colour a day and have now completed 50 colours in 50 days! I’m moving house very soon and there seems to be lots happening at the moment, so the stitching has been neglected a little.  With 25 days or so left and considering my average hopefully there will be no more than 75 colours! Previous progress, 22 colours: Current progress, 50 colours: Hoping to be able to finish the Challenge soon, along with packing... Matisse (my cat) has been having the time of her life playing with all the boxes!    Happy stitching xxx   

I've needed a short break from the confetti in my Wall Challenge piece and have some more progress to show on “Of Earth, Air, Fire & Water.  I hoped to have this page fished already, but it's very close to being done! Last update on this project, there were issues with the white light effects (E5200) going over the yellow section of the wings.  The white metallic blended with the yellow dmc was washing out the dmc too much.  To solve this I ended up finding a yellow light effects (E746).  This is working perfectly over the yellow section and the results are great! Yellow light effects: Previous progress: Current progress: Close up of light effects on yellow section of the wings: I’m still going on the challenge and I’m up to colour 31 at the moment. It’s progressing slowly! Happy stitching! xxx

Iris Keeper of the Rainbow has been pulled out for the Official HAED Facebook Challenge #2.  I chose to work on this chart because there's a ton of confetti on page four.  A detailed page like this would typically take two months to stitch using my usual cross country method.  The challenge goes for two months, so I may be pushing my luck to get it completed!  I'm intrigued to test whether this new "Challenge method" will speed things up and be a more effective way of working.  Previous Update: Progress at Start of Challenge: The Challenge involves stitching one colour at a time over the whole page before moving onto the next colour.  This is different to how I usually work, using a variety of colours in a confined space.  I started out stitching colours with the most stitches in order to get an area to anchor surrounding stitches to.  Then switched to random selection, choosing the symbols which stuck out the most! Gridding does ...

You Are What You Eat My sister stitched this piece and gifted it to me years ago! I didn’t have a space to hang it at the time so put it away. It got unearthed while sorting through things and I realized it would look great hanging in my kitchen! Silly Snobs Designs "You Are What You Eat" Stitched by Laura Graco 18 count aida 2 over 1 I felt inspired to play around with adding colour to create a bit more excitement… So I experimented with some food dye and added some metallic thread. The separator lines were extended and I added a colour pattern to them in tent stitch! I need to straighten the gold matt but here it is now: More Fish On the subject of fish… I was very lucky to receive Antiquated Thoughts as an Easter RAK from Sandra Popek. I love the goldfish in this! A big thank you to Sandra for her gift! I think this one will make an awesome companion piece to Umbrella Sky with it's goldfish. Antiquated Thoughts by Annie Stegg ...

I’ve made a start on The Enchanted Manor by Josephine Wall. This one is being stitched on 14 count aida to boost the finished size of the crop.  I've never stitched on such a low count before and was curious to try it out! I’ve been working on this on and off over the past couple of months.  I'm using 4 over 1 full cross on dark colours and 3 over 1 full cross on everything else. Progress since December: I love it how Josephine painted a koala bear in the corner of this piece. The koala is native to Australia (my home country), which gives this piece a special resonance for me. Did you know that despite the fact they are often called Koala bears, Koalas aren't related to bears?! They are actually more closely related to kangaroos and wombats! They are often referred to as a koala bear because they have an obvious resemblance to a teddy bear… Currently I'm about halfway through the first page: Wishing everyone a safe and fun time over the Easter period ...

Of Earth, Air, Fire & Water I’ve made some progress on the Angel piece by Phelan.   I’m about halfway through working on the second page of “Of Earth, Air Fire & Water" (page 7).   Previous Progress: Current Progress:   Heavenly Sparkle This design has not been charted with metallic thread.  I decided to add metallic to give her more of an ethereal/translucent look as this seems appropriate for an angel!  I’m using one strand of E5200 over 3770 and one strand of PB10 over 3865.  It made sense to use the metallic with the more intense sparkle over the brighter DMC shade. I’m enjoying the way the sparkle in the wings is turning out!  I need to decide whether to continue the metallic blend all the way through the wings. The original plan was to do this… but now I’m getting to the part where there is more light yellow and need to check if it will tone in okay.  Using the E5200 over the 3770 lightens it considerably...

The Queen of Spades Sends Her Regards I’ve come back to the Alice in Wonderland inspired chart I’m stitching by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. This one is a bit of fun and funnily enough I am stitching it sideways… It makes me think of Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole and it’s kind of appropriate to not stitch this one the “right way up” or the “normal” way! Here is start on the next page: Previous Progress: Current Progress: The Curious thing about Stitching Sideways: I stitch landscape orientation charts sideways because they fit better on the q-snap frame that way. It means I don't have the snaps digging into the stitching as much (which I feel can damage the stitching to a certain extent, even with fabric between the snaps and stitches). Sideways... Here is a tutorial on Sideways Stitching for everyone who is unsure about how to approach it and interested in trying it out!  For future reference I’ll make the pdf file permanently available on my downloads page. Tut...