Medieval Octagon is back

My mojo took a short break last week which meant this medallion took all week to stitch up.  I thought the flower faded into the background too much so I used the same blue metallic to backstitch it.  I'm still debating backstitching the rest of the flower in gold to continue with the same look from the flowers surrounding the medallion.

I started this medallion Saturday and almost got it finished last night.  Hopefully, tonight I'll get it finished.  I have flipped this one.  The chart shows the flower being on the inside.  

Coat of Arms

We had a quiet weekend.  Cold rain Saturday definitely helped with that.  So, in between loads of laundry Saturday, I stitched and finished page 19 of Coat of Arms.

Sunday, there wasn't as much laundry, but I did finish page 20.

and that finished the row

When I took this off the q-snaps, I decided, for whatever reason to make sure my original measurements were correct.  And, my fabric turns out to be short.  I'm probably just going to drop the last band which should leave enough room, but I'm debating rearranging bands a little.  So Coat of Arms got put away for the time being and will hopefully come out again when I make a decision.  When I was looking through my WIPs, I decided to pull out Medieval Octagon again.  Baseball practice has started again so I should have lots of time to stitch at the ball field as long as my son doesn't try to catch any more balls with his mouth and knock more baby teeth out.  He wasn't impressed with the teasing.  lol!

March WIPocalypse

It's been a while since I've participated in Measi's WIPocalypse.  But there's no time like the present, right?

Since my participation score for this year, so far, is 0, I thought I would update my progress since the beginning of the year.

I started off this year with a new start.  Who doesn't?  This year's new start was Sea Witch from HAED

I finished the first page 

I love how those colors POP against the black background.

Then, I pulled out Mill Hill's Glory and Honor.  This was the second time I've stitched it.  I left off the border this time around though.  Here's where I left off last year

And here is my first finish of 2016

After my finish, I decided on another new start.  This time it was Chatelaine's Medieval Octagon in colorway 1

Here's my progress so far

Then I pulled out The Loneliness of Autumn from Love Thy Thread

Before

I haven't managed to finish page 3 but I needed a break from the confetti.

Current

Right now, I have Coat of Arms band Sampler out and am making pretty good progress.

Before

page 16

page 17

page 18

I'm hoping to finish this row of pages by Sunday night.

Measi asks a question each month.  This month's question is

Do you use hoops, stretcher bars, lap stands or Q snap frames and why?

I'm pretty exclusively a Q snaps at this point.  When I started stitching many years ago, I used a hoop.  That's what Mom used and that's what she taught me to use.  Over the years, I've used the split dowel rods and hated them.  I've also used Lokscrolls from Artesan Designs and absolutely love them, but so many of my projects are too big for them and they get really bulky to deal with.  My favorite Q snaps are 11" square.  I have a homemade grime guard over them and I have a bag that goes over the bottom of them for my HAED Super Size design.

Coat of Arms

Tuesday night, I just couldn't get into Loneliness of Autumn.  So it came off the qsnaps.  Here is where it is now.

Coat of Arms came out and has seen some steady progress.  

Page 16 finished 3/18/16

Then I discovered the wing of the animal on the next page had been started one stitch too low.  I got to frog most of that wing Saturday morning.  But I don't have to remember that one stitch difference when I stitch the same animal on the other side hopefully later this week.

Yesterday, after some house cleaning (gotta love my white german shepherd aka the german shedder!!) I finished page 17

I'm hoping to finish this row of pages in the next week or so.  I'm thinking Coat of Arms will stick around for a bit.  Stitching with just one color is kind of nice and I would like to see the bottoms of the griffins (I think that's what they are anyway) finished before I rotate to something else.

Loneliness continues

I've stuck with Loneliness of Autumn this week and I'm starting to feel like I'm making some progress.  The top two rows of this page are done and the third is well on its way there.  When that happened this weekend, I started feeling better about the confetti.  Progress helps!

3/6/16

3/13/16

Loneliness of Autumn

Last week didn't see as much progress as I would have liked on The Loneliness of Autumn from Love Thy Thread

Before:

After:

I'm guessing that I've stitched about a quarter of the page. I've gotten distractetd by a pretty good new to me series that all started with a free book.  Bad Amazon! ;)

Medieval Octagon part 2

Last weekend was very quiet at our house.  If it hadn't been so windy, we may have tried doing something outside; but it wasn't so we stayed inside for most of the weekend.  In between loads of laundry, I worked on Medieval Octagon.  Saturday, I finished the lower right blackwork.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished the lower left.

Here is everything through part 2

After I finished this, I put it away and pulled out Loneliness of Autumn but I couldn't settle down with it.  I only managed about 150-200 stitches in about 4 hours so I gave up and read a book for the rest of the evening.  I think I'll try again tonight but if I can't get into it, I'll probably either go back to Medieval Octagon or go through my WIPs and see if anything else catches my attention.