Satin stitches

I've been working on the top center garden of Heritage Sampler for a week now.  It's a big space.  I finally got through the satin stitches yesterday.  When I started them, I realized I didn't like the white between the satin stitches and the cross stitches so I ended up frogging what I'd done and adding a couple more in each box.  After I got them done, the rest has gone pretty quickly.

There it is!

I guess my mojo just wanted some Chatelaine time.

I've made some nice progress this week in between baseball games and several hours spent inside a concession stand.  Does anyone else get wierd looks from other parents when you have any stitching out during a game?  I figure if my kid isn't playing, I'll listen instead of watch.

Anyway, here's progress through last night.

I'm still not real sure about the cherries but at this point, they're done and look ok so they're staying.  I just need to finish the two skinny borders on either side of the space for personalization and then I can get started on that big center garden.

Here mojo!

Last week left a lot to be desired in my stitching progress.  I don't know if I just got bored with blue or just busy and tired.  This is my progress on Star Spangled Banner as of Thursday last week.

I didn't pick anything up Friday or Saturday though I did go through my WIPs to see if anything would grab my attention.  The result was Chatelaine's Heritage Sampler and my kitted Hawaii came upstairs with me.  I went through my kit and found that I had chosen to replace the heart Martina used in her design with a cosmic ring.  I also have changed whatever was in the turtles in part 12 to black pearls.  I think someone did this when this was still a class and I liked the look.

Sunday afternoon, I finally got a chance to sit down and stitch and made good progress on this band.  I got the leaves done and started on the jessica berries.  Tonight is the only night I have this week there isn't something going on so I plan to take advantage of it and hopefully get a bunch of berries done.  Then, they still need to be outlined.

Star Spangled Banner

Last week was busy with baseball practice, games and working the concession stand so I didn't get as much progress as I would have liked on Star Spangled Banner by Northern Expressions but I still did ok.  I've finished ALL of the cross stitch and the satin stitches around the field and I started waffle stitches and jessica stitches last night.

So far so good!

Warrior Alice, Lust and a new start

Since this weekend was three days for Memorial Day, I was hoping I would get more accomplished.  Sadly, it was a great deal like other weekends.  

I did finally finish page 2 of Warrior Alice by Eclectic Bloke Designs

And Lust is back out on one set of q-snaps and made a little progress.

But since Monday was Memorial Day, I thought a patriotic chart was in order.  This is Star Spangled Banner by Northern Expressions Needlework (chart can be found here)

I did a stash dive late last week and found this piece of fabric from Mo's Sale.  I'ts a blue and grey mottled 28 ct Monaco.  Floss is Rubbed Red, Ex. White Chocolate and Zaffre Cobalt from Hand-Dyed Fibers, now out of business.

I discovered once I started stitching that I didn't like the coverage of the 28 ct.  So I went back to my stash and found a piece of 40 ct Cauldron from Picture This Plus.  I liked the coverage, the floss toss still works for me and the bead fit into the jessica stitch on the right side of my test stitching.

This is as far as I got last night, but I did start!

Alice

Warrior Alice from Eclectic Bloke Designs has been out since I had a page finish on Nightshade.  Sadly, life has been interfering with my stitchy time.

This is as far as I've gotten on page 2 in the last week or so.  I almost finished the black last night but it was midnight and I had to pack it in so I could get up for work this morning.  There are only about 30 more stitches of black then I can start adding some dark brown for variety.

I would really love to finish this page this weekend so I can move on to Lust, but I'm planning to build a desk for my office and a potting bench for my mom.  Neither of them should take long but they still take time even with a three day weekend.

May 2016 Wipacolypse

It's that time again.  The Wipacolypse!

I've made some great progress with my project this month.

Last Wipacolypse, I was working on Chatelaine's Medieval Octagon.  That one was finished 5/1/16

HAED's Nightshade (artwork by Maxine Gadd) was next up.  I'm removing the all black background as I go so I'm cutting out pages and pages of all black.  I finished page 18 which is the fifth page I'm stitching 5/18/16

Now, Eclectic Bloke Designs' Warrior Alice is out and I'm working on page two.

This month's question is "What were you stitching this time last year and have you finished it?"

Last year this time, I had finished page 1 of Warrior Alice and had pulled out Coat of Arms.  So I guess the answer to that question is nope!