2013, a review

At the beginning of this year, I had a whole pile of WIPs I wanted to finish.  I think I did a pretty good job of meeting those goals.  I thought I would share a pictorial review of my progress this year.

1900 ABC  finished 1/20/13

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Iris B  finished 3/24/13

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Chatelaine's Deep Blue Sea finished 4/11/13

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Bygone Stitches One Nation finished 5/20/13

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Sticklounge mystery finished 6/23/13
since this was a new start this year, there are no before pics

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Chatelaine's Summer Knotgarden finished 7/19/13

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HAED's Lust

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Watergarden

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Dorothy Walpole

a new start so no before pictures

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Earth Song

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Loara Standish

a new start so no before pictures

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HAED's Nightshade

a new start so no before pictures

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Chatelaine's Rose Garden Mandala

a new start so no before pictures

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XMas ornaments

new starts so no pictures.  

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Here Comes Santa Tree Skirt

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Finished!!

Late last night, I finished all the stitching and got all the Delicas sewn on.  But I had to work this morning, so I had to call it quits and go to bed.  This morning, my youngest DS was running a temp.  So, he went back to bed, the oldest got on the bus and momma got to finish Deep Blue Sea!  Yay!

Here's part 12

Here's the whole thing, cat hair and all.

Stitched on 28 ct black Monaco

all silks converted to HDF

I did make a few changes since I stitched on black.  The red fish in parts 5-8 were back stitched in DMC 902.  I backstitched the other fish in part 5 in DMC 3838, in part 6 in HDF Chrysocolla 2255 which is what I converted Gloriana Blue Hawaii to, in part 7 DMC 725, in part 8 I used DMC 3813.

In part 9, I back stitched the seahorses with DMC 501.  In part 10, I used DMC 435.  In part 11, DMC 3862 and in part 12, Primitive Barn Olive which I converted from Caron Waterlilies Pesto.

Enjoy!

On the downhill slide...

Late last night, I finished part 11 of Deep Blue Sea.  Just part 12, a couple of stitches into each of those clams from part 3 or 4 and the cubes and bicones.  I'm hoping to be able to share a finish in the next week or so.

Spring!

This weekend I took the boys to see Mom.  She managed to put us to work fairly quickly.  I guess by us, I should be a little more clear.  I helped her yesterday while the boys played with some neighbor boys.  Today they got to help too.

Last fall, Mom and Dad had dumped all this rock in piles around this bed.  They didn't get it put in before winter though.  Since Dad died, it would have taken mom a lot longer than one weekend to do.  I've been trying to get out to see her at least once a month so we can work on all these little projects.  Especially since it sounds like she wants to sell the house and move either back to town, or closer to it.

Anyway, here is the result of this weekend.

When I got home and checked the dog's water, I saw flowers!!  Must mean it's spring hmmm?

This weekend wasn't all manual labor!  I have gotten stitchy time since I finished part 10 of Deep Blue Sea.  Here's where part 11 is right now.

Deep Blue Sea part 10

Late last night, I put the last bead into part 10 of Deep Blue Sea.  Here's part 10

And an overview of the whole thing.

Deep Blue Sea and a finish!

No, I haven't managed to finish Deep Blue Sea.  I did manage to finish Iris tonight though.  Up until Friday evening, I had behaved myself and was working on Deep Blue Sea.  Then Iris just caught my attention and I have a finish!

Here's where I left Deep Blue Sea.  Hopefully in the next day or so, you'll see another update.

Starfish and Seahorses!

Late last night I finished part 9 of Deep Blue Sea.  These last parts only take about a week, but I think I'm going to switch to something else for a bit to take a break from the black.

Deep Blue Sea part 8

With now school Friday, I had a little more stitching time.  Here's part 8 of Deep Blue Sea.  I skipped one of the blue fish, but that was on purpose.  I just decided that I liked the odd number better and it didn't look as cramped as that extra fish would have.  I had some problems counting the coral again.  This time, I just went with it.  Unless you're looking for it, you'll never notice it.

Here's part 8

And here's an over view.  The final four parts fill in the corners and look smaller than the last four parts so I'm hoping each one will only take a week or so to stitch up.  

Iris came back out Friday night and I'm getting close to a part finish there too.  I would have been almost done with it, but I had the frogs attack there to.  Since that one is more symmetrical and the error would have been way more noticeable, it got frogged and is restitched.  Hopefully tonight I'll have that done and have to make a decision about what to pull out next.  The first row of pages of Dorothy Walpole, part 8 of Deep Blue Sea and part 3 of Iris were my goals for this month on one of the BBs I participate on.  So do I stitch another page of Dorothy, start part 9 of DBS, work on band 2 of Loara Standish or pull out a totally different WIP for some love?  

Any requests? 

Deep Blue Sea update

I've been working on Deep Blue Sea this week and I've managed to get the frame for part 8 done.  Yesterday, I also finished the waves and those darn jelly fish.  I got a little but done on the coral at the bottom of the frame too, but got distracted by a book for a bit before bed last night.  

Here's part 8

And the whole thing.  It wasn't laid flat to take a picture which resulted in the right side looking kind of wonky :)

Dorothy and Deep Blue

Hi all!  I'm posting from my phone again since I still can't get online from my computer right now.  I'm supposed to get some help with that later today. 

Yesterday I finished the first two pages of Dorothy Walpole. I'm really enjoying stitching her but decided to take a break from her for a bit. 

@Ineke:  Dorothy has a number of stitches.   They are Florentine, cross, petit point, eyelet, Queen, herringbone, and counted satin.

I've pulled Deep Blue Sea out for a bit. It was started around 2012's New Year.  I would really like to see a finish with it soon.  The picture is if part eight.  After that it looks like the parts get smaller.

2012 WIPocalypse

Since this is my last post for the 2012 WIPocalypse, I thought I would share some before and afters of my WIPs.  I didn't get as many finishes as I would have liked, but I did make progress on most of them.

1. Chatelaine's Spring Knotgarden finished 7/3/12

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2. Chatelaine's Watergarden about half done  

I don't think I even touched it this year.  Here's the top gate.

3. Petit Sampler (with Sticklounge) finished 2/12/12

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4. Bygone Stitches One Nation about half done 

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5. Mirabilia's Garden Verses might have to restart

Didn't even touch this one much less make up my mind what I want to do with it.

6. Chatelaine's Summer Knotgarden part 3,4,5,6 in progress

Before:  There was a little more done, but not much.

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7. Stained Glass Window (Sticklounge) finished 12/5/12

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8. Adriana B (Sticklounge) finished 3/20/12

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9. Christmas tree skirt (kit) approx half done

This one hasn't seen any love either, though I did pull it out of the bag and look at it at one point.

10. Chelsea's block   finished 6/16/12

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11. HAED Lust third row of stitching page 14 completed

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12. Chatelaine's 2012 Mystery Deep Blue Sea part 7complete

This was a new start so there's no before picture.

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13.  1900 ABC (Sticklounge) part 19/24 complete

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So, I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked, but since I'm no longer an OAAT stitcher, I think the progress I did make is pretty darn respectable.

Now on to the 2013 WIPocalypse!  May it bring you many stitchy finishes and may the frog stay far, far away!