Northwest Red Head

Here is my progress from the past few nights on Baroque. I have been working on this a bit here and there over the past few months and I didn't realize until this morning that I hadn't posted a photo since I got the basic diamond shape done, Yikes! So here it is, the center area isn't quite finished, there is some beading I need to do and a few other bits but I wanted to work on the blue area so I've been jumping around a bit on it. Its coming along quite fast when I actually sit and work on it. We'll see how long it stays in the stand before I get tired of looking at it though :) Halloween Fairy *sigh* poor thing never knew what hit her. I was about 2 rows from the top of the wing stitching the black on the wing tips when it occurred to me I hadn't checked that my count was correct, well guess what... it wasn't :( I had to frog the ENTIRE thing! I was sooo mad about it, heck I still am. I got it all out and almost have her restitched so hopefully I&#

Ok, this was rather easy but it was a finish just the same. The only problem I ran into was the fact that it wasn't mentioned to stop beading a certain distance from the top of the fabric so I had beads that kept getting caught on the foot of my sewing machine. That was about the only grumble I had though as the final bits of finishing went smoothly. I again have the small one we were given completed at last year's Christmas party so I have a pair of strawberry bags, one as useless as the other as far as using them as actual bags but they look cute.  I also got a bit of work done on Baroque this weekend but I forgot to take a pic of is this morning as I hurried about so I will have to save that one for tomorrow.

And its about time, what a week it has been. Yesterday I headed home from work with just enough time to let Indy out and have some dinner before I had to be to the EGA meeting only to get here and not be able to get in! We had called about the security lock not working properly and they came out and changed it but the lock shop didn't key the lock correctly so we were stuck.  Thankfully someone finally came out to let us in. Here is the progress from the evening on the Strawberry Reticule...

Got my needle going on Halloween Fairy yesterday. I have to say I was a bit disturbed when I first started stitching her face. Its done in Bella Rosa from Crescent Colors and the look, to me, was jarring. One minute I'm stitching and she's a soft pink and then the thread suddenly changed to near white.

Tada! I did the finishing stitches on my lunch break yesterday. I LOVE the finished look on this one. I brought it to my Monday stitch group and everyone was drooling over the colors and stitches :) I had taken it in when it first arrived, as that's where I first heard about it. One of the ladies wanted all of us to order them and stitch them together but that fizzled. They all love the 2 I've done so far but its just not the "style" of a few of them I guess for lack of a better way to put it. One, for example, primarily does very whimsical designs which this certainly is not so I wouldn't expect her to want to stitch this one. Last night they were asking me what colors the next one would be, umm... heck if I know, I've only seen the 3 in the advertisement and that still doesn't tell me much other than the fact that I will see the other 2 designs at some point. ;) Guess I could have taken my photo in a "portrait" format so they'd line up

Now the fun of moving as promised... This is supposed to be the living room, as seen from the hallway. Uh huh, looks like a living room doesn't it? Let see now, there's a TV, several boxes of unknow contents. A crate of wine, always important >:) come to think of it I should have cracked one of those bottles open. Nice eh? Jay was comtemplating lighting a match in here and dropping it "accidentally" ha ha And here we have a shot of the office earlier in the process. Once we got to the point where walking was becoming a challenge we put everything else in the garage and brought it in as we cleared space so you really don't get the full effect of what a disaster I made there. tee hee For the record those are all Jay's books, I think I own 2 dozen total as I never sit idle long enough to read a print book, I get them on cd from the library... much easier :) Here is Indy's feelings on the whole process as well. He just wanted to hide because there was no w

Well I finally got myself back online this morning, Yay! It didn't help that my keyboard and mouse were in the bottom of the last box that I unpacked. Now I just have the fun of going through the rooms and trying to organize the disaster that is my stuff Here is my promised pic. Its almost complete, there is a bit of stitching to fill in around the Jessica stitch at the top and bottom of the third band and I believe a bit of back stitch, then I get to add some BEADS! They're a fabulous copper color as you may remember from the post where I had all the fibers laid out. You can also see them here . And for comparison to the original design... You can see the beads here as well as the differences between how I stitched it. I have my bands in so they mirror each other where the original design has the reverse happening. The green/yellow band for example, one "points" in an upward direction and the other downward. Something seems different in the center band as I

Oh yes I'm sooo happy to see Monday, how sad is that?? :) I sadly didn't do a single stitch this weekend, there just wasn't time and when there was I didn't have the strength. Moving turned out to be a small nightmare. I knew I had a lot of "stuff" I lived in a 2 bedroom house before the place I just moved from and it certainly wasn't bare, but then I figured with the divorce and a lot of that stuff leaving it wouldn't be so bad, you'd think so right? Not so much... I'll likely still be moving things into the apartment for the better part of the week so not much stitching will be seen other than the bits I get done during the day here on breaks at work. I have found a few things in the unpacking of the stash that I had forgotten about and have no need for. I will try to sort it out and post so if anyone is interested I can box them up and send them off ;) **Edit - Thanks to all of you for your words, this move has been a trial more than I was e

Here is the promised picture of Mojave. I've made a good bit of progress on it, once the bands I'm on are done there is only one more set left. Then there are beads that will go in the Jessica stitches (the row of circles) that are a cool copper color. I would love to have this done by Monday but that just isn't going to happen as I am moving the bulk of my stuff this weekend so much of my time will be taken up with packing and un packing my collection of too much stuff. I should manage to get the last set of rows started as I have to work today and nothing EVER happens on Saturdays. Hope you all have a great weekend :)

Still dancing from my finish yesterday but I'm moving on to my next project that I had hoped to have finished this week, after the sheer amount of stitching I did yesterday and the little amount of canvas covered, I don't know that I will accomplish that but I'm sure going to try The Herringbone row, the brown diamond pattern that is completed on each side of center, was 6 journeys each with a different thread. The finished result is fabulous but UGH I hate stitching the same thing multiple times. I've now gotten a start on the next row which is a palm leaf if I remember right, done with 2 needles. Now I should have remembered this from David McCaskill and Toni Minieri designs. Something about men as designers, they love to layer thread. The end result is definitely worth the effort but I hate having 2 needles going at once ;) This is my newest needlework gadget. A Thread Clam from K's Creations. It holds Kreinik thread as you can see and has holes in the

My finished Lady in Red Hat canvas!! I put the last few stitches in at Sit and Stitch last night after the "committee" decided the backstitch I did around the ribbon (at least that's what we think it is) on her hat was enough and I shouldn't wrap it. The lips also are done in basketweave, I tried messing with satin stitch a few times and I just couldn't get the coverage I wanted. And if my having this finished wasn't exciting enough for me... I got home last night and was determined to NOT pay someone else to do what should be quite simple to do. I got out scissors and found the directions and managed to get the canvas inserted into the bag and it looks great! This was simple beyond belief, the hardest part was taking scissors to my canvas. I had to cut the canvas 5 threads away from my stitching *cringe* and it then gets mounted onto a board, you peel the sticky back and it gets put in the purse. It was a abit of a challenge to stick it down in the pu

Ok I'm so close I can't stand it. I'm actually a bit annoyed I wasn't able to stay up last night long enough to finish her completely but that should be accomplished today. Quite honestly I'm not so happy, now that her face is filled in, with the angle of her nose but I am not frogging half the face to change it. I stitched it once with the same color I used to shade her jaw line and it was too faint, I have 2 colors that are darker than the main part of the face, I am thinking of using a bit of both to darken it just a bit as I think the darkest shade is a bit too dark. Then its just lips, hat decoration and earings. The lips are going to be DMC, not sure if I will do a satin stitch or tent, I will probably try both and decide. The earrings are going to be a cluster of beads :) I have been trying, rather unsucessfully to do something "fun" on this piece and that will be my last chance. Its a small enough area to add a little something without being to

Yesterday work was dead, and as I was the only one here I thought, what better way to pass the time than stitch right? :) You can see just how busy I wasn't by my progress here from yesterday's photo. If I have another day like that today I may just have her done. This morning before heading in I dug out a nice green for her eyes that should compliment the hair nicely. This piece is also going to be my first attempt at "finishing" a Lee bag myself. After the nasty sticker shock I got from having Gloves and Kisses done I am not about to let them finish another of my pieces. Its a matter of cutting the canvas to size (there should be a template with the bag) and mounting it to the adhesive backing. Then you apply weight until its good and stuck. But I will shut up about that before I go on my rant about this shop again. For the record its not an isolated incident either. If anyone is really that curious email me and I'll give you the highlights.

Finished up her hair last night with only a small bit of thread to spare! I went through 2 skeins of GAST Nutmeg for the hair on her with 4 strands to spare. The end is near! LOL Honestly the rest of this will be easy, just a bit of a pain as her face is done in tent stitch and I haven't a clue what to do with the eye there. There is so much happening with bits of color here and there that I'm just not quite sure. I'm going to pull an assortment of DMC and mess with it today and see if I can make it look like an eye when I'm finished. :) I also like the look of the hair color much better than the blonde. The only reason I changed it as I wanted her hair color to be closer to mine and I haven't been a real blonde since I was 5. I think this color balances a bit better with the other bright colors in the piece as well. I'm probably going to pull the Splendor silk I used on Twinkle pig for her face, there are a few nice lighter skin tones in that assortment that sh

Yes, yes, I've been a slacker about updating things here. What can I say, I can only move so many people before I just need to hide under a rock so my body can recover. First I help Jay move here which was a 2 day marathon. The loading and unloading wasn't so bad, the need to drive 55/60 on the highway when I could be going 90, that was a bit traumatizing ;) Once that was done mom's friend is moving so I end up at her house. I'm told before we go that she's almost packed and ready, yeah sure. We had a pick up to move the boxes and a moving company was going to come for the furniture so we took 3 loads of stuff, IN THE RAIN (nice) oh joy, oh rapture. Now of course its my turn. I've slowly been digging out all my "stuff" from the attic and the kitchen is starting to look like someone ate some Ivy and then got sick all over. My plates have ivy, and I think I have every matching piece, the towels match as do the table linens, the tea pot, candle holders...

The hair is coming along nicely. Now that I've got the movement I want I'm going back and filling in the open areas and all should be well. I did take a break from hair last night and did more on the underside of the hat so I could determine if I need another row of hair to cover that small bit of yellow that is showing so we'll see when I get there, hopefully today. Over all I'm very happy with how this is taking shape, much better than my bullions that I was so excited to try. ----------------------- Stolen from Ali B Who I believe got them from San. As I don't always share a lot about me on here I figured this would be a nice change. 1. How old were you when you started cross stitching? After mulling this over for some time I finally decided I was 8 when my mom first learned and then showed me. I was knitting basic things like wash cloths and potholders from age 5 or 6 but I never did anything related to cross stitch until 8. 2. Who taught you to cros