Save the Stitches Update

So I took the week off from working on Snow White so that I could actually get a little done on something else. This week I decided to work on my Blackwork Sampler - It's called Save the Stitches and it is by Elizabeth Almond. It is a free pattern available on her website, blackworkjourney.co.uk. I am doing mine in blues, because I love how a deep blue looks on white :) I was able to work on this at the EGA meeting this week, which was fun.

Here was my last update:

And here is where it is today:

The blackwork stitches up so much faster than cross stitches do, and it's fun to figure out a good way to work across the pattern. I had a lot of fun with this, but I think I am ready to go back to Snow White this week. :) 

Week 4 Snow White

My daughter had the chicken pox last week, so we were stuck at home basically the entire time to quarantine her. This was a bummer but I got a lot of stitching done. She got a ton of spots and had about 2 days where she was in pain, but now it is over and she never has to do it again. Next up is my little boy, I'm sure. It's only a matter of time until he gets them, but we found that covering them in calamine lotion really helps.
For my stitching, I worked on Snow White this week (surprise, surprise!). I know, I know, I need to work on something other than Snow White. It's probably boring for all of you to see updates on just this one, but I am really enjoying working on it, so why not keep going, right? Here is my 4th week progress on this one:

Last Week:

And this week:

I have reached the bottom of the tree! And deer is starting to come it, too. Also, to the right of the base of the tree is part of the outline for Snow White herself :) I didn't realize that the french knots add basically ALL of the color in this piece - most of where the flowers are starts off as just greens, so there is a good chance it could be kind of boring for a while. Hopefully it will go quickly though with fewer color changes, and it means that the french knots will really bring a lot of life to the piece when it is time. :)

I love, love, love working on this piece, but I think I will take this week and work on something else. It will make me all the happier to come back to this one next week. 

I love reading everyone else's blogs! Happy stitching!

Beauty and the Beast is Framed!

Guess what just came back from the framer? Woot woot! I am so excited!

The picture doesn't do it justice. It is so pretty in person! Totally worth it, even though the hubby wants a go at the next one to see if we can do it a little cheaper... :)

Week 3 Snow White

Not too many pictures or anything to show this week, just progress on Snow White. Here it was last week:

And here it is this week:

Lots more tree trunk to show this week. I feel like it's going suuuuuper slow, even though I get a decent amount of stitching time in. I think I am just a slow stitcher, and it doesn't help that I am being overly careful about making sure the top threads don't twist. I am just getting more picky. I did pass the halfway mark on the left side though, so that's pretty awesome. Most of the WIPs of this I have seen are mostly just the top left page. Because of the way it is on my scroll frame, I am going to work the entire height of the piece from left to right. 

I did get a good amount of stitching time in, but not quite as much as I wanted to. My husband didn't work his side job this week which mean he was home for a 4 day weekend, and he doesn't like to just be at home. He wants to be OUT and DOING THINGS, even if those things are just going to his parents' house and hanging out there for 8-10 hours. Lol he is silly, but because I don't like to really bring this one out of the house (could get dirty, so many floss colors, etc), I don't get to work on it while we are otherwise un-engaged at the in-laws. No biggie, progress is progress, right? :) And I have been able to work on Count the Stars (do you even remember that one?) bits at a time while we are there. I don't have a picture to show this week though. Bummer. 

Welp, till next week, have fun stitching!

It's My Birthday and I'll Stitch If I Want To

My 28th birthday was this last Wednesday, and it was a wonderful, lazy day. My mother in law took both of my kids to the airport to pick up their great-grandma (a surprise for her!) so I had the day off for most of the day. :) My husband was working on a side-job close by, so I brought my stitching to where he was and just sat in the sunshine and stitched for ~4 hours, almost uninterrupted! Then of course I hardly got any done the rest of the week after that, but I was able to get in almost 1400 stitches on Snow White throughout the week, and I did one more section of the block on my blackwork sampler. I will post pictures of that once that block is finished.

Here was Snow White last week:

And here it is now:

Not a whole lot more done, but it is coming along quite nicely, I think :) 

Also, I saw this week that over at Gadget's Joyful Page she is also working on this one. She is great at working on things in a rotation schedule, so there will probably not be an update on it every week but it's still fun to watch someone else's progress on the same piece. And she started in the middle and is working out so it's a different area than I have done. 

For my birthday, my husband and I dropped off Beauty and the Beast at the framers. It should be done by June 4th!!! My sister got me the Epic Potter Pattern from Cloudsfactory for my birthday (talk about AWESOME!) and my mom and sister-in-law each bought me the Fantasia Disney Dreams kit, so I will be able to return one to Hobby Lobby and maybe order the Cinderella kit instead :) My stash is growing! Eek! But I work on it, so it's alright :) 

Well, until next week, stitching friends! (And non-stitching friends, too!)

Week 1 Snow White, and a Bunch of Other Stuff!

This has been a week with lots of stuff for me to post about, so here goes.

First off, I was able to put in about 2000 stitches on Snow White, give or take a few. Here is the top left corner so far:

I was excited to be able to start this one, but again I don't really really get into a project until it is past its 'infancy' stage - with this one that will probably be around week 3 or 4. Still exciting though!

I also did my first finish work ever on a cross stitch. I 'framed' A Princess Was Born using the basic idea of this tutorial. I laced the stitched piece onto the foam core board (after it was washed and ironed), and taped the pink fabric onto another piece of foam core board. I used plain straight pins with 'pearl' beads around the edges, and pink and white sparkly ribbon. I twisted the white sparkly ribbon a little bit between each pin. Anyway, I have never done more than put a piece in a basic frame, so I was really happy with how this turned out. Happier I think than I would have been if I had put it in a frame - it's just so princess-y this way :) My daughter loves it, too, and it only cost me about $8 :)

Also, my birthday is this Wednesday, and my husband made me an early birthday present. He made two sets of scroll rods for my scroll frame and another set of knobs :) I am so spoiled! One set is 18" like the set I use to put my Disney Dreams pieces on, and the other set is 26". The larger set is big enough for me to put my Blackwork Sampler on. 

Hooray! I haven't done much on this one yet because I was having to work on it 'in hand'. After getting my scroll frame it really spoiled me and now I want to work on all of my big projects on one. 

In case you are wondering, this is a sampler called Save the Stitches by Elizabeth Almond at blackworkjourney.co.uk. It's a free sampler she is releasing month by month. And I know that it's called blackwork and I am doing it in blues, but that's the wonderful thing about needlework - you get to make it your own. :) Here is a closeup of my progress on Block 1 (I am WAY behind.)

The other part of my birthday present is that Beauty and the Beast is getting framed :) We bought the frame yesterday and I have the mats picked out. I did have a little mishap though.

I finally bit the bullet and washed Beauty and the Beast so I could square it up and iron it. I washed it in cold, cold water, so cold it hurt my fingers. I rinsed it and rinsed it over and over, kept the water running over it for at least 10 minutes after the soaking and washing time. Everything was great, it cleaned up really nice. I gently rolled it in a towel to take out the excess water and set to work blocking it. I had it stretched and was going back around the piece making it straight, a little over halfway done, and noticed a little bit of a yellow tinge on the aida next to a set of green stitches. I thought my eyes were just being goofy in the light, but then noticed a couple of hours later that several areas next to the green were turned yellow. The greens bled onto the aida :( It doesn't seem to have affected the other stitches at all THANK GOD but I was still really disappointed. I might need to contact the distributor and let them know. The piece isn't ruined, and I doubt it will be noticeable at all once it is framed, but still. I shouldn't have to worry about the floss colors bleeding. :( 

Oh well, c'est la vie. Hopefully next week or the week after I can show a picture of BatB all framed and beautiful. :)

Hope you all have a good week and get lots of stitching done! Sorry I'm so talky-talky :)

Small Finish and Snow White Begins!

I was so good - even though I finished A Princess Was Born a few days ago, I didn't jump in and start on Snow White until I finished the other part of my mom's birthday present (which I get to give her tonight!). I made a scissor sheath for a pair of small embroidery scissors I bought for her, that matches the biscornu I made. I don't really know if she has any small scissors just for thread-clipping, and I love mine. I had thought the biscornu would be much more impressive by itself than it was, so I wanted to do something else to go with it. Anyway, here is a picture of the two pieces together:

I love how blackwork looks with variegated thread. :) I hope she likes them. I am going to have to make a set for myself!

Aaaaaannnnnndddd, I have spent today prepping Snow White so I can start stitching it!!!!! FINALLY!!!!! Just in case you don't know what piece I am doing, it is called Snow White Discovers the Cottage, by M.C.G. Textiles.  It is based off a painting by Thomas Kinkade, and will be stitched on a tan colored, 18-count aida fabric that came with the kit. Here is what the finished piece will *hopefully* look like when it's done:

What's not to love about that? I actually think this one will go a little faster than Beauty and the Beast did, now that I know how my system works and what I'm doing :) 

The prep work I did today: 

I sprayed and ironed the fabric to loosen it up a bit and get the folds out from being in the kit. 

I use masking tape on the edges of my fabric to keep them from fraying and keep my threads from snagging on the edges. I do have to cut the tape off after it is finished, but I only tape 2 or 3 squares' worth in, so I don't lose hardly anything. 

Then it's time to put the fabric on my scroll frame. My wonderful scroll frame. :) Instead of gridding every block of 10, I use thread to just do the outline and the center lines. I mark the very edge of the pattern as it is printed, not just the edge of the stitches. This just works the best for me. Here is the fabric, in the frame and ready to go!:

This is the left side of the picture. 

For preparing the threads, I don't wind them onto bobbins, I put them on cards, marked with the color name and number, and with the symbol directly on the card. I discovered this a little ways into Beauty and the Beast, and it is WONDERFUL. No more constantly having to refer back to the key, and after a little while I get to know generally which card has which threads. This was one of the older kits that didn't come pre-sorted (ah! nightmare with 75+ colors!), so this also helps me to go through the threads and make sure I have the right number of strands of every color, and that I have all of the colors. Here is one card (of 8) marked up:

I also made a full copy of the entire pattern. I use a marker to color in the squares I have stitched as I go, which makes the backstitch lines and french knot dots hard to see. Also because the pattern is on a large piece of paper folded into quarters, I ended up with a small hole in the middle of my pattern on both pages for Beauty and the Beast and ended up having to guess what the symbols were. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to pack everything completely up every time I am done stitching, but with a 1 year old and a 3 year old, I can't risk leaving things out. Anyway, long story short, I decided that having an extra copy of the pattern would be a good idea this time around.

Unfortunately, I don't have any stitching progress to show because the day has been spent preparing. I am going to try to put in 1 or 2 lengths before we go to my parents' house for dinner tonight. I am just so excited to start this one!!! Woot woot!