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 :)

A Princess Finish!

Hooray! My daughter's birth sampler is FINALLY FINISHED! Lol now that she's 3 and all... I put in the last back stitch last night and took pictures this morning when I had enough light. So here it was before the backstitch:

And here it is now, all stitched up :)

It always amazes me the detail that backstitch can bring to a piece. I love it :) And here is another picture so you can see it a little closer and see the sparkles in the fairy wand.

Yay yay yay! I am not really one to finish things usually, so the fact that this is now my 2nd finish THIS YEAR is pretty awesome :) 

Or, I guess it could technically be my 3rd finish, because I made a biscornu for my mom. I really don't think she will look at my blog before her birthday on Monday, so here are my pictures of that:

She told me once that her favorite color is October - basically fall colors. I found a variegated thread that was very 'fall colors', so I worked up this biscornu from an adaptation of this blackwork pattern. If I had done the whole pattern on each side, I think it would have been too big. I also discovered that the 'evenweave' fabric I bought for it (packaged as 24 count evenweave) was not very even. Just the small amount I did was not completely square - over 40 stitches, or 80 threads, there was a noticeable difference in height vs. width. Normally not a humongous deal, but when you make a biscornu the pieces need to be square in order to fit together correctly. I was able to make it work, but now the rest of that fabric will have to be used on something other than biscornu. 

In other news, I never really thought I would try a humongous chart like HAED or Golden Kite or anything like that, but then I found out about Tilton Crafts. I like their particular selection of charts a lot more than HAED, and I found one that I really like and would go beautifully in my music room... :) 

Well I am going to go try and figure out the other part that I want to make for my mom's present. Hopefully I can do it fairly quickly so that I can get SNOW WHITE READY TO STITCH!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! :)

Princess Cross Stitches Are Done!

That's right, I only have the backstitch detail left on this baby! And to be honest, I finished the crosses on Tuesday night last week and have been backstitching ever since. I just want to do a photo of it all at once. There is a LOT of it on this one, so it is taking me longer than I thought it would, but I should have the finished picture sometime this week, or at the latest by next  Sunday. Anyway, here it was last week:

And here it was on Wednesday morning when I had the light to take a picture:

The backstitch is really making everything pop, big time. At first I thought the charcoal gray was too big a contrast, but as I keep going it looks better and better. And just think: once I'm done stitching this one, I can work on something else! I have asked for a set of 26" scroll rods for my frame for my birthday, so then I can do more work on my blackwork piece, too. 

Oh! And I started shopping around for framing so I can get Beauty and the Beast framed! I knew it was going to be expensive, and so far my quote is ~$130 from Hobby Lobby. That includes using a pre-made frame that will be 50% off and then using a 40% off coupon on the glass (which is normally $65 for the museum glass). The mats I chose there are pretty expensive; one is a dark blue suede mat, but it looks SO good with the piece. I just really feel (and my family all agrees with me) that I put a lot of time into the piece and I did a good job, so I should spend the money and have it finished the right way. I am part of a SAL group on Facebook for the Disney Dreams pieces, and I am amazed at how many people do a sad, sad job framing their finished pieces. I mean, even if you don't take it in to be professionally done, you should block it and square it up, or for goodness sake at least IRON it before you put it in a frame! My husband laughs at me because this bothers me so much, but really folks. Take some pride in your work! I am glad to see that all of the finished pieces I have seen on blogs that I follow are beautifully finished. 

Anyway, here is a great tutorial on finishing a piece after it is all stitched. Everything from washing to pinning and blocking to ironing and lacing, etc. etc. etc. It gives me hope for a good finish job on Princess. :)

Crazy Busy Week is Done!

My crazy week is now over! The wedding today went really well. I swear, that girl is so pretty anyway, but put her in a dress like THAT and she is basically the only thing to look at in a room. :) (I can say these things, she was my maid of honor and one of my very dear friends!) The orchestra concert went awesome, probably my personal best one of the year so far. Our 'Italy' concert is in 2 weeks, so I think it will go well, too.
I enjoy being busy, but I do like my evenings to hermit and stitch at home, watching Netflix or Pride and Prejudice or Downton Abbey.
Anyway, I think I need to set up some sort of rotation or something so that I have more to show than the one project I have been working on. :) I get a little bit of tunnel vision, especially as I get really into a project. Guess what my update is this week? You guessed it, A Princess Was Born. Here is where I left it last week:

And here we are this week:

I finished all of the tan stitches so it's easier to see how it will be a scroll, and I started the pony. That means I just need to finish the pony and do the rest of the stars and sparkles, and I can start on the backstitch! I am hoping to be able to start that by my update next Sunday, but we will see. I think I overestimate myself sometimes. But it would be nice to have this one finished in the next 2 weeks so that I can start SNOW WHITE! Woot :) I think that for this piece, I will finish it kind of like THIS TUTORIAL shows, except I will do a narrower border and probably find some cute pink ribbon and ruffle it when I pin it down. It's really a cute piece, but I don't know that it will warrant a big formal framing job or anything. 

Anyway, hope you all get lots of stitching time in this week! I am going to try to :)

Happy Easter!

I normally post on Sundays, but tomorrow is going to be CRAZY busy with Easter. My kids are going to look super cute though - I got a tiny suit for my little boy and my little girl has a beautiful pink sparkly dress to wear :) We will see some of my side of the family in the morning for church and lunch and then see my in-laws for the afternoon and dinner. Full day, but it should be a lot of fun. :)

Thankfully I was able to get some good stitching in this week (at least for me) because this next week is going to be a DOOZY! Sunday: Easter. Monday: My big housecleaning day and teach piano lessons. Tuesday: My only 'free' day, just mom's group in the morning. Wednesday: Teach Piano lessons, teach harp lessons, then off to a bridal shower. Thursday: Dress rehearsal for Friday: Orchestra concert. Lots of french music, which means lots of harp. Saturday: Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner for Sunday: Wedding for the girl who was my maid of honor, and I am playing harp for the wedding. I also need to arrange 2 more songs to play at the wedding throughout the course of the week and finish learning the Ravel piece for the concert. When it rains it pours, right? And after this next week things will slow down a little.

Anyway, here was last week's picture of A Princess Was Born:

And this week's progress:

I finished the pink fairy on the left, did a little more of the tan half stitches, and did the whole carriage. That means the last major element is the pony, and then it's just finishing the stars and tan half stitches, the pink fairy's wand and the rest of the sparkles. Then I can do all the backstitch. There is a lot of that... It will make it so, so cute though :) And I love backstitch work. 

I also found the buttons for my mom's present. I took pictures, but I don't want to risk her seeing what I made before her birthday. I decided I want to make something else small to match it though, so I will probably be working that out in my head this week. 

Welp, I hope you all have a great Easter! And may your week be full of stitches :)

Just Princess Progress

This week I don't have much to show except for my progress on A Princess Was Born. I did finish my mom's present but obviously I can't put pictures of it up until I give it to her :) And we didn't do anything in the backyard this week because my husband worked his 'second job': masonry. He works occasionally for a local guy when the guy needs extra help. It is great money so my husband doesn't mind. I think he actually prefers doing that and making money than working on the yard for free! ;)

Anyway, I was able to stitch for several hours over the course of this week - almost 2 hours at the Embroiderer's Guild meeting, a couple of hours after that the same night (woot, woot!) and then a couple of hours throughout the rest of the week while I finished catching up on Downton Abbey. Love that show. :)

So here I was last week:

And today:

I met my goal for the week of stitching 'princess was born', did a little more of the tan half stitches on the right side, and even got started on the pink fairy :) I am definitely over halfway done now, so that is exciting. Like I said in my last post, I am ITCHING to get this one done so I can start on Snow White. I think I will make my goal to have this one done by my birthday on May 21st. Think I can do it? 

Since I don't have much to say this week, I just wanted to look back through my progress pictures for this one. I think it's fun do see them all lined up once in a while. :)

Alrighty, well that does it for this week! Thanks for looking!

Some Progress and My Scroll Frame

First off, I wanted to show my progress from this week of stitching. I worked on A Princess Was Born (again). I like it when a project gets out of its 'infancy' stage - when I am able to start looking at it and seeing real progress. So here is last week:

And here it is after this week:

I am hoping to finish 'princess' and possibly 'was born' this week. Maybe I will do some more of the sparkles that come down from the fairy wand, too... But you see the tan dashed line running across the bottom? That is the halfway point! I am super excited about that. :)

Cloudsfactory.net released a giant Harry Potter pattern that you can see here. It is amazing and I want to stitch it so bad! It is pretty expensive though for just the pattern, so she also made it available in 5 parts that you can buy separately. I must confess, I bought the frame yesterday. I need to finish A Princess Was Born and my mom's present, then I will allow myself to buy the fabric and threads I will need for this one. :) Then I can start Snow White and the Giant Harry Potter one and still work on all of my other projects, too!... Okay, so maybe I am more of a 1 or 2 project-at-a-time person, but still. :)

 I realized that my mom's birthday is just over a month away, and I had wanted to stitch a little something for her. I won't say really anything about it now, but I think it will be neat and she will like it :) I will post pictures after her birthday to keep her from seeing it before then, on the off chance she watches my blog at all :)

We made more progress on the backyard this week. It has turned out to be a much bigger project than either of us thought it would be (which is always, always the case.), but we are moving along. We cleared out a spot next to the house that was basically just 'dead' space and started putting up the new shed. It's just a metal shed because we couldn't afford the thousands of $'s to do a wooden one, but I think it will definitely work for what we need it for. Here it is so far:

It still needs doors (obviously!) and we have some treated plywood to lay down as a temporary floor, but then we can move stuff in! I am very excited for this part, as it will allow the rest of the yard to be cleaned out, which means we can put in irrigation and start seeding some grass! My amazing husband worked 15 hours on this shed yesterday with his dad, and a solid 8 hours the day before getting the ground level and everything cleared out. It takes a little nudge to get him going, but once he starts he does a great job :)

So the last part of this entry, I wanted to talk a little bit about one of my favorite pieces of 'equipment' for stitching. That is my scroll frame.

Some people use hoops, some people work just in-the-hand, and some people use q-snaps (the pvc-pipe looking stuff with clamps on the edges). I am not a fan of hoops or q-snaps because I feel that unless the project fits in it perfectly with no overhang, it tends to smush the stitches and I noticed a lot more dirt on my fabric around the edges where I had to hold on. In the hand is fine for little projects or on occasion, but again I see a lot more dirt on the fabric, and my left hand gets all cramped up with the way I hold the fabric if I do it for too long. I love my scroll frame because I can rest it on my lap and not have to hold all the weight in my hand, it keeps my fabric nice and clean, it doesn't smush my stitches (like the french knots on Beauty and the Beast!), and it keeps the fabric nice and straight and tight. I have the Starter Set American Dreams scroll frame. The 18" scroll rods are perfect for the size of A Princess Was Born and to go sideways on the Disney Dreams kits. I would like to get another size bigger (26" probably) so that I can fit my Water Dragon and my Blackwork Sampler on it. 

A Little Stitching and a Clean Yard

This week was a good balance between getting stuff done and stitching. We spent 2 long days cleaning up our backyard which meant hauling all of the bits and pieces of the old shed to the dump, getting rid of a bunch of other junk in the yard, and raking up all of the leaves and dog poo that accumulated over the winter. We took 2 full trailer loads to the dump and 1 full trailer load to the yard waste place, so we got rid of SO MUCH stuff from the yard. Here it was last week:

And here it is as of now:

You can't see it in this picture, but we also took down a dead Sumac tree and picked up our new shed. We are hoping to get the new shed put up this week so we have a place to store all of the stuff that was in the old one. We still have a long ways to go, but I am determined that our yard will be usable and nice this summer. We did gain about 12 x 20 feet of yard by taking down that old shed. Woo hoo! We could put up a swingset. Maybe next summer... :)

As far as stitching goes, I was able to get quite a bit done but I only focused on Sarah's A Princess Was Born. I got to go to the Embroiderer's Guild meeting on Tuesday which was really neat, and stitch for 2 hours with no little fingers to pry off my work and no putting it down to go take care of one thing or another that always comes up when I stitch at home. Plus the ladies there were really nice and seemed excited to have me. I am pretty positive I am going to join the guild, even though I will only be able to make it a couple times a month instead of every week. Anyway, here is my progress on A Princess Was Born:

Last week:

And this week:

I knuckled down and did the star for the wand with the pearl filament, and found that it isn't actually so bad if you aren't doing partial stitches with it. I watched the rest of Downton Abbey Season 2 while I stitched at home this week, so now I need to get season 3 from my sister. :) Thanks for looking and happy stitching! :)

Stitching Progress This Week!

I was actually able to make a little bit of stitching progress this week!

First, because I wasn't able to work on A Princess Was Born last week, I worked on that.

Before:

And Now:

The pink is all done for the word Once, and I just need to do the greens in the O. I also started some of the tan half stitches, but I'm only 1 strand in on that so far. Having the open space makes this go so much faster than a full coverage piece, it's kind of crazy to me! I think it's super cute though :)

And my Drawn Thread Sampler.

Before:

And Now:

I know my goal was to just do one band on this per week, but I am really enjoying it. I added the band with the ladder hemstitch (3rd band down) and am almost done with the modified coral knot clusters (Bottom band). I have one more pass to make on that band that will do the opposite 'zig zags' and make them look more like circles. Kind of hard to explain, but you will see what I mean next week when that band is finished.

I am also really excited because I just found out that there is a branch of the Embroiderer's Guild of America that meets really close to me! Actually, they meet just a few blocks from where my husband works. I am going to try and go this next Tuesday and see what it is. They judge the entries in the county fair and I have a few questions about my Beauty and the Beast, since I am entering it this year. I also figure that it will be a great way to get some tips and tricks instead of just looking things up online. I am so excited about it!

Last, I want to show a bit about our big project right now: our backyard. Our dogs had pretty much destroyed the little gardens and all of the grass in our yard, and our shed was FULL of bees. I mean, really full. We decided that it would be best to take out the gardens and tear down the shed (it was pretty much falling apart anyway), put up a new one, and just do grass seed in the yard. We will put in an irrigation system since I am the world's worst lawn-waterer. My goal is for the kids to be able to play in the backyard this summer. I think my little boy especially will need that time outside, and it will be nice not to have to worry about ALL THOSE BEES! I mean, seriously. I had to clean out the shed, and thank God it is still so early and cool out because I counted 35 or 40 wasp nests, and there was a really big (volleyball size) paper nest in one of the cabinets. If I had waited much longer at all it would have been almost too dangerous to do. My husband spent yesterday and tore the thing down, but until we can borrow the trailer from my dad to haul everything to the dump, this is what our yard looks like:

Don't judge me, I know it's really, really bad. No kiddos allowed out there now, that's for sure. But we are trying to fix it and make it better. Our yard is a lot bigger than we thought it was, and I want to be able to use it this year! 

Anyway, until next time, thanks for reading!

A Couple of New Starts

Now that I am finished with Beauty and the Beast, it is time to start something new. It's funny, a lot of people LOVE starting new projects, but I'm not really sure that I do. I mean, I love having something new to work on and I can think of 100 different patterns I would want to make... But honestly I love watching the project grow and develop. I don't like the first phase much when there isn't much progress to show. Anyway, here are my 2 new starts for the week:

Even though my daughter is 3 years old now, I bought this pattern back when she was only 1. Honestly, she is more of a Princess now than she was before - she definitely lives up to her name! (Sarah means princess, btw) This one is a birth announcement by Bucilla on 14 count fabric, and here is what the finished pattern looks like:

And here is my progress so far from this week:

After so much on 18 count, the 14 count feels really big, but I'm still happy with the coverage. Not a huge amount done yet, but for the amount of time I was able to stitch this week I think it's going pretty quickly. Much faster than Beauty and the Beast. Although I will say that I have had much, much, much more trouble counting this than B&B. I had to frog and re-do the green and yellow stars up in the top corner, and part of her wing, and the start of the big yellow star at the bottom. I think it's because of the big open spaces... Also, I'm not sure what it is with me and not having the floss I need in the kits I buy, but there was no dark purple in this kit. I supplemented from my own stash, and I think it looks alright. Hopefully I don't have much more trouble with that in future kits, it's a little frustrating.

I am also fascinated by Drawn Thread Embroidery. I bought the book Beginner's Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery and I love some of the samplers in there. I decided for my first 'practice' piece, I will take some elements from the samplers in the book and adapt them to my own sampler. I bought this piece of linen a little while ago at Joann's, and it isn't technically evenweave but it does seem to be more even than your average fabric. I am hoping to be able to do maybe one band per week on this. We'll see how it goes. Here 'tis so far:

And a close-up

It's pretty neat. You satin stitch the two short edges of the band and then remove the horizontal threads between the satin stitching. Then you hemstitch the top and bottom and group the vertical threads all purdy like. It's fun :)

Last, just so you all know that I am definitely planning on doing more of the Kinkade Disney pieces, here is my Kinkade/Disney stash:

The only thing I know as of now is that I want to do Snow White next, after I am done with Sarah's Princess pattern. I just think it is the least 'busy' of the three and it will go faster with less partial stitches. Still months and months, but still :)