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 :)

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.