Smalls SAL and WIPocalypse

Even though I'm on vacation I want to get my SAL updates in. First up is the September Smalls SAL. The idea of this fun SAL is to stitch up something each month. I've joined in for 2 years before this and I have decided to use this SAL as an excuse to stitch up a monthly design throughout the whole year. This year I'm stitching a Durene Jones Calendar project. So far I've only missed one by just a day. Not September though. I was excited about stitching up this cute hedgehog...

Now for the WIPocalypse update. The idea of this SAL is for us to finish our WIPs before the end of the world. I don't think this will ever happen. Especially after buying all the new stash I just did haha. So I think I'm helping with holding off the end of the world. I like to use this SAL as an excuse to keep track of what I've worked on during the time frame and how many days on each project. It's a fantastic way to look back and see how much progress I have made on my countless WIPs. So let's see what I've been working on since my last update...

You are Loved -- 1 Day and I had this one finished off

Dragon Moon -- 2 Days I was itching to work on HAEDs again
Here is where I got with it...

Dragon Skies -- 2 Days
Here is where she is...

 Durene Jones September -- 4 Days. The photo for this one is the top one for my Smalls SAL.

Sept Snapshot -- 6 Days. Started and finished this one. Just have October left to do now...

Frosted Pumpkin Halloween Sampler -- 6 Days
Here is where I was last WIPocalypse update...

Here is where I am now...

Halloween Mini - Vampire Face - 4 Days
Got started on this one before vacation and have got a little bit stitched while on vacation even...

October Snapshot -- 1 Day. Got started on this one at the retreat. But spent too much time chatting/shopping and not stitching.
Here I am now with it...

No stitching days -- 13. A camping trip, the cabin, and this vacation is stealing my time. But it's all good time to be spending so I'm okay with that. Looking back I have got a lot done and on a lot of different projects so I'm very happy.

Okay now back to my vacation posts. See ya next month for the next SAL updates.

Monday Update: A Finish and a HAED Week

Last Monday I was able to finish up You are Loved...

Finish # 21 August 27th, 2018

You are Loved by Hinzeit

Christmas 2017 Gift from Fred

Stitched on 28ct Beige Jobelan Evenweave

Threads are Suggested DMC Threads

Started Dec 30th, 2017. Took 14 Days.

I'm so happy to have it marked off my YOW (Year of WIPs) list. I just need two more things marked off the list and I will be entered into the end of the year drawing for the YOW group. I will definitely have the Durene Jones piece finished for then. So I just need one more marked off. Wonder which one it will be?

After I finished that one up I heard my HAEDs (Heaven and Earth Designs) screaming Remember Us? So I looked through them and ended up having Jeremiah pick a number for me. First one he picked was Dragon Moon. Here is what she will look like again...

The artwork is from Nene Thomas unfortunately her designs are now OOP at HAED or at least last I checked they were. I hadn't worked on it since March this year. I put two more days into it and here is the progress now after 12 Days on it...

I'm stitching it 1 thread over 1 complete X on 32ct taupe evenweave. The sparkle doesn't show up very well in this picture. There is a lot of Kreinik blending filament in this one. What a pain but it looks pretty when it's in.

After those two days I asked Jeremiah to pick another number from my HAEDs and he picked Dragon Skies from Selina Fenech...

I'm doing it 1 thread over 1 complete x on 32ct as well. This one was from the lovely Justine and I hadn't worked on it since March 2016! I worked on it Thursday and yesterday. Here it is now with 11 days of progress...

I was so glad to get away from the Kreinik in the other one and yep you can see it in this one....it's mostly Kreinik in the area I worked on the past two days. So frustrating but again it looks pretty after it's in the fabric. I got 6 columns finished up now on the first page. Looks like I'm almost to the top of the dragonfly according to the artwork photo so that's good. I glanced ahead and several of the pages are just B5200. What a boring page that will be. But I will LOVE it once I get to that beautiful fairy and dragon!

Over the weekend we went up to our friends house in Michigan. It was just the 4 of us (Jeremiah decided to stay home and have an Xbox weekend) and it was forecast to be HOT and rainy. So we asked them if we could stay in their old camper instead of bringing our tent. Boy I'm glad we did. The weather was horrible. We even had a tornado touch down 6 miles away from us. We had fun but so glad to be home in the AC again. We didn't do much at all. We spent Saturday shopping at several fun places and 2 breweries instead of kayaking which I'm glad we did with all the lightning that ended up being in the area. It was a fun relaxing weekend with great friends at least along the Kalamazoo River...

I hope everyone has a great week. As always I feel overwhelmed with all I need to do. Hopefully though I can squeeze in some X's. Hope you can too!

March WIPocalypse

Today is a check in for WIPocalypse. This fun blog SAL has a purpose of us stitching all our WIPs before the end of the world. (Yeah right!) This would mostly work if I stop starting new stuff which I doubt I will ever do. I did however start the year with 75 WIPs and I have marked off several projects so I'm trying really I am. I like to use this SAL as a reason to keep track of what I've worked on and how many days on each project. It's nice to look back and see all the progress I've made each month. So let's see what I've been up to since Feb 28th...

You are Loved -- 2 Days

I have 8 days into this one now. My sweet hubby got it for me for Christmas this past year. Love the saying on it.

Hop Squared -- 2 Days

I started and finished this little Lizzie Kate cutie. Will be finishing it up for the Easter Blog Hop Jo is hosting on Good Friday.

Basket -- 3 Days

Also started and finished this Lizzie Kate to finish up for the Blog Hop. (See 2 new starts doesn't help with that WIP list does it? LOL)

Dragon Moon -- 2 Days

Got some more stitches added to this HAED over those two days. The part that looks not stitched in the bottom photo is Kreinik. It's beautiful but in this photo the sparkle didn't show up of course.

Durene Jones Calendar -- 4 Days

Started and finished another part of the Calendar design. So far so good keeping up with these. This one I had to really change up because it was designed for Mother's Day in the UK. I am so happy with the changes I made to make it more us with St Patrick's Day because of our Irish heritage.

Ocean in the Bottle -- 3 Days into this new start (Yep another new start not on my list haha) Going to work on this one again today and will post a WIP update tomorrow so come on back for that. My last posts show what it will look like if you are interested.

Question of the Month – What newer designers and product creators (fabric or floss dyeing, etc) out there have you discovered and recommend? I've always heard about Etsy but never bought anything from there. I have bought several patterns recently. I love being able to download the pattern and have it right away. Plus the variety available is amazing....or bad if you are trying to stick to a WIP list haha. Here are the ones I've bought from recently...

ValentiCrossStitch - bought a cool Boba Fett to do for Jeremiah (Yeah Yeah not on the list.)
Durene Jones shop - bought 3 cute Christmas pieces to do (They are on the list already so Shhh.)
CutePatternsByMaria - my newest new start (Again not on the list!) is from there and also bought another piece to do in the future...maybe.

So go check those out and see what you can find. For the Feb check in I had 15 days of no stitching. This month I had only 9 so I did a lot better in that department at least. See ya next check in. Hope we all have a lot of progress to share.

Dragon Moon

In the last post I posted a WIP on Dragon Moon. I worked on her another day so I'm ready to put her away for a little bit.

This is 8 Days and a total of 3,360 stitches in now. I'm using 32ct taupe evenweave and stitching 1 thread over 1. There is sparkly Kreinik thread in there too if you can see the sparkly parts.

Now she is happily going back in the basket so I can work on the Tribal Fire Helmet some more.

WIPocalypse

Another WIPocalypse is here. Time to share what we have been working on since the last check in. I will warn you now this is going to be a short check in for me. With vacation I did a lot of no stitching. But we did a whole bunch of having fun and making memories. Let's break it down...

Dolphin Freebie - 3 Days
HAED Selkie - 4 Days
Tribal Fire Helmet - 2 Days
HAED Dragon Moon - 1 Day
Non Stitching - 20 Days!!

If you look down a few posts you will see my progress on the Dolphin Freebie. I actually worked on it on vacation which was a new one for me haha. I normally take stitching and never get it out to work on. HAED Selkie had her own check in on the 1st so let's talk about the other two pieces.

The Tribal Fire Helmet is a gift for a couple I love very much. (Hopefully they don't read my blog.) Here is what it will look like...

Here is where I am now...

I decided to use a plain piece of fabric so the helmet is the focus. I'm using Threadworx hand dyed threads. I'm hoping to make it into a pillow type finish and give it to them on an upcoming weekend gathering. I hate finishing so we'll see haha. I was trying to work on the helmet and from my WIP basket I heard Hey Remember Me?! Stitch on me?!? So I had to look to see what was screaming and HAED Dragon Moon needed some attention. Here is what she will look like again...

Here she is now...

I just LOVE working on this one.

A little bit of a life update. I'm finally starting to feel better. I've been so dizzy all week with this ear infection. Jeremiah is finally done coughing sounds like it. Finally this weekend I was able to get some stuff done. The huge thunderous pile of laundry just kept building up since I was too sick to do any last week. So I finally have mustered the energy to get that chore started. The roof guys showed up and within 22 minutes the job was complete. We didn't get charged a cent. That's my kind of repair job! Well I'm off to get some stuff done. Thanks for stopping by.

Dragon Moon

 I finished my 2nd week of my HAED March Madness. This is my 2nd new HAED start for the month. This one is out of print. The artist is Nene Thomas. I've always loved her artwork. This design is called Dragon Moon. It's a storykeep so it's 100 stitches wide and 309 stitches long. I just LOVE the colors in this one. I already reached the dragon's wing. I was able to finish off the first two columns so this is 1,960 stitches in. I really look forward to working on this one again. Yesterday I started my last new HAED. It's another out of print one from Nene. It's called Aquamarine. Here is a reminder of what Dragon Moon will look like...

My March HAED Madness

So my HAED insanity continues to grow. Sometime last year HAED announced that one of my favorite artists was pulling her artwork from the HAED site. So I was of course FORCED to buy two of her patterns that I just couldn't live without. The artists name is Nene Thomas. I bought two of the Storykeep patterns so at least they aren't that big (Yeah Right!)...

Storykeep Aquamarine

by Nene Thomas

125 x 392

90 Different Colors

Storykeep Dragon Moon

by Nene Thomas

100 x 309

90 Different Colors

Dragon Skies 

by Selina Fenech

400 x 562

90 Different Colors

Dragon Skies was RAKed to me by a lady whom I've enjoyed getting to know in the blog world Justine. When I originally received her I was thinking Oh I will wait until next year cause I already have so much going on.....Yeah Right! She has been haunting me ever since. So I figured might as well start all 3 right?! I got 32ct Taupe Lugana to do them all on. The piece for Dragon Skies is so HUGE! Funny part about Dragon Skies I was worried about it since Selkie is all blues on the first few pages. So I wondered what Dragon Skies would bring me and hoped it wasn't blues. It's all white! So at least it will be break from the blues. So I will have 6 HAEDS in my WIP pile. It's okay cause I just LOVE working on them.