Stitching & Stuff

Hey,

Sorry no post yesterday... it rained.... again.... all day.... (sigh). Anyways, I stitched like a demon over the weekend. Got quite a bit done on Steam Punk Fairy, then switched over to Fruit Cocktail. I stitched last night on Queen's Croquet Ground.





I found the floor stand I want. Now to come up with $400! Its the Mark II from www.hearthsidescraftworks.com. I really wanted one with the spring loaded feature so that you don't have to unscrew anything to get to the back of your work. Also, this will fit around my chair. I like that it comes with the pattern holder and accessory tray too. Since I'm going to be using at least 2 Pako needle holders, I think I'll see about getting an extra tray. So now all I have to do is come up with the money!

I'm posting a bunch of stuff on Etsy this week so please, please, please go BUY IT!!! My username on Etsy is BrightStitch. There will be some new scissor fobs, some great fabric fat quarters, and a bunch of Dimensions GC Petites kits. (I can finally part with these now that I almost exclusively stitch my patterns and HAEDs) Also, I'll be posting a few finished XS items too.

Mood: Waterlogged
Song: Always a Flame - Gene Loves Jezebel

Building an Ark

Well, we're getting ready for Fay to head our way... they're calling for quite a bit of rain. Great for sitting at home and stitching. :)

Worked on Steam Punk Fairy last night. Got in about 400 stitches or so, not so much cause we went out to eat. Sorry, no pic!

Mood: Like when you know its Friday!
Song: Devil Bunnies - My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult

Blogger Frustrations

Well, this sucks... I can have my blog as long as I don't try to edit the template. When I try to customize it makes me upgrade something... as soon as I do this the blog will not load. I can revert back to classic template and it works. However, I can't have my links and edit the sidebars. I've been checking this every day to see if maybe they've fixed it but no luck.

As far as stitching goes Tuesday I didn't stitch at all. Some days you just have to take a break! Last night I stitched on Fractal 20. Don't know how many stitches I got in but the total so far is 3,300. I want to at least finish the first page on this before moving on to something else again. I love the design but so many browns and dark colors gets boring after a while.



If anyone is interested in seeing the orginal you can find it on my site at www.brightstitch.com . Look for fractals on the left hand side. These are so stunning!

I thought I would explain how I count my stitches, not that anyone cares! I am a cross country stitcher for the most part. I just ramble around, but I do not like to venture out too far and I don't like to leave holes. So.. I try to finish each section before moving on to the next, and I always finish the page before going on to the next page. Anyways, I only count full, finished blocks. I always know I've done more than what I count, but I'm not about to count every single stitch! This is why the stitches finished is always a round 100 number. I have a spreadsheet that allows me to put in the finished stitches and gives me a percent done. I also keep track of the pages done and I use whatever of the two percents is higher.


Mood: Cheerfully Frustrated
Song: Getting Smaller - Nine Inch Nails

Stitching Update

Ok, I worked on three things over the weekend... I finished the first page of Mermaid of the Deep (no pic of this one), I finished my second page of Speckled Fairy, and worked quite a bit on Steam Punk Fairy.

Speckled Fairy


Steam Punk Fairy



I also bought a new set of DMC colors for Steam Punk. I'm still perfecting having the threaded needle ready attached to the bobbin, but those are threaded with one strand. I'm doing Steam Punk on 18ct with two strands. I figured that it would muck up the whole system if I switched back and forth. Also, for the 18ct I like to do a loop start so I want really long pieces to start with. For the 28ct over one, I want a much smaller strand to start with. Soo.... I figure I'm going to have to have two sets of DMC eventually... one for over one and one for larger count projects. I knew I bought that extra Jammer for a reason.

Remember... you can never have too much floss! :)

Fixed it.... MYSELF!

Thanks for all your help blogspot help people (sarcasm intended). I got tired of not being able to see my blog, so I started messing around with the controls. I finally got it to work by reverting back to the unedited template... hence the plain blog. This means I have to spend some time with the customization again. Anyways... I'll be back later to post about the weekend's stitching progress and to redo the links and stuff.

Mood: It's Monday... 'nough said
Song: Fast as You Can - Fiona Apple

Hello?

Well, I can't view this blog anymore?!? I can post, but I get an error message when I try to view the blog. Don't know if anyone else can see it either. So I may just be talking to myself.

Anyways, stitched a bit on Winter (Butcher ACEO) and Speckled Fairy (Vinson) last night. Not enough progress on either of them to bother with a pic.

I did figure out a way to be able to stitch on all of my projects with needles pre-threaded with all the colors. I saw someone's avatar pic on the HAED message board once where she had set up a bunch of those Pako needle holders in somekind of stand. That way she had all of the colors on pre-threaded needles. I know I spend a lot of time threading and unthreading needles, especially when I'm doing confetti stitching. I really want to be able to just grab a pre-threaded needle when moving from color to color. The problem is: I stitch on so many WIP's, I would have to have all the colors (and that would take up a lot of room, not to mention at 20$ a pop, a lot of money for the Pako needle holders) Soooo.... I figured out a new way: I am putting the threaded needle on the bobbin, behind the wound floss, then winding the thread that's on the needle around the bobbin too. Eventually all the colors in my Jammer box will have a threaded needle. I cleared out Joann's last night of all the 28 sized needles that they had, which only came out to 50. I'll have to raid the other craft stores or possibly order online to get enough needles.

I'll post a pic tomorrow of what this looks like. I think it's going to work out well.

Mood: Slightly Better than Crappy
Song: Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - Cake

Progress on Steam Punk and Speckled Fairy

I stitched quite a bit this weekend considering how busy I was with other things. Friday night DH and I took his 87 Iroc to the dragstrip. First time in while that we've been at night. It was nice not to be in the sun. The Iroc ran ok, it's still stock right now, but he plans to put a turbo set up in it soon. Saturday I went to play bingo for a while, then off to the grocery store to get some stuff to make to go to a party Sat. night. I made a green bean casserole (sans mushrooms). We had a pretty good time. There was lots of food and plenty to drink. As it happens when you get old, we didn't stay too late, so I got some stitching time in when we got home. Sunday, I took my son school shopping. Wasn't too bad, we were able to get all he needed at Target. They wear uniforms here (well, polo shirts and jeans or khakis) and all he needed was some jeans and some shorts. I stitched for a while in the afternoon, then again later at night.

Here is my progress on Steam Punk Fairy:


And on Speckled Fairy:


I'm really going to get those WIP pages done today, really! LOL

Mood: blah-ish
Song: Unhappy Birthday - The Smiths

Sunshine and Rainbows... maybe

I couldn't face the whole 613 crisis so I decided to stitch on Rainbow Mermaid last night. But no.... you can't escape that easy... I found that Rainbow Mermaid has been stitched with the imposter 613 too. Anyways, after looking at what I had done so far, I decided to continue on this one with the incorrect color. It looks fine because the overall colors on this one are more green to begin with. So here's my progress as of last night.









And here's my progress on Steam Punk from the night before:


I sincerely wish all I had to do in life is stitch... I could go all day.

I should be finished with the rest of the WIP pages today, be sure to check out the links on the left side.

Have a fricken happy day,
Cheryl


Mood: cranky
Song: Dr. Online - Zeromancer

Frog my butt.... That's a Dragon!

I'm pretty speechless.... Last night I discovered that my 613 wasn't really 613 at all. It was 612. HTF does this happen? I was pretty upset, but now I'm mostly over it. Unlike a lot of people, I stitch from the same set of floss for all of my projects. I've never had a problem with dye lots being different, and if they are, I can usually work it in where the difference doesn't show. When stitching one over one you use so little floss that it seems silly to buy separate floss for each project. So... I stitched with this bobbin of "613" on several projects. Most notably, my "Psyche" and "Josh". I decided right away to start Josh over. I am going to rechart it as I was never really happy with the way it came out. As for Psyche, well, ask anyone who stitches one over one on 28 if you can frog. The answer is: only if you're insane. The stitches are too tight and too close together to really frog. So I haven't decided what to do about it. If it was a back ground color I probably would continue using the wrong color for the rest of the chart, but this is a skin tone color and now that I really look, I can tell something is wrong. I won't make myself cry by telling you how much stitching time went into these two projects.

On a lighter note... I was able to get another 800 stitches into Steam Punk last night. (would have done more but ran out of "613" which started the whole trouble above) No problem frogging the wrong 613 in Steam Punk as it's 18ct and there were not that many to take out.

Forgot to take the camera home from work so no progress pics today. We had a pretty good thunderboomer and lost power at the store so I got to come home a bit early.

Mood: Sad, Frustrated
Song: Leave in Silence - Depeche Mode

Steam Punk Start

Well, like I said I'm weak.... I started Steam Punk Fairy on Tues night. Got quite a bit done.

Pattern by Heaven and Earth Designs

We've recently moved our home based business to an actual store, so my computer went there. This has given me A LOT more time to stitch in the evening because I'm not distracted by surfing the net or playing games on pogo.com.

It's different than most of my WIP's in that I chose to stitch on 18ct Aida instead of my usual 28ct. Seems to go faster but I think it's just that you're covering more area with each stitch. Here are some progress pics:

Original:


First Night:


Last Night:


I actually took pictures of all my WIP's last night... and there were more than I remembered! I think I should probably at least try to finish something soon. LOL I did finish a sampler for my DH's nephew's wedding last week, I forgot to take a picture of it. I'll try to post it tomorrow.

I'm working on having a progress page for each one that you'll be able to link to from the list on the left. I think I have the layout the way I want it, tis just a matter of collecting all of the data on stitch counts and such. I hope to post a few of them today, and the rest perhaps tomorrow.

Happy Stitching,
Cheryl

Ack... I'm Blogging

Hi!

Well, I've set up this blog mostly to chronicle my cross stitching projects. I'm not very good at updating things like this so my posts will probably be sparadic at best.


Anyway, here's my current WIP's:

1. The Rapture of Psyche - www.brightstitch.com

2. Steam Punk Fairy - Heaven and Earth Designs

3. Fruit Cocktail - www.brightstitch.com

Actually I have about 25 projects that are WIPs or UFOs. I'm trying not to start anything new, but... I'm weak LOL

I'm going to take some pictures tonight to show my current progress.

Thanks for looking,
Cheryl