Belle Fairy Tale Dress

She is completed! I am really pleased with how she turned out. The stitching to embellishment ratio was a lot better for me compared with the ribbon bouquet I did earlier this year: I finished the ribbons and roses all this morning (and a bunch of that time was waiting for the Fray Check to dry).

Some close ups:

Belle Fairy Tale Dress

And we're back! The afghan was really throwing off my groove, and with the sparklies for Belle in the mail, I figured I'd take a break for a bit and go play WoW for a bit.

Well, my package arrived this week, and I've been putting in some time getting the backstitching and beading completed. Next step, she needs to be washed and ironed, and then the finishing touches with the wire roses and ribbons. I'm kind of worried that they won't turn out well, but I guess I won't know until I actually try, so we'll have to see!

Woodland Creatures Afghan

This guy looks much better in real life. The stripes in the background are a lot more noticeable and the spiky stripes on the hedgehog himself stand out a lot more, I think because the lack of coverage in the brown isn't quite as stark as under this light.

Next up, owl!

Woodland Creatures Afghan

Number four down!

The other animals looked pretty derpy. This one so far is the derpiest. I'm not sure I like that orange ring around his rosy cheek (that's how it's supposed to be, I double checked), and the orange running stitch around the outside doesn't really have that much contrast with the pink background. 

All in all, I think this is my least favourite out of the four I've done so far.

I'm really liking the act of stitching the backgrounds though. They're all pretty much regular shapes (lines and squares... a few are dots like on the turtle), and I can just zone out a bit to stitch them. It's very zen. Plus, they're almost all done only with one strand of floss (except for those gingham ones, and maybe there are some I just haven't come across yet), which means I don't have to worry about railroading or forcing them to lie nice.

Woodland Creatures Afghan

Frog on a lily pad for the third one. I like the gingham-look of the background (also, while stitching this I realized that Weird Al should totally do Gingham Style, and all the costumes in the music video would be made of gingham). Next up is a really derpy-looking deer.

Woodland Creatures Afghan

Here is the second of 28 blocks done. I've decided to do the bigger 'full coverage' blocks first (14 of them), then the faster blocks after those are done. There are 14 different big blocks, but there's only 5 different small blocks, and they're repeated, so I was thinking that I might mix those ones up by doing different colours at the very least, and of course how am I supposed to know if I have enough floss to do that, unless all the big blocks are already done?

The background on this block is interesting: it's kind of hard to see in the picture, but it's a checkerboard pattern (3x3 stitches per square). Each block is the same colour floss, but the squares alternate between 1 strand and 2 strands. It's a subtle effect, and the photograph doesn't do it justice (much like metallic thread, it gains a lot when you look at it from shifting angles.

Unfortunately, my Q-snap ripped some of the afghan fabric! Probably when I took it off. I'm going to try fray-checking the pieces back together, but from now on I think I'm going to have to use a hoop instead.

Woodland Creatures Afghan

First block on this afghan is done. This took a lot longer than it should have.

First, I started working on it, and thought that maybe the instructions were wrong, since a lot of the stitches are only one strand (over 2 on 18 count, so 9 count), and didn't seem to have any coverage. Plus, there were no finishing instructions for the back, which seemed odd. I asked on reddit if anyone had done any of these afghans before, and didn't really get much of a response, so I decided to try the first block, see how it looked, and then switch to a framed piece on 18 count if the coverage looked horrible.

Then, I get halfway through the orange part of the background (not the spots), and realize that I miscounted when centering it in the block: 88 holes in the block, so 44 stitches over two, the block is 38 stitches wide, and I left a border on the left and top of 6 stitches instead of 3.

So, I restart. I do a bunch of the first line, then count the rest to make sure that my borders are the same... and they're not (at least I've only the bottom legs of the first 17 stitches this time). Triple check my counting (in 2 for the rounded corner, 17 orange, 6 yellow, 10 orange, 2 blanks for the rounded corner) and I can't figure out where I went wrong... except if you noticed above I said that the block was 38 stitches wide... but 2+17+6+10+2=37. So I needed 3.5 stitches (7 holes) on each side of the block, not 6.

So I undo the stitches and start again, moving right one hole to start. Get those first 17 stitches done again... and realize that the height would also be 37 instead of 38 stitches as well (and I checked the pattern to be sure). So undo those stitches once again, and move down one hole to start.

Triple checking all my counts the entire time, I end up centering it properly this time. Yay! I finish the background, then start on yellow-green for the turtle's head and feet. I almost finish that colour... and realize that that symbol was only supposed to use one strand of floss instead of two (I shouldn't have assumed that all the backgrounds were 1 strand and animals were 2). So after undoing all the turtle skin and redoing it... the rest of the block went without incident. Even the French knots went oddly well.

Anyway, I was worried that the lack of coverage would make this not look very good, but it actually turned out looking okay. So I'll be gifting the afghan for Christmas after all.

I actually saw the companion piece for this at Michael's the other day, and I'm not sure if I want to go back and pick it up or not. That striped background looks kind of fun though. Maybe I'll ask someone else if they want to pick it up and I'll stitch it and then they can gift it.

Belle Fairy Tale Dress

All the DMC crosses are done! Now I just have to wait a couple of weeks until my shinies show up to finish it off!

In the mean time, I've decided I'm going to make a baby blanket for a Christmas present as well, so I'm going to get on that.

Belle Fairy Tale Dress

Three more colours down:

I'm so glad that I counted right for the distance to the light swirly under-skirt section. I believe the bodice section is done now but for beads (and a short bit of back stitch).

That darker gold colour under the poufs makes that bright yellow not look so out of place. Still a little odd, but I can see now that it's probably going to turn out okay in the end.

There are only two more DMC colours left on the dress (white and yet another yellow-gold), then the last four colours are on the rose, and that should work up pretty quickly. I really should have gotten started on the next colour today, but I spent a bunch of time playing WoW (read the Blizzcon news, and got excited enough to play around on some trial sub-20 toons).

Belle Fairy Tale Dress

Three DMC colours down, nine more to go. I have a feeling I'm going to be finishing off the regular floss sections before my specialty threads show up. I mean, if I get some good stitching time in this weekend, I could maybe even finish them off before Monday.

Those bright sections underneath each of the poofs, they don't look quite right, but they're going to be the shadows underneath the ribbon sections, so they'll be more or less covered? Hopefully?

Pretty Princess Dress Up!

So I don't have much to show for this past week as I was transcribing The Guardian into the computer so that I could run it through the Traveling Salesman program... and then doing a bunch of work on said program so that it could handle quarter stitches (wheeee!). I started working it cross-country like I had started so many years ago, and after a couple lengths of thread I was like Nope! So I spent a week drawing on the computer.

Anyway, now that that's done I was going to start finishing the dragon, when I finally decided to pay for the Fairy Tale Princess Dress Up set of patterns from Brooke's Books on Etsy. I've been eyeing them for a while, but I also finally had a reason to start on one (Christmas present!), and since they were on sale for 50% off for the set, I picked them up.

So I started working on Belle:

That's the first (biggest) colour down, and there are actually not that many colours in this one, since her dress is just a big mass of yellow. The Mill Hill beads and Kreinik threads are currently on order and will apparently be shipped in about two weeks (since the red hot wire wasn't in stock atm, but they're going to order it in just for li'l ole me!), but that should leave enough time before Christmas still to complete and then finish the piece. It should look so sparkly when it's done.

Speaking of finishing, the Inspiration Dragon Slayer piece is currently at Michael's to be framed. We'll see how that turns out, but the guy I ordered the frame from seemed to know what he was doing. Custom framing is pretty expensive though: I think I'll have to figure out how to do it myself for the future (except for Hidden Harbour, which I've promised will be done professionally, since it's such a huge time investment).

Also, sweet dollar store find:

Just in case you can't read the sticker on the corner of the kit, that says $4... for a Dimensions Gold Collection. And one that's on my Christmas wish list to boot! I've already started transcribing the pattern.

Huh, I should probably be updating my queue page. I don't think it's currently accurate.

Twilight Silhouette

It is done! Before and after backstitching:

There's a lot more fairy dust after the backstitching. There were a lot more French knots than I thought going into this. I didn't think there were quite that many French knot stars.

The French knots actually weren't that bad. It was the blending filament that was the worst. It was trying to curl up on itself, so it would knot easily when being drawn through the fabric, but it also needed three strands at once, which meant both that it was even more prone to knotting, and the three threads always wanted to sit in the needle at different points because of the curling. I ended up doing one strand at a time, and just doing all the backstitching thrice.

The black backstitching I did the same thing with, but for a different reason: most of the black was one strand, but there were a couple places where it used two strands (the sparkles) and four strands (the curls on the wing tips). I didn't want to have to come back and lock down a new set of threads, so since there were so few places with more strands and they were so close to where the single strand stitches were supposed to go, I just did those with the single strand as well, just going over the stitches multiple times to make up the weight.

The difference in colour in the black cross stitches worked itself out, so I'm pretty confident in saying that the thread faded from me handling it. Unfortunately - though the cross stitches now match - the black half stitches were done a lot later and weren't handled near as much... and they're a lot darker still. I'm hoping washing the piece evens everything out.

Also, I'm sure I've probably missed at least one blade of grass (it was hard to keep track as I went), but oh well. It's done. I'm not going back now. So there.

Twilight Silhouette

All the black's done now, we're down to the last four symbols, then the backstitching. I'm getting to the point now that I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do when this one's done. It's currently a toss up between doing the next section on Elegance of the Orient, and getting back into Hidden Harbour. I'm leaning towards Elegance, since I've got marker on that one, and I'm slightly worried about it not washing out if I leave it too long.

Twilight Silhouette and The Guardian

First off, Twilight Silhouette progress.

Couple more symbols are done, getting close to the end of this one!

So we moved this weekend, and in the process of unpacking stuff from storage, I found a couple things that I thought were lost!

I think this guy was my second ever cross stitch that I did. I'm almost positive that my first-one-ever is definitely lost, but I'm glad this guy was recovered. It's a Dimensions kit called Frederick the Literate.

This is Teresa Wentzler's The Guardian. I thought this was lost a while ago during a car cleaning, but it turns out it was just in storage!

There are a couple problems with this one, the larger of which is that it's FULL of partial stitches, and my pattern analyzer is currently hard coded with one stitch per grid-square. I'd have to switch up a chunk of the pattern-to-data logic to accommodate, park it, or continue cross country as I started.

The second issue, though smaller, is that apparently at some point in time I switched which direction my stitches go in, and this piece is backward to my normal direction. I just know I'm going to get at least some stitches wrong.

Also, it's quite dirty, and I'm not sure if I should clean it before finishing it, or clean it all at once after. It's not like the dirt's going to come off any easier if I do it now vs later (it's been probably at least 10 years since I touched this), and that way I can get started on it again faster!

Twilight Silhouette

Another symbol down. It's really filling in now. I doubt I'll get it done by the end of the weekend since we're moving on Saturday, but hopefully it'll be done by the weekend after that!

Twilight Silhouette

Yet another symbol done. All the rest now officially have less than 1000 stitches each.

I made a mistake with this last symbol. Can you tell? I missed a single stitch. I don't like single half stitches. I will just use a different colour in the area when I get there to fill it in.

Twilight Sillhouette

Should have gotten a lot more done this weekend, except that I totally miscounted on the thicker blue right from the top of the moon all the way down the entire arc and didn't notice until I tried to line up the stitches with the grass. So I had to tear out about half of those stitches too (good thing I didn't run out of thread!).

On the home stretch now though: the three symbols that are done so far are the biggest three, so it should be done soon! Assuming our house move next weekend doesn't take too much time :)

Twilight Sillhouette

Apparently I've been a bit lax in taking pictures of this one. I meant to grab one once the black was done, and totally forgot. Probably because I totally miscounted on the black and almost finished it before realizing, and had to pull out about a third of it, wasting about five hours.

Oh well.

All the full cross stitches are officially done now, just the half stitches left on this half, then the backstitching!

I kind of like the look of it at this stage, where the right fairy's extending off the background. It reminds me of the Bob Ross paintings where he adds trees at the end that extend off the sides of the painting. But of course I'm not going to leave it like that :)

Christmas Kittens #1

I have to say, I'm not really all that pleased with how this one turned out. Part of it is fractional stitches on aida I know, but it just feels... messy. This was the first of three free patterns in this month's World of Cross Stitching.

First without backstitching:

Looks like a reindeer without the backstitching. And here he is with:

It's hard to tell that it's a bird on his head. He's also supposed to be smiling and my mouth came out more like he's trying to be super serious. Also, apparently my French knots (switched to colonial knots halfway through, then switched back to French) just don't want to be consistent tonight.

Oh well, free kit. Good to practise with.

Cat Comfort

Cat Comfort is complete! Here he is both before and after backstitching. The backstitching on this one actually doesn't make as much of a difference as it does with some designs.

 

I really like this gridding pen. I started this piece about a month ago, and the pen washed out with no problem: I didn't even need to wash it, just let it touch the water and the lines disappeared.

I'm thinking next is going to be to try to finish Twilight Silhouette. It's half done, and it works up pretty quickly since it's mostly half stitches. Probably going to do all the full stitches first then finish with the half stitches, even though the half stitches are in the background and you'd think they should be done first. But my half stitches are looser than my full stitches, and it feels like they're more liable to get pulled out of shape from subsequent stitches.

Inspiration Dragon Slayer

It is done! Although I underestimated the time involved, I was still able to get it done in one 5 day sprint :)

Here is the original design this is based off of:

I'm not really feeling the bugle and seed beads I ended up using for the gems in the original, but given the size of the piece the backstitched gems I'd originally charted didn't look very good at all.
I'll need to figure out how I'm going to finish this. The gem by the dragon's tail is quite high off the fabric, so I might have to go for a shadow box so that it has enough space.

Inspiration Dragon Slayer

And there's the dragon that is to be slain! And all the accessories with which to slay it!

The dragon's scales (the outline, not including the belly), are done with two strands, a dark green, and a copper blending filament to give it a bit of sparkle. There's still some yellow, orange, and red in the piece, which is why I chose the copper; I figured that it would be an okay match with all four colours. A gold probably would have worked too, but I figured that if the colour was going to stand out against any of the other colours, the green would be best, plus green and copper scales would probably look cool.

The dragon's eye is going to be a red sparkly bead, and I'm hoping to find a few more charms and beads and sequins to scatter around, as there are some gems and coins in the original piece.

Inspiration Dragon Slayer

Left and bottom borders are done (yay!). Right side border mirrors the left, except it's got the year in its bubble. 

You can see now why I've called it Inspiration Dragon Slayer!

Took a couple tries to get the French knot right in the O in Dragon (and I'm still not 100% happy with it), but I'm operating under the assumption that I'm the only one who will care :)

Inspiration Dragon Slayer

Change of plans! My black linen showed up in the mail yesterday, so I'm turning my attention to this piece until it's done (it shouldn't take too long).

This is a piece I charted out based off a shirt that we got from work for a recent event. When I saw the design on the shirt, I thought it would make a good blackwork piece. It's going to be a slightly-elongated square (100x110 stitches), and the part that I've already done marks off the entire 100 stitch width. So you can roughly see how big it's going to be based on the top border!

It's a little bit wonky looking atm, since I didn't get the piece perfectly straight in the q-snap, but it should straighten out when it comes off the frame (hopefully...).

I'm hoping to have this done by Saturday at the latest, at most imposing on one 5-day sprint. I might even get some Autumn Tree done in this sprint.

Twilight Silhouette

Right half is officially done (as always, except for the backstitching and French knots)!

It would have been done earlier, except I didn't stitch at all on Thursday or Friday, and then I spent a bunch of time on the weekend playing a bunch of Factorio instead of stitching. So instead of getting started on the left half, I only just barely finished the right half in time.

Back to the Autumn tree for the next five days!

Four Seasons Trees - Autumn

This one (and by extension, I'm going to assume the other stamped pieces) instills a lack of motivation, and my theory is that because the design is stamped on the fabric, it's hard for me to tell just how much progress is being made. Next up though is Twilight Silhouette, which should be a lot more motivating (and which also spans two weekend days).

Herbert Hedgehog

Another free kit from a magazine. Here he is without the backstitching...

And here he his with the backstitching! Makes such a difference.

Provence Market

Only had weekdays to work on this one unfortunately, so only the first colour got done: it was the biggest colour so that's good, but it was also only half stitches so... yeah.

Next up, back to the pink Autumn tree. And it gets a full weekend, so we'll see just how much of that gets done in the next five days.

Cat Comfort

Well now, there appears to be a kitty silhouette defined in there!

I've decided to do all the half-stitches first and fill in the pillows and blankets before filling in the cat in the middle. Of course, there's still some kitty that's going to get stitches, but most of him should be kept until the end.

When working on these, I'm always up so close, and you can't really see what the picture's supposed to look like, and it looks bad because you can see all the little mistakes that you've made where the stitches aren't lying quite like. I'm constantly surprised when I zoom out to look at the piece in its entirety how much better it looks, and that you can actually make out what the picture's supposed to be when you couldn't see it close up.

That ends this rotation, and next up is another new start: Provence Market.

Cat Comfort

Hard to see because the first couple are so light, but that's two symbols complete. Still have another two days to devote to this, so should have at least one more symbol complete by the end :)

Twilight Silhouette

So I've decided to try something new. As is obvious, I did not in fact return to hidden harbor, instead getting a BUNCH of Twilight Silhouette done (there's a fairy now!). There were 7 full rows (across both the left and right sides) that were entirely made up of black cross stitches, as you can see the thick black line across the left. There were 10 full rows of black X's on the right side. The black is officially done on the right side already though.

I'm planning on trying a strategy that I read on a different crafting blog a while back (I don't remember which one, else I'd link it). Basically, 5 days per WIP, then switch to another one (splitting each month into equal sections, getting a bonus sixth day on the 31st, and losing a couple days at the end of Feb). I made a list of my WIPs (plus some pieces I haven't started yet), and rolled randomly to see what order I'd do them in, rerolling if I ended up with the same one twice in a row. I planned out to December (because why not), and I'll just remove pieces and move them back should I finish one and it's still got scheduled time.

So, long story short, for the next five days, I should be working on Cat Comfort.

Elegance of the Orient

Page 1 of 3 complete! Well, not counting the backstitching of course.

I waffled on doing the backstitching on this page before continuing, but eventually decided that I'm going to get all the cross stitching done first. For three reasons: 1, there's metallic backstitching on this section; 2, there was enough backstitch lines that continued up into the next page that I didn't want to start them in the middle; and 3, at least one of the lines from 2 was couched, which definitely can't be started and stopped in the middle.

Now I just need to decide if I'm going back for some more pages on Hidden Harbor. Probably.

Elegance of the Orient

About one week later... 

Actually, it was only worked on 4 days this week and only one of those was a weekend, since we picked up The Witness on Wednesday, and that's basically how I spent my Thurs/Fri/Sat this week. Still a good amount of progress, and much more than I would have been able to accomplish had I continued using parking.