Elegance of the Orient - Day 1

My word, what have I gotten myself into with this one? Not only is it much larger than I thought it was (318 x 220), but when I opened it up to look through the chart, I realized that, in addition to the full cross stitch, half cross stitch, back stitch and French knots, there was also lazy daisy stitch, twisted lazy daisy stitch, and couching.

This will be quite the endeavor.

But it should look so good once it's done. The thread has really nice coverage on the 18ct. And the large smooth-looking fields of blue were what drew me to this kit originally.

Twilight Silhouette - Day 2

So. Much. Black. Seriously. The kit came with 47 lengths of black floss. At least it's not black-on-black, but black-on-navy is almost as bad.

See that little black mark up in the top right of the photo? The rows until that point are just filled in with black cross stitches. And even after that point there's still a lot, but that's when I'll need to start paying attention again as other colours will start creeping in again.

As much fun as it is, I might need to take a break from all that black.

Twilight Silhouette - Day 1

Trips to Mary Maxim are dangerous. I picked up both this piece and Elegance of the Orient and spent way too much money. And of course I couldn't buy a new piece without getting started, and so the result above.

This one should actually whip up pretty quickly, considering there's a large amount of half stitches (which of course go twice as fast as full stitches).

Red Geisha - Day 22/23

Cut it kind of close, but ended up finishing all the red on her left sleeve this weekend. Especially now that they're all outlined (in red of course; not backstitch), the flowers and leaves shouldn't take too much longer to finish off the sleeve.

Red Geisha - Day 21

It's official... I have to take the pictures in portrait now instead of landscape on this one.

I REALLY hope I counted right on those flowers up the side, else I'm going to have a lot to undo. I keep triple checking where my stitches line up, just in case.

I ended up doing the backstitching on her hand, as it didn't really look like much of anything without it, and I wanted to see what it was going to look like :)

Red Geisha - Day 20

The purple parts of the purple bow are done! Black spots next :) That odd concave arc about halfway down the trailing end of the bow is where her left sleeve overlaps. It should look much better once that gets started.

Red Geisha - Day 19

Only two partial columns left to go on the big bow (and then the black spots)! I'm not quite sure what the next section I'm going to do is, but I know her left sleeve will be the next big section to be done. I might do the purple ribbon on her right sleeve first.

I'm really having fun with the parking. I might just continue on with that.

Red Geisha - Day 17/18

Finished off the red section then started on the bow... and realized that I wanted to do some parking. So I did. I don't know if it was faster this way or not... but I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more than if I had just done cross country. I only did the three purples: the black dots I'll do at the end once all the purples are done.

Bunny Bunny Rock (PPG) - Quick Finish

Started and completed on the same day. PPG Episode for reference. I don't know why, but the first time I saw that episode, this line jumped out at me. So I finally decided to pull out some scrap cloth and get this idea completed.

The piece is done on 16ct off-white aida, only two colours, finished in a 5" hoop

Wedding Bouquet - Day 13

It is completed! I was just going to do the ribbons today then move on to something else and finish the beads tomorrow, but I was feeling like I could handle the beads as well, so I went ahead and finished it off!

There were a couple places that I noticed that I missed a couple of the cross stitches, but they're not really noticeable and where they were, it would have been very awkward to get the stitches in around the ribbons.

The completely-pink one just down from centre was one of the twisted roses I was having trouble with... didn't turn out too badly. 

The two tone spider web roses (just up from centre, top right corner, bottom middle) did turn out REALLY nice looking. I think the light one in the centre is probably my favourite of all the flowers in the entire piece.

The beads were used as separators for the date; on the lace edges; and on the white doodlies as small buds, centres for the bigger buds (french knots), and centres for the fully-bloomed doodlies.

I hope they like it!

Red Geisha - Day 14/15/16

One more colour left in this section (the light red), then on to the purple bow!

Wedding Bouquet - Day 12

I don't think I want to do the ribbon embroidery... I've been procrastinating. Either that, or because I HAVE to do it before the deadline (just over a month away), it's feeling like too much pressure.

Either way, I didn't get it done this weekend like I'd hoped. I got all of the flat-petal flowers in the middle done, though. After that, there're some more white snow-droppy small guys on the bottom by the fern leaves and on the left on the stems, another set of pink doodlies on the gladiolus-looking stem in the top left, a set of three of the middle-sized roses on the left next to the snow droppy guys and one in the middle above the bottom-most star, then just the spider web roses and the beads.

I have to say, I think I may have had a little bit too much fun switching quickly back and forth (because it's fun to use Windows Photo Viewer as a blink comparator simulator) between the last picture of Bouquet and this one... it was like 'Empty Space'... 'Kabloom!'

I took a closer look at the beads that came in the kit... pretty sure they're plastic, so I picked up some beads at Michael's today to use instead. I got the ones with a pearly-sheen (the ones in the kit were flat white), and I think they should look better than the ones that came with it; give it a bit more of a shine.

I did get some small bits done on the Geisha and the Autumn Tree while I was procrastinating, but not enough to justify a whole post (plus, it was late when I got home and didn't really want to go through the hassle of grabbing a photo). We'll see what this next week brings!

Wedding Bouquet - Day 11

Dammit Reddit, you waste so much time! I could have gotten so much more of this done tonight if I didn't get stuck reading random threads!

I had a bit of trouble with the larger peach roses on the right too, which probably contributed to me wanting to waste time on Reddit. Only five more of those to do, though at least... I thought I disliked French Knots... those roses are even worse.

Four Seasons (Tree 1) - Day 1

All set up and ready to do the beads and ribbons on the bouquet... and I can't find the needle (and I can't just use any old needle, because the ribbons need a large eye). So instead of working on Geisha today, I decided that I didn't really want to think, so I took out the first of the seasons trees. 

I got two colours done, though with the stamped pattern it's hard to see; the black and the red. The third colour (purple) is started as well.

Red Geisha - Day 12/13

This is cheating a little bit... a bunch of this was done yesterday, but I was too tired when I got home to get a picture. I did end up deciding to go from the bottom up. It was nice to see that bottom section emerge.