Feasting Frenzy

About 1 week in now. The black was the last colour I did and it really defined a lot of the bird shapes. One element is completely done already: the seed ball in the bottom right.

Feasting Frenzy

Peacock is almost 1/4 done, and I've got a bunch more tail still to go, so I decided to start something else this weekend just to break it up. And so, I pulled Feasting Frenzy from the stash. These are the first three colours done and you can already see where a bunch of the birds are going to go. There is a LOT of backstitching in the background, so we'll see how long this one takes. It's only been two days so far, and it feels like I've gotten a lot done already.

Kittens and Butterflies

 

42 needles on this one! This is, of course, pre- (most of the) backstitching...

... and here it is all done! A good amount of french knots, but nothing too obscene (not like the lighthouse at the very least!). I changed the number of strands from 2 to 1 for the french knots on the butterfly antennae and the eye highlights because two strands was just looking way too large.

I've already transcribed the piece I'm planning on doing next, but I'm going to have to upgrade my second analysis program to also be able to understand quarter stitches. Hopefully I'll be able to get the first stitches in that one before the end of the day.

Kittens and Butterflies

Another 20 rows down this week, got a second kitty face showing up there! Of course now all the interesting parts are done and it's a lot of brown kitty stitches and a little bit of greenery and flowers around the outside.

Kittens and Butterflies

One kitty face, and the top half of a second kitty face! Pretty sure there's only the three butterflies - I backstitched them all already, so they're all done.

Kittens and Butterflies

Already did the backstitching on the first two butterflies, since they were basically isolated colour-wise.

We've got the first set of kitty ears peaking out there!

Beacon at Rocky Point

59 needles on this one! That's actually a lot more than I thought before I went and counted them.

The backstitching is really important on this one, especially on the house. There're a lot of details on the house that don't show up without it.

And omg all the French knots! They were all supposed to be done with two strands. Which looks fine, except I'm pretty sure that the picture on the front of the kit was only done with one. I mean, my French knots are pretty tight, but the ones on the picture were even smaller. I did switch the seagull's eye from 2 strands down to 1 though, because it just looked derpy with a huge eye!

I have to figure out now what my next piece is going to be. I thought I might do the Mario map next, but I'm kind of wanting to do another smaller piece. I'm going to have to dig through my (extensive!) stash and see what piques my fancy!

Golden Retriever Puppies

Just haven't felt like taking pictures lately, but I have been stitching. This piece took almost exactly 4 weeks from start to finish.

Pre-backstitching:

And post:

It's not the most striking of differences on this one, but it obviously does add some dimension to it. Back to the lighthouse!

Beacon at Rocky Point

Done a bunch of stitching, just really didn't feel like taking any pictures last week.

Over half done with the lighthouse (and as you can see, the lighthouse itself is already stitched).

Beacon at Rocky Point

And we're off! No rest for the wicked, and all that.

It was feeling like I was doing a lot of big stitches lately, so I wanted to take on something a little bit smaller for the next piece. I'm liking the colours in the clouds, they're looking pretty good. All the half stitches in the sky are a little bit annoying to deal with with the stitching style I'm using, but at least they take half the time!

Elegance

She is done!
I hope!
I'm pretty sure I've got all the backstitching done and that I didn't miss any, but I always have a sneaking suspicion that I've forgotten some.

I feel like the belt could be better, but considering I spent an entire evening on just the belt itself, it's as good as it's going to get. The right side is a stitch too high I think, but oh well. Plunging that cording was hard enough the first time - pulling 20 strands doubled over through a hole in 18 count aida was not something I wanted to do more than I absolutely had to.

DH says that we're definitely going to have to finish this one and put it on display.

Elegance

Foreground is complete! Now all that's left is 35 rows of flowers and branches. It's all coming together now!

Elegance

Her face is done! Her eyes look weird though, just being a single pixel atm (technically, there's a white stitch next to each black stitch, but they're hard to see against her light skin): the backstitching should make them look less weird.

The dove is almost done as well, just the last couple of feathers on that front wing. Her hair's a mess of blue and black, then it's just a bunch of background flowers and branches before finishing.

Elegance

Ah, the organized chaos that is full-width parking!

This is the first 20 rows of the last page done, which is about 110 rows total (I say about, because I think there are a couple rows that have no stitches on them).

The half stitches on the flowers are kind of annoying because of all the switching colours. I'm still liking the look of the stitches with this technique though, so nice and consistent.

Christmas Village Ornaments

Well, that's all the crosses done. I'm not going to do the backstitches etc. until either all six have their crosses done, or I can find a frame for it that's not going to interfere with previous embellishments (either a small enough scroll frame, or stretcher bars).

I am pleased with how the stitches look though. It takes longer, but I think it might be worth it, at least for certain patterns. I'm going to see how well it works on Elegance.

I'm probably going to put this set away for a bit, as I really only started it to test out the new pattern program.

Christmas Village Ornaments

Only 10 more to go!

I was thinking that I'd finish this one off (backstitching and everything) before doing the next one, but I'm not so sure about the squishing/pulling that might happen if/when those sections go inside the q-snap. So it's looking like I'll probably get the crosses of all six done first.

Christmas Village Ornaments

Getting close to that right side now. I really do like the way the stitches look done like this, but for bigger pieces I'm not sure I'd have enough needles to hold all that thread! This is only 84 stitches tall, but I had over 30 needles going at once at some points. I'm thinking I may be able to cut up bigger patterns into diagonal sections and still have the stitches looking good.

Christmas Village Ornaments

Half done. Santa's pretty much done, and so is the lady.

I realized after I was quite far in that the darkest yellow in the windows was supposed to be three strands instead of two. I didn't want to switch it up halfway through, so this panel is going to use two strands for that colour throughout. I may use three on the other panels though.

Christmas Village Ornaments

Got another 10 columns down. You can definitely see the building now, as well as Santa's sleigh and some bags of presents. I'm hoping to hit halfway this weekend, especially since Monday's a holiday.

Parking always looks so messy, but I swear there's a system there!

Christmas Village Ornaments

I wanted to try out my new program on something a little smaller than Elegance, but something that still had a bunch of colours.So I decided on the Dimensions Christmas Village Ornaments kit that I picked up from the thrift store a while ago.

So glad I did, I've already found a couple ways to improve the algorithm.

I'm really liking how the stitches are looking though. I'm getting exactly the look I'd hoped I would when I decided to try this technique. I'll have to be sure to get a picture of the back too; there's a bunch of confetti because of all the greens in the tree, but so far it's looking very neat on the back which is an added bonus.