Around the world in 80 stitches part 1

 I finished part 1.  Boy was it long!!  I worked on it on the airplane when I traveled a week and a half ago, and after 8 hours of flying, I'd barely finished the first heart.  I think I've spent 4 hours on the first tulip in part two, and I feel so much more accomplished already.

You can't really see the light green vine at the bottom, so I might pick it out and replace it with the medium green instead.

Once I got into actually stitching, I changed the colors I was using and I'm very happy with the results.  Here are a few close ups of each heart.  I just noticed I forgot an away knot in pink metallic so I'll fix that tonight.

  I don't know if you can tell, but I chose two metallics because I couldn't settle on one. 

ATW color inspiration

I forgot to add in my last post that my final color choices for ATW were inspired by Lana.  Isn't her ATW so bright and pretty? 

Around the world in 80 stitches and other updates

I've been thinking about starting Around the world in 80 stitches for a while, but it's kind of a hassle to go to my local needlework store to pick up fabric.  I had been thinking about an over dyed 28ct linen in mocha, but they didn't have enough, so I ended up picking a 32ct linen in cream. I guess this is my favorite default color because I came home to find I already had a piece of it hemmed and ready to go.  It's a little bigger than necessary since it was initially for Castles in the Air, which I loved, but never felt particularly inclined to start.

Now that I'm working on 32ct I'm pretty sure I need to pick a different metallic thread. I had some light blue treasure braid on hand, but it's a little thick and seems unsuitable for a 32ct fabric. I might try it and see how it looks first.  Since I'm using mostly DMC threads, I think this could be a travel project.

I also was going to do another Tree of Stitches to send to a friend, but I neglected it for a long time and this is as far as I've gotten.  Shameful.  It was a quick stitch the first time around, so I'm aiming for a end of July finish.

I also picked up the Janlynn Winter Sampler again.  I think I pinpointed what's so infuriating about this project - the symbols in some areas are so small I either don't notice it or I can't tell what it is.  The chart is very cluttered, and I end up with a lot of confettii stitching.  "Winter" is starting to shape up.  I don't know when this is going to be done, which is frustrating.  I thought the gridding would make things go faster since I could focus on doing one grid at a time.  It kind of helped on the clock and the countdown ribbon, but whole center motif is so cluttered, I can only work on it for a day here and there. The picture isn't the best, but the quality of the picture kind of reflects how I feel about the project right now.

Finally, here's my progress on the Chinese garden mandala.  Part 5 - I just need to finish the ray stitches in the top of the arch and then back stitch it.  A few more hours should do it, but I probably won't have time to sit down with this one for another two weeks since I'm traveling. 

I have a lot of work to do.  Oh I haven't even touched the Deep Sea Mandala since March.  I had thought I put it away because I couldn't figure out what to do with the over one stitches, but it turns out, I don't have all the DMC colors I needed (I'm doing the DMC conversion to save money).  I'll post pictures of that eventually. 

Chinese Garden Mandala update

 I finished part 4.  I estimate it took about 16 hours.  I kind of wish I'd timed it.  I did most of it in one day, but then only had an hour here and there to finish the rest. 

 Then I started on Part 5.  It's supposed to be a mountain scene.

I also bought the pattern for the victoria sampler gingerbread house.  My hope is that I can make a  lot of progress on the CGM over the summer and start the gingerbread house in the fall.  They shipped it with a bunch of confetti, which I wasn't expecting.  It made for a fun surprise! 

Chinese garden mandala progress

I haven't done much crafting recently. I kind of started the deep sea mystery mandala, but I had trouble finding the right dmc threads at michaels so I wnt back to working on the chinese garden.  I'm going to work on the cgm until I feel stalled. That should give me some time to stalk the various michaels in my area.

I am on part 4, which is the picture of the unfinished moon gate.   After I put in the back stitching it should look like the great wall.  I've also taken a picture of part 3

I started it last friday. I really like patterns released in parts because it's not as daunting to tackle the whole piece.

ribbon tree card

I saw some cards with ribbon xmas trees and decided to try it myself.


I used a translucent texture spray on the card which you can see in detail below.

End of November stitching update.

I finished the tree of stitches.   It was so fast and fun.  I think I'm going to stitch another as a gift.  I should have done the bunny in a different color as he fades into the fabric right now.  I may frog him and use a different thread later on.  I decided against beading because I quite like it the way it is.

I made more progress on the winter sampler.  The word "Winter" and the mistletoe surrounding it are so detailed, and progress was so slow that I had to take a break from it and work on other motifs in the sampler.  The picture was taken with my cell phone, hence the blueish cast to it.  I keep having to look back and forth between this update and the last one to convince myself that I did in fact make progress on the mistletoe!