Finally Fully Finishing Fun for May

    

Hosted by Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher

This SAL is designed to motivate us all to do something with that box of Finished pieces instead of just storing them under the bed.  We will all be linking up on Rachel's blog on or after the 10th of each month (10 Hour Stitcher - 10th of the month).

This one has been hanging around for some time because I couldn't decide whether to frame or scrapbook it.  I couldn't get into my cupboard where I keep my frames so I decided it had to be scrapbooked!

Look at this lovely ribbon I used to trim the design:

Never throw anything out, it may come in useful!

Two Lizzie*Kate designs together.  The smaller one was stitched over one in just five days back in 2018.  The larger one was stitched over two back in 2015.

Both charts were gifted from blogging friends so it's nice to have them finished together.

Finally, I have a part-finish,  The third element in the Circle Cross Tarot SAL.  This one is Air and joins Fire and Earth:

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweavers

The People Chose Embellishments

   

This SAL is all about what you want to see on the blog.  I asked for suggestions for themes from followers of my blog and then put them up to the members of the IHSW Group on FB to vote for their choice.  We are currently working our way through the choices.  This is what was chosen:

May - Embellishments

June - Rainbow

July - Abstract

Embellishments can be anything from a few beads or ribbon to lace or charms.  Some designs can be more embellishment than stitching, such as this design from Hinzeit:

Just a simple border, the five letters and then the charms are the focus.  I did add the words along the bottom which say "Claus is coming"

A more recent finish was Nora Corbett's Virgo where I used a variety of beads and sequins to make a realistic necklace for her:

Just Nan uses a lot of charms in her designs, many of the smalls were designed as free gifts when you purchased the charms.  It does mean that I have to use my imagination and stash sometimes when I don't have the original embellishment pack.

The aptly named Charm Garden

This is another Just Nan that has a beautiful lace trim I hand-sewed all the way round.  Royal Blossoms also has beads to embellish the design:

My last one for today is this lovely design from Stitcher's Hideaway called Hear the Sea Call.

I embellished it with little ivory fish and real seashells:

Now it's over to you. All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Embellishments, mention The People's Choice SAL (you can copy the picture I used at the top of this post and in my side bar) and my blog.  Please link up using the URL of the actual blog post, not the home page of your blog. I look forward to seeing what you all post.

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Finally, I need your suggestions for the next poll.  Anything, no matter how obscure, weird or random will go into the poll.  Keep the theme suggestions to a single word or two - so you could have Cats, or Green, or Holidays, or Warmth etc.   Really anything which could be illustrated in cross stitch.

April WIPocalypse, Stitch from Stash and Pie

       

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  Since 2011 I have chosen a number of projects to focus on that year, starting with my "11 in '11" and increasing to "23 in '23" for this year.  This month I stitched on 7 of them and had 1 finish.

2. Kustom Krafts Little Snapdragon

5. Carriage House Samplings Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow

13. Mani di Donna Halloween Stitching Basket

17. Stitch it Picasso Temperature SAL

18. Circle Cross Blackwork Tarot

21. Amanda Butler Belfast Houses - Finish

22. Amanda Butler Cardiff House - Finish

The full list can be seen here - WIPocalypse and "23 in '23"

Finally, Measi always gives us a topic to discuss too:

April– Give us five projects in your stash right now that you’d really love to start – and why you haven’t yet.

This is a great question!  First of all, why haven't I stitched whatever my five are going to be?  Very simple - I've been focusing on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow for the past two years in order to get that done in a timely fashion.  I was going to continue with a focus project for next year but noticed it will be "24 in '24" so have decided to pick 24 different new projects from my stash - 12 medium and 12 small - to be worked on 2 per month as decided by the WIPGO Board.

I went through my stash and added all the designs I really really wanted to prioritise and then sorted them by size.  This list will change over 2023 but will be finalised by the end of December.  At the moment the Top Five are as follows:

Stitchy Princess Alice in Wonderland

Life in Stitches Aslan

Maria Bravko Life in the Shire

Primitive Hare Hocus Pocus Cabinet

Cottage Garden Samplings Halloween Sampler

None of them are very big and all should be doable in a month if I focus on one project.  There are also at least another 24 projects on the reserve list!

Now it's time for Pie:

I stitched my full fortnight on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow again.  Here's where I started the month:

Here's the progress on Block 11:

And here's the whole piece:

stitched over 1 on 25 count Cassia Rose from Chromatic Alchemy

So far the number of days is:

Block 7 - 13 days

Block 6 - 16 days

Block 2 - 19 days

Block 3 - 20 days

Block 4 - 15 days

Block 1 - 19 days

Block 5 - 25 days

Block 8 - 15 days

Block 9 - 27 days

Block 10 - 31 days

Block 11 - 15 days and counting

I moved on to Little Snapdragon after that and have completed all the green in the top half of the chart and the three darkest greens in the bottom half.  Next time I will finish the greens, there are 6 or 7 medium and light shades, and then blues and purples for the flowers.  A finish could be in sight!

Here's my Evening Pie, showing a quick finish for the Cardiff House and the rest of the month on my Temperature SAL.

Finally, Stitch from Stash and a lovely Zero spend!  All my money is going on papercraft at the moment...

April Smalls

   

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Mary's Thread

Because I am focusing on my BAPs again, I won't have so many smalls this year but I do have a couple of series with small components so I will share them this month.

The first is the Blackwork Tarot by Circle Cross.  I have finished Fire:

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweavers

My next collection of tiny items is the Potion Bottle Temperature SAL from Stitch It Picasso.  

stitched over 1 on 25 count tea-dyed evenweave

I am so far behind with this, I've not even finished March and April is almost over.  All those unfinished bottles except one will be Lime so hopefully they will be quicker to stitch.

The next series is from Amanda Butler in Cross Stitcher magazine.  I started and finished the Cardiff House in April:

stitched on 28 pale grey evenweave

Finally, it's nearly time for my annual Just Nan-athon! I used this to take part in Maynia in previous years. I stitch on a different JN Small each day.

Here are last year's projects:

April IHSW

 

IHSW or International Hermit and Stitch Weekend always starts on the third Friday of the month.  It's a chance to lock yourself away and focus on your stitching for the weekend.  You can take part on your blog or via the Facebook page - IHSW on Facebook.

As usual, I worked on Friday so the only thing that got stitched that day was my Amanda Butler Cardiff House project, with evening stitching it now looks like this:

stitched on 28 count grey evenweave

Yes, that's a finish!  Much quicker than the previous two designs.

On Saturday I decided to focus all day on the Fire Element from Circle Cross:

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweaver

Yes, another finish!  This one took a lot longer than Earth as it is much more densely filled and less logical than the Earth design.  Here are both of them together:

Air is next and should be much quicker to stitch.

I'd already done my days on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow so I decided to focus on Little Snapdragon for the rest of the month.  The green is quite tedious with all the different but very similar shades but this is where I am now:

stitched on 32 count Evening Sky Murano from Crafty Kitten

Finally the next IHSW will be 19th - 21st May so make sure you note the date in your diary or come and join us in the Facebook Group - IHSW on Facebook. If you don't do Facebook then you can check in here by leaving a comment on my post.

April TUSAL and Stitching Library

           

It's TUSAL time!  

Here is my TUSAL jar with my current project, Kustom Krafts Little Snapdragon:

Here's the full design showing the part I am working on which is the greenery on the top row of pages.  I am going colour-by-colour for this part.

 

stitched on 32 count Evening Sky Murano from Crafty Kitten

What's on my Shelf?

This is a feature I'm going to include on my TUSAL post until I run out of books! I started a Page on my Happy Dance blog for my Stitching Library and realised what a huge task it was so decided to break it down to one book per month. For the next four years...

Title: Love Kills Slowly Cross Stitch

Author: Ed Hardy

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 9780740797613

So, the premise of this book is to produce cross stitch which has "no cutesy babies, gingerbread houses or jack o'lanterns".  They offer a "modern twist to cross stitch".  Which is quite amusing as the designs here are thoroughly "old school" in tattoo terms!

There are 30 different designs featuring skulls, roses, swallows, hearts, banners, butterflies, animals, more skulls, more roses etc.  All very much the style you would see on the flash wall of an old-school tattoo studio.

You can imagine a sailor having any of these on his biceps!

I find it ironic in that trying to avoid "your grandma's cross stitch" he actually produces "your grandad's tattoos"!

The designs are fun, I even bought some denim blue fabric to stitch them on.  But there's a good reason why I didn't.  Have a peek at this chart:

The book recommends using 2 strands of thread for the colours and SIX for the backstitch.  6 strands will give the designs that heavy handed black outline so many tattooist used to use but there is NO need to replicate that on the actual chart.  You really can't see the symbols under those thick black lines at all.

Just for comparison, here's a tattoo recently completed by my friend's daughter:

photo copyright - Honey of Curious Crow Tattoos

Such lovely fine lines and beautiful shading too.

Finally, it's IHSW coming up this weekend.  Here's what I will be starting with:

Fire by Circle Cross Designs