Stitchy Saturdays

Happy Halloween everyone! From our little spider. :)

Busy week, so I haven't had a lot of stitching time, but I managed to progress a little bit. 

The Kreinik #4 Marshmallow is complete, and the satin stitching is complete. I pulled out the couching that I had stitched because I think I can do it better if I use the correct thread for couching. You need to use blending filament and I think I have something I can use instead of what I had. 

Here are a couple detail shots:

I hope I can finish this weekend and have a full shot for you on Sunday. 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

WIP Wednesday WOOHOO!

I finished all the fiddly satin DMC B5200 last night! We were watching Avengers: Age of Ultron and I don't recommend that for stitching since sometimes I stopped to watch the movie, but I managed it!

All that is left is some Kreinik #4 in 2 ovals and a little more than a semi-circle of eyelets, satin DMC 414 and 415 to finish off a few details and straight stitch at the bottom, as well as Kreinik #8 couching. I don't think I'll finish tonight, but maybe by tomorrow night!

I also need to catch up on everyone's blogs. I've been stitching every free moment to make sure I get done in time. Thank you as always for your wonderful comments!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Top 10 Tuesdays: Top 10 Costumes/Fancy Dress and Update

I've been progressing really well on Homeward Trail and here's where it's at now!

I definitely think I will finish all stitching by the end of this week. I can't wait. That will be another 3+ year old UFO complete. 

And on to TOP 10 TUESDAYS!

It's been a few years since I dressed up myself for Halloween and I think we'll probably start doing it with DD as she gets older. It's DH's favourite time of year, and he likes to put a lot into decorating our house and yard. 

One of my favourite things to do is get glow-sticks and put them in cardboard tubes with holes cut out so it looks like eyes are gazing at you. Like this:

And now for the list! Make sure you check out Kate's and Keeble's so you get lots of costume ideas. My list will cover all family members :)

TOP 10 COSTUMES

1. Pikachu - a great way to dress up as everyone's favourite Pokemon and not have to wear a boy's costume

from seventeen.com

2. Scuba Diver - a DIY for anyone, not just children

from parenting.com

3. Ladybug - for anyone

from blooms n bugs

4. King of the Jungle - for our furry children

from popsugar.com

5. Fall Foliage - this is a local one that struck my funny bone

from seventeen.com

6. Little Red Riding Hood - this could be for anyone in the family, including the men

from blog a la cart

7. Great White Shark - with some adjustments you could try this on any sized pet

from popsugar.com

8. Toy Soldier - another costume that would work for any human member of the family

from wild ink press.com

9. Weeping Angel from Doctor Who - inexpensive costume, only need a mask and bedsheet?

from thinkgeek.com

10. Glow-in-the-dark skeleton dress - I'm thinking about getting this for work next Halloween!

from thinkgeek.com

I hope my list gave you some ideas, or some good places to start. I stuck with mostly DIY since this list is going up a few days before Halloween. That way you'd have time to put some of these together. 

Happy Halloween!

Tiffstitch

Stitchy Saturdays

Thank you again for all your comments! If you're a no-reply blogger I'll reply to your comment on my blog, otherwise I'll send an email and I hope I haven't missed anyone. It really does make my day better when you send comments. :)

I played hockey yesterday and had a lot of fun! We had enough subs so that we didn't get too tired out while we were playing and we even kind of had lines. That was really nice actually as I pulled my quad muscle (upper thigh) when I played on Sunday and I wasn't sure how well I'd do. I ended up being a little sore by the end, so of course when we came home I had to use ice and rest it, so I got a lot of stitching in yesterday! 

Homeward Trail:

I'm really happy with how well this is progressing. I even tried some of the couching with #4 Kreinik on the top and left side. It's not quite like the photo, so I don't think I'm doing it as well as some, but I think it looks fairly good, so I'm okay with it. I think another day or two of stitching will finish up the satin DMC and then it will be the beading (not much), and the couching (fairly complicated in the corners). There's also some marshmallow Kreinik #4 eyelets, but they're not difficult either. 

I really think I might have this finished by Halloween which means I'll be able to frame it and have it ready to go well before we see my Grandma in mid-November. That might mean I will be able to finish all the stitching on the hardanger afghan too! Fingers crossed...

I stitched on my new "bag project" while we traveled to and from hockey as well since it's a 30 minute commute. This is Lizzie Kate's HoHoHo and I haven't progressed very far since January. 

I'm using PTB for the "ho, ho, ho" and it is so easy to work with compared to DMC. I think it's a little easier than Kreinik as well, but the difference isn't as marked. The tree and holly are stitched with Crescent Colors Desert Mesquite. 

I hope you're all having a great stitchy weekend!

Tiffstitch

Stitch From Stash Part B - October Edition and Homeward Trail Update

Month:     $25 for October
Spent:      $3 for Halloween Silhouette from Charting Creations
Earned:    $6 each for May, June and July Song of the Weather
               $8 for Dimensions Joy
Carryover:$107 from August
___________________________________
Total: $155 to carryover into November

And check out Mel's host blog to see how everyone else did this week!

Here's the photos of the finishes:

May SOTW

June SOTW

July SOTW

Dimensions Joy ornament

I hope to finish the rest of the months of Song of the Weather by the end of November, and Homeward Trail, so my total should keep going up. And I've got some of next year's planning ready so I think I'll try and keep this up next year to see how much stash I can get through. 

Here's Homeward Trail so far and the fabric is blue but the new iteration of Google Photos is ridiculously bad to work with and continues to make it look grey:

I hope everyone else had a great month and happy stitching!

Tiffstitch

Update and a Throwback Thursday

As promised, although this is a little later than I anticipated posted today, here is my update on Homeward Trail:

I'm definitely getting there. The satin B5200 is still fairly easy to work with and I think I'll use it on another project next year. 

And for your patience, here's a throwback to pre-2010! It was a Janlynn kit I believe, Circle of Wolves maybe? 

Try and ignore the fold lines please. I have just put it in this frame as a surprise for DH. There was something else there before and it took him only about an hour to notice, good for him!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

WIP/Finish Wednesday

This would be WIP Wednesday except I forgot to take a photo of my progress on Homeward Trail. I'll aim for that tomorrow. 

I do have a photo of my finished pillow of Remember You Are Braver by Zindagi designs. 

I backed it with a cobalt blue fabric from Walmart. The choices and my time was limited, but I think it looks good. The fabric colour is close to DMC 826 and I used that for sewing. The bottom of the pillow shows the thread a little, but I don't think it stands out much. I have to find a good pillow tutorial about using trim to cover these little thread bits. 

I was very happy to finish it in time for my co-workers birthday today and she loves it! 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Top 10 Tuesdays: Top 10 Scary Movies/Books

It's Top 10 Tuesday again and keeping with October's theme it's scary movies/books this week! 

I'll be very interested to read Kate's and Keeb's take on this topic and I hope you enjoy mine. I'll do a mix of movies and books since I've read more scary books than I've watched scary movies. 

TOP 10 SCARY MOVIES/BOOKS

1. Misery

My older sister had this book and when she went away to college she left it behind. I read it and had nightmares and trouble sleeping for a long time afterwards. Stephen King does a fantastic job with this book and if you enjoy building tension kind of scares this is a good one. The movie isn't bad either and Kathy Bates is fantastic as Annie Wilkes.

2. The Turn of the Screw

I had this as a condensed graphic novel as a was a child and I don't think my parents really knew the book or they wouldn't have given it to me to read. At first I was too young to understand what happened at the end, and later on when I realized what was going on and how the terrible end came about, well, I still read it because it had that weird fascination that scary things sometimes have. Somehow you think it will be better the next time you read it and it never is. 

3. American Psycho

My BIL has a horror fascination and told me that I needed to read this one. It has a lot of graphic sexual violence, so keep that in mind if you ever think about reading it. It was a very creepy book and I have no interest in re-reading it. I never saw the movie.

4. Rosemary's Baby

I still find this movie pretty scary and likely as a mother now it would be even worse. It's like Gaslight, which I found fairly terrifying as a child, only ramped up to 11. This is a classic horror film and doesn't show any graphic violence since it's so old, but it's heavy on the implied terror and very sinister.

5. It

Yes, Stephen King makes this list twice. I used to enjoy his books tremendously and have fond memories of reading them and scaring myself silly. I haven't been able to read them as much since I had DD. I did listen to this as an audio book while I was pregnant and it was read by Steven Weber, who did a terrifyingly good job. This Steven Weber, crazy Brian from Wings:

6. The Haunting of Hill House

Read the book, the movies never manage to capture the terror that Shirley Jackson can weave into her stories. I've read this a couple times and I'm always excited to see if a movie can do well with it, but they never seem to manage. Ms. Jackson makes each character come alive to me and you really feel like you're in their shoes. If you haven't read this yet, it's worth it!

7. Evil Dead (2013)

DH is a big fan of the Evil Dead series and was excited to see this one. I was a few months pregnant at the time, which I don't recommend if you plan on watching this one. There is some graphic violence and I missed a few scenes because of the need to visit the facilities. It had a great plot and some good nods to the old series.

8. Shadow of a Doubt

Since this is an older film I've seen it a few times and it's always been far enough between watchings that I don't quite remember where all the scares are. It's definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it yet. Since it's an older thriller it definitely uses more psychological terror and does it very well. 

9. Event Horizon

This is a full-on scary movie. Not light as some of the others in the list, this one will scare you. It has psychological terror and gruesome death and since I watched it in '98 I can't bring myself to watch it again. It even scares DH and he's not scared by movies generally.

Event Horizon is an even rarer film in that it's a legitimately scary sci-fi movie. It uses its location to good use with the plot instead of being more like a bottle scare movie on a spaceship.

10. The Illustrated Man

I had to read this book in school and I can't remember now if it was the whole book or only a story from it. "The Veldt" was particularly creepy, although many of the tales have themes that stay with you for years later. I'm fairly sure I read it in grade 9 and that has to be 25 years ago now. I remember "The Veldt" extremely well and a few of the others. I think this is a must-read as well and I hope DD enjoys it when she's a lot older. 

I hope you enjoyed the list and I'm sure you can easily tell I tend towards psychological thrillers vs. graphic violence. 

Happy Stitching and maybe you'll enjoy a movie or book from the list while you stitch,

Tiffstitch

IHSW? Or is that next week?

We hit another month with 5 weekends, so I'm not sure if it was IHSW this weekend or it will be this weekend coming up. I did get some stitching done, so I'll post about that too.

I didn't get as much done as I hoped since we all ended up with the flu this weekend. After a night of fever and chills and dreaming I was a kandra from the Mistborn series I didn't feel much like doing anything and didn't stitch until late in the evening after DD was in bed. I didn't even stitch while she napped, I napped as well and then sat on the couch and knitted a coaster. 

That night I managed a little bit of work on Princess and the Dragon and moved on to the next page down:

I was extremely happy when the arm and body met up exactly as they were supposed to! I kept in a lot of the lower part of the fabric since it's so pretty. :)

On Saturday I worked on Homeward Trail in Winter and managed a decent amount of the filigree part and some of the outer square outline:

I still think this is a possible finish by early November which will give me time to get it framed. It should fit well in a 12x12 frame. There's very little beading to do and a little couching around the current lines shouldn't be too difficult. 

Thank you for all your comments, they're very helpful in continuing on!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Thrilling Thursday?

Hooray! Another square finished on my Song of the Weather afghan.

I used WDW perle #5 in Periwinkle and Caron Wildflowers #6033 I think. The horseshoe stitches aren't as flat as I'd like, but I'm okay with them overall. 

The original chart has beads as you can see in Mabel's original design:

Since I plan on making this into a lap rug/afghan I didn't think beads were a good choice for comfort and I stitched Greek crosses on mine instead. 

We've been re-watching the Back to the Future series when it showed up on Amazon Prime recently and finished BttF II last night. I managed to start August SOTW which has a complicated pattern of Kloster blocks, but I like stitching Kloster blocks, so it's been fun. The center has an interesting design and I hope I can make mine look as good as the others you can see in the SAL gallery. 

Here's my start with Caron Watercolours Abalone:

Mabel is planning a 2016 SAL, Round in Circles, and I'll be signing up for that one in December when she opens it up. I have lots of thread left from this one and I'm looking forward to continuing on with hardanger for occasional stitching. 

If you have any interest in hardanger Mabel gives great instructions on the new stitches and I've enjoyed learning them, so 2016 may be your year to try it out. :)

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

WIP Wednesday

Today I'm still a little stiff from hockey on Sunday, although I didn't embarrass myself too badly. We were short on players though, so man, was I tired! My bruises are fading and I'll be back to my usual self soon enough. 

I was able to stitch, even though my hands are a little sore and Homeward Trail in Winter (the correct name!) is moving along well. I'm stitching it from Cross Stitch and Needlework, but the full chart is available on Herrschnerr's downloadable charts.

The satin B5200 has still been okay to deal with, even when I have to frog sections. There haven't been many thankfully. I started to panic my fabric wasn't big enough as I got to the top section, but it was by a good inch or so. Not quite the 2+ inches I prefer, but good enough!

I have most of the backstitch complete in the inner circle and hopefully it's more ovbious what the picture is supposed to be now?  I think there's a good chance I'll finish it by the first week of November and that will give me time to frame it too. 

I have no idea what fabric I'm stitching it on since I started it in 2012, but I chose blue since my Grandma prefers blue if given a choice. 

Thanks for your comments always and happy stitching!

Tiffstitch

Top 10 Tuesdays: Top 10 Autumn/Halloween Themed Charts

A few months ago I posted another top 10 post about 10 Halloween charts I must finish. You can check out that post here. I tried to pick a few more autumn charts for this list and some new Halloween charts I hadn't seen before, as well as a few I probably won't stitch, but they're intriguing.

TOP 10 AUTUMN/HALLOWEEN THEMED CHARTS

1. Let's Leap into Fall by Imaginating

I like the colours in this one and the fact these tend to stitch up pretty quickly. It's mostly backstitch, so I wouldn't recommend this one unless you like backstitching letters. 

2. Blissfully Unaware by Hands On Design

Isn't this awesome? I love this model and I love the chart. This is going on the wish list. And that fabric is gorgeous! I don't plan on changing out colours on this one, well, maybe for the moon? A nice hand-dyed thread?

3. Hooked on Halloween by Handblessings

I like the simplicity of this one and the fact it would stitch up quickly if you wanted to do something in say, the week before Halloween. Not that I ever leave things to the last minute, of course not...

4. Trick or Treat Sampler by Victoria Sampler

This one is really cool if you're into specialty stitches. I like the look of it and it may go on the wish list, but it's still a little scary as far as the complexity to me. Maybe I should gift it to Mrs. Milkybar Kid? She recently finished a gorgeous drawn thread design. 

5. Widow Black's B&B by Praiseworthy Stitches

Another fun Halloween design by a designer I usually don't stitch. They did a nice job of creating a spooky and interesting design with a lot of colour for a Halloween chart. I like the fabric as well and the opportunity to throw in some hand-dyed threads would be fun.

6. Harvest View Afghan by Wichelt

I really like this one! I have never attempted one of these designs that branches along an entire afghan, but I think they look so neat. I love how this one looks as if you're gazing out a window to an idyllic autumn scene. 

7. Happy Halloween by Ship's Manor

This one is out of my usual style, but something about it appeals to me. It's spooky enough for me as a Halloween design and I think I would likely turn it into a pillow vs. framing it, but it's a funky design and I like it. 

8. Autumn Ala Round by Glendon Place

This is a beautiful design of autumn leaves and again would likely make a gorgeous centerpiece on a Thanksgiving table. Especially for Canadian Thanksgiving since that was yesterday.

9. Quaker Gone Spooky by Michelle Ink Needlework Designs

Generally I'm not a fan of Quaker designs at all, but the way they turned the typical Quaker motifs into grave markers is so cool! What a neat idea. I still don't think I will stitch this one, but I thought it was worth showcasing since it's so creative. And maybe a darker fabric would be good to show off the grave markers?

10. Halloween Tree by Alessandra Adelaide Needlework

This is one of the few AAN charts that is actually spooky for Halloween. She's done more things I'd call cute over scary lately. I think the ghost is a little too much on this one and I'd probably would stitch just the tree. She does design trees really well. 

Hope you like the list and I make no apologies for stash-enhancement! And I also don't apologize for enhancement when you check out Keeb's and Kate's posts. 

Happy Browsing!

Tiffstitch