Halloween Trick or Treat Blog Hop!

It's time for another one of Jo's awesome blog hops! This one will be extra mysterious since it's Halloween right? ;)

Your letter is:

And your next destination is the marvelous, magnificent Mii Stitch! 

I plan to have Durene Jone's bat complete soon, but here's the latest WIP photo just in case!

and the finish!

Check out all the fun at Jo's blog, Serendipitous Stitching. 


Happy Hopping! 

Tiffstitch

Almost There!

I'm so close to finishing the bat I haven't worked on Somebunny as much this weekend. 

See for yourselves!

30. 

One more colour complete and here:

31. 

DD didn't nap, so I didn't quite get this one finished off. I think I might be able to tonight and have it ready for Jo's Halloween Hop! Fingers crossed!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Halloween Stitching and Somebunny Moving Along

Hello everyone! I hope you're having a good weekend. We started off last night with Trunk or Treat at the local elementary school. I think the idea behind it is you take your little children around and people give out candy from their trunks instead of taking them out on Halloween night. 

I have a feeling that as DD ages it will be Trunk or Treat and Halloween every year. :) For now she's small enough that we'll just go around our neighbourhood on Halloween night. 

There were a lot of fun activities and snacks, etc. in the school gym, and I think DD was a little overwhelmed, but she still enjoyed herself. Her costume is this:

She chose it herself and she's a dinosaur, in case you can't tell if it's a dragon or dinosaur. She has a toy dinosaur with almost exactly the same colouring, it's really interesting actually how that worked out. 

On to stitching! 

Halloween is creeping up on me and I still have 8 photos to show! Let's start with:

24. Boo House

I had to go back and fill in some path that I had missed, and I managed to complete another colour. This is looking pretty unlikely to be completed by Halloween since I've gone full steam ahead on Somebunny. :)

25. Durene Jones Bat in the early morning:

 26: Mid afternoon

 27. Early evening

I think I will go ahead and complete this one by Halloween to have one less WIP. I'm still debating if I will stitch the white in the eyes and fangs or leave it unstitched. Jo mentioned a variegated thread for the background instead of using 4 different oranges. It's a good idea, but I didn't have a thread I liked enough to use. Also, it would be interesting to compare if it's faster to stitch each stitch individually with a variegated thread and no counting or stitch as charted and be able to work across a row. 

28. Midnight Farm by Mill Hill - finished in 2013

29. and the GITD thread

I really enjoyed stitching this one and it was one of the few finishes and stitching I did in 2013. We moved that year, and I was pregnant, plus work was kind of a nightmare with some new hires. So I'm impressed I finished this one at all. It stays up all year roun. :)

I hope you all have a great weekend, and see you soon for the next post!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Updates and TBT Halloween Stitching

Thank you everyone for your comments about photos, it's good to know more is better as long as they're all resized easily to different devices. I definitely appreciate your feedback!

And now the bad news. As I was editing the photos and moving them to the correct album, then trying to delete them from the wrong album, they were deleted completely! Except fortunately Google Photos is used to people like me, so they can be recovered from the Trash folder for up to 60 days. Phew.... that was an unpleasant start to the morning.

Here's Somebunny from my last post:

and now:

That's the start of the awesome purple boots with white polka dots. I didn't have as much time to stitch because I worked on some Halloween projects too. 

20. Durene Jones Bat has progressed:

21. Boo House has a new corn stalk started:

22. Halloween Monster is fully finished!

I backed him onto some thick DMC felt. The monster was stitched with WDW Meadow, WDW Okeefeenokee for the mouth and hair, DMC 414 for his neck bolts and WDW Bethlehem for the border and running stitch to attach it to the felt. I also made a WDW Bethlehem cord secured with the Rhodes stitch in the top left. I think it's a fun little finish. :)

23. Midnight Manor - finished last year

This is one of my favourite stitches ever, despite an error I made in counting. No one can really see it, so I didn't bother frogging it. I really liked using the slightly different blacks and grays for all the details and the manor itself is dark navy. The glow-in-the-dark ghosts and moon were Kreinik thread leftover from a Mill Hill finish. 

Here's the best photo I could get of the GITD thread effect. I have yet to fully finish this one, so it sits in the drawer of shame for now. :) 

This chart has 2 patterns, you can see the smaller finished design here on Rachel's blog. She had a really cool idea about adding light to the windows. 

8 more Halloween photos to post before Tuesday, I hope I can make it! 

I hope you're all having a great week and thank you as always for your comments and advice!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Somebunny Update and Halloween Stitching

I hope you all had a good weekend! Work was crazy yesterday and we're still dealing with computer issues at home, so I wasn't able to get my post up. 

I'm pretty happy with the progress on Somebunny though. It started here in January:

and after Sunday night was here:

and after last night it's here:

I'm stitching 2 over 2 with recommended DMC on 28 ct Aether Lugana from Chromatic Alchemy. It has a subtle blue/pink tone to it. I'm fairly certain I can have this finished and framed by DD's birthday. It will be close to 7 inches square when completed, so an 8x8 frame should work well. That is fairly easy to find at the local stores. 

I also pulled out more Halloween stitching and have a new start!

17. Bat by Durene Jones

This is a free pattern on her Facebook page and I'm using the recommended DMC threads, stitching 2 over 1 on 16 or 18 count scrap Aida. I couldn't resist how cute this one is. I was tentatively considering finishing him for a party last Friday, but that certainly did not happen. Still a cute addition to my house though!

18. Boo House

19. Halloween Monster

All done except the outline box around him. That should be fairly quick to do, and pop him in the mail after fully finishing. 

A question for all of you, do you like seeing before and after pictures on everything? Or only things that haven't been out recently? I didn't add before shots on the Halloween photos, but did on Somebunny, so please let me know if you have a preference. I don't want to overload you with photos either. :)

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Halloween Progress and a late TBT

This is a quick post, just an update on my Halloween stitching and an oldie, plus the reveal of my new start from this post. 

14. Halloween monster

the darker green is WDW Okeefenokee, love that colour and name!

15. Boo House

moving along!

16. Backyard Fence by Handblessings from JCS - completed 2015

WDW Jack O'Lantern and black to complete this one. :)

And my new start that still looks like this:

is....

Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street!

It won't be complete until next year, but starting it was fun!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Halloween Stitching and a Crazy Idea, Plus Giveaway at Crafty Sasha

I hope everyone has been having a good stitchy week! Things are busy as always, but fortunately stitching is always there to save my sanity. :) And there's creative people like Crafty Sasha always thinking up new gadgets I want need. She's having a giveaway of needle minders right now, so check it out if you're interested. 

First let me catch you up on my Halloween stitching photos!

Halloween Monster by Heart in Hand
11. 

almost done the WDW Meadow for his face and neck!

12. Boo House

Getting a move on this one as well, in fact, this is only Tuesday's photo, after last night I'm here:

13. Boo House

If possible I like to try and stitch these one colour at a time and then take the threads of the completed colour out of the thread pile and put them in the front of the kit section so they don't get all tangled up. 

I think I've finished 6 colours now. I still think this could be a Halloween finish. :)

On to my crazy idea! 

I've been thinking if I really buckle down I might be able to complete a project for DD's birthday coming up in November. I was debating about what project would be closest to completion, and could be fully finished in time. That takes Letters from Nora out, because they'll have to be custom framed. 

My choices are (I think):

Tribal Dragon

still needs to look like this:

Somebunny to Love:

Joy Snowglobe

should look like this:

or a Frosty Friend:

I'm leaning towards Somebunny to Love since it's definitely more for her than the last 2, although they would likely be the fastest. I'll see what I feel like. I'm thinking of maybe stitching through the weekend on Somebunny and get a feel for if a finish is possible. That would still give me time to complete one of the smaller designs. 

Any thoughts or other ideas, please let me know!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness - October Edition

Yikes! I'm 2 days late for GG this month! I will admit to being a little busy with the continued electrical breakdowns from the tree falling on the power lines, plus hosting Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday, but now it's time for the more important things, like stitching! 

Hosted by the splendiferous Jo of Serendipitous Stitching, this is where we try and post about all the projects we've worked on that are gifts in some way. Whether we're doing the gifting or received the gift, our monthly post is supposed to be on the 15th of every month. 

This month I have 2 finishes sort of that I was working on last month:

Rejoice Tree 

I ran out of floss to do the final curlicues on the Rs, but I like the look anyway. I stitched this 3 over 1 on 14 ct aida with Waterlilies Nefertiti. The beads are some petite Mill Hill gold beads I had in my stash. 

Letters From Nora - S

This will be for DD, and all the cross stitch is done! It just needs beads after I finish H and G. Speaking of which, here is H:

This is on hold right now as I work on an Xmas gift for a co-worker. What gift you ask? 

Vermont

I'm only stitching the DMC 562 2 over 1 on 14 count by Chromatic Alchemy right now. The M is complete at the top and the O might just need another night to finish it off. I'm working from a pattern the designer hand wrote and photocopied on blue paper. This is my first ever time working on such a pattern. It's okay so far, although it's definitely obvious it's handwritten. 

One new start is Halloween Monster by Heart in Hand:

And Princess and the Dragon got a little love this month too:

I hope everyone has had a good month!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

IHSW - October Conclusion and Halloween Stitching Update, Plus 2017 Plans

I hope everyone had a good weekend of hermitting and stitching! Head over to Joyce's blog, Random Ramblings to see how everyone did over the (maybe) first IHSW of October. We might have 2 since there are 5 weekends in October! 

Since I posted on Saturday I managed to work on all 3 current focus projects and start a new one... 

Halloween Stitching first!

7. Monster update, was here after Saturday afternoon:

8. and now:

I'm stitching with WDW Meadow right now and his nose was WDW Foliage. I try to get at least one thread in a night. 

9. Boo House was here:

and now:

I think I might actually try and finish this one by Halloween to match my other Mill Hill Halloween kit.

10. New start - any guesses?

I'm not giving you much to go on, but if anyone actually guesses correctly, I'll send you a little something. :)

And a little more progress on Vermont:

That's the top of the M, and you can almost tell an apple will go in the middle of the O. :) 

Also, we've had more aftershocks from the tree and power line, our computer just completely fried.... I really hope our insurance covers some of the replacement cost. 

So to try and avoid thinking of that, I'm working on my 2017 stitching plans. My rough outline right now is to spend 3 weeks of every month on something specific and give myself the rest of the month to work on whatever I want. 

I'm thinking of working on a BAP or HAED the first week of the month, and that will include partial weeks plus the first full week. I would really like to complete some of the BAP WIPs and work on some of the HAEDs I've had kicking around. I have a new tab on my blog that shows all my HAEDs I plan to work on some day. There's only one not included that I gave up on a couple years ago. It was one of the free SALs and I didn't like how it was stitching up. 

I'll add the BAPs to it as well so it will be easy to tell which pile of projects I'm choosing from. :) 

The second week I think will be for SALs. That will be the frog SAL from KLT Charting that I've purchased and kitted, but haven't started. Plus the Lakeside Needlecraft Durene Jones SAL that I really love and have the fabric chosen, but also haven't started. I might also add the Jodyri See Ya Later Alligator to this week since it originally was an SAL design. 

I think the third week will be for general WIPs. This can be anything I like as long as it's not a new start. 

And the end of the month will be anything I like. I can go back and choose anything else I've worked on during the month or a new start, anything. 

So that's my rough plan for 2017. 

Thoughts?

And Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch