Trick or Treat Halloween Blog Hop 2017

Hello all! Your spooky letter at this stop is:

And this is the end, so head back to Jo's fabulous blog to enter the phrase. 

I haven't pulled out anything new to stitch for Halloween this year and there are too many WIPs to name, so let's check out Midnight Manor again, one of my absolute favourite Halloween stitches. And no, it's not fully finished yet :D

I still love the GITD thread effect and some day I'll get this into a pillow. I should look for fabric now to find something fitting. 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Tiffstitch

WIP Update

I've been so excited lately when Friday rolls around because that means it's time for the next installment of the Lakeside Needlecraft SAL! There are lots of other reasons for Fridays to be exciting too though, I get almost every other Friday off, although it does mean I work that Saturday. Plus there's usually hockey every Friday night!

I hope you've all been having good weekends! My parents visited this past week, so I had slightly less stitching time, but I did manage to get a little more done on Covered Bridge:

There's lots to do yet, but it's getting there!

And then there was a little time to stitch on Friday after the Halloween party and I started on the next installment of the Lakeside Needlecraft SAL:

These were mostly new stitches to me and there were all fairly straightforward. I managed a little more stitching last night after Saturday hockey, which was a new group of people and fairly fast, and I only ended up with a few bruises. :)

And then I finished up one more side of part 5:

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct Realgar, threads and fabric are Chromatic Alchemy

 

2 more sections to go and then this coming Friday will have the last part. I'm really curious what the center motif will be. I should be able to get at least another side done today, if not both. Wish me luck and no frogs. :)

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

TBT and Mel's Giveaway

I took a little time to search through my old photos to find this one. I don't think I've shown it on my blog before, although it did make a cameo in the recent photo of the wall in the guest room. 

In case you can't tell which one I'm talking about, it's this one:

Here it is in unframed glory with the bleeding thread colours on the left. This was from a Dimensions kit I think and I'd never had thread bleed before. I was debating about letting it run out some more, but in the end the frame I chose fit perfectly and covered all of it, so I left it as is. I can't find a photo of just this one in the frame, but you could zoom in on the other photo if you want to check. :) 

This was one of the most confetti full stitches I'd done at the time (2011). I love how it turned out! 

Don't forget to head over to Mel's blog for her threads giveaway! It's over this Sunday, October 29. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Progress and a Giveaway at Mel's!

Mel of Epic Stitching is having a giveaway over at her blog for some stitching supplies. Check it out here! She's also previewing a pretty cool Feminist Icon Cross stitch book that may interest people, so head over there for all the details. 

I've decided that I'll try and stitch on a single project every night I can, so that may mean switching back and forth with Covered Bridge and Fishing so I can get them both finished by mid-November. 

I managed to get a little farther on Fishing last night, from here:

to here:

The far left is about as high as it will go, so I will attempt to fill in the rest except the sky and see where how the sky looks unfinished. It would be nice if it works so I can save myself some time stitching. :)

We also re-did our guest room in time for my parents visit and some of my cross stitch is finally hanging up! 

 I didn't stitch this, but I love how it looks now:

Unfortunately, when we hang the tapestry of Otto in our bedroom the cat tries to climb it, so we decided to put it here since at least it will be hanging up again, which it deserves. :)

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Theme-tas-stitch: Opulent October

I'm only a day late this month too, so that might be a record lately. :) 

Check out Kerry's fantastic blog for more details and join in! 

This month I didn't get as much stitching on bling-related projects as planned, but I have a few to show. 

 I had a new start on Covered Bridge:

and got to here so far:

Dragon in a circle on 14 pt sparkly gold aida - still trying to find the source of this one :)

I'm shoe-horning in the Lakeside Needlecraft Specialty Stitches SAL because I managed to finish part 3:

 and part 4!

I'm stitching this 1 over 1 with Chromatic Alchemy threads on 28ct Realgar. Part 3 took a while because of the woven fan stitch, and I really enjoyed part 4. I'm not sure what part 5 will bring, whether it will be a central stitch or the 4 corners. I'm looking forward to Friday to find out. 

I hope you all had a very opulent October!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Gifted Gorgeousness - October Edition

It's that time again, and I'm only a day late this month. :) Time to show off the projects we've been gifted or are making as gifts, or using as gifts, or whatever possible way you can find to shoehorn in your projects! 

Head over to the wonderful Jo's blog to learn all about it and find the links for everyone else who's joining in this month. 

I've posted some of this recently, but I did have a little progress on one project compared to my last post. 

Fishing

I still plan on letting the sky stay as is since the fabric should work well, but we'll see how it goes once I get it all filled in. I think I'll be able to start some of the back stitch soon instead of having to wait until the end. 

Covered Bridge started here:

 got to here:

And you can tell it looks more like a bridge now. I think I'll be good to finish this by next month. 

I have been a little distracted by the next installment of the specialty stitches SAL and have completed 1/4 of the parts. Once I get it all done I'll post a photo of that as well. It's possible that will be tomorrow if I get enough time tonight. 

I hope you've all had a good weekend!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Busy Week!

I hope you've all had a good week! Apparently last week was an aberration and not the start of a new more frequent posting trend. :) However, I will continue to try and get at least one post up a week. 

There has been a fair bit of stitching over the weekend and the start of the week, although it's been busy these last couple nights. Here's a rundown of where I'm at so far. 

Part 2 of the Lakeside Needlecraft Specialty Stitches SAL

stitched with one thread on 28 count Realgar with Rainbow threads by Chromatic Alchemy

Part 3 of the SAL came out today and I hope to have some time to work on it Sunday. I don't think I'll have any time tomorrow, but maybe at the end of the day. 

October by Palko-lap

 stitched 2 over 1 on 14 ct? mystery grey fabric by Chromatic Alchemy with a Halloween thread by Jodyri I think. It was a special edition I purchased from Mrs. Milkybar Kid. :)

I even managed to mail this one early, so it should arrive well before the month is over for a change. :)

Fishing went from here:

to here:

I will likely be seeing my uncle again next month, so it would be good to finish this before then!

Dragon in a circle was here in 2015?

and for now I finished off the dangling thread. I believe it's Waterlilies Holiday, so I only have to locate my skein again to finish this one. 

And a new start that may or may not be a gift for my Grandma this year for her birthday or Christmas:

I thought this looked kind of like a little window and since she's in a nursing home now, it might be a nice view to see on the wall. 

I hope you've all had good weeks and I must go catch up on everyone's blogs again!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Zodiac SAL - Libra

Today is the first post of the Zodiac SAL hosted by the amazing and extremely well-organized Jo! Hop over to her blog to read her excellent Libra post. Libra is usually represented by scales (justice). As usual, it's a great idea to try and shoe-horn anything related to scales or air, since Libra is an Air sign. :)

I'm not a Libra myself and I didn't stitch anything related to scales, but I think I can add this to the "air" section as the phrase "music is in the air" :)

 WDW Caribbean on 28 ct white Monaco

And what makes you think of air blowing more than leaves in autumn?

 Jodyri threads - Greed on Chromatic Alchemy Nimbus

 Brooke's Books freebie leaves with WDW Ivy, Autumn Leaves and a brown I can't remember the name of

And the airy look of hardanger :)

I'll see what I can stitch this month that might fit the theme more next time. :)

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Friday for Finishing (sort of)

I managed to complete the 1st step of the Lakeside Needlecraft specialty stitches SAL this week, just in time for the 2nd step to come out today! 

stitched on 28 ct Realgar with ltd edition threads by Chromatic Alchemy

I think this was a good project to work on this week with the bright, happy colours. Plus the specialty stitches meant I couldn't accidentally overwork my shoulder and everything seems mostly back to normal at this point. 

I'm really happy with how the thread joined up. No frogging to make it work, although there were certainly spots I had to fix while stitching it. I think the colours flow pretty well, although you can definitely tell where the join is if you follow the rest of the pattern. 

Step 2 came out today and it's much smaller, only a small group of stitches in the 4 central locations of each side. I think I might even have it done in a day or two. The files are here if you're interested!

I had a little extra time last night and pulled out a couple different projects to finish up some thread ends that were leftover. 

Here is where Fleur de Lys was:

And now it's here:

The top colour is more accurate for the 32 ct linen I'm using. The thread is B2500 satin and it's so shiny I can't get a good photo. I think you can at least tell there are more stitches though. :) I would have continued on, but I couldn't find where my thread was, so I moved on to:

Here Comes Treble was here:

and is now here:

It was really nice to get a couple of projects out that hadn't been touched since 2016. 

Tonight I'll work on the 2nd part of the specialty stitches SAL and then try and get back to the overdue gift for my uncle. 

Happy Stitching and I hope you all have a good weekend! It's a holiday here and in Canada, so enjoy your long weekend if you have it.

Tiffstitch

TBT - Oldest WIP

Wow, what's going on? So many posts! I'm feeling much more full of energy with my med changes and iron supplement, so let's hope it lasts. 

I had an idea to see if I could find a photo of my oldest WIP. 

Here it is:

This is one I purchased from ebay way back in 2009 I think. It may even have been earlier. I'd like to get back to this one and see if I still like it, however, finding it might be the issue. It's definitely the one I haven't touched in the longest time. My recent WIPs are in an expandable file, but this one must be somewhere. :)

Also, I think I've shared this one before, but it's one of my favourite cross stitches I've ever completed. It was hanging in our old house for years and years, but I think we forgot it when we moved...

This was from a cross stitch calendar where there was a pattern a day. A lot of them didn't appeal, but this one definitely did. I wish I had known about other designers back then too, since so many have stopped designing, but there are lots of great ones still designing now as well. 

I hope you're all well and thank you again for your wonderful comments!

Tiffstitch

Almost... Almost!

I'm still enjoying the specialty stitches SAL and have another 2 nights work into it. I'm not quite done, but maybe tonight?

Clearly the left corner isn't going to match up perfectly, but I think having it at the corner will at least make it less noticeable. I should be able to finish this tonight and maybe pull out something else, depending on time. 

It's October Opulence for Theme-tas-Stitch and since it's Wednesday I should be getting out my Letter H from Letters from Nora. We'll see how the night goes! 

I've somewhat stopped my rotation for now since this is sort of the Christmas stretch and I'd like to work on a few different things. I also recently picked up this Dimensions kit:

and plan to stitch it for DD for Xmas. She loves trains and Xmas, so I think she'll get a kick out of it. 

I hope you're all doing well. I'm much more on the mend and hope to be 100% soon. 

Happy Stitching and thank you for all your wonderful comments!

Tiffstitch

Getting Better, Nothing Like a New Start!

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments. I'm definitely on the mend and would be farther along if I hadn't managed to tweak my back trying not to fall over DD's booster step this morning :) It's always something isn't it?

I had a good weekend and I did play hockey, although not my usual position so I didn't need to use my shoulder much. Plus I won a raffle prize of maple syrup, so that was pretty nice too! There were 3 different types, and DD and DH did a sample test yesterday as dipping sauce for their chicken nuggets. The flavours were delicate (light), rich (medium) and robust (dark). DD liked the lighter 2 the best. 

Did anyone else check out the Lakeside Needlecraft Free Specialty Stitches SAL? I decided to start on it when I received my rainbow ltd edition threads from Chromatic Alchemy. 

Here's where I'm at after 2 nights of work:

I really like it so far. The blend is coming together well and the stitches are interesting. I had never stitched Amadeus stitch (corners) before and I really like the effect. 

I hope you're all doing well and thank you again! 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch