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

Halloween Update and Back to Vermont

The saga of the fallen tree is unfortunately not over. Our water heater was acting up a little bit after the incident and DH called someone out to look at it. The control board is fried, so we need a new water heater. We could just get a new control board, except no one seems to be able to find parts! The difference is a couple thousand dollars, so a new board would be much preferable. 

Whatever we need to do will have to be soon. No hot water is not very fun as far as keeping clean... 

On to stitching and happier thoughts! I will say that I'm thinking more and more about 2017 plans for stitching, although that may be to not dwell on the new water heater. 

First, my 31 photos of Halloween stitching, see my last post for the first 3 photos:

4. Heart in Hand - Monster
was:

 now:

5. Mill Hill - Boo House
was:

 now:

The ghost is odd, it's checkerboard pattern. I'll try and get a better photo of it at some point so you can see. The odd spots will be filled in with beads at the end. 

And an older Halloween design:

6. Spooky Eye Chart from JCS 2013?

I sent this one to my Grandma. She seemed to get a kick out of it since it relates to my work. :) 

I also started back with Vermont. It's all DMC 562 right now!

I'm stitching 2 over 1 on 14 count Chromatic Alchemy. I think this was a one-off colour from a sale they were having. You can see some of the "M" and the start of the "O". 

We're hosting a lot of people for a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, so I may not have much more time to stitch this weekend, we'll see. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Letter S - Speeding Along

I finally tried out my Qsnaps in my new stand, and I love how easy it's made stitching on Letter S! I had "S" out in August and I tried to stitch on it, but it really wasn't happening well. I left it here:

I had also made a mistake on the upper curl, so I had to frog all the purple there (CC Vintage Violet). So it was a little disheartening working on this one at that time. 

However, after trying it out with my new stand on September 25 (after finishing Ho Ho Ho), I really like it! 

After an hour or so on September 25th, I was really happy with my progress. Then I pulled it out again this weekend after Kate's visit. We had a blast btw, and photos at the end of this post. I wish it could have been longer. We did a lot of stash shopping, enabling each other, plus Kate was able to help me thin out my stash so I had room for more... Thanks Kate!

This was my progress after Thursday and Saturday:

And I had a little time Sunday after hockey to do quite a bit more:

Right now I'm hoping I can maybe get this finished by the end of the week! That would really give me a great sense of accomplishment since I'm stitching 3 of these on the same piece of fabric. Plus I'd know how far off my other 2 starts were. :) 

I think I'll hold off on beads since this will stay in Qsnaps for a while, but if I can get the rest of the cross stitch done I'll be very happy. 

My loose plan for October is to finish "S", then work on Princess and the Dragon:

for one week to join in the Burning Needle FB group's "There Can Be Only One" October SAL, and spend the 3rd week on Vermont, a Xmas gift for my business partner.  I left it here in January:

I don't think it will take too long, hopefully a couple weeks straight can get it finished. 

And now, for Kate's visit!

 Kate trying poutine! Not necessarily a fan. :)

 On top of Mont Royal in Montreal, QC

view of the Green Mountains from the Trapp Family Lodge

It was somewhat of a whirlwind visit, but we managed to hit 2 LNS' and Michaels for Kate to stock up on DMC and I had to add a few things as well, although I forgot to take photos. I'll try and remember to do that this week. I hope I can figure out a way to get over there, I really enjoyed her visit. 

I hope you've all had a good weekend!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch