Late June/July Update

I could have sworn I had a post in July about June stitching, but clearly not. So here are 2 months in one! I will say I had less stitching time in July because of a couple hockey tournaments, but still have some accomplishments. 

First up, progress on Starry Night SAL:

Starry Night SAL by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 or 2 over 2 as charted with charted threads

 on 28ct white Monaco

This is 2 complete rows! So a good amount complete, although there's still a ways to go. I'm a little behind and have a few weeks to catch up on, which will probably get me halfway through the next row by the end of next week if I can keep at it. 

There are also some finishes, first up Journey by Urban Stitches:

Journey by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 over 1 as charted

on 28ct Red Tide by Chromatic Alchemy

This was a fun one and I can't wait to get it finished. I might try and frame it and hang it in my office at work. I really love the letters in this one, even though I frogged one of the 'R's about 4 times. 

Next up I finally finished another smallish project:

Noel by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct scrap evenweave with stash threads

I used some Caron snow for the stars and DMC Etoile for the snow and the trees. I like the look of it. The chart has "NOEL" on the bottom as well, but I didn't have a ton of room on the chart, plus this way it's more winter stitching than Christmas, so has more versatility. 

I also managed a little work on a piece that's easier to stitch while riding in a vehicle on our way to one of my hockey tournaments. This is where it was last time you saw it:

and now there's a little more added:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 on kit fabric with kit threads

I managed some of the fiddly grass while at the hotel, so the long stretches of black were easier to do while riding in the car. There's a bit of the rhino's legs started as well if you look closely. 

This will be an easy one to pick up and work on when I need a break from switching colours in Starry Night, but it still has a lot of stitching left, even if every animal gets smaller and smaller from now on. 

I hope you've all had good stitching months. I've worked out my plans for next year too, I plan to start 100 new things like 2 Martini Stitcher did this year. She's got a FlossTube if you want to follow along with her progress. I spent some time using a planner that I found on Peacock & Fig which is linked if you're interested. The pages I needed most where the ones to write down the project and what fabric I wanted to use and I managed to fit everything with fabric into 1 1/2 bankers boxes. I didn't pull threads yet, but that may happen as I reassess my plans as well. I think I'm pretty much set on choices, but there are always new options that might come up. 

So I hope to catch up on Starry Night and keep on finishing things up so I have 50 or less WIPs at the end of the year. I'm at 48 so far already, so as long as I don't start anything new, I should be good. 

Have a good month! I'll try and get a post up in September on time. 

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

Olympics Wrap-Up and Paralympics Plans

I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy the Olympics if they were interested! Seemed like a great games overall, lots of interesting achievements by athletes and great competition. 

I managed to get quite a few WIPs out, so here we go! (there's quite a few again)

Crossed Wing Collection was a good place to start and we last saw Hummingbird Garden here:

and after one night, there's a decent amount of fill:

Hummingbird Garden by Crossed Wing Collection

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Largesse by Chromatic Alchemy

The next one is part of the same chart collection:

and I managed quite a bit of this colour:

Thistle Stop by Crossed Wing Collection

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on a scrap of Cumulus? by Chromatic Alchemy

Then a fun Lizzie Kate one that I'm using stash threads on. It used to be here:

and now:

Normal is Just a Setting on the Washer by Lizzie Kate

stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads

Next up another one with words, also a start from 2021:

The second photo doesn't show the fabric well, but it does show the update:

Warm Winter Wishes by Waxing Moon Designs

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Cumailitis by Chromatic Alchemy

with stash threads, DD Down Under Blues so far

Another 2021 start coming up:

and now:

Noel by Bent Creek

stitched on 28ct Chromatic Alchemy fabric scrap

with WDW Fathom and Blue Bonnet, odd Dinky Dyes for orange and the grey is Silks4U PR026, DMC Etoile

Another one with words! Here's where it was:

and now:

Moon and Back by Heart in Hand

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct linen with Gloriana threads mostly

And now a rare Satsuma Street was here:

and now a bit more:

Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 20ct Fiddler's aida?

This next one is sort of finished, but I decided to try and add a semblance of our actual house:

And the garage is almost complete! Haven't decided if I'll sketch in a driveway or not, but the house will be below the letters.

Everyone Brings Joy by Waxing Moon Designs

   stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Aida I think with stash threads

Next up was a more Herculean effort, I picked up a full coverage, 1x1 project and worked on it for about 500 stitches (3 days). It started here:

and here it is now:

Peacock Infinity Feather by CrossStitch4Everyone

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct Amethyst Spirit by Chromatic Alchemy

And that's it for Olympics stitching! No finishes, but quite a few projects had progress, which feels pretty good. Next up is the Paralympics and I think I'd like to try and finish Do Not Meddle during that. I'm quite far along and it just needs a push! 

I hope everyone has been feeling well, and having good stitching days. 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

September Round-Up (Yes, a little bit late!)

Hello, hello! I'm a little late, as usual, getting up the end of the month round-up. Finally I seem to have time today, on Canadian Thanksgiving.

To recap the start of September, I was finishing off the dragons that Rachel and I started for the Paralympics Stitching Challenge. I think we'll try and pick those up again for the Winter 2022 Paralympics and see if we can get them finished. 

I was debating on what to do for the rest of the month and ended up starting something new for my birthday, which is this Anne Stokes beauty charted by Paine Free Creations

And I kept with it until I finished an entire page:

Trick or Treat by Anne Stokes charted by Paine Free Creations

stitched on 25ct easy count 2 over 1 tent stitch with charted threads

I was debating about what to do next and thought I'd pull out a smallish WIP I'd started earlier this year to finish. I started this one on May 24 for Stitch Maynia:

and managed to finish it:

Spring Snapperland by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct evenweave scrap

with random stash threads

I hope to finish this up into a little ornament for my parents to sort of represent their granddaughter. 

After having a page finish on full coverage and a small WIP finish, I thought I'd try attempting another page finish on a different full coverage project. I pulled out Motherhood by Selena Fenech, even though the page was nowhere near to completion. 

I didn't have time to finish the page before the end of September, but I did progress well:

Motherhood by Selena Fenech charted by HAED

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct Unicorn Farts by Chromatic Alchemy

with charted DMC

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this will turn out on this fabric. Thank goodness for Pattern Keeper to get these projects moving along. 

I finished off September here and will be planning a Dark October, so will post about that soon!

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

2021 Tokyo Olympic Stitching Challenge Start #1

It's here! The Olympics is upon us, and whether or not it's a good idea, they're doing it anyway, so the new starts commence today. Or actually yesterday to try and give me time to get a post up daily. 

My new starts will have absolutely nothing to do with the Olympics, but I thought I'd try and post a bit about events I like to watch and some history. I'll start with the favourite for a lot of people: gymnastics!

Perhaps the rest of you are also just about to learn that the word "gymasium" is from the Ancient Greek word gymnazein which means to exercise naked. That would certainly be a new way to watch the Olympics. Speaking of that, have you heard the German women's team is going with full body suits, whether they get fined or not? Good for them. It should be about the sport and there's been enough over-sexualization of mostly young girls' bodies. 

Gymnastics was added to the modern Games in 1898, but only for men. Women's gymnastics was added in 1928 in Amsterdam. The events differ for men and women, and I think we all know most of them, so I won't get into that. If you'd ever like more info, please let me know. 

I'm looking forward to watching the incredible strength, flexibility and training these athletes have gone through to get to this point. Canada usually doesn't medal in gymnastics, so no disappointment if there are no medals for Canadians. It will be exciting if it happens. 

And now, onto my start!

You may pick up early on the seasonal theme of these again. :) This is what it will look like eventually:

and I managed a little over 500 stitches to get to this point:

Noel by Bent Creek

stitched on 28ct Chromatic Alchemy fabric scrap

with WDW Fathom and Blue Bonnet, odd Dinky Dyes for orange and the grey is Silks4U PR026 

This was a fun little new start and should only need a few days to finish. It's just finding those few days. :)

I hope you're enjoying the Olympics if you're interested, and if not, at least enjoy a new fact or two. 

Happy Stitching and stay well!

Tiffstitch

Mid January Update

 Hello from wintry New England in the USA! We had a beautiful snowfall over Saturday night and woke up to this loveliness on Sunday. The quiet was still present as well, so it was quite a nice morning. The roads were clear, so driving to work wasn't an issue either. 

I've been working a lot on my New Year New Start, Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart. Eventually it will look like this:

and so far I only have almost the first page on the top left complete:

Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart

stitched 2 over 1 tent stitch as charted

on 32ct evenweave experiment by Chromatic Alchemy

My relatively fluid plan for 2021 is to try and stitch 2000 stitches on this BAP once per week, and then on a different WIP once a week so that they all get some work on them. I didn't manage it the first week, too much national stuff going on, in fact I don't think I stitched on 3 days out of that week? It was a rough one. I won't say I've entirely recovered, but I did manage to start a new one for Valentine's Day, and that seemed to help my stitching bug recover a bit:

Love by Durene Jones (FB Freebie)

stitched 2 over 1 as charted 

on 14ct silver perforated paper

This past week was a little better and I pulled out 2 WIPs to finish:

Winter by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads, mostly WDW and some DMC

on 28ct Feldspar by Chromatic Alchemy

I have no particular plans for this one, it's very cute and might fit easily in a 5x7 frame, or maybe I could try another flat fold? 

The second finish was this little dragon I've been draggin' around for several years now. It was a free chart from a French site, Lud In the Mist and is called Petit Dragon Rond:

Petit Dragon Rond by Lud-in-the-Mist

stitched 2 over 1 with Caron Waterlilies Holiday

on 14ct gold sparkle Aida

My other exciting news was my custom knitting/stitching bag arrived! I saw a bag on Roladex Stitcher's Flosstube and looked at the options the seller makes. You pick your own custom fabric and she turns it into amazing bags. The construction is really well done and I look forward to using this for a good long while. I chose the style called double flip, because it has 2 high zippered pockets (one for knitting, one for stitching) and the central section has pockets, including a zippered one for keys, pocketbook, etc.

I'm sure you're all surprised by the pattern I chose. :D Hockey, maple leafs, what's not to love?

The in between section with the long pockets on either side

And the seller also included a booksleeve for DD, to match her new bag:

This will be DD's first real purse, and it's so well constructed, I think it will survive for several years, possibly farther out than she will still like the pattern? It's really pretty and DD hasn't seen it yet, it will be a surprise later in the year. 

If you have any interest in looking into custom bags for yourself, the seller is Jasmine Ravenclaw, and she has Instagram, but no Etsy store, etc. at this time. 

I think they were very reasonably priced, and the product is really outstanding. 

And that's the year so far. The inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden will be this coming Wednesday and I just hope it all goes smoothly. Still debating on if we'll watch it on TV or not given little eyes and ears that will also be watching. 

Stay well and Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Another Monthly Challenge - WIP Wranglers

This month the Semi-Sane Facebook group is hosting WIP Wranglers. It's mostly a chance to work on a lot of different WIPs, although they have a Christmas theme to it by calling each WIP a "naughty elf" that keeps running away instead of working in the workshop. You don't have to have a bunch of WIPs, but can use up to 20. No problem there! 

As I mentioned before I was hoping to try and finish some more WIPs before the end of the year, and I think that might be possible. I chose 20 that didn't have a ton of work left on them and a couple I'd just like to get more progress on before the end of the year. There are 3 levels to the challenge, easy, regular and hard. You need 20 WIPs because you use a 20 sided die (or an app) to roll to choose which one to work on. You also use a regular 6 sided die and multiply by 100 to find out how much to stitch on each project. 

For the easy level, you halve your stitches, therefore, rolling a 1 becomes 50 stitches, regular means you stitch the whole 100, and hard means you double it. So you stitch 200 stitches if you roll 1. Any guesses what I chose? :) Also, if you roll a WIP you've already worked on once, you halve the required stitches, and it's "wrangled" then, so you don't stitch on anything more than twice.

My list of 20 WIPs is here:

I have the hockey stick marking the ones I've stitched already, because if I have the choice to use any emoji, I'll always pick the hockey stick. :)

My first roll was 16 and 2, so I worked on Frosty Friends #1 for 200x2 (400) stitches. It looks like this now:

Frosty Friends by Dimensions

kit stitched 2 over 2 as charted with kit fabric

I'm not going to add the before pics on most of these because I have a fair amount of photos to show already. Mostly I just had the outline and a little of the half stitch done before starting on this one. 

Next roll was Butterfly Quote for 1200! That was a lot, I'm so used to Pattern Keeper for these larger projects that I struggle with the multi-paper charts a bit now. But it looks good!

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri

stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct fabric with Jodyri threads

Sparkling Citrine, Pink Laydee, Sunshine State, City of Oz, and 2 others, plus WDW Purple Iris?

I definitely need to get more Sunshine State to finish the "butterfly" part, it's nice to get it moving a bit though and some of the difficult cross page stitching is complete. 

I rolled In the Gloaming for roll 3 and 5, and it had 800 total stitches added:

In the Gloaming by WBTW

stitched 2 over 2 with DMC 167, 422, 3823 and 3866

on 28 ct Mirage evenweave by PTP 

I had planned to make my life easier by adding a bunch more of the gate in DMC C3799, the Etoile, but I've misplaced the bobbin, so I did the slightly harder work around where the fence will go. The last row is almost the bottom of the mausoleum, so it's quite far along. 

In between the two rolls for In the Gloaming was Winter by Bent Creek. I had a very small start on this previously, which I'll show since this hasn't shown up on my blog for a long time:

and I rolled a 5, so needed to add 1000 stitches:

Winter by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads besides white and 310

on 28ct Feldspar by Chromatic Alchemy

One more roll might finish this one, it's really just the snowman on top and a few details on the penguins at the bottom. 

Happy Halloween was rolled next and it didn't have a lot done either, but with the addition of 1200 stitches, it now looks like this:

Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street

stitched 2 over 1 as charted

on 18ct Fiddler cloth/aida

This is my first and so far only Satsuma Street, although I do enjoy many of her designs. I have a few others in stash, so hopefully will get them stitched up soon too. 

Next up was another one that hasn't been touched in a long time, since the New Year New Start of 2019 I think:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 2 over 1 and 1 over 1 with black

on 25ct included kit painted fabric

I had only worked on the rhino before, and it's sort of across a page, so I started on the next animal this time. Can you tell what it is yet? It will be easy as I get farther down. I realized after I'd stitched most of the 400 stitches this one needed that I was stitching 1 over 1 instead of 2 over 1 like the rhino. I feel like that's okay though, because I could stitch the next animal to the right 2 over 1, and alternate, or I could leave the rhino 2 over 1 for a little more emphasis on the animal most likely to be extinct first. Suggestions are always welcome!

An old favourite came out next to get another 1000 stitched into it. 

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 with DMC 310

on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

This only needs about 7000 stitches to be finished! Kind of incredible. I don't think it will be a finish this year, but definitely next year. And you never know, if I get this WIP Wrangling task finished early, maybe I'll pull this out for the end of the year. 

Letters from Nora was rolled next and G is the last one that needs any cross stitch done. The rest only need beads. I rolled a 2, so added 400 to this one:

Letter G from Letters from Nora by Nora Corbett

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 28ct Nuriel's Forest by Chromatic Alchemy

This is the last one in the series of 3 I'm stitching for DD. I need more CC Smoke because I'm out, so hopefully the colour will match what I've stitched already. 

Another one that doesn't come out often, even though it's fairly small, is Twilight LeMans, and it had 600 stitches added to it this time:

Twilight LeMans by Heritage Stitchcraft

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 28ct linen, unknown dyer

You can kind of tell these are headlights on a wet road I think now. The far right and left blue are the bottom corners, so a little more in the middle and the bottom is complete. This is probably half done or so.

I don't know if you'll remember this last one, it was started a long time ago and has mostly lingered in the pile of WIPs, not really moving along very far. I rolled my first 1 for this project and added 200 stitches:

Dragon silhouette by Lisbei (ludinthemist.com)

stitched 2 over 1 with Caron Waterlilies Holiday?

on 14ct gold sparkle Aida

I found this one while browsing for dragons and really liked the look of it. It will circle around so the tail almost meets the jaw. It probably needs another 600 or so stitches for a finish. 

And that's all for now! I know that was a long post. I may try and get another one up after just a few rolls if I can. I hope you're all staying healthy and enjoying some good weather. We've had snow enough to build a snowman, but tomorrow will be 8C/47F! So the snow will melt, then we drop down to -14C/7F in a few days. Winter in Vermont isn't consistent anymore. 

Happy Stitching and stay well!

Tiffstitch