I chose another somewhat easy one for the last week of starts. I thought it was completely monochrome, but turns out there's 3 shades in it. The charted project looks like this:
And I found some 25ct opalescent congress cloth from Silkweavers that seemed pretty fun to try it out. I've never stitched on congress cloth as far as I know. I only managed a small start, some of the black border. The border, the stars and the raven are all black and the words and fence are medium gray and light gray. I might just stitch it all in black to make it easier though. I think that would look good as well. Or maybe do the fence in that 3799 Etoile Rachel and I have been using on the WBTW projects?
Anyway, here's my small start:
The Raven by La-D-Da
stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 25ct congress cloth by Silkweavers with DMC 310
And now it's really time to catch up from my January plans. I've not been in a great stitching mood recently with a lot of stress from work carrying home, but hopefully that will change at some point.
I hope you're all getting lots of stitching time and don't forget to check Rachel's post for another cute stamp! They're raising fees on Etsy sellers as of April 11, so if you're looking to purchase anything, do it soon or check their personal websites if they have them.
Back for another fun para winter olympics sport, one which able-bodied people can play as well, but not in the Olympics! Sledge Hockey or what is now called Para Ice Hockey because "sledge" means different things in different languages.
Para Ice Hockey had its roots in Sweden when 2 men with physical disabilities modified a simple kids sled to allow them to continue to play hockey. They added 2 skate blades and lifted the sled so that a puck could slide underneath it. There wasn't a lot of competitive interest until the early 1970s when other European countries started forming teams. If you can believe it, Great Britain formed their team in 1981, one year before Canada!
Unlike able-bodied hockey, teams can be mixed-gender. Players sit in the sled and propel themselves around with two short sticks. There's a blade on one end of each and metal teeth on the other end to help players move around the rink. The other modification for Para Ice Hockey is the bench must be level to the ice. Usually there's a short step onto the ice in able-bodied hockey. Also, the bench has ice on the floor instead of a rubber mat so players can move around. The bench must be larger as well.
Most of the rules are the same as ice hockey, with one special penalty. If you charge at someone with the front end of your sled, that is a penalty, called "Teeing". Equipment is basically the same, although you don't technically need to wear protective gear on your lower limbs. Goalies don't necessarily have to have leg pads either, it depends on their preference.
I mentioned that able-bodied people can play as well, and it's true! There are leagues around that allow you to play if you're able-bodied. There may be some restrictions for competitions, but if you aren't interested in regular hockey or have trouble skating, this might be a fun sport to try. There are leagues in our area since I've heard people mention playing. I know my knees start to get a bit sore now sometimes when I play, so maybe it's something to consider as I get older.
This year, the bronze medal game was played by China and Korea and Canada and the US played in the gold medal game. Unlike the men's able-bodied team, the para teams made the medal rounds!
I hope you enjoyed the summary and sorry it took me so long to get it posted.
Onto the dragons! As I mentioned, I doubt I'm finishing all 12 dragons, but I did manage another 2, and one needed a lot of work! Days 3 and 4 started here:
and a finish for Day 3:
Drake # 7 by StitchItPicasso
stitched 1 over 1 on 20ct Fairyland opalescent aida by Silkweaver
with Diligence by Jodyri
followed a few days later(!) by a finish on Day 4:
Drake #11 by StitchItPicasso
stitched 1 over 1 on 20ct Fairyland opalescent aida by Silkweaver
with Jodyri Viennese Waltz
That last one took a while! I only finished it last night and kept wanting to have 2 done for the next post, but it kept going and going. I'm not sure if I'll get another 2 done before the end of the games, but I'll keep plugging away. I do have a new bag to keep these in, from @jasminecustombags on Instagram. She makes some beautiful ones!
I hope you've all been keeping well and getting lots of stitching in!
Here it is, the last post of 2021! And onto a New Year with lots of new stitching and some plans? First, I managed 2 other finishes and one is almost done, so we'll pretend it's a finish for the end of the year. I will get it completed before the end of the year EST.
The 4th Moonrise ornament was finished earlier, but I forgot to post about it:
Moonrise Ornament #4 by WBTW
stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Illusion Aida by Silkweavers
with DMC 167, 738, 3823, 3865 as well as RG blending filament in the moon
It's so nice to have all four ornaments complete! I also managed one more smallish finish from my myriad of starts this year:
Irish at Heart by Jennifer Akon? (have to check spelling)
stitched 1 over 1 with WDW Okefenokee and Cactus, unknown Soie Cristals and Waterlilies Plum
on 16 or 18ct light blue Aida
My parents went on a bus tour of Ireland a few years ago, well pre-COVID, and loved it so much! I think I'll try and manage to make this into a St. Patrick's Day card for them. My dad has become somewhat obsessed with Irish music, which isn't a bad thing. I surprised him this year though when DD and I were talking about the song Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake and he hadn't heard of it. I sent him the link to watch it, since it's another great holiday one like Christmas in Kilarney.
And the last one which is almost a finish, and would have been if I didn't have to get up to get to work early this morning, this is another Rainbow Gallery freebie when they had a bunch back in 2015(?).
Easter Freebie by Erica Michaels through Rainbow Gallery's website
stitched 2 over 1 with Carrie's Creations Jellyfish for the border and unknown Dinky Dyes for the bunny, Glinda the Good by Jodyri for the ears, WDW Purple Haze for the eyes,
WDW Camellia for the nose, and an unknown for the blue/green background
on 16ct or 18ct light blue aida
So close!! But it was 12:30am by the time I took this photo and I need to be up by 6:45am at the latest to get to work on time. I have at least a 30 minute commute on a good day to get to work on time.
My best friend from undergrad got a quarantine pet bunny over a year ago and he's just about this colour, so I might send this as a birthday card next year when I get it finished. Or maybe Easter?
I definitely won't have any more finishes than this before the end of the year, and I'll try and update my finishes page to show all of these.
New Year's plans can wait for another post. Happy New Year!
It's finally time for the last ornament, the most colourful of the bunch. The ornaments again will eventually look like this:
And Rachel and I are SAL'ing these, but Faith and Mary have joined in too with different starts. Check out Rachel's post to see their progress as well.
This is the only pattern that is chronologically correct with the photo! And here is my small start:
Moonrise Ornament #4 by Whispered by the Wind
stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct Illusion by silkweavers
as charted DMC with RG blending filament in the moon
I managed to finish #3 as well, which is here:
It's so nice to have 3/4 complete and I'll likely finish #4 before I start working on my WIP finishing frenzy for the rest of the year. I have no plans really, so will probably try and catch up on the cryptid SAL from Witchy Stitcher and see how it goes from there.
My post is a bit late today, but I didn't forget! Although I think it is tomorrow for Rachel. :) Make sure to check her post for her start and Faith's as well.
I didn't get time to post about this last week, but I did manage to finish the 2nd ornament as well:
Moonrise ornament #2 by Whispered by the Wind
stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct Illusion by Silkweavers
with DMC as charted and C3799 Etoile on the fence
and Rainbow gallery blending filament with 168 on the moon
I think I forgot to use Blanc etoile on the rest of the moon this time, but it was a really busy week, so I'm not letting myself get annoyed about it.
I think I did the same thing with ornament 3 as well, and got a great start on it!
This will eventually look like the second one in the following photo:
Moonrise ornament #3 by Whispered by the Wind
stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct Illusion aida by Silkweavers
with DMC as charted besides RG blending filament with DMC 168 for the moon
I've been enjoying this one and fortunately don't mind back stitch because there's a lot of it in this one. I was thinking after I finished that maybe I should have used Etoile for the roofs, but I did not think of it at the time. I'm okay with how it looks.
Only one more weekend to go! I hope you've been having fun if you've joined in in some way.
Hello, hello! Has everyone had a good stitchy weekend? Did anyone else have a new start to join Rachel and I in our stitchnanigans? I managed to get some progress on the next ornament in the series we're working on, although not quite as much stitching as last weekend. I think if I'd managed 900 stitches I might have even finished this one. There's a lot of separate stitching versus block stitching on this one.
As a reminder, we're working on these designs from Whispered by the Wind:
This week it's the first one, the cat and the fence and I made it this far:
Moonrise Ornament #2 by WBTW
stitched on 14 ct Illusion Aida by Silkweavers
as charted except DMC C3799 Etoile for the fence
Rachel and I started on different areas for this one, so you can kind of see different areas stitched up. I think another day might finish this one, so if I'm lucky in my tasks today, I'll get it finished.
I hope you're all staying safe and enjoying some relaxing stitching when you can.
It's November! That means time for a few more new starts before the holiday stitching kicks in, or the race to finish WIPs by the end of the year. However you stitch, if you're interested in joining Rachel's and my insanity, she's got a link-up widget on her blog. Her first post is up as well, so you can see her great new start.
We did discuss what we were thinking of starting and we had 1 of the same patterns for March next year. It turns out I was able to get Moonrise before the start of November, so we're working on the same project for Naughty November. We even managed to both work on the same one this weekend. :)
The four small projects will eventually look like this:
Interestingly, the first pattern in the packet is the 3rd one in the above photo. Here's my start:
Moonrise #1 by Whispered by the Wind
stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Illusion by Silkweavers
with DMC as charted and Etoile for the moon
Rachel got me interested in stitching both this set, Moonrise, and the other set, Moonset, which I already had. And 2 days of stitching, which was about 900 stitches, is almost a finish. One more day might do it since it's just the moon, filling in the gravestone, backstitching the crows and a little bit more of the upper branch.
I hope if you decide to join in or not, you've had a good stitching weekend!
