Sunday Stitching and a New Game?

It's been a busy week and weekend and I've been doing more finishing than stitching, but there has been a very small amount of stitching as well. 

I managed to put together both White Wolves and Homeward Trail in their frames, but I only got a photo of White Wolves before I wrapped them both. I will try and get a photo of Homeward Trail once it's unwrapped. Here's White Wolves:

I also managed a small amount of stitching on a project or two that I will leave quiet for now.

I'm going on a trip soon to deliver White Wolves and Homeward Trail. I didn't finish the Song of the Weather afghan, so that is still a WIP. My new game is:

Can You Guess Which Project I Will Take With Me On Vacation?

I have a lot of WIPs, so I'll give you 10 to choose from that I'm likely to stitch on and at the end of my vacation I'll show you the photos and reveal the winners. I'll leave this open until U.S. Thanksgiving (November 26) to give everyone a shot at guessing. 

I plan to give away some Jodyri threads since I've really enjoyed stitching with them and since I've signed up for the monthly club I have some spares since I don't know that I'll ever stitch that many projects with variegated thread. 

10 Most Likely WIPs

1. Sleigh Ride by Dimensions

In a perfect world I'd get this finished up by Xmas, even with starting on new fabric. I do really like this 25 count pewter Lugana I traded out for the 14 count aida. It was so stiff and horrible to work with! I think I'll start at the top and work down instead of cross-country stitching. 

2. Tribal Dragon by WWS

I love this one and can't wait to have it finished up and in DD's room. The wings are almost completed and then will come the head and spine in one colour and the underbelly will be a nice variegated Waterlily thread. I'm really looking forward to progressing on this one. 

3. Song of the Weather afghan

I left August a little over half done and if I really get a move on this could be complete for Xmas for my Grandma this year. And I do enjoy stitching the hardanger mostly. I think I have a handle on wrapping so I don't tense my wrists as much. 

4. Ho Ho Ho

I'm well on the way with the tree in this one and since each element uses variegated thread it's a relatively easy stitch. I think this one again could be easily completed by Xmas. 

5. Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs

This has been a great project to try out Jodyri's threads and I have really found stitching with them easy and they seem to stay untangled very well. There's a good amount in each skein and I'm hopeful I won't need more than one skein to finish each part. This will be another gift for DD once I get it done. 

6. Ladyfee Xmas SAL

This is a little unlikely for an Xmas finish, but it's a simple design on Anne Cloth, so it's certainly a nice, easy stitch and not as many colours to bother with as the stocking (#1 above). I even know that I'd like to finish it as a long pillow for our couch. 

7. Twilight Race Cars

I really love this design and DH loves it too. Both his birthday and Xmas are in December, so it would be nice to finish it. There aren't a lot of colour changes and I love that the fabric I chose closely resembles the blue background so it sort of emerges from the fabric. 

8. Maple Leaf by AAN

White Wolves is a finish for my brother and I'm debating about sending this one out to my SIL. She loves maple leaves and this design is so fun, plus since I'm stitching it on 14 count it's stitched up rather quickly and easily. 

9. The Princess and the Dragon

I love working on this one! It's so fun and I'm getting to a point where it's going to get exciting with nearing the Princess and all these different elements and bits. It's been hard to put down to finish the other projects as well, even though this is still a long ways from a finish. 

10. 2014 Xmas SAL by Helene et Mahelia

This is so close to a finish! All it needs is some DMC 3865 and some backstitch and it will be complete. It might be the perfect traveling piece if I could only remember where I've put the thread. 

Those are your choices, so please give it a shot and one hint is I may bring more than one project to work on. 

Also, I don't post about world issues, but, 

Je Suis Parisienne,

Tiffstitch

Top 10 Tuesdays - 10 Things to Leave on a Deserted Island

This week I'm posting on time, yay! And I hope you'll visit Kate's and Keebs' blogs to check out their lists. 

TOP 10 THINGS TO LEAVE ON A DESERTED ISLAND

This one is a bit of a puzzler for me. Mostly all I can think of are old bosses or emotions that I don't like in myself like negativity and anxiety. But I don't really like to bring up old history since I know we learn from mistakes, etc., but if I dwell on them I start feeling crappy like I did when things happened. I'll do what I can and see if I can come up with 10. :)

1. Stephen Harper

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate what he did to Canada. I feel like when I was growing up Canada was respected and a peacekeeping nation. He wanted to destroy all our natural resources and sell them off to the highest bidder and forget about the Kyoto accords. I'm really happy he was finally ousted. 

2. Power Hungry Warlords

Unfortunately there's way too many of these to mention. It's a sad state, but that's where we are.

3. That Guy at the Dealer that "Fixed" my sunroof

The sunroof on my new car rattled. I talked to the dealer, they said bring it in to get it fixed. I brought it in. They "fixed" it. I went to put up the sun shade after I left the dealer and the entire thing fell out of the sunroof and all over the car and me as I was driving! And it was damaged of course. I turned around and went back to the dealer and they tried to make me pay for it.. No way, not happening. So they installed a new one crappily and it has folds... oh, and my sunroof still rattles.

4. People Who Turn Left in front of me at green lights

I don't know if this is just a Vermont thing, but it's incredibly common and so annoying and dangerous too!! I have no idea what they teach people here in driver's ed, but it's not working.

5. Mosquitoes

Since 90% of the bats have died in our area mosquitoes are rampant every year. I would love to never have to deal with them again. 

6. Graco strollers

We've had a ton of problems with this stroller since we got it. The wheels stick, the front jogging wheel gets locked for no reason, it's such a pain and I'm happy that I haven't managed to give DD whiplash when it stops suddenly for no reason. 

7. Oriental Bittersweet Vine

Our gardens and trees are infested with this horrible, invasive, murdering vine. It kills anything it can, even itself to use the dead branches as scaffolding to grow higher and higher. We saved a small maple tree the first year we moved in and it still has scars from the vine strangling it. We pull out reams and reams of it every year and it keeps coming back. It's not as strong, but we're looking at a 5 year plan to maybe get rid of it. 

my tree shortly after vine was removed

8. Yellow Hawkweed

Another very invasive plant, this time in the lawn. We have several patches that came with the house (!) and this year we tried a few different ways of getting rid of it. The best way seems to be burning the area with a torch and then putting down patch grass seed. That made a big difference in one large area. We hope to get the rest of it next year and keep it from making the lawn a big wasteland like it has to others in the area. 

This is a really cunning plant and if you try only cutting it with the lawnmower then it grows more linearly instead. And the roots have like 20 some odd rootlets per plant.. insane!

9. The Neverending Presidential Election Campaigns

It feels like as soon as a President is elected in the USA, then the race for re-election begins. This time has felt interminable and the election isn't even until next year! Granted some of the candidates are exciting, but this goes on way too long. I realize the media does it, but does anyone actually like this? I suppose they must or the media wouldn't make such a big deal over it. 

10. Yellow Jackets

After getting stung by one last year I hope to never have that happen again and never to anyone else either. That is incredibly painful and I don't think they're that useful, but I don't really know. If it doesn't damage the world irreparably let's stick them on a desert island.

Hope you enjoyed the list, what would you choose?

Tiffstitch

Turtle Trot - November Edition

We're on the home stretch fellow Trotters and now our host Claudette is back in the blogosphere as well, yay! Fingers crossed life continues to settle down for her. 

I worked extensively on Homeward Trail this month since I hoped to have it finished for a November birthday gift. It went from here:

to FINISHED!!

the fabric is more blue like in the top photo, but when I finished I used a flat surface for the above photo and those lights are more yellow. The point is I'm done!!! So excited and I hope to get it mounted and framed tonight. I finally found a good 12x12 frame.

I had a moment of panic when I thought the top serged edge of the fabric might show through, but I think I'll be just okay. We'll see and fingers crossed!

I also finished July Song of the Weather:

and started August:

I have finished the Kloster blocks, but I forgot to take a new photo. This will clearly not be finished by the time I see my Grandma, but I might finish it in time for an Xmas present and my parents can pick it up when they visit. I was debating about taking it with me, but it's somewhat bulky and requires concentration during the wrapping at least. 

I'm still debating what projects I'll take with me. I'd like to make good progress on my new start of DD's stocking, but with all the colour changes that will be kind of involved as well I'd think. But it would be nice to be done for Christmas. Here's what it will look like:

I hope you all had a good month and Happy Turtling! I'm going to add Warbreaker and Skitzzzzz' fractal to my Turtle Trot list. They haven't been touched since January. That brings me back up to 10 projects in my list which will make it easy for next year if Claudette runs this again. I hope she feels up to it!

Warbreaker

Fractal

See you next month and Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Top 10 Tuesdays - 10 Things to Bring to a Deserted Island

I'm a week late on posting this, so I'll have two Top 10 Tuesdays posts today. This is last weeks:

TOP 10 THINGS TO BRING TO A DESERTED ISLAND

1. Cross Stitch Stash

image from dmc-threads.com

If I could bring my cross stitch stash then I might actually be able to finish it all! That would be pretty amazing and currently highly improbably.

2. Books

Books would be extremely useful to keep insanity/loneliness at bay. I could even use them for kindling if I was desperate. And if I was trapped with someone else then they could read to me as I stitch. :)

3. Family

Does the island still count as deserted if I have family there? I would love to have DH and DD with me if I ever got marooned since I can't really imagine life without them. I lucked out with DH and at this point we're almost 17 years strong. And my cat fits in with family too. He'd have a great time exploring and getting himself stuck up trees, etc.

4. Music

It would be hard to live without my extensive play list, but certainly possible. I'd like something to make music with, although depending on the island there would be coconuts most likely. So I could pretend I was a horse if nothing else. ;)

5. Yarn

I also knit occasionally and have a decent amount of stash there too, so having that around might let me finish something and maybe even attempt another sweater or cables! Whoop!

6. Solar power

Some way to harvest the sun's energy to power things would be great. I doubt I can get electronic devices to survive sun and sand for very long, but possibly to power rudimentary mechanics? Or just some way to keep heat around overnight.

7. Chocolate or Cocoa Beans

If I could plant cocoa plants then I could have chocolate any time! Of course I'd also want some sugar cane so I could sweeten it likely. 

8. Sugar Cane

I have no idea how to care for this, but hopefully I could figure out how to grow it so I could have a sweet treat any time. 

9. Thick, durable clothes

If I'm going to be there a while, I'd like something that will last. Clearly these clothes will eventually fall apart, so unless I can figure out how to knit all articles of clothing, these initial clothes will need to be really good. 

10. Hiking boots

Like the above, something that would last for a good long while would be required. 

I hope you enjoyed the list and that you checked out Keebs' and Kate's lists last week. 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

What the? More Missing Stitches?

On Wednesday I posted about how I'd missed some stitches while I was completing the cross stitch and back stitch on Homeward Trail. I found one area while I was beading that I had missed and I thought I'd have a giveaway and see if anyone else could find where I missed stitches. 

Shelly of the An Arizona Stitcher blog found even more stitches I had missed!! Some I hadn't even noticed! So a big prize coming to you Shelly and my sincere thanks. 

Here's the original photo again:

And these were the missing stitches I was talking about originally:

I had forgotten the bottom right arrow within the bottom oval. I noticed it as I added beads around the stitching so it now looks like the others like this:

But Shelly noticed I had missed some other stitches entirely and I didn't even see these ones:

I tried to center the area as much as possible so you can see what's missing. There should be a group of 4 stitches in a cross like you can see diagonally downward and left and the same diagonally downward and left again in the repeated pattern. It's there in the original photo (the first one in this post) as well. This photo above looks a little more blue since it's my I-thought-I-was-finished photo. 

Now you'll have to wait one more day while I finish this off for real this time. :) 

Thank you again Shelly! And please email me if you didn't receive my email. 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

WIP Wednesday and Being Naughty ;)

I finished!!! I'm all done Homeward Trail, but I took a horrible photo and if you can't wait to see it, it's here. Be careful, it's sideways. I will work on taking better photos tonight and mounting it. 

I was busy yesterday evening because the Cross Stitch Forum is having Stashmas and our mail-out date is today. I'm waiting on one more thing before I mail out, but I got plan B ready just in case. 

I managed a little bit of stitching on Princess and the Dragon:

 from here

to here

There was more below, but then I made a counting error and had to pull out about 100 stitches, or all the work I did last night. Boo... but at least the fabric held up really well to pulling out 1 over 1 on 28 count, so good on Chromatic Alchemy Jazlyn! 

I also have a small amount of progress on LK's HoHoHo. I keep this as my stitching-in-the-car project so it doesn't grow very quickly. 

I'm very happy with how the photo turned out since the fabric does look black for once. I try and take a photo with some of the white chart in it, then crop it out and sometimes it turns out exactly how I want it to. Having something white in the photo helps the white balance be a little more accurate. DH, being a photographer, helped me with that tip. :)

And because I'm holding out on you with photos of Homeward Trail, how about a giveaway? If you can find an area of missing stitches, not beads, in Monday's large photo (below), then I'll send you the giveaway of your choice. I have fabric, kits, threads or charts up for grabs. 

EDIT: There are beads missing in the bottom left corner, but no stitches. 

If there are a lot of correct guessers I'll use a random number generator, if only one person guesses correctly, then they'll win. Let's leave this open until 3PM EST tomorrow, November 5th. 

Good luck and happy stitching!

Tiffstitch

Weekend Wrap-Up - So Close!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Did everyone check out Jo's Halloween Blog Hop? I think I might try and remember to join next year, it looks fun and I found some new cross stitch blogs to follow. :)

I'm so close to being finished Homeward Trail! I wish I could have stayed up the extra 30-60 minutes I needed last night. I only need to add maybe a dozen more beads, but I needed to move the Qsnaps and I couldn't count on finishing it as easily as I hoped. After all, I found 10 more cross stitches I'd missed when I was adding beads. That makes me wonder if there are other times I've missed stitches and forgotten about them. 

It makes a good argument for highlighting or crossing off your work as you go. The friend that taught me cross stitch used to pencil over the squares she completed and I did that at first. However, as I started larger and larger pieces it was kind of annoying to have to go back and scribble over each square, so I generally don't mark off progress now. 

I did with the latest HAED I attempted and I have a BAP that will likely have me do the same, but in that case I'm using a working copy of the chart and not the full chart anyway. 

On to the photos of Homeward Trail! And I updated the link since Herrschner's redid their entire site. 

The whole thing so far. If you look closely, I'm only missing beads in the bottom oval and the lower left quadrant. The couching was much easier with the correct kind of thread and I think it looks a little better. The thread is slightly darker than I'd like, but DH says from a distance you can't tell, so I hope that's true. 

And some detail:

This was a really enjoyable stitch. I'm so glad to be almost finished and I can't wait to put in the few finishing touches tonight. I might even get it mounted since it shouldn't take me long to complete. 

I joined the Monday Stitchery Link-up this week so we can check out how we've all done this weekend. My first time, so we'll see how it works. :)

So tell me, do you highlight or mark off your chart as you go? I've heard some of the iPhone apps make it very easy, but I don't have an iPhone and don't think they are available on Android as yet. How do you like to stitch?

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch