Halloween Stitching and a Crazy Idea, Plus Giveaway at Crafty Sasha

I hope everyone has been having a good stitchy week! Things are busy as always, but fortunately stitching is always there to save my sanity. :) And there's creative people like Crafty Sasha always thinking up new gadgets I want need. She's having a giveaway of needle minders right now, so check it out if you're interested. 

First let me catch you up on my Halloween stitching photos!

Halloween Monster by Heart in Hand
11. 

almost done the WDW Meadow for his face and neck!

12. Boo House

Getting a move on this one as well, in fact, this is only Tuesday's photo, after last night I'm here:

13. Boo House

If possible I like to try and stitch these one colour at a time and then take the threads of the completed colour out of the thread pile and put them in the front of the kit section so they don't get all tangled up. 

I think I've finished 6 colours now. I still think this could be a Halloween finish. :)

On to my crazy idea! 

I've been thinking if I really buckle down I might be able to complete a project for DD's birthday coming up in November. I was debating about what project would be closest to completion, and could be fully finished in time. That takes Letters from Nora out, because they'll have to be custom framed. 

My choices are (I think):

Tribal Dragon

still needs to look like this:

Somebunny to Love:

Joy Snowglobe

should look like this:

or a Frosty Friend:

I'm leaning towards Somebunny to Love since it's definitely more for her than the last 2, although they would likely be the fastest. I'll see what I feel like. I'm thinking of maybe stitching through the weekend on Somebunny and get a feel for if a finish is possible. That would still give me time to complete one of the smaller designs. 

Any thoughts or other ideas, please let me know!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

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

Late Halloween Update and TBT

Vicki of Reading and Stitching is starting a new project every day in October for Halloween. She's had several fun choices I need to add to my wish list. :) I was supposed to join her for updates of my Halloween stitching, but had forgotten until last week. Then we had a doozy of a weekend and this is my first chance to post anything. 

Since I'm so late to Vicki's Halloween party, I thought I'd try and post 31 photos of Halloween stitching. It's TBT, so here's one from a couple years ago that I might not have posted on this blog. 

1. Jack-a-Rachnid from JCS 2013?

2. Boo House update - started this year for DUCJFC

3. Heart in Hand - Monster - new start

I hope to finish Monster in time to mail it to my Grandma. I had a horrible dream last week that she had died, so I really hope that doesn't come true any time soon. She's moving to a nursing home closer to the rest of my family, and hopefully that will mean they'll visit her more often. Some one goes almost every day, same as they used to when she was in her home, and I think that helps her know she's not being forgotten or "left". 

Part of what made this weekend so bizarre was this:

A tree in our front yard fell sideways onto the power and cable line coming to our house. It ripped the cable line from the pole at the road and somehow the power line held everything up. This was around 4am, both DH and I heard a weird noise and a "zzzip" kind of electrical noise. He got up to check it out and said the tree had fallen over and may be on my car. I usually park right beside the house. 

It did not hit my car, thankfully, and although our power was out in the house, the garage was still powered. That gave the power company a lot of light to fix the issue about an hour after we called. We were very impressed with how fast they arrived. They were able to sort of lift the tree and flip it over into our front yard.

I'm sure our neighbours were very happy about that! No chainsaws at 5am. :) 

Most of the power came back on then, although not the internet since the cable line was ripped out of the pole. They did come the next day, but it made my plans on catching up online impossible for that day. 

Also, for some reason the fridge did not come back on. DH checked the outlet under the house. It's they type that shuts off when it feels a surge, a GFCI, and when he turned it back on, it started on fire! He got it out, and switched the outlet, but the fridge still didn't work. 

Wonder of wonders, we found an electrician to come out around 4pm and they were able to fix everything! We're back up and running again, which is a great thing as we're hosting a Canadian Thanksgiving party on Sunday...

Back to happy things though, I finished a little more than one full thread on Princess and the Dragon. I had to unpick everything I had stitched that first night since I did not read the pattern well. I was able to do that the next night, and start re-stitching the night after that. Then came the crazy tree event, and we all caught a cold, so I didn't get as much finished as I would have liked, but it's still some decent progress. 

Last photo:

and now:

Unfortunately, the bottom photo is fairly blurry, but you can see where the hair doesn't join the body of the Princess, and in the top photo it does, and that's the mistake I made. I'm relatively happy with my progress though, this is one for the long haul. :) 

Next I'll be getting out Vermont and stitching more on my Halloween projects. Plus stay turned for more older Halloween projects and possible new starts. I haven't decided yet. 

Happy Stitching and don't forget it's IHSW this weekend!

Tiffstitch

Almost Finish Friday and Update

I hope everyone has had a good week and the hurricane in the southeastern U.S. hasn't done as much damage as predicted. 

I've managed to finish all the cross stitch and backstitch on my S! 

Letters From Nora - S

stitched 2 over 2 with charted threads

on 28 ct Jobelan Nuriel's Forest by Chromatic Alchemy

I'm still so much in love with my new stand! It made finishing off the stitched a breeze. I wasn't sure on beading or waiting until I finished all 3 letters on this one piece of fabric. DH convinced me I should wait since I am stitching this in Qsnaps, I'd rather it survives well. 

I did put a few stitches into "H" after I finished "S" since there was still a good hour or so of stitching time left while we finished watching some episodes of the old Incredible Hulk TV show. I'm surprised at how diverse this show is when I think of the time it was broadcast. There are some cringe-worthy bits of course, but there are a lot of professionals (doctors, police officers) that are women and people of minority descent. It's also fun to see actors you know in different roles show up, especially in completely different roles. Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame played a very mean heavy for a drug dealer in one of the last episodes we watched. 

Here's H from January:

and now:

It looks like there will be the right amount of space between each letter, at least between the first 2 letters. I'll know more once I get back to this one. Hopefully that won't be too long from now. 

I also had time to pull out The Princess and the Dragon last night and I'm so loving 2 handed stitching. I feel like this was a lot of progress compared to how fast it usually takes for me to feel like I've moved along at all on this one:

From April:

And now:

The little bit of stitching to the left is part of the farthest left, middle row. I hope to progress left, but I think I might have to finish off the awesome Princess first. I may just outline her once I get through all the hair, we'll see how it goes. I really hope to get at least part of the farthest left area done completely before I put this one away again next week. 

I also need to get out some Halloween stitching! I had promised Vicki I'd join her 31 days of October Halloween stitching and had completely forgotten! You should check out her excellent projects, she's been very good about posting every day. I will try and do so as well and get some of my Halloween projects out and put a thread or 2 in every day for the rest of the month. 

Stay safe everyone in the southeast U.S. and 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