OhSewCrafty Blog

February started with Winnie the Pooh… I gave it 3 days and got 2000 stitches.  

It was a great stitchy weekend!  I really should go back and do some backstitching and french knots though.  For one, it might motivate me to finish this piece, since the backstitch will make the characters pop.  Also, the chart has about a zillion french knots.  

So I had an extra 2 days in my rotation.  For the first I split the time between Charmed Santa (to get a finish ) and my TW Fantasy Triptcych, ~ 250 stitches for Magical Stitches homework.  

For the second day, I decided to fit in Spooky House because I was so close to the page finish last month.

It was a good evening!  I finished the page, and even did most of the backstitching.  Granted, it was a partial page, but still a small victory, and it counted for 2 Magical Stitches tasks.

Then it was time for Bird of Happiness. Before:

After 3 days (reached my goal early):

It’s almost done except the neck/head and the backstitch.  I was thinking this project was a good candidate for a birthday finish (in April), but there’s not really much left so maybe I’ll finish it in March. This project is so much fun to stitch, with the rainbow plumage; it will be a bittersweet finish.

Celtic Winter got 5 days.  Previous:

Now:

The darker colors are worked down to line 200 of the chart, the others to 190.  I enjoy stitching on this project, the colors are lovely and it’s easy with long columns of color, as mentioned, but the dress/cape assembly is rather huge and monotanous.  The good news is, once the dress/cape bottom is finished, the rest of the pattern should work up quite quickly.   The chart goes down to line 234.  I am impatient to start the mandalas and see how my color conversion works out in that section.  

Then it was time for my Christmas village.  Queen Anne House got 2.5 days and that was enough to finish .  They were a couple of long stitchy days since I was motivated to finish, also racking up the stitch count for the Basilisk attack in the School of Magical Stitches!   

The beading on Queen Anne took a long time, 8 colors and most are petite attached with full cross.  1946 stitches were required to finish, including the border, backstitch, beads, and ninja stitches.  Then Palace Theatre had another 2.5 days.  I worked up from the gridline at the bottom and made it past the center line into the top half.  This piece is more fully stitched, so I’m hoping the beading will only take a day or so.  Of course, I need to finish the second story, the fancy roofline, and extend the border snowflakes as well.   

After that, I rotated to Teresa Wentzler Fantasy Triptych and gave it 3 days. Previous progress:

Now:

So I got ~1200 stitches, or 1450 including those from earlier in the month.  Those stitches were hard won, let me tell you!  The frog was in the house, then my son got sick… ugh, well February ever end?  I should be able to finish the greenery on this page next month.  Then there will be a choice: work right, start the knight block, and finish the page, or work left towards the center line (gridded), into a different page, and do more of the castle block.  I think the latter course holds more appeal.  I would love to have the Castle block behind me as I think the side blocks will be much more interesting (with characters).  

My last focus piece was Joan Elliott’s Christmas Teddy.  Previous progress:

It was stitchathon weekend (Cross Stitch Finish Line FB group), so I gave it 3 days, starting Friday night and I had over 2600 stitches by Sunday evening.

It helped that Saturday was a gross day, perfect to stay inside and enjoy a stitching marathon.  This project is a joy to stitch, I just love Joan Elliott designs, hardcore.  The bottom right quadrant is mostly finished, though I need to finish the bird, do another ball, candy cane, and more ribbon.  I’d like to start backstitching, but there is a lot of gold metallic charted throughout, so that needs to be stitched first. 

Question of the month: What do you listen to while stitching?  I like to listen to music, mainly off my Itunes library, or watch/listen to Flosstube.  Sometimes, after those very busy, noisy days, I am cool with silence. 

We still have another 4 days this month.  The new magical stitches homework is gloriously open (200 stitches on anything)  So, I think I will continue on Christmas Teddy, see if I can get that quarter finish, and alternate with Save the Stitches, as it’s the only WIP that I haven’t touched this month.  As for March, my planned focus pieces are Bird of Happiness, Mill Hill Village, Celtic Winter, Save the Stitches, and Pooh, plus 3 days for the Fantasy Triptych.  In March for my bonus days at the end, I would love to take out my diamond painting, it’s been far too long since I “dotted”.