Seaside Sweethearts

Tonight , rather all day, I worked on the Seaside Sweethearts. I got his legs done and most of his feet. I discovered after I had stitched the feet in that I was off one square. I frogged it out and put them back in again. Only problem was I did not have 2 of the colors I needed. I swear, if you had all the colors in your stash you would be short at least 2 sometimes 3. I have so many threads but I always am short at least 2. I spent a long time trying to find 3752 to later discover it was 3753 I needed.

I will get my photos posted as soon as I get the CD.

I started this project a long time ago and I must have stolen that color for another kit and I could not find it again. Then I had to look in all my projects for that color. I think I got the same dye lot, I sure hope so. It looks OK in the picture.

I am so excited he is done except for a little on his feet. I will get those two colors tomorrow at work. Put them in that night.

Now I just have to do her skirt and then all the bushes, grass and clouds. It's probably another weeks worth of stitching. But, boy will I be glad it is done.

Got to go ~

Take care and God Bless ~

Lenna

The Summer Ball

This is a project that became a UFO before it even got started! I ordered the kit a year and a half ago, but the sheer size (and the solid stitching) overwhelmed me, so I never started it.

I started working on it on Sunday. I'm pleased with the progress I've made so far, but I'm upset because the fabric is not the count that the kit advertised--I'm going to end up with a margin of about an inch on the right side! My bad--I should have either gridded the fabric to determine the start point, or checked the fabric count myself. Oh well, I'm going to mat the finished picture anyway so I'll just have to get some waste fabric sewn onto the right side in order to finish the stitching (when I get there!) and for framing.

The Summer Ball
Sandy Littlejohn

Project ~ Grand Canyon

Here are two pictures of the Grand Canyon, one is finished and one is not. I did the one on the top for my twin brother many years ago. The glare on it obscures the right hand side but it is stitched also.

The bottom one is one I am doing for the Dr. who did my second heart ablation almost 2 years ago. After he did the first ablation I stitched him a flying eagle. When I took it to him he was so excited and said he shouldn't except it but that he WOULD. I think men should get excited about needlework but they seldom do. It made me feel great that he was so thrilled. He's a great Doctor. His skill is amazing. He uses a tiny probe to go into the heart through the groin vessel and burns, ablates, anything that looks like it will cause the heart to go into A-fib. I stitch with a tiny needle. He looks at my handy work, I stitch and live because of his. Amazing!

I had good intentions but it is really a hard piece to stitch. It has many blended shades and there is no reference point as to the color. I had to mark off the chart, which to me is like stitching it twice. So I just put it up and life took over. I have worked on it off and on many times this year but have not gotten it done. I have the frame already and I think I better reorder those mats. Someone in the frame shop probably used them, too like they did with my Tiger Eyes mats.

I will rotate it with Seaside Sweethearts until I get them both done. Not to worry I have many, many, many more to do.

I love this shot cause you can see the shadow of my spiky hair in it.

I just hope he is as thrilled with this small token as I am with a heart that beats correctly. I just hope I don't have to have a third.

Hope he is still breathing!

Don't let me down Dr. Z!!!

Thanks for looking ~

God Bless ~

Lenna ~~~ Grand Canyon

Seaside Sweethearts

This is the first UFO ~ I plan to stitch and finish. I know what frame I want to use and which matting will look great on it. This is where I am with the stitching. It has been a UFO for about 6 years.

I did this for a former boyfriend and he has it in his house. When we broke up I asked him to give it back to me if he didn't want to keep it. Why would he if he didn't love the stitcher anymore? All he could say was no and so. . . He said NO! thought I'd ask!!!

So . . . since I love the sea and the piece I decided I would just stitch one for me. The finished picture is so delicate.

The designer is Lanarte by Leisure Arts.

It became a UFO cause I got tired of so many starts and stops with changing colors.

I plan to stitch at least a week on it before I rotate it with other UFO's. If I really get into it I will stay with it tell I finish it.

Thanks for looking. God Bless ~

Lenna ~~~ Seaside Sweethearts

more Storyteller

I stitched on some of the border yesterday.

'The Summer Ball'

Here's my start on 'The Summer Ball' from Sandy Littlejohn. I've committed to stitching one 10x10 square daily--even at that rate it will take over a year to finish this!

But it will be worth it once it's finished, I know.

I hope you all have a great stitching week.

I tried, honest!

I tried and the rust will not come out.

Firstly I tried good old Fairy Liquid, then old fashioned green household soap and then vinegar. In desperation I even tried bleach! But the rust will not shift.


I even counted out the stitches to see if the rust would be covered, yes in 2/3 places. However, when the fabric had dried I noticed that either the rust had run or the bleach had affected the fabric and there was now a larger pale yellow spot around the rust mark. So this really is a none starter. I will finish the backstitching on the completed hedgehog and turn him into something, don't know what.

Any ideas?

It's finished!

As part of 'The Big Finish Weekend' I completed and finished the Teepee Bears Door hanger. Here it is completed.


Here it is finished!


Thanks for everyone on this blog for their encouragement. As I've said before the baby this was intended for is now nearly 13!

Now for the next one. It's The 'Country Companions Sampler' from DMC. This was probably started 7 - 8 years ago and was intended to be my 'Railway Weekend Stitching'. So this project stayed at the railway in a drawer for years. My intentions were good. Having some stitching at the railway would mean that I wouldn't have to cart any other projects down there at weekends. Well it worked for a bit. But the truth of it is I just don't like it. When finished, notice I say when and not if (I'm being very optimistic here)it will not fit in with anything else I have. So this one is destined to be given away too. I suppose it might be possible to turn it into a birth sampler.

This is what it looks like so far.


So looking at it I did what all good needlework mags tell you not to do and that is park my needle in the work. As a result there are three rust spots. First job to get them out. If they don't come out this is a none starter and UFO #3 will be seeing the light of day again!

Poppies 4

I'll be so glad when this is finished.

I'm going to do something smaller next time.

Almost a trip (Carousel Horse)

Well Here is my latest progress pic. I have almost finished my costume making so decided to cross-stitch for a while. I can tell you the horse nearly only had three legs. I have frogged it four times. I came up with the idea of putting a message on where the leg should be saying 'GONE FOR REPAIR' . I was getting desperate and then I thought of all you other UFO-ers frogging away without too much complaint and finally managed to do do it. I have decided not to attempt another leg for a while in case I have the same problem. The back stitch is yet another nightmare that I am having a struggle with so PLEASE send me lots of support I really need it at the moment.
To all you others out there in UFO-land keep going and I'm enjoy watching for your progress pics. Happy stitching

Progress on SB Herb Gatherer...

I picked this up after missing a couple of weeks. I got the flowers and some of the border done. The color changes are slowing the progress but I will keep plugging away at it. Everyone is making great progress on their projects so this will certainly keep me motivated! Happy stitching....

Karen T
My Blog

Judgement update

Hello to everyone,
I have a progress picture of Judgement to share with you. Believe it or not this three nights worth of stitching, and it looks like I barely got anywhere!
Here is the latest picture:


I do hope your UFO's are coming along nicely!!

Mel

Secret Garden or Mystery X

I forgot to say in my last post that I had to spend 4 hours frogging on the border because I had used the wrong colour. I don't stitch the gates in one go . I stitch two lengths of ordinary floss and then one of metallic. In this piece all the gates are stitched with metallic threads. I also do one thread border and two for the centre.I find I make reasonable progress this way. I hadn't done any of this for over a year and I had forgotten that to save money I had blended two DMC threads together. I hadn't made a note of which threads I had used together which was a bit silly, fortunately I had kept the colours together in a floss away bag so all was not lost. I know that I will not have much opportunity for sewing this after tomorrow because of other commitments so I have tried to do quite a bit yesterday and today. I have rolled the fabric up so that I can work across in one go. The blurry stuff at the top and bottom is bubble wrap which I use to protect the beads which I add as I sew. The crystals I leave to the end. Best wishes to all of you UFOers out there.

Not much more to do

This weekend we travelled to London by train to attend a family gathering. (The Other Half's birthday usually coincides with the Epsom Derby so we go there and then out for a meal in London in the evening.) So it was a good opportunity to stitch on the Teepee Teddies. Unfortunately I left the chart at home so I was only able to do the obvious backstitching. I think that the next time I stitch on this, next Sunday evening it should get finished, fingers crossed!

Here's my progress on Jane Longstreth after its last round in my rotation. I'm hoping to finish up the over-one lettering in the box and the flowers in the basket the next time I stitch on this. Several people commented that they were not familiar with this sampler. It was published to help preserve the samplers in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. Jane was a Quaker from Chester County, PA which is close to where I live so that added to its appeal. I have seen the sampler on The Attic's website (no affliation) and perhaps other shops have it as well.

Secret garden or mystery X

It is some time since I posted but I have been stitching away. I have now completed this end of the piece. I am now beginning work on the bushes at the other side of the two buildings. This is the part I thought I had done. I have decided to work the border as I go along because it is very repetitive if left to the end. I am enjoying doing this again. Thank you all for your lovely comments last time. seeing other members' progress really does keep you motivated. I am hoping to get quite a bit done this weekend because the weather is pretty poor. Have a good stitching weekend everyone.

Queen Of Stitching-Stitchangel

Jen:

Thank for the help with my blog. I feel like such a Geek (I wonder how I ever learned to cross stitch) lol
Please fellow member do not ROFL at me. (I am old and that is my story and I am sticking to it)

In between stitching on Queen Of Stitching I have been trying to get my Blog going. I hope this works (I believe my address is Stitchangel-Mysecretgarden.blogspot)

Again Thanks So Much!
Tiffany

Poppies 3

I reckon I've about another third of this still to do so will have to scroll it over now to get room to sew the rest.

I love this blog, it certainly motivates me to do some finishing.

I've seen so many lovely designs on here that I'm longing to do so I just HAVE to get this finished.

GG

A new UFO? - Judgement

Everyone here is so encouraging!
While I have put disney back in its box in the closet (don't worry Sherry I won't throw it out, I'll keep it for now.) I have taken up the requests to find another UFO. I don't have alot of these... as I do try really hard to finish things. (I have a wedding sampler for a wedding that got called off... I will finish that eventually for someone else I hope but right now the someone else doesn't exist so I'm going to hold off).

However, Jen I love your idea to post Judgement up here.
This is a piece that my uncle bought me all the supplies for last summer. I had stitched up a dragon and fairy one each for my brother and sister and he decided he wanted his own hand-stitched piece as well. But being my uncle (who is more like my older brother as we are very close and only 9 years apart) he had to make the piece epic.
So he picked out this piece by Character Creations called Judgement (from a tarot series).

I have been working on it for the past seven months... now for about four of those months I was very sick and unable to stitch much. As I have mostly recovered I am now trying to get through more projects and catch back up. So I do hope that this one will go much faster than it has been.
But it is still slow going. I'd like to have this piece done by 2011 but sometimes that seems just impossible. While it's technically not a UFO and more a WIP somedays it feels like a UFO just because it's so huge!
I am on page 3 of 20 now... which is at least something and will post my updates here on this blog. I will try to give this piece one solid night (for me that is about 3 hours) of stitching each week.
Here is my current progress:


Well that is the one then. :) It should keep me busy trying to get it done for the next two years. lol. Oh the things we do to ourselves eh?

Thanks again for all your encouragement! It is greatly appreciated.

I have figured out the problem...finally!

Quaker a Six Mains
(if you look closely you can see the lilac motif that took over an hour yesterday)

I've finally figured out why I'm having so much trouble with my DMC linen floss project--it's the fabric!

I picked out a beautiful piece of linen for the project, but it's also very tightly woven. There's too much friction between the fabric and the floss, so I'm constantly having to 'tug' the floss through (especially when there's a slub in either the fabric or the floss) and I'm winding up with frayed and breaking floss because of it.

I'm going to test my theory this weekend--I've got some linen here with a much looser weave, so I'm going to pick out one of the small freebies that I've printed out and try stitching it with the linen floss on the more loosely woven linen. I think I'll have a much easier time stitching. At least I hope so. I really like the look of the linen floss and I'd like to think it can be used for cross stitch and not just surface embroidery work.

So Quaker a Six Mains will go on the back burner for the time being, until I figure out the fiber problem. I'm not going to rush myself to pick out the work that I've already done (after all, I may be wrong) but I'm going to stop all work on it and pick up something else from my WIP basket.

Trotting along nicely (TW Carousel Horse)

Well here is the progress I've made recently. I have been busy looking after grandchildren so not much cross-stitching. Good side- not much frogging either. I'm on limited cross-stitching for about another two weeks while I struggle with costumes for a school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat. Fortunately I'm only doing two for one granddaughter and one grandson A.K.A. Pharaoh and Potiphar. The struggle I'm having I'd rather be doing my UFO and that's saying something! It's been great seeing all the progress on the other UFO's and also the finishes. I'll get there one day -not too far away I hope. Happy stitching to all you other UFO-ers

Stitch 10, frog 8, stitch 10, frog 9

I don't know why this design is so much trouble. But I finally have decent progress to show. It's a frustrating piece, but I'm soldiering on with your encouragement!

I just can't do it...

Hi All,
Well I'm the disney girl... if you can't remember the long winded story of my UFO you can read it here.
http://ufotofinish.blogspot.com/2009/04/disney-ufo.html

I must tell you I have been completely unsuccessful on motivating myself to work on this piece. I just can't seem to do it with all the bad resentment I have towards it. However I know I can't stand to get rid of it either. So forgive me... as it will continue to gain dust for a bit in my stash.

However... I believe there was someone who was potentially interested in finishing this piece and had a use for it. If there still is please let me know and I will try to figure out if I want to keep the piece and let it collect dust or pass it onto someone who may actually finish it.

I am sorry to have the first unsuccessful story of this blog. I hope that everyone else can get through their WIP. They are all so lovely and I do love seeing them!

Mel
http://epicstitching.blogspot.com

June goal

My personal goal for June is to stitch for at least one hour on Quaker a Six Mains every day. Here's what she looks like today: