Wow I am very bad at keeping up with this, aren't I?

Wow . . . it's been since middle of October 2010 since I updated this blog. And I told Gilee she should update hers . . . irony, yes, I know. I've gotten quite a lot done since then. I did start and finish the Dragon of the Summer Sky as well as the Hope one.

I finished the Hope one near the end of October.


The Dragon of the Summer Sky I started near the end of October and finished it December 14th about 12:30 am. I think the 28 count colonial blue aida was smaller than 28 count on the winter one since this one is so much bigger than this one.


But in the meantime, I finished the cardinal wreath for my sister for a Christmas present.


I did pick the Astrologer back up for a while, but got bored with it again . . . but better than not at all, I suppose.



I needed a Christmas present for my friend, Joe. I knew he was getting me something for Christmas - a lighted d20 and a very cool Big Bang bag, which I use for taking my cross stitch places (it started out as a gym bag, but I just like it for a cross stitch bag). Soooo . . . what to do? Wait, Joe likes Christmas, so an ornament is perfect . . . now what? Oh wait, he loves Ghostbusters! So off I go to find the logo, run it through my cross stitch converter, and stitch it! I used glow-in-the-dark floss for the ghost. When I told him that, he grabbed it and shut himself in the bathroom. A muffled exclamation of "omg it works" or something like that followed. He has since reported that his little boy does the same thing - charging it to the light, then going in a closet. lol Awesome!


I decided I needed to make myself a new dice bag, to replace the ones which were in the pod which are long since gone :( I could try to re-stitch them, but the Dragon's breath or mist or whatever it was called is from Enchanted Fabrics and they're no longer in business. :(
Sooo I took the January dragon of the Dragon Dreams birthday dragons and the August dragon, but with different colors. I liked this spool of blending filament from the dragon of the winter moon which has more blue in it than the ones produced now by the same number.
January

the gold one



I needed a baby present for a (now former) co-worker. Her theme was jungle and her colors were brown and green. So the 3 peas in a pod came to mind. I started it sometime before this. Got that done mid-January 2011.


And then I decided to work on that scallop kit I got for Mom off of eBay. It stitched up very quickly and I still have a bit of that pink sparkly thread. I think I'll use it one day for the little dragon motiff I did for Tannith's dice bag.


I did finish another shells/seaside picture for Mom, but I have to take a better pic of that before posting it here.

I had started this wolves picture back in 2003 and finished it 2/7/11. One less in the UFO pile! Go me!



I had this kit for the Lord's Prayer and decided to see how long it would take to stitch it. 10 pm Thursday, 2/24/11 - 2 pm Sunday 2/27/11. That stitched up so very, very fast!



I also was working on one of 4 crystal ball views. There is a Joan Elliott pattern which is a wizard with a crystal ball and there are 4 options. I still don't know which I like best, but I did decide to stitch each on a small piece of sparkly fabric. I started with the dragon. There's also a castle, an unicorn, and an owl. I finished this one in February.


I did do some more on the 2 different color variations of the castle in the clouds while I was in NY for granny's memorial service in May.
blue

green


Mary asked me to make this mardi gras mask for her. I had shown her and Mom the pattern at Christmas and said I'd love to stitch it. It took foreeever to get the fabric - it was back-ordered 3 times and finally I just told them to substitute black jobelan for black lugana. Then I got to start it mid-March. I finished it mid-May and got it framed. I think it was the most difficult thing I've done because of all the partial stitches as well as having to redo several big bits of it.

I decided the picture was for her birthday present and the frame is for Christmas.


I had started the sorceress as part of a SAL, or stitch-a-long, with a former (best) friend during the Sunday game. And then she stopped cross stitching during the game and also started playing more WoW. Then there was that whole debacle which ended our friendship. I had pulled it out one day and asked myself "why did you stop working on this? Why did you let her stop you from finishing this?" And I found I had no answer for myself. My next problem was that I couldn't remember what I used for what color. Sooo I made it up as I went along. I think I was originally supposed to use blending filament places where I didn't and added some where I wasn't originally going to (that sparkly bit for the underside of the cape flipped out). And I think she's turned out better than I thought she would. I did start the wizard guy at the same time, but sort of put him down for a while, stitching with velvet is difficult.


So then June 14th I decided to start the Elegant Geisha kit. I decided to stitch this for a friend I used to work with. She's stitched up relatively quickly. I'm fairly certain I would have finished with her if not for being distracted by the Fragile Storykeep and that whole loss of job thing. Well also the half-crosses are kind of tedious to stitch. I do want to finish her soon tho, I only have the wisteria and the remaining half-crosses and of course the backstitching.


I had gotten the pattern and (some of the) threads I needed for this a while ago and asked myself why have I not done this one? I didn't have a good answer, so time to pull out some 18-count aida. None of the background is visible, so aida is fine. Oh my gosh! It stitched up so quickly! 2 weeks and 3 days.

I want to get this framed, but I'll have to wait to have a good job . . . or someone has it framed for me for Christmas. That'd be a great Christmas present.

Plus I've go so much more I want to stitch . . .
I will try not to leave another 9 months until the next blog update.