4th Finish of 2014!

 Hello everyone!  I have been busy with a few other projects that are finished :-) and my start-itis was going crazy so I decided to reward myself by starting and finishing this tiny kit.

I purchased this way back in 2002 when I was studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark from the Eva Rosenstand shop on the main pedestrian shopping street Stroget.

Here is an image of the design made up into a bookmark.

 

 

I started this tiny kit on Saturday February 22nd and I had gotten this far by Sunday evening...

 

 

 

And on Monday February 24th I had completed it!!

 

 

This kit is titled: The Queen's Guard by Eva Rosenstand.

 

I really could have finished it in one sitting if I had longer than an hour or two each night to work on it.  I'm glad that I was able to buy this kit so many years ago because usually I over think purchases and then go back to stores multiple times before actually buying things.  Anyways I did buy this on a whim and then a few days later went back to the shop only to find that it had closed and was completely empty! 

 

I'm not quite sure how to finish this though.  I was originally going to make a bookmark like shown on the image but after seeing so many beautiful finishes of ornaments and pillows I am thinking I might try something new.  I was a bit upset though because I tried ironing this to get out the horrible creases from how it fit into the envelope and I scorched the fabric a bit in the top right corner :(  But I think I will be able to finish it without anyone noticing... 

 

Now I am off to return to stitching page 8 of Girl With a Pearl Earring.  I have a bit of progress that I was planning to show you but I may lump it all together in my next post.  Until then...

 Happy Stitching!

First Finish of 2014!

Hello Everyone!  I am excited to report that I had my first finish of 2014 rather early this year!  I finished this Dimensions Kit "See No Evil" on January 7th!

 

Please excuse the poor image quality since this was taken on the camera on my phone.

 

  

Also I don't have the before pic since our computer has been packed away inside a large crate where it will accompany us at our next exotic location later this year. 

 

But I believe I started this kit for a good friend's birthday either in 2005 or 2006?  It is such a small kit measuring 7" wide x 5" tall.  I had left it with some of the blue monkey's backstitching finished, the green monkey needing his vest completed and it was missing about 6 leaves and quite a bit of backstitching that needed to be completed. 

 

This was another project that I couldn't believe I left so close to final completion!  Now the details are a bit fuzzy with everything that has happened since they packed up our apartment in Oslo, we flew to DC for a week and then I finally flew back home to Michigan, but I think I worked on this starting January 4th - 7th until it was finished! 

 

 I was planning on posting this as my January YOTA with a completion but I had way too much going on on the first Saturday in January.  This year I am hoping to blast through as many WIPs as I can to focus on new stash acquisitions and projects.  Let's see how well I do and how many other finishes I can have in 2014.

 

Happy Stitching! 

First HAED start Mom and Baby Turtle

One of my crafty goals for 2013 was to start a HAED or Heaven and Earth Designs piece.  A few months back I had purchased two charts from two very beautiful pieces of art by the artist Annya Kai.  I was able to meet my goal and start this piece "Mom and Baby Turtle" on January 30th, 2013.

 

This is what the finished piece is supposed to look like...

 

 

Please excuse the poor quality and color due to taking these late at night and with the camera on my phone but here are some progress pics of the first tiny page of the design.

 

 

I decided to stitch it on Dark Seagreen Hand Dyed 16 count Aida that I purchased from Stitchnmomma back over the Christmas holiday in 2012.  The details are a bit fuzzy since a month has passed now but for this first page it only took me about a week to complete!  I decided to use this as a reward stitch and finish up or work on a few other projects before I get back to this one. 

 

I rather enjoyed stitching the "confetti" stitches but we'll see how I feel after I work on a much larger page with more stitching on it. 

 

Until then... Happy Stitching!

Last finish of 2013!

 

Hello again blogger friends!  I am backtracking a bit to the oldest stitching news I have to share.  On December 23rd, 2013 I finally finished "Birds" by Angie Designer!!  As you may remember I started it as a SAL that I was very, very behind on but then I decided instead of killing myself trying to stitch this only late at night after my little girl had gone to bed that I would suck it up and buy the pattern.

 

Well here is my completed Birds piece!

 

 

I started it on April 29th and completed it on December 23rd.  So it took 8 months working pretty exclusively on it but I also took a few breaks for my sanity.  It is a rather large piece and it is the tiniest fabric count I have ever worked with at 25 count worked 1 over 1.  It has taken me quite some time to post about this finish because it has taken me forever to pull out all of the green threads that I used to make a grid that I found out wasn't even included in the SAL.  But that is finally done and now I know that is a pain for other projects I think I might try metallic thread for a grid because I am hoping that will be slippery and not stick to the other threads as much?  Does anyone have experience with this?

 

As I was stitching this piece I would stare at the rose image below and for some reason it would always remind me of the icon from the Rose Bowl.  If you aren't familiar with college sports you can find out more about the Rose Bowl here.  Anyways all through the months stitching on this piece I kept thinking about how the last time my favorite team went and won the Rose Bowl was back when I was in kindergarten and boy am I old now ;)

 

 

Well surprise, surprise this year's Rose Bowl Champs just happen to be the Michigan State Spartans, my favorite college team!  You can see the actual Rose Bowl icon below on a shirt I bought pretty shortly after returning home to Michigan.  Its not quite the same but the two roses are pretty similar I think.

 

 

 

I zoomed in so you could see the Rose better but this shirt actually says "Smell Victory!"  I am happy about my last finish of the year and I am very happy that my team made it to and won the Rose Bowl this year!

 

Happy Stitching!

YOTA February

 Hello Everyone!  I know its been quite some time and there have been BIG changes in my life but I haven't given up on my stitching or this blog :)

 

This is about a week late but once again I decided to join the YOTA (Year of the Acronym) SAL to help me finish up some of my WIPs in my pile.  This is hosted by Pull The Other Thread and you can see what everyone else has been up to here!  I did do some YOTA stitching in January also but the time we were supposed to post I was without Internet in my apartment in Oslo.

 

For my February YOTA project I chose Diamond Avenue by Bucilla.  I think that I originally started this project way back in maybe 2005?  And I think I worked on it pretty constantly for maybe a year or two and got it to the point of needing backstitch on two of the three houses before I abandoned it until about January 20th of this year.  This seemed a no brainer for me to choose to work on since it was sooo close to completion.

 

Here is the overall design how I had left it for so long.  (Please excuse all the poor quality images from my camera on my phone) 

 

  

 

And here is a close up of the backstitching I had finished before I gave up stitching on this piece.

 

 

Another close up of where I left off...

 

 

And...Ta Da!  This is where I was as of last Saturday February 1, 2014.

 

 

You can see that I finished all of the backstitching on the biggest rust colored house!  I know why I abandoned this project its because of the backstitching which I usually avoid as much as I can.  But for some reason working on it this time just made so much sense to me.  It was like the design was out of focus and then adding the backstitching just put it into focus! 

 

 Oh I have been working on this project from my cozy temporary home in the US.  I have been up to quite a bit of stitching and stashing that I will share too but I wanted to at least get this post out even if it was a week late.  Thank you for reading this and for all of your encouraging words.
Happy Stitching Everyone!