Whine and WIPS June

Back in June I participated in a SAL in Stitch Maynia called Whine and WIPs.  Basically you choose some of your work in progresses that you whine about somehow for a whole month.  Some people picked tricky designs, or ones they are making for other people, but my choice was my old pal Girl with a Pearl Earring.

I chose this one because it makes me whine that I would really like to finish it this year, and also I was at the point where there is a lot of stitching with yellows and browns which are not favorite colors at all.  Anyways when I started in June (after a few days with no stitching after starting a new project each day with Stitch Maynia previously) I was where you can see below, except the head scarf was finished I just didn't have an overall photo of it complete.



And here are some of my progress pictures.









I had completed Page 7 of the design here below.












And here is where I left off at the end of the month!  I got quite a lot of stitching done on this design this month.  And at this point I only have two smaller pages left to complete and around 3 months left if I want to try to finish her this year!  Do you think I can finish her this year?  That is my goal.

Until the next time...Happy Stitching!

We landed in our new home..Nepal!

Yes we landed safely in Kathmandu, Nepal after only one missed flight and a few near misses and over 24 hours of flying time in the air!  (We left on Monday evening and arrived early Thursday morning with time zone changes). So far I am really enjoying life here.  I am starting to settle in a bit as we have been here for almost a month now.

The city is so different from the US but its not quite as crazy as when we lived in Africa.  I really did a double take the first time I saw a cow wandering around by the side of the road.  And traffic is the British system with the steering wheel on the right and driving on the left side of the road.  I will share more stories later though. 

Here is some stitching progress!  Before we left the US I ffinished page 9 of Girl with a pearl on May 15th.

And then less then a month later on June 11th I finished page 6 of the design too!  It is really starting to look a bit more like the painting now :).  

But I am going to take a break from this piece and start a small one I received for Mothers Day next. I'll show you more soon.  Until then...Happy Crafting!

PS here are a few photos I have taken so

far!

Updates

Hello everyone!  I realize it has been quite some time since I last updated here.  

Well first of all my wonderful baby boy made his appearance almost 7 weeks ago!  We named him Thomas and he is the cutest baby boy a Mom could ever hope for!  I really can't believe that time has passed so quickly with him.  I won't go into too many details about his birth but the funny thing was he was right on time according to my due date.  Those Norwegians really have it down to a science to determine due dates because my little girl was born only one day after the due date they predicted for her also :).  Also we had scheduled a c-section for him at noon on his due date and he decided to make his wonderful arrival 3 hours earlier all on his own.  We were at the hospital for our second false alarm until labor decided to start in a BIG way.  I am lucky that he is very healthy and happy and has started to give me the most amazing smiles!!

I recently got to pass along the Lizzie Kate  "Life's A Stitch" traveling pattern to Sarah In Stitches but unfortunately I was so busy with my new little man that I didn't get to the post office for awhile.  But she did receive it all the way in the UAE and has already passed it along to the next lucky stitcher.

Also in stitching news my progress has slowed down to a snail's pace.   I have mostly just been able to check all of your wonderful blogs when I am up in the middle of the night feeding my little guy.  I have really been trying to be a more active commenter on all of your beautiful stitching.

 I have been able to get in a few stitches here and there and I was finally able to finish page 8 of Girl With a Pearl Earring!!  Here is the bad overall photo from my phone of both pages complete. 

And here is a close up of all 7,000 stitches completed.

 

I have since started on page 9 since it is pretty small and directly to the right of this page so I don't have to add any more grid line threads right now.  Eventually I want to get back to my HAED piece Mom and Baby Turtle but it is a bit too complex to work on the way I have to start and stop now to take care of my two wonderful babies :)  I am still in my new mom bliss though it has been hard trying to juggle both my lovely, active two year old daughter, and my new little man, but luckily my hubby has been a huge help.

Oh I almost forgot that we are also busy trying to get things ready to move to our next exotic country.  I know I have hinted at it so far but I am really excited about this move.  

I'll give one more hint...it is in ASIA!

That's not so much of a hint because Asia is huge but I will announce our new home soon :).  

Until then Happy Crafting!

10/26 Friday Progress Photos Girl with a Pearl Page Finish!

Happy Friday everyone!  Welcome to my new followers and special Happy Birthday wishes to one of my followers ;). 

I have some great progress to show you this week.  Here is where I was at the beginning of last week on Girl with a Pearl Earring...



And here is where I am today with MY FIRST PAGE FINISH EVER!!

Before now I haven't worked on any designs that were in page formats but so far I like it because it breaks the design down into manageable pieces and goals.  I really can't believe how much I finished this week.

Here is a little bit of a closer view where you can see some more detail.

At first it was hard for me to stop using the floss at the end of the page limit if I still had more left on my needle, especially if it was a single confetti stitch.  Normally I would just work as much of a color as I could over the whole design but I must say I do like the result of having in this case 1/9th of the design completely finished!  Here is an image of the finished page next to my completely highlighted chart page.



I feel that with highlighting the stitches on the chart after I complete them and by using the gridding method I have made only TWO mistakes in this whole section which by my usual ratio is pretty good.

Now I need to set this project aside so I can finish up an old one that is so close to being finished and start making some Christmas stockings for this year.  I hope I will have some progress on those to show you next week.  When they are finished then I think I will come back to this project and maybe do the difficult page below that is completely covered in stitching without any open space like page 5 had...but we shall see.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and that you can enjoy the beautiful fall or winter weather wherever you are in the world! 

I took this pic yesterday of the beautiful leaves on my street here in Norway.

Progress Photos 10/19 Girl With a Pearl Earring

This week I focused on my current project "Girl with a Pearl Earring."

Here is where I was as of last week...

This week I had one tiny snafu when I used the wrong color in part of my stitching.  Here is where I was when I realized that I used a yellowish color instead of the blue.  But in my defense the chart symbols for both colors are the same they just have a diagonal line in a box going in DIFFERENT directions...oh well c'est la vie!

 

Once I fixed that problem here is where I ended this week at stitch wise.

I am getting closer to finishing this page!  I finished the Pearl Earring, the girl's collar and most of her blouse.  Now I just have to finish up part of her scarf that cascades down on the right side of the page and then her blue head scarf to finish Page 5!  One thing I have realized though is that I can only stitch the brownish black floss on black fabric during daylight hours because otherwise I can't see where I stitched...

I really feel like this project is at the stage where the momentum is pulling me along to work on it more...but I think I am going to have to take a break to start other projects.  I have one project that really is this close to being done that I would like to complete, and then I need to start my family's Christmas stockings to hang up on our fireplace this year.  I am super excited because this is the first time I have ever lived in a home with a fireplace (and we are lucky to have two fireplaces in our apartment)!

Happy Friday!

Progress Photos

This Friday Progress photo is late for the second week in a row...but I really, really enjoyed spending time with my good friend who was here visiting!  We said our goodbyes at the airport this morning and now I am back to real life so to speak so I have a chance to show you my new progress.

This week I worked on Girl With A Pearl Earring off and on but here is where I was when the week started.

And here is where I am at now!  I finished all of the Girl's flesh even though it does not look very flesh colored since this is the part of her skin that is mostly in shadow. 

And in this closer view you can see that I am this close to finishing the infamous Pearl Earring!

I hope that next week I will be very close if not done with this page of the design, but we shall see.  Also look forward to some crafty pics I took while on a recent visit to the Oslo Ski Museum last week.

Happy Stitching!

Friday Progress Photos Girl with a Pearl Earring

Sorry this is one day late.  I have a houseguest this week so I have had my hands full with my baby and showing her around Oslo.

On Monday I started a Work in Progress (WIP) I had started back in January Girl with a Pearl Earring based on the Vermeer painting.  I have always loved the painting and I even read the book that the movie was based on a few years ago.  I purchased this kit when I was in Moldova and it was definitely the right price and I thought it would make a great project to work on.

Here is what it will look like when it is finished.

I am not quite sure what size the fabric is but it is definitely the smallest canvas size I have ever worked on. 

This is as far as I got when I started it in January...

The gray color is the start of the infamous Pearl Earring.



This kit is by a local Moldovan company Luca-S Art Goblen, and it is great quality.  I am very happy that the charts come in large enough size to easily see and mark off what I have stitched and that the threads have all been presorted and labeled according to the chart symbol.

I decided to try out the charting method of basting threads out to mark out each square of the pattern, and so far it has helped me make less mistakes!



After only 5 days here is the progress I made...

And here is the close up.

I never realized that the "Girl's" cheek would be so orange but I'm sure it will come together the farther I get.  I am hoping to complete this page 5 in the center of the design by the end of the month or sooner!

Has anyone out there ever stitched this design before?  If so I would love to hear your tips or advice :)