Updates on Girl with a Pearl Earring from April

Hello out there!  I don't know if anyone still follows or reads me anymore but here is a stitching update. A few posts ago I mentioned that before and after the Earthquake I never stopped stitching.  In March and April I worked pretty diligently on my old WIP Of Vermeer's painting Girl with a Pearl Earring.  Here are some photos of my progress...

I have worked on this a little bit more recently but I am still far away from the next page finish.  When I do finish this page though I will be more than half way done with this piece!

Happy Stitcing!

March YOTA and 2nd Finish of 2015!

Hello friends!  It's YOTA time (the first Saturday of the month) and I am actually on time with my post woo hoo :).  

The big news is that I finally finished my YOTA focus piece from last year Medieval Lady!  Here she is in all her completely finished glory...

Sorry it's late at night and the lighting is horrible but I am so excited she is finally done :).  I had to buy what I thought was an expensive single skein of thread to finish.  Well it turned out that the price I paid was for 12 skeins!!  I thought the price was high originally but I figured it's Amazon they can charge what they want but I bought there so I wouldn't be tempted to buy other stitchy things to make the shipping worth it on a site like 123stitch.com.

Last month I have also been working on my HAED Mom and Baby Turtle.  Here's where I was at the last YOTA check in...

And here is my current progress...

It's getting there!  Now I am kind of to the point where there is a lot of confetti stitches but they do make the design look amazing.  I was hoping to show you this page finished but c'est la vie...and stay tuned for next month.

Thanks to everyone for reading and sticking with me on this crazy crafting journey I'm on.  Happy crafting!

Late February and VERY Late January YOTA post!

Hello fellow crafters and bloggers.  Today I am showing you my progress for the YOTA or Year of the Acronym SAL hosted by pull the other thread.  I have been stitching a lot but not blogging much this year.  I was really hoping to finish or purchase the one lonely floss I needed to complete Medieval Lady while we were home in the US but I didn't.  When we made it back to Nepal I was however able to finish all of the beading!  Here are some photos of her from January.  I only last week ordered the floss to finish her so I have no idea when I will get it in the mail.

Anyways here she is overall!

And a close up of some of the beads...

And here is a view of her beautiful face and the tiny amount of stitches left to complete when my floss arrives.

I really enjoyed stitching this design from Karen Brittan found in Cross Stitch Gold Magazine!

Ok that was what I should have posted for January...now on to February's YOTA project.  I have been dying to get back to my first HAED start Mom and Baby Turtle.  The last time I worked on it was almost a year ago and I had just finished the first page which you can see here : http://craftingacrosscontinents.blogspot.com/2014/02/first-haed-start-mom-and-baby-turtle.html

Here is the stitching I have done so far...

This page is almost twice the size of the last one.  I started working on it again because I needed a break from my son's birth sampler.  I really love the colors and haven't had too much confetti stitching to do yet.  Hopefully I'll have more to show you next month and my post will actually be on time!  Happy Stitching!

YOTA December and I want Santa's Mittens

Happy December!  I still can't believe it's almost the second week of December and almost Christmas!  I'm a little late but I have been diligently working on my Year of the Acronym piece Medieval Lady...and she is so close to being finished 😄.  I'm writing this from my iPad so I don't have the "before" but here is where I am now...

The lighting is horrible because it's really late here but you can see her in her almost completed self.  All I have left to stitch are the flowers in the border and then add beads to them and to the cloak and the jeweled part of the dogs leash and I will be all done!!  Oh and I ran out I'd DMC #797 with only about 10 stitches left.  But I am looking forward to being able to pick them up soon when we get to travel back home to Michigan for Christmas this year!  Here is an image of Santa wearing Michigan mittens that is my theme for us this year.

After a bit of googling I found out that they sell these mittens in lots of colors at www.michiganmittens.com .  For those of you who don't know, Michigan is unofficially known as the mitten state because the Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten.  We Michiganders even have an odd habit of explaining to someone who is unfamiliar with where a city is located by showing them and pointing to the equivalent location on the "map" on our hand.  

I am really hoping that Santa brings me a pair of these cute mittens ;).  I also hope that I can find the time to finish Medieval Lady before the end of the year to make her my 13th finish of the year and get her framed while I'm home.  How are your Holiday plans coming along?  I hope that you find a little time to stitch during this busy time of year and happy stitching!

  

YOTA November Progress

Hello everyone!  I can't believe it's already November.  I really need to write some posts about some fun Nepali cultural events I got to experience, but I guess I'll s. Thanks for stoe those for later.  Today is the first Saturday of the month so it's time for my Year Of The Acronym or YOTA post. 

This month I stitched only on Medieval Lady so there is loads of progress.  After September I was worried that I wouldn't finish this design by the end of the year so I decided to focus my efforts on it instead of making some new starts. 

Here's where I was last month...

And here is all the progress I made in October!

I think the most obvious progress is on the Celtic braid and that I completed the outer edge of the border.  

This design doesn't have very much backstitching.  But I tend to leave that for last and then a force myself to do it to finish or abandon it all together.  So I decided to start the backstitching early this month.  Here are some close ups of where the backstitch helps put the design into focus.

I also started both of the shields and tassels in the upper left.

And started the veil attached to the lady's hat (I still have a bunch of white to do there) on the upper right corner.

On my last post I received so many encouraging comments that the dirt I couldn't wash out wasn't noticeable.  It is there but it doesn't photograph well.  Now that I've touched all four walls, I think the dirt is far enough away that if the frame is cropped tight you won't see it.  But here is a photo where you can see one of the stains.

Yesterday was Halloween and here are some decorations I made using my Cricut cutting machine and the October 31st cartridge.

This year I had two back to back days of trick or treating with my little ones and now I am completely exhausted.  Hopefully a good night's rest will do the trick ;)  

Thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to read what new and old projects you've been stitching on.

YOTA October Progress

Hello out there!  This Year of the Acronym post is a bit late but I figure posting now is better than never.  This month I didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked on Medieval Lady...  I did finally muster up the guts to try to wash her.  Unfortunately her worst stains were barely changed at all and did not disappear!  I think that is really why I stopped working on her a bit.  I thought why invest more time in something that won't look its best when finished... But then I changed my defeated attitude and decided to keep plugging away at her so that I can try to finish her by the end of this year :)

Overall you can't see any progress because I worked entirely in filling in areas that were white.  I figured I would move away from all of the bright colors and get the boring white on white stitching over with.  But it got REALLY boring not using any of the pretty flosses in this design.

I filled in all of the white on the fur lined vest and cape of the lady.

I've already moved on to using other colors this month and I can't wait to see the progress I can make to show you for next month!  Until then...Happy Stitching!

September YOTA

Hello stitchers and crafters!  I have been working pretty diligently on my Medieval Lady piece and can't wait to show you my progress I made in August!

This is where I was overall last month...

And here is where I am now!

I focused on the green Celtic braid on the border.  Although I still have more colors to add to it,  I did finish the first page which means I am half way to the top of the design!

Here is a closer pic where you can see a little more detail.

I also added more of the light blue 1/2 cross stitches and one more stem and flower outline in the darker blue on the lower right border.  

You can see it better here...

I am really enjoying working on this design and I hope I can finish it this year so that I will have finished all of my original WIPs from before I started this little blog!  I can't wait to see what everyone else has been up to on your projects :)

 Good luck and Happy Stitching!

August YOTA Medieval Lady

Hello again!  I am trying to be better about blogging more regularly.  Here is my on time YOTA post.  You can find out more and see what everyone else has been up to here: http://pulltheotherthread.blogspot.com/p/yota-year-of-acronyms.html?m=1

After my last YOTA finish Chi Omega pillow.  I started to get excited because I realized that my original long list of WIPs is getting really short! In fact I am down to three  (not counting my current design I haven't shared yet and Christ at Hearts Door which is still too frustrating to even think about stitching)!! They are Girl with a Pearl Earring, Mom and Baby Turtle, and this YOTA piece Medieval Lady.

I started this design I am guessing sometime in 2004 or 2005.  I found it in Cross Stitch Gold Magazine Issue 27 and it is designed by Karen Brittan.  This was my very first project I did that didn't come in kit form.  Its so old that it the stitches are going in both directions instead of all going in the same direction.  It's also quite a bit dirty as it sat in Qsnaps at my mom's house for at least a few years and got covered in lots of dust.

Anyways here is the overall before photo...

As you can see I got quite a bit done before I abandoned it for some reason I can't even remember.

Here is the bottom of the Lady's skirt before...

And here is where I am now...

Here is a close up of her buttons before...

And after the red backstitching.

I also did a bit of work on the border, the Celtic braid column and finished the Greyhound's jeweled collar.

Before...

And currently...

So overall, here is where I am on the design now!

I was able to get another good start on her and I am looking forward to working on her!  All of the bright colors and some half crosses should help keep me motivated to finish her.  In fact I really hope I can finish her before the end of this year!  There is still quite a bit of work left but I am definately a little more than half way done with my Medieval Lady.

I can't wait to see what everyone else has been working on.  Also does anyone have any washing suggestions?  I've never washed a stitched piece before because I've never had to and the process seems a bit intimidating to me. I worry that it will get ruined but I can't leave her the way she is.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Happy Stitching!

Very late YOTA post and finish!

Hello out there!  I participated in the YOTA challenge to finish up old projects last month.  You can see the other participants progress here.  I am very late in updating (this is supposed to be done on the first Saturday of the month) but oh well...

The project I chose that was so close to completion was my Chi Omega needlepoint pillow project.  Here is where I left it off after the last time I worked on it almost one year ago!

And here is some progress.  I decided to change the color of the diamond shaped area down at the bottom because you could barely read or decipher the Greek letters.  Also I chose to do some backstitching to redo the Greek letters so you could actually see them, and I added some to the skull and cross bones and the owl in the upper red sections.  I know that you don't normally backstitch on needlepoint but I really feel that the design needed it since some of the detail was lost in the needlepoint design.

Here is more of the white background being added.  I also added my chapter down at the bottom of the design to customize it a bit.

Here is where I finished originally with only adding two rows of white beyond all of the design elements.  I started this way because I wasn't sure if I would run out of the wool like I had in other sections.

But it turns out that I had plenty more so I decided to figure out how to make the dimensions a perfect square and here is the big finish!!

I started working on this piece on June 24th and I finished it on July 11th!  Originally I had started it sometime in 2001/2002 making it my OLDEST WIP now complete :D  Now I am ordering some beautiful fabric to use as the back side of the pillow so I can really finish it up.  Looking back over my blog I thought I would finish this up almost one year ago, but it is now FINALLY finished and it is my 7th finish this year!!

March YOTA = Two Finishes!

Hello Friends!  I am actually a bit early for this months YOTA post.  You can check out what YOTA is all about and what other stitchers have been up to in this SAL here.

 

Well I continued working on Diamond Avenue by Bucilla and I actually finished it on February 7th just as the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics was finishing up on US TV!

 

Here is the overall pic of the finished piece.  Sorry it is sideways but I can't figure out how to change it... :(

 

And here is a closer image of the last house with the backstitching completed and my initials.

 



I am so happy to have finished this project up finally and it is my 2nd finish of 2014 and it's only February!!

 

My second YOTA finish that is actually my 3rd finish of 2014 is a more recent WIP Mill Hill's Post Office.  I started this project back on September 18th as a retirement gift for my Dad who retired from the US Postal Service after over 30 years of service.  You can see earlier pictures of my progress here, and below is the blurry finished image from my phone.

 



                              

I finished this piece last Saturday February 22nd!  The beading on this piece really slowed me down until I tried out my Beadalon Tacky Bead Mat.  The ability to dump out a small amount of beads from the bag onto the mat and not worry that they would fall or get lost in the folds of my sofa was so great.  Also they were much easier to stab and get onto my needle. 

 





                              

 

I customized  this design a bit by stopping the design short of the snow and pavement in front of the building so that I would have room to add my Dad's name and the years he served with the United States Postal Service.  Also before finishing this one I had a small mix up with not reading the directions and completing all of the green curved garland with red beads.  I'm sure no one would have noticed but I thought that green garland made more sense so I went back and fixed it.  My Dad was very pleased with his gift so it made all of the long hours spent beading on it worth it. 

 

I am so happy with both of these finishes as I now have TWO less projects in my WIP pile!! 

 

 I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and 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!