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! 

Norwegian Advent Calendar Day 10

Today is the 10th Day of Advent and here is the 10th Pattern. 

The image is a French Lily from Gudbrandsdalen (a town in Norway) from the Maihaugens collection.

Norwegian Advent Calendar Day 9

Earlier this summer I purchased a book of Holiday knitting patterns from the Norwegian Folk Museum that I thought could be easily translated into Cross stitch ornaments.  Upon closer examination of the book today I noticed that it is actually an Advent Calendar!  Well I have missed the first 8 days but I will really try to keep up with sharing these every day.

Here is today's pattern which says in Norwegian "In December, Anna's Day is marked with a woman's head on prime display. Here is the Virgin Mary with the crown of an old pattern."  

Enjoy!

Sorry its been forever but I do have lots of updates!

Hello blog friends!  How are you all?  I am doing very well!  I'm sorry I've let this blog slip a bit but I have a good excuse and I have still been stitching! 

Yesterday we FINALLY received our first snow in Oslo!!  I love snow even though it is difficult to push my stroller and little girl around in it.  Here is a picture I took today of the 6 + inches that we received yesterday and this morning!

Also, last Saturday I visited the wonderful Christmas Market at the Norwegian Folk Museum with a very good crafty friend and took some cute pictures of all of the booths and wares and got some very nice gifts, but I will share more about that later.  For now I'll just show a little teaser that will reveal my big announcement and why I have been too tired to blog lately...

I was able to find a beautiful relatively inexpensive (for Norway) Bunad (Norway's National Costume) for my daughter to wear to celebrate on the Norwegian Holiday of May 17th even though we won't be in Norway anymore by then :(   AND I was able to find one for my little BABY BOY who is due in March!!!  I am so excited to have another little one join our family even though sometimes the thought of taking care of two children makes me feel overwhelmed at times.  

Also I have been busy as we are getting ready to pack up and leave Norway after 3 wonderful years here in about a month.  So with being tired carrying my second baby and the stress of moving I haven't been that motivated to blog but I have been stitching little by little!

Here is my progress on "Birds" by Angie Designer.  I was doing this in a SAL but I knew I wasn't going to finish it in time so I finally purchased it in September.    

I am so close to finishing it I can almost taste it!  Actually I have the second set of leaves now completed and I'm halfway done with the second rose in this section.  I am hoping to have this finished by the end of the year so that I can take it home with us to Michigan to my favorite framer.

I have also completed I think my 7th Finish for the year!  This is a freebie from Kincavel Krosses, and I stitched it for a local gift exchange I am taking part of with the expat community here.  I absolutely LOVE these designs and am so grateful to the designer for creating them!  My plans are to make one for each of the countries we get to live in.  I already stitched the DRC one and now I need to make a Norway one for myself and then I have to do some figuring out for how to make one for our next exotic home but that is a secret for now!

Here are my finished stitched pieces.  I was a bit nervous about finishing them into the ornament since I have never actually done anything but frame my finished pieces...but below is my first attempt at ornament finishing.

P.S. It is hanging from the handle of my little girl's rocking horse :)  I am not 100% satisfied with how it turned out.  Adding the stuffing and the depth made the design turn out much smaller than I had expected, and my finishing technique is far from perfect but I think it is passable for a handmade gift for the gift exchange this week.  Plus it was the first time I had ever tried my hand at finishing!

Thank you for reading this!  I have been a bad blogger but I have been reading the blogs just not commenting very much when I'm tired (which seems to be most of the time).  Thank you all for sticking with me on my journey of crafting and living in foreign lands!  Cheers to you!