Theme-A-Licious: Jardin January

 No new stitching tonight. My son was a very wriggly and fighting boy this morning when I dropped him off at daycare - to the point where I was physically carrying him against his will into the room which caused me to wrench my shoulder a bit, so stitching tonight wasn't very comfortable. Ah, the joys of the terrible two's...

But today is the last day of January (can you believe it?) and so here is this month's Theme-A-Licious Report! This month is Jardin January!

Jardin January

The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.

I made my mid-month report here. Since then, I've added progress to two pieces that fit in this theme. First is Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love, which I hadn't reported on mid-month:

As of 1/20/13

And the other piece is one I have reported on already and is my current rotation piece, Butterfly Rose Cross. Now granted, I haven't gotten to any of the flower portion of this picture yet, but I will eventually!

As of 1/30/13

Next month is Figural February:

Figural February

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated projects some face time this month.

People-populated projects...hmmm...I really don't have a lot of those coming up in my rotation anytime soon...though nearly all of my projects I will likely touch in February can all be related to people...this may be a month I stretch the theme a bit because I don't particularly wish to get out of my rotation, but we'll see what happens!

Oh, before I forget, I did get some wonderful stitchy stash in the mail today from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie:

Fabric Heaven!

Hi, my name is Katy, and I'm a hand dyed fabric addict...aren't they gorgeous?!?

Until next time!
~Katy

More Blue...

Lots more blue, though I'm almost done with this particular shade of blue in this column...

As of 1/30/13

What I would really like to do is finish up this column before I put this away in the rotation for a bit...do you think I can do it between now and Saturday night? I'm certainly going to try!

Tomorrow is the end of the month post for Theme-a-licious, so check back then!

Until next time!
~Katy

I Swear There Are Four Colors...

Alright, I'm the first to admit that as much as I LOVE getting comments on my blog, I'm absolutely the worst person about responding to them, though I eagerly read every one when my email notification goes off, haha! I saw several comments expressing surprise at the fact that yes, there are four colors in the area I've worked on for Butterfly Rose Cross so far - three blues and one green. So tonight, I took a picture without the flash that (at least in my phone) appeared to show more distinction between the colors...you tell me:

As of 1/29/13

I can at least see two colors easily...the three blues are so close together and the green has maybe five or six stitches so far total that they're easy to overlook. What do you think, can you see the colors?

P.S. - the blue part on the bottom of the third color is a different color than the blue on the top part of the color...I promise!

Until next time!
~Katy

Onto the Third Column!

Tonight I did not have as much stitching time, as I had a late meeting at work that led to drinks and appetizers afterwards, and the stitching bug has a hard time fighting through a margarita/sangria swirl, let me tell you! Haha!

I was able to finish the second column completely tonight, though, and moved onto the third column:

As of 1/28/13

I know it's hard to tell, but you're really looking at four colors in the columns thus far. This has actually been a very enjoyable mindless stitching of these colors in columns. I'm sure once I get to the actual cross and the non-background portions of this piece, I'll have to focus more intently, but it's been a very relaxing and enjoyable stitch thus far!

Until next time!
~Katy

Good Progress, Bad Picture

I've decided that I'm going to alternate every other week between a CJC and a non-CJC piece, and my CJC pieces will be done in the order in which they were started. Sunday is always the start of a new rotation week, so today I focused on my Crazy January Challenge piece Butterfly Rose Cross by Brigid Ashwood, a piece from Heaven and Earth Designs.

Here is where the piece stood when we last saw it:

Butterfly Rose Cross - Start of Rotation Week - Last Touched 1/1/13

Excuse the very poor quality of the picture, but here is where the piece stood after some work on it today:

As of 1/27/13

The colors are totally off in this picture, but if you look close, you can see some of the color differentiation in the stitches. All in all, despite the bad picture from my tablet (phone was dead and I need a better quality normal camera), I'm pleased with the work I did today! I made a lot of good progress. The second column should be done relatively quickly - hopefully tomorrow depending on what time I get home from a work function. And you can see I've already started the top of the third column! One page of this piece will count as a finish for the CJC, since HAED pieces are so huge. Wish me luck this week!

Until next time!
~Katy