Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger these days. Ever since I came back from vacation, honestly. I'm sorry about that, I really am! I promise it's not intentional, and I'm going to try to do better!

Since my last update, I've worked on several pieces. First, I worked on Victorian Lady by Joan Elliott.

I was very tired the day I worked on this piece so didn't get a lot done, but progress is progress! Here is where I stopped this time around:

This picture is a bit dark, but I'm doing this on 28 Jazlyn in Strawberry Swirls from Under The Sea Fabrics.

The second piece I've worked on was my Wedding Sampler designed by Carolyn Manning.

I love this piece because it's one of a kind. It's going to come up again next week as part of my August ABC SAL for Stitch Maynia. Here is where I stopped this time around:

I'm almost done with the greens on the second page and then I'll be able to work on filling in the roses. This is being done on 14 Count Aida in Crystal Fresco from Picture This Plus.

The last piece I have to report is my second August ABC SAL piece, which was my Doctor Who Clock by Cloudsfactory.

I was able to put in nine hours of time in it for the SAL and was very pleased with my stopping point.

This is being done on a 32 Opal Lugana jewel from Under The Sea Fabrics using silks from Mo's Sale for everything except the white (B5200) and the skin tone, which is Mo's Flesh cotton floss. There really isn't a ton left to do beyond finishing Doctors Two through Twelve!

That's about it this time around! I am going to try to get better about blogging daily again. Never meant to get out of the routine in the first place!

Until next time!
~Katy

March 2015 Sampler Motif

Yesterday I worked on the March 2015 Sampler Motif from Carolyn Manning Designs. I can't show you a completed picture of the piece, unfortunately, since only the pattern was sent with the club, but I did make some good progress on it yesterday:

I'm doing this on 32 Opal Lugana in Ocean from Zweigart using Caesar Silk from Mo's Sale. The color of the fabric is really a nice light blue, but it gets lost in pictures obviously. The silk, though, I love. The vibrant jeweled tones really make this my favorite of all of Mo's silks. I can't wait to work on this again!

Until next time!
~Katy

Stitch Maynia - March 2015 Sampler Motif Club

Day Twenty-One had me working on the March 2015 pattern from Carolyn Manning's Sampler Motif Club! This is one of those pieces where the example picture is the pattern, so there isn't a completed model to show for this piece either. I can, however, show you how far I got yesterday!

This is another one of those happy color pieces that was just a joy to stitch! I'm doing this on 32 Opal Lugana in Ocean from Zweigart. It's a really pretty sky blue color that is just washed out in the picture. I also decided to stitch this entirely in Caesar silk from Mo's Sale. I love the bold, bright jeweled colors and every stitch made me smile. When this piece is done, I plan on mounting and hanging it in my Diva Den and using it as the background for my needle minder collection. I think it's going to be perfect!

Today is my birthday and thus it's my giveaway drawing day! I'm waiting until my kids are home from school and will let them draw the winning name, so stay tuned!

Until next time!
~Katy

Wedding Sampler

Yesterday another one of my favorite pieces came up in the rotation: my Wedding Sampler!

I really do enjoy this piece, it makes me smile each time I stitch on it. I worked on lots more green yesterday and stopped at this point:

I'm doing this piece on 14 count Aida in Crystal Fresco from Picture This Plus. I'm not usually a fan of Aida for my non-kit pieces anymore, but this fabric just doesn't feel like Aida normally feels. It's very soft and easy to work with. I'm enjoying it very much!

Until next time!
~Katy

Wedding Sampler and SAL Check In

How appropriate that on Valentine's Day, I was working on my Wedding Sampler!

Carolyn Manning of Carolyn Manning (CM) Designs designed this especially for me as a wedding gift. She and I met on a fantasy writing website something like fifteen years ago now, give or take, when she was just starting out and working towards being a designer full time. We became great friends over many things, including our mutual love of cross stitch, and I was so honored when she made this piece for me when my hubby and I got married! We lost touch for awhile when life took us our separate ways, but we've recently reconnected and she's just as delightful and sweet as she was when we first met. I'm so proud of all she has done! Check out her blog and her shop to see her wonderful patterns!

I started this once a long time ago and then realized I had really messed up somewhere on it with the counting and put it down for awhile. I started it up again a couple of years ago and it's languished with my missing stitching bug. It was really nice to get back to it! I finished the stitching first page of the border and started on the second:

My plan is to stitch all of the border first and then go back and do the backstitching and the text in the middle. Hubby and I will be married for 13 years this June. It would be really nice to have this done this year!

Today is also the 15th of the month, which means it's time to check in with the Story Time Sampler SAL. You can see my post for this month here. I love following everyone's progress on this piece!

Until next time!
~Katy

End of the Rotation Week

Well I have to say that I'm very pleased with the progress I made on Wedding Sampler this week! I started the week with only one day's worth of work on the piece from the Crazy January Challenge:

Wedding Sampler - Start of Rotation Week

After a full day's worth of frogging and another day of not doing any stitching at all, this is where the piece ended up after this week:

Wedding Sampler - End of Rotation Week - 2/16/13

Definitely a lot of progress! Besides a few stitches in the leaves on the bottom, all I have left on this page is back stitching and wording before I move onto the next page in this four page piece. I'm very pleased with the progress!

Until next time!
~Katy

Theme-A-Licious and IHSW

It's Theme-A-Licious mid month check in time again! This month's theme is:

Figural February

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

 Now, I have to admit...I have pieces that have actual people in them, but they're not up in my rotation yet...so I'm fudging on this theme a bit because the pieces I have worked on this month actually are related to people, even if they're not visibly populated on the WIP...

That includes My Witch's Brew - all about a witch, who is a person after all:

 

And I've also been working on my wedding sampler, which is all about me and my husband, so what more people populated project can you get? (Yes, I know it's a stretch)...

I made some great progress last night:

As of 2/14/13

 And made even more progress tonight:

As of 2/15/13

What a difference the daylight, or lack thereof, in a picture can do!

Today is also the start of International Hermit and Stitch Weekend! Tomorrow will be my last day on Wedding Sampler for this rotation week, and then I'll be working on European Bistro! I hope to get a lot of good time spent on both pieces this weekend!

Until next time!
~Katy

Go Away, Frog!

Last night was a very frustrating night as I realized I had miscounted a stitch on the lower part of my pattern that would have massively impacted the entire border...so I spent several hours last night frogging and ended up with my piece looking like this:

As of 2/11/13

Insert sad face here...after all of the frogging, I had no desire to stitch and clearly no desire to blog either. When my stitching time came tonight, though, I took a deep breath and picked the piece up again and here is my progress after triple and quadruple checking my counting tonight:

As of 2/12/13

Here's hoping the frog goes away again for a very long time!

Until next time!
~Katy

February TUSAL and New Rotation Week

Evening, all! Hard to believe it's time for another TUSAL report again! I have changed up my TUSAL jar for the year. I found this crystal bowl when I was putting my Christmas china away and putting my 'standard' china back out for display in my china cabinet. I have lots of beautiful crystal pieces but with young kids, I can't display them much. This piece, though, sits right beside my stitching seat and the kids leave it alone and it's such a prettier TUSAL jar!

Anyway, here is where we were at last month's TUSAL:

Old TUSAL jar

And this month's (the new jar is a little harder to have perspective with from this angle):

New TUSAL jar

And from the top:

Pretty!

And tonight:

Lots of room to expand!

Tonight also started a new rotation week! I'm back on another CJC piece this week and I am working on my Wedding Sampler by Carolyn Manning! Here is where I left the piece after it's CJC start:

Wedding Sampler - Start of Rotation Week

And here it is today, after me being up at 3 AM due to a massive lightening show that I couldn't fall back asleep from and spending some more time stitching tonight:

As of 2/10/13

It's amazing how much progress you can make in the wee morning hours undisturbed...I plan on making lots of progress on this piece this week!

Until next time!
~Katy

Crazy January Challenge - Wedding Sampler

This darn thing called working full time certainly puts a damper into my stitching time! I didn't nearly as much done on day two as I would have liked, but I'm thrilled to have another start! Today's start: Wedding Sampler by Carolyn Manning:

A Custom Piece!

I've mentioned before that this was a specially created piece just for me. I had met Carolyn on a website we both frequented and we bonded over our love for cross-stitching! As a wedding gift, she put together this beautiful piece for me with roses on the border since that was our primary wedding flower, and all of our details included. I've loved this piece and started and stopped it several times because of various reasons. This time, though, I'm sticking to it - I've been married for 10 1/2 years now, it's time!

So here is my start on this piece for the Crazy January Challenge:

Second CJC Start!

This is being stitched two over one on 14 count Aida in Crystal Fresco from Picture This Plus. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the fabric has a very old world, parchment paper type look to it in my opinion, and I think that when the piece is done, it will look like it's on a scroll, which I like! That's my one complaint about the beautiful hand dyed fabrics I'm growing addicted too - it's very hard to show just how beautiful they are in a picture!

Two starts down, thirteen to go! I have to admit, I'm loving this starting a new pattern every day business! Tomorrow I move to one of my small pieces, and I can't wait!

Until next time!
~Katy