The Bookshelf and The Little Mermaid

On Sunday, I spent some time working on The Bookshelf by Little House Needleworks:

I'm doing this on 32 Lugana in Doubloon from Picture This Plus, and here is where I stopped:

And then Monday saw me working on The Little Mermaid by Thomas Kinkade for the Disney Dreams Collection again:

I'm definitely still well trained on the expecting the timer to go off after an hour! Ha! Here is where I stopped yesterday:

Overall I'm happy with the progress on both pieces so far! Yay!

Until next time!
~Katy

Rainbow Parfait and SAL Updates

For the last week, I've been working on two SAL's for groups I'm in on Facebook. The first was a SAL for the Disney Dreams Collection group, where we're just working on one of our pieces for the rest of July. I chose to work on The Little Mermaid.

This is where I started the SAL on July 15th:

I worked on the piece for thirty minutes a day for the week, so here is where I got to after the three and a half hours this week:

Not bad, if you ask me! I'm also going to be working on this piece for this next week as my Whine and WIPs piece, so I'll be working on it an hour a day for the next week. I'm excited to see how far I can get this week!

I've also worked on my Whine and WIP piece for Stitch Maynia for the last week too. I chose to work on my Skater's Village Tree Skirt by Dimensions.

This is where I started on the piece this past week:

And here is where I got to after an hour a day for the last week:

I'm really happy with the progress. This hour a day thing is working out really well for me!

After working on those two pieces, I picked up Rainbow Parfait from Glendon Place.

Here is where I got to yesterday:

I'm doing this on 32 Lugana in Mesa from Picture This Plus using the called for Dinky Dyes silks. I'm enjoying this piece a lot!

Until next time!
~Katy

Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love

Yesterday was my daughter's 9th birthday! I can't believe she's halfway to eighteen. Is there a way we can make them stop growing? Ugh!

But between birthday festivities and a somewhat hard day with my PMDD, I didn't get a lot of stitching done. What little stitching I did do was done on Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love by Thomas Kinkade from the Disney Dreams Collection.

I put some more stitches into the beautiful sky yesterday.

I keep looking at the castle each time I pick this piece up and debate on if I should finish it out on the other page it's on in the pattern. I may do that next time to get a break from the green country side and the sky. We'll see.

Until next time!
~Katy

The Little Mermaid

My poor neglected rotation. I've loved working on the OUAT Alphabet this month for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, but I am looking forward to getting back to my rotation!

I took a break from the alphabet yesterday to work on The Little Mermaid from Thomas Kinkade's Disney Dreams Collection.

I love this piece - this entire series is just gorgeous. They will take me awhile to complete, but that's okay! Here's where I got to yesterday:

I am pleased with the progress! I love the colors on this piece and am enjoying watching it come to life!

Only a few more days until I'm back on my regular rotation. Just in time for the monthly SAL's and WIPocalypse! Ha!

Until next time!
~Katy

Beauty and the Beast

Insomnia is not my friend. After not falling asleep until about 4 AM yesterday morning, I was dragging most of the day. I was able to get enough energy to start clearing out my craft room (I can see floor! Lots of junk removed!) and I also put a few stitches into Beauty and the Beast Falling In Love:

Here is where I was able to get to before exhaustion finally claimed me:

Kids are back in school today after a fun and busy Spring Break. It was a lot of fun having them home and I have some great ideas for summer activities now, but I'm glad to be getting back to our school time routine! Off to get some things done while the kids are at school - the sooner I get chores done, the sooner I can stitch!

Until next time!

~Katy

The Little Mermaid

This almost feels like a new start since I was missing thread when The Little Mermaid came up last time, but I now have all the thread I need and I made more progress last night!

I really do love this piece, the different shades of blue are just beautiful. Here is where I stopped last night:

If you look closely, you can see the top of Flounder peeking at the bottom. The rest of him is on another page of this pattern. I'm debating whether or not I'm going to go ahead and finish Flounder or wait. I will leave that as a question until it comes up in the rotation again.

Until next time!
~Katy

Beauty and the Beast Falling In Love

Just a quick post today. Being laid up with a bad back did give me an opportunity to spend some time on Beauty and the Beast Falling In Love:

Here is how things look when I put it away last night:

I am feeling better today but will be taking it easy one more day to be sure. Time to get stitching!

Until next time!
~Katy

The Little Mermaid

Yesterday I was able to put a little time into my next new start, The Little Mermaid by Thomas Kinkade. This is part of the Disney Collection - there are something like twelve pieces in total in the series so far, give or take a couple, but every one I've seen, I want to do!

Here is how far I was able to get last night:

It's not much, but it's a start!

I have hit one snag with this kit, though. Hopefully I'll get it resolved before it becomes too much of an issue. See, these kits come with all the thread pre-sorted already, which is fantastic. Especially when there are color names like "Very Dark Bright Green" or "Light Dull Purple". I would go mad trying to divide them myself. Though they are divided, the threads are uncut and loose in their cards, so I take some time before starting to cut the threads in half and secure them so I don't lose any floss as I work. The problem was discovered when I was going to secure "Light Bright Purple":

I may have had an issue distinguishing between all the different shades of purples, blues and greens, but this is definitely not purple. It actually matches another color in the pattern, Medium Yellow Grey. The codes for these in the pattern are one number apart - 6337 for Light Bright Purple versus 6237 for the Medium Yellow Grey. I'm assuming the mix up just came from reading the numbers wrong. I've contacted the vendor, MCG Textiles, to see if they can send me the right color. If worse comes to worse, I am sure I can find a shade of purple in my stash that could work, but I'd prefer not to if I can help it. Fingers crossed we can get this resolved!

Until next time!
~Katy

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Disney princess movies, maybe because Belle is the princess I can most relate to - smart brunette who is happy with a library as a gift and can see past the worst in people to find the goodness within. So when I found this piece, I just had to do it. I absolutely love it (except for the quarter stitches being done on aida - so much easier with evenweave!). This entire series by Thomas Kinkade is beautiful. I'm going to start the Little Mermaid piece when it comes up in the rotation, and I know there are several other Disney themed pieces of his out there. Several of them are on my wish list! This is a huge piece, though, with lots of colors and lots of details. It's going to be beautiful when it's done!

So here is where the piece stands after getting some love yesterday:

There are four very full pages worth of pattern for this piece, so I started in the middle and am working on the top left quarter of the piece now, and I'm not anywhere near halfway done with that quarter yet to give you an idea of how big this piece is!

I don't know if I'm going to get much, if any, stitching done today. Hubby and I are getting together with some friends of ours tonight for Game Night and I have things to do before we go out. I will be posting again tonight, though, one way or the other for Grow Your Blog! Yay!

Until next time!
~Katy

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

January WIPocalypse and End of Rotation Week

When I got back into stitching last year, I found that many of the blogs I follow participated in a SAL called the WIPocalypse that was reported on each month during the full moon, playing on the idea of the Mayan apocalypse that was predicted in 2012 and everyone trying to finish their pieces in time. Clearly, the world didn't end, and neither did the SAL, which continued into this year! If you'd like more information about the WIPocalypse SAL, please head over to visit Measi's Musings for more information!

WIPocalypse this year has themes for each month, including designer, style of piece and colors, all except for this month. This is January's theme:

January 26 – Theme: Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year!

I don't think I'll necessarily always stick in the theme for the month because of how I work my rotation schedule, but this one I can handle!

So I think all of you know I'm Katy :-) For my WIPocalypse entries, I decided that all six of my holdovers from 2012 will be counted. I will report on whichever ones I worked on each month and show the progress from where they started at the beginning of 2013 and where they are each month. So without further ado, here are the pieces that I'm going to be reporting on for WIPocalypse for 2013:

Italian Vista by Dimensions Gold Collection - Started 7/19/12, last worked on 12/8/12:

European Bistro by Dimensions Gold Collection - Started 8/4/12, last worked on 12/1/12

Flames of Desire by Lee Ann Seed from Heaven and Earth Designs - Started 8/27/12, last worked on 12/15/12:

Christmas Countdown by Dimensions - Restarted 9/2/12, last worked on 12/22/12:

My Witch's Brew by Victoria Motto Sampler Shoppe - Started 11/18/12, last worked on 11/24/12:

 

And last but not least, the piece I've been working on this week - Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love by Thomas Kinkade from Candamar Designs Disney Dreams Collection - Started 9/9/12:

Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love - Start of Rotation Week

Because of the Crazy January Challenge, this piece is the only WIPocalypse piece that came up in rotation this month. Here now at the end of the rotation week, this is where this piece stands:

Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love - End of Rotation Week 1/26/13

I'm very happy with the progress!

So there is my WIPocalypse report and my End of Rotation Week report! Tomorrow starts a CJC rotation week. None of my CJC posts will be included in the WIPocalypse this year since they were all new starts, but you know me, I'll still post progress!

Until next time!
~Katy

Just A Quick Post

It's been a super long work week with crazy stressful things at work, I had Girl Scouts tonight, and I'm beat, but I got some more sky and some green grass stitched tonight:

As of 1/25/13

Tomorrow is the last day of this piece for this rotation week, plus it's the first WIPocalypse post of 2013! Can't wait!

Until next time!
~Katy

And Even More Sky

Tonight found me still working on the colors of the sky in the blocks I was focusing on:

As of 1/24/13

I promise the fabric isn't as blue as it looks in this picture, it's actually completely white...but the thread colors aren't -too- far off...I'm loving how the sky is starting to come together!

Two more days on this piece in this rotation...I'll be sad to put it to the side, but I'm very proud of what I've done so far this week!

Until next time!
~Katy

More Sky

I was very tired after the last long three days of work in my office that I only stitched a little bit of sky tonight:

As of 1/23/13

Sorry for it being a bit darker. I need to invest in a better camera than my phone, or really just take pictures during daylight! I love the sky, though...it looks to me like the castle really is in front of the sky, providing a bit of perspective in the picture, but that's just me!

I also have to share my six year old daughter's portrait she painted of me at school in art class:

Me!

I personally think this looks great! Granted, she gave me green eyes (like what she has) rather than brown (which I have), but I am very proud of her! She has said for the last two years she wants to be an art teacher when she grows up, so you can be sure I'm keeping this in case she really does continue down that path as one of her early masterpieces! Proud mom moment!

Until next time!
~Katy

Pretty Sky

For this pattern, I am working in a combination of cross-country stitching and solid ten by ten blocks. It's cross country in that I take one color thread and I try to finishes the stitches throughout the piece in that color, but I determine my next color to work on by the ten by ten blocks of stitches. I am trying to keep it so that I build consecutively larger squares. The first square was by itself, then two by two, then three by three, and so on. The beauty of this process is that I can clearly see the image coming to life from the middle outward, but since I'm doing cross-country stitching as well, I'm not limiting myself to only working on a specific square at any one point. It helps bring more of the image to life that gets clarified once I focus on the stitches in a given square.

I finished the five by five square yesterday. I'm starting to work on the six by six square now, and that led to a lot of sky being worked on tonight:

As of 1/22/13

More of the lovely pinks and oranges seen in the sky at sunset are now visible, and I know I'll be working on more sky the next couple of days as well. I am already very pleased at the progress I've made so far and look forward to seeing what else I can get done the rest of this week!

Until next time!
~Katy

More Progress

I was able to put some more time into Beauty and the Beast tonight:

As of 1/21/13

Adding the color to the tower of the castle definitely makes it look like there was a lot of progress tonight. I'm realizing as I'm stitching this that this piece is deceptively huge. No, it's not as big as some of my HAED's in size, but I'm only working on the first of four pages right now and I'm not even a quarter of the way done with that page...lots and lots of detail, but I'm loving every stitch. I'm especially enjoying seeing some of the village begin to come to life with rooftops and smoke stacks and shapes of the shading of the foliage around it.

I think that's my favorite part of large scale pieces like this. I love seeing details starting to emerge in ways I just don't feel I get in the same way with some samplers and more primitive pieces, but that's just me. That's the other beauty about this hobby. You can find a project to fit absolutely any taste. It's such a wonderful hobby and I treasure the few hours after a crazy day of work and kids where I get to just relax with my needle and thread!

Until next time!
~Katy

New Rotation Week - Beauty and the Beast

Today I started my rotation week by picking up Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love by Thomas Kinkade, and my daughter is thrilled! She loves this piece and it will eventually be for her, so she's very excited I'm working on it again.

As a recap, here is where we last left this piece:

Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love - Start of Rotation Week

It's been nearly three months since I worked on this piece due to other projects getting in the way, but now that the CJC starts are done, I don't anticipate starting any other new pieces this year so I hope I can get to this more often than every three months...we'll see what happens! I did get a few stitches in today, and here is where we stand now:

As of 1/20/13

We'll see how far we get this week! I will say, though, that this piece is making me value the times I use 28 and 32 count fabrics over 14 and 16 counts - partial stitches in lower count fabrics are not so much fun!

Until next time!
~Katy

November TUSAL and Tribal Penguin

There is just something that makes me smile when I can look on my blogroll on the side of my blog and see all sorts of fun pictures of different TUSAL posts! So of course, I have to make my own contribution!

Here is my TUSAL jar from October:

TUSAL Jar - October 15, 2012

And here is November's TUSAL:

TUSAL Jar - November 13, 2012

And from the top! October:

TUSAL Jar - October 15, 2012

And November:

TUSAL Jar - November 13, 2012

This month, I have ORT's from Beauty and the Beast Falling in Love, May Lily of the Valley Teacup, and of course those black and white threads right on top are from Tribal Penguin, which I worked on again tonight! I tested some of the suggestions with other colors or other defining techniques. I didn't like them as much and decided instead to do the hard outline of the white of the belly. I like the way it makes it pop out from the fabric and provides definition, but it's also making me think about outlining the black as well. I'm going to wait until I finish the piece entirely before making that decision.

Here is how it looks tonight:

As of 11/13/12

Can you tell I'm having fun playing with Instagram? And I'm 13/13 as of this post for NaBloPoMo!  Yay!

Until next time!
~Katy