As promised, here are my progress piccys from the weekend, and some of last week. I guess I'll start with the progress piccys from Story Keeper (HAED, Selina Fenech).
I did make my goal on it, lucky for me. And it was lucky, lol. I didn't stitch a stitch on it Monday, and I really could have done quite a bit more if I had. Still, I met my goal, and I'm happy with that. I finished up the row of ten by tens I was working, and I think it's looking good. I love the different shades of blue in it. You don't really see them unless you look up close, which my camera doesn't want to do, lol. Still, I like it. I'm stitching it over one on twenty two count with two strands. Now that I'm into it, I'm almost wishing I had used three. It's okay coverage, but not as good as it could be. Still, there are no big gaps, so it's okay. Let me put it this way, it could be better, but I don't dislike it enough to go back and either frog it all or add an extra strand!!! I love this project, and it's really coming along!
Next up is the every lovely Beach Romance (Janlynn). 
I didn't get a whole lot done on her this week, but I got some done. I worked on the right side of her dress at first. You can see the layers I got done. I did three colors, all shades of blue. I started the one shade last week, then did some other spaces of it. Then did the other two shades. Then I did some more sand. I just love the colors in this, and I think she's looking great.
And lastly, I have a piccy of Noah's Sub.
I has an Orca, lol. He's looking so cute. I just need to do a little bit of black on him, and he's done on this page. I still have his tail though. And I also did the tail to the kite. As you can see, it's ugly (yellow). I did use all three shades called for, but since there was one of another shade, almost identical to the yellow I was using. Since there was only one of that color, I DID skip it. I lvoe it though. It's still one of my fave projects. Frost Moon, then Noah's Sub, then Story Keeper. After that, I don't know. Maybe Desert Landscapes? Ah, well... And speaking of Desert Landscapes, that's my rotation project for this week. And I didn't stitch a stitch on Monday. I was trying to sleep from the night before. By the time I decided I wasn't gonna sleep, I was too tired to stitch, which sucked. So now it's Tuesday, and I'm gonna work on Time To Go (Witch Stitch'n'Bits).
And once again, thanks to everyone who left a comment on my last blog, either of them. I appreciate every one of them, and it's always nice to hear what you're thinking. School is starting next month, and I'm so excited about it. Thanks again to Rosey for the idea about using eBay to find good used books. I'll have to check it out!! Now I'm off to stitch, or maybe read. Ta ta, y'all!!
Sue started it, and thanks to her for the organization of it. The challenge is to read one big book (400 or more pages) during the period from Memorial Day to Labor Day. (For my overseas friends, Memorial Day is the last Monday in May, and Labor Day is the first Monday in September. Memorial Day is sort of the unofficial start of summer, and Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer.) I was immediately interested, and I went to look at my bookshelf. I have a couple of books that would qualify, although a couple of them are rereads. I have just a few that I want to read.
It's coming along nicely. I did the top corner this weekend, and added the darker blue areas. Not a huge amount, but a goodly number of stitches. I did have some trouble with the lighter purple in one place on her dress, but you can't tell. It just didn't want to be in the right place. (It's because I can't count, lol.) I finally got it right though, and I think it looks great. I may start his leg next time, even though I really need to fill in some of the holes. I didn't do the flowers yet. I'm thinking I'll leave them for last so the French Knots don't have much opportunity to unravel.
I got a lot done on it this week. I kept doing one more color... One more color... And so I put in a whole lot of stitches. I did all of them in this particular ten by ten column. Four or five hundred or so. It's hard to say for sure from the pic, and I don't feel like looking on the chart, lol. I'm lazy that way!!! It's coming along great. I'm on the second of fifty six pages, but I'm moving right along. One of the nice things about Tent Stitch is that it takes less time than full crosses. So I can get more stitches in in a day than I could otherwise. I can't tell the brown and black apart again, but that's okay. You can still see the stitches I put in, and that's all that matters.
I know, I really should have taken it off the Q-snap and shown all of Cyn's progress first, but I didn't think of it. Next time I take it off, I'll try and remember to take a pic of the whole thing. I did the blue on the left side of the pic. Cyn did the continents, and the blue on the right side. This absolutely drove me nuts last week until I realized Cyn had made a mistake because Vicki's weird. (That requires some explanation. The charts I've seen have an over lap of three rows from page to page. It seems to be the norm. Vicki put four rows of overlap, for some reason known only to her. So Cyn accounted for an overlap of three, and you see the problem. It goes down one row further than it should cause she did one row twice. Easy to fudge, if you know about it.) I finally figured out what was wrong, and then felt like kicking myself cause it took so long. No wonder I couldn't figure out how I was messing up!! So now I'm on the right track, and it's all good. (Yes, my hair is mostly still intact.)
I got to do some more of the Orca this week. He's so cute!! I got the white on his belly and around his eyes done, and another shade of blue in there too. It's really dark though, so it's hard to tell it's blue. And I finished the band I was working on, and started another and finished it, and started a third. It got a lot of work on it. I'm loving the purple shades in the sky. And the blues too, although there aren't many blues. This one is progressing quickly too because of the half stitches.
My goal was to finish the row of ten by tens I had started. I finished that up on Friday night, which left all of Saturday to be gravy. It was great!!! You can see how much I got done on Saturday too. A LOT!!! The Tent Stitch makes it go so fast, though... This is only a VERY small portion of the whole thing. I haven't even finished page one, and there are ninety nine pages of chart. (It was one oh seven or something like that, altogether. Cause there are pages of piccy and floss list, and floss usage chart and stuff.) So it's just a drop in the bucket. But it really looks good to me. I love it!!!! (This is my fave project when I'm working on it. The rest of the time, Noah's Sub is my fave. It's coming along well!!)
Of the fourteen seedlings that I replanted, half of them survived and are thriving. They've gotten quite huge, actually. I love the color of the flowers. They're beautiful. The two smaller pots have two each, and the bigger planter has three in it. (Of course, all of the Celosia in the planter that didn't make it are on the same side, lol. So my planter is totally lopsided. It looks funny, lol.) And here is yet another piccy of my darling Yes Dear, with the strangest look on her face.
She's so funny sometimes. I don't know what she was thinking. You can see the clean (sort of) laundry on the bed behind her. She's getting it all hairy of course, by walking on it and leaning on it. She likes to see her hair everywhere, lol. I've got three or four Bengals shirts in the pile. Three orange (I think) and one black. Yes, I AM obsessive, lol.
I love the little bag, Julie. It's awesome!!!! Reminds me of the "beach" on the Ohio River when I was little. It wasn't very big, but it was all sand instead of mud. (Icky mud, lol.) It was right near the dam, and we used to go up a couple of times a year for the day. It was awesome! Thanks for bring back the good memories, Julie. And her message was: 
I started the wing last time. And even though I know I don't count long distances well, I tried it anyways. The wing is made of two light blue areas. They aren't large, but they're distinct. Then, each expanding ring is a darker blue. So you get concentric rings around a blue area, darkening all the way out. It's very pretty. I did the two lighter areas last time I had him out. They're widely separate, which should have warned me. I fear nothing though, so I soldiered on and did them both. I also did the first ring around them. When I started doing some of the color in between, you know what happened. I was off by one. Both vertically and horizontally. So I'm frogging. Luckily, I found out now, before I put too much in. I went ahead and pulled out part of what I did last week (you can see the frogged spot in the photo), and started pulling out what I did last time that was off. Luckily, I could leave in a good portion of what I did this week, so I was happy about that. I also got the border on the left side all done down to the page break. It's been so fun this week after that though. I did and didn't make my goal. I made part of it, in other words. But I sort of changed it halfway through, because I got distracted by the wing. I went ahead and worked on the left side border, which you can't see cause I have since moved my Q-snap. Then, I got distracted by the wing. My original goal was to finish up the border on the left, and the border on the top. So I got the left side done, then abandoned the top to work on the very intriguing wing. It has these really cool things on it. You do the top half or bottom half or right side half or left side half in one color, and the other half in another color. (Luckily, I'm using thirty two count fabby over two.) So you come up at the left top, go down in the center, come up at the right top, go down in the center, etc. So you have what looks like a child's version of sharks teeth. (Or any animal, really. I've seen dogs with this kind of teeth, and cats, and dinosaurs, lol.) It's really a lot of fun to do (for me). Teeny little stitches though. (I love that too, lol. Y'all know how I like my teeny over ones, lol.) It was looking really good till I realized I had to frog. Still, I should have known better, lol. I have no one to blame but me! Yes, I AM a dork. But in a good way, lol.
I only got a little bit of time to work on it Monday, but I got pretty good progress for it. I went ahead and did the few confetti stitches first. (There were about five of them.) Then I did color number two (about a hundred stitches). Now I'm doing color number three, which is the rest of the column of ten by tens. I checked it against what I have, and all the stitches that should have been done before I started this have been done. So now, it's all fill in. It will go very quickly. My goal on this one is to have the ten by ten column done by Saturday night when I finish it up for this rotation. Also notable about Frost Moon, it is the beginning of the new rotation. They go by so fast when I only work on them a week. I'm still not used to how fast it seems. (I LOVE the colors in this. It's freaking gorgeous.) Hopefully, I'll finish up what I want to since it will be going so fast. It's gonna be six hundred stitches over Friday and Saturday, but that's very doable for me. They go really fast when you're not crossing them, lol.
She's coming along very well, I think. I got the rest of the green done. And then I put in a lot of white in her dress. Now I'm working on a light violet color that I really like. It's looking good, if I do say so myself. I love the shades of green in it. And (more on this later) we went over to mom's for dinner on Wed night last week. It was mom, me, Amy, and David and Vin. It was a good opportunity for me to remember to ask Amy if she wanted me to color match the flowers from her bouquet. She thought that would be a great idea. They're charted in white, but her flowers were vibrant blues and purples. 
She mentioned last time she was jealous of my progress while she was on vacation, and didn't have it with her. Don't worry, Vicky, I'm quite sure you'll catch up to me. I have to admit, I'm glad I took the pic where I did. I had it off the Q-snap to take a piccy cause I'm gridding the next page. And I took it with my desk light on, and it's extremely bright. It's also a CFL (compact florescent lightbulb), and so it shows EVERYTHING!!! You can actually see that there's a little black, and a lot of brown in this project. In the previous pics, you can't tell them apart. I was really excited by that. And yes, I DID finish the page last week, like I said I was going to. I got a little start on page two today, and then realized that I had to grid it first. Ugh, lol. I hate doing it, but love being able to check the grid against my stitching to make sure I'm in the right place. It's looking good, I think, despite all the brown. One down, fifty five to go, lol.
(I don't have an answer yet on showing the quilt project, so I'm skipping it again.) It's coming right along. I finished the bands I was working on last time, fixed the orca's top stitches, and started another band. I'm going to alternate so I don't get all the fun stuff done and have only sky. (It hasn't bored me yet, but the longer I go on boring stuff, the more likely it is to bore me.) I still love the colors in this. The purples are so pretty. I love them. I've decided to do all of the orca on this page first, and then I'll start alternating with the zebra. There's hardly any of it on this page, but you'll see most of the orca on it. Just his tail is on the next page. I'm really pleased with my progress on this one, but this week it's my second fave (Frost Moon is my first. I absolutely adore this chart. Nene Thomas is a genius). That's all of the progress I have to show.
I've finally gotten to some lighter colors, so you can see where the candlelight is coming from. I haven't gotten to the candle yet, and it's not on the page I'm working on, but it's coming. Of course, before it just looked like a black blob, so this is a good thing!!! I'm almost finished with the first page, and I hope to finish it up tonight and start on page two. My plan is to blog and then take Yes Dear for her evening visit to the balcony. We were out there earlier, but people kept calling and my phone doesn't work too well out there.
I finally got to put in the green of the flower stems. I put in the lighter green, and went to finish it off, and realized it was in the wrong place. I pulled the needle up where the first stitch should go, then instead of going up and to the right, I went down and to the left. So I was too far down and too far over to the left. No way to fudge that, so I pulled it out and fixed it. So I put it back in, in the right place, and then did the slightly darker green. I need to call Amy and find out if she wants me to try and match the color of her flowers, or do them in white like it's charted. I just keep forgetting. I'll hopefully remember tomorrow, since I'll see them. It's David's birthday (39), so she's having dinner at her house (Mom is, sorry). I already called him old man, in a text. He texted me back, "You're older, pot." I had a great giggle at that!!!
. As you can see, I got almost nothing done. I had a hard time with it, cause I'm not used to using waste cloth. I can't see where my needle is, and I keep pushing it up in the wrong place. Also, it was scorching hot outside all that week, and I hardly stitched because I was always so hot and sweaty. Ick!! Next time, I promise to do better. (My stitching days are numbered because I won't get much more than an hour each day when I start school, except on the weekends. I'm hoping I can live with that!!) Better next time it's up. Promise!
Then the DCFH piccy. (She has so much attitude, it just oozes right out her eyes.) 
My sweet little thing. NOT!!! She was just all attitude the other day. I wanted to pet her, she wanted to run away. I wanted to give her treats, she wanted to be disinterested. I wanted to take her out on the balcony, she wanted to hide from me. Can you say stinker? She's having a much better day today. Hope you've all enjoyed what I have to say. And thanks to everyone who left a comment on my last entry. There were lots of them!!! (Oh, and sorry about the font, Katie. I changed it just for you!!) Hope you're all having a good night. I'm gonna head off and stitch some more. Page finish, coming right up!!!
. She's gorgeous, if you ask me. I love the colors in this one especially. Very pretty. And I also love the butterfly. I have a weakness for them, lol. More than one thing here drew me. She has a whole series of women on the edges of parapets or sitting on a thread over a drop. I want to get them all eventually.
Totally different color scheme, but still beautiful. Except for her ear. I'm hoping Rosa can redesign her ear so that the hair is still tucked behind it, but it's rounded at the top. I'm not a big fan of Fae ears, lol.
I love the colors in her too. Blue is one of my fave colors, and so that's part of the reason this drew me. I like royal blue the best, and this is very royal looking. It's only got one skein of what I consider to be royal blue (820), but there are lots of other blues in it.
This appeals to me for myriad reasons. I love the way she's fading. You can't see her feet at all. And I love black cats. There are three of them in this project, and they're all darling. They look so aware of something that's not really there... And thirdly, I like the ghost inference. I'm all about ghosties and goblins and ghouls. I love the supernatural.
Did I mention in the previous blurb that I really like women dressed in black or black and white? I really do. I also have her A Chance Encounter, which is done in shades of black and white. Fabulous color scheme, I think. Anyway, this is another of Nene's sitting on a bubble women. I want to collect them all, of course. Notice the raven on her knee too. I love it!
Yes, I know, another black and white one. But I love them so. For some reason, that color combo is fabulous to me. I think (I'm not totally sure about this though) that I have Lamentation of Swans on layaway too. It's another of her black and white color schemes. Black horse, black and white dress, black and white wings, and black and white swans. Gorgeous!!!
This is my fave of the charts I got this month. As many of you already know, I love cats, be they large or small. And when I say large, I mean large. Tigers, and lions, and panthers, and and and... Well, you get the idea. I already have a leopard finished and framed. I have a lion almost finished. I have several other large cat kits or charts ready to go, including a black panther. So Shim Shimmel really appeals to me. With the color scheme, and that beautiful cat, this was an immediate winner.
This one draws me both because of the animals and because of the gorgeous sky. Reds and oranges galore. I love the colors in it, and I'm sure there's a lot of subtle shading to make it look this darned good. I'm ready for that, though. Sunrise and Sunset by Rachel Anderson are the same way. Much easier to do than the confetti, trust me.
Isn't she beautiful? I love the way she turns into the waves, and her dress becomes the whitecaps. I love how he can do that. I have several of his where he does something similar, and two more to show you like that today. She's also got a pretty face, and I love teh look of the waves around her. It's almost like she's calming the sea with her presence. It's roiling around her, but flat almost where she stands. Like the peace radiates out from her body.
You can see, again, how the green in her dress turns into the moss under the water near her body. And the white in her dress turns into the white water rushing over the rocks. I especially love the greens in this. Bright, mossy colors are beautiful in this one, if you ask me. And I'm drawn to green anyways, so you can see how this one is right up my alley.
In this one, her dress turns into a waterfall. The flowers around her head intrigue me. She almost looks like a bride on her wedding day, what with the white dress and the flowers in her hair. I'm sure she's a goddess of some sort, but of what I don't know. She's also got a very pretty face. Plus, almost unnoticeable because she's such a focal point, there's a rainbow at teh bottom. I love rainbows too, but didn't notice it till I looked at the pic of the pattern. I get the large print charts, so the piccys are bigger!! Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have noticed it till I started to stitch it, lol.
Okay, I take it back. Her dress sort of turns into the mist at her feet. I love, Love, LOVE her wings in this one. They're perfect angel wings. Perfect. The green of the forest around her doesn't hurt either. And the ball of light between her hands makes me wonder if she's summoning light or a being. It feels like I'm right on the edge of finding out though, so I keep looking at it, lol.
As you can guess, purple is my fave color. (Heck, I have a purple couch, with green pillows. Purple is my thang, y'all!!!!) So this one called to me as soon as I saw it. I had to pick it up. The purples are beautiful, and her face is gorgeous as well. I really like faces and fantasy art that looks real. It's just a real winner for me. Her wings are gorgeous, and they fit the background so well... It's just perfect. Another one that's calling to me to kit it up and start it. (NO, I'm not going to start anything new. I 
She's beautiful as well. I love the edge of her wings. The purple is gorgeous, and I'm guessing there may be some pearl bf or vfb in there. It would give the purple a little bit of sparkle, and I can kind of see it in the picture of it. Just a bit... And then the violence of teh storm around her, but not touching her. Like she's in a protective circle, and her runes have called teh lighting and thunder to do her bidding. I can almost feel the wind whipping her clothes and her wings around, but it's not...
I love her dress, and her wings, and the flowers in her hair. Nene has a whole series of women sitting on the moon. Frost Moon (in progress), Fire Moon (in stash), Earth Moon, and Moon Indigo are also the same style. All of them are beautiful. I gave Julie Fire Moon too. I almost took it back out of my chart though. I ordered two of them, then saw there were two and thought, what the heck... Then I remembered: one for me and one for Julie. (I would have reordered for her though. That's something that's right up her alley with her love of reds.) I only have two more to go to complete the series.
I love the colors in this, and am intrigued by her wings. I don't see how she could actually fly with them, but still... And I love her hair. It's not messy, but it's not perfectly in place either. It's tousled, and in a pretty way. I sure wish my hair would look that attractive!!! Plust the doves are around her, and they're pretty too. Plus, I have a thing for women sitting on pedestals. Just look at my Selina Fenech wishlist, and you'll know that!!!
There are so many things right about this one. I love that she's riding into battle. She's got cool weapons. Also, she's riding on an animal that's never existed, a white saber tooth tiger. Well, not that anyone knows of anyways. It's gorgeous. Makes me feel like playing, which I haven't done all day. (Writing out the html that goes with all these images and all the other elements is time consuming. And now it's almost time for bed, so...)
