A month of BLUE stitching!

So.....one of my stitching groups is doing a monthly "theme".  And the theme for April was "blue" - the thought was you could interpret it anyway you wanted to.  In my case, it lent itself perfectly to stitching on my HAED pattern.  The pattern is "Boulevard of Dreams" and  right now it's a BOATLOAD of blue!  So, even though I normally would have put it away after I finished page 2, I kept it out and stitched on it all thru the month of April.  I had finished Page 2 on 3/20, and got the better part of Page 3 done by the end of the month.

The month of May's theme is "purple".  Again, I have a project tailor made for it - I'm working on the beading for my Spanish Geometric Sampler, and the beads are purple and green.  Every time I say that, it sounds funny - the beads are not purple and green.  There are purple beads, and there are green beads!  LOL

Anyway, thanks for checking it out......

And oh yeah, I also finished a "travel" project - my Halloween Lizzie Kate "Velcome".  Here's a picture of THAT (I don't think I posted one before...LOL)

Another "Finish"

Well, I finished page 2 of Boulevard of Dreams, my first ever HAED - I've been tracking some statistics just because I'm a geek that way:

Some statistics (probably only interesting to me, but.....LOL)

Page 2:
Started - 7/8/11
Finished - 3/18/12
Days Stitched - 29 Days
Time Stitched (Page 2 only) - 61 Hours
Time Stitched (Project to date) - 140 Hours
Stitches (Page 2 only) - 7,546
Stitches (Total Project so far) - 15,386
Percent Completed - 7.33%

I don't normally keep track of my stitching time, but for this particular project I have an Excel spreadsheet that I open up each time I start stitching and track it.  I know when I'm done, people will ask, and I will want to know, how long it took me to stitch it!  LOL

And - by way of comparison - here is how much is done in relation to the whole project - YIKES!!!!!

Halfway Done with Frederick

Well, the top shelf of Frederick is done......still have the second shelf (and the backstitching) to do. This one is a pretty easy stitch except for the stitching on black issue! LOL

Now I think I'll pull out my Heaven and Earth Designs Vegas picture......that one I may be still working on 10 years from now! LOL

Spanish Geometric Sampler

This is the whole picture - you can't see the beads very well - I have beaded the top most band and the two left most bands. They don't show up very well in the picture.

I tried to take a closer picture, but I don't know that it's a whole lot better. I will try to do some better close up pictures when I do my next photo op. I did discover (when looking at the picture) that I have a couple things I have to fix - I'm missing some green stitches next to the purple motif in the top row, and there are supposed to be purple beads in the center of each of the purple motifs in that row. But, alas, my beading patience has run out for a while! LOL

This whole beading process has given me a whole new appreciation for those of you who stitch in hand. I am an avid Q-Snap user, but I can't really put this back on the Q-Snaps to bead it for fear that I will crush the beads. So I've been attaching the beads "in hand" and it's a challenge! But - there's no deadline for it, so I will do it as I can, and it will get done when it gets done! Now....on to something else - probably Frederick, depending on what jumps out at me when I open my WIP box (which is a really bad phrase to use when I'm watching Hoarders on TV - because in that case, things really do jump out of boxes! LOL)

Queen of the Needle

Here's the progress I've made this week on Queen of the Needle. It's a fun stitch, with some specialty stitches. The only thing I've changed (so far) is that the pattern called for Perle Cotton for some of the white, but I didn't like trying to stitch with it (mostly struggled with even just threading the needle! LOL). The roses (the pink flowers) are a funny little stitch, and the hearts are stitchined with kind of a satin stitch. The white row under the hearts is a "fan" stitch. In between the two sets of pansies there is a charm that gets attached, and there are also some other beads to attach. Obviously, I'll leave all of those for last.

Thanks for checking it out!

Finished the Cross Stitching....

So I finished the cross stitching on Spanish Geometric Sampler, now it's time to do the beading.  I've started it a little bit last night - the beads are purple and green.  (Well, not purple and green - purple beads, and green beads).

I've finished some other things, but they're for gifts and I'm not sure if the recipients read my blog or not, so to be safe, I won't post them here.  Once the giving occasion(s) go by, I will post pictures here (and I will look really prolific!).

Anyway, thanks for checking it out.

Boulevard of Dreams Progress

Well, after another couple of weeks of stitching, I made a LITTLE more progress on my HAED. This was actually taken last Sunday, but I never got around to posting it.

It seems like I go in spurts with my blog....I'm either writing LONG entries and posting pictures faithfully every week, or I'm viewing it as a chore to update. Since I cross stitch for fun (my two jobs are enough work - I don't need more!), when it feels like a chore, I just don't do it! LOL

I also have a few little finishes - however, they are gifts for people who may or may not read my blog...so I don't want to post them here. I think I can safely post them on some of my stitching groups (selectively) and not ruin any surprises. My best guess is that most of you know me from a Yahoo group (or two!) so you can check there to see my pictures.....

Thank you all for sticking with me - whether I'm posting like crazy or posting sporadically!

Spanish Geometric Sampler

Well, I finished the third page on the Spanish Geometric Sampler. The fourth page is the smallest of the four pages (the pattern's not evenly divided). This is a fun travel project! After the stitching is done, then it gets a bunch of green and purple beads - that's green beads and purple beads, not green and purple on the same bead! LOL

Okay - going to try this posting again. I thought I had it, but alas, the picture didn't work! I found that out when Gabi and Julie sent me messages and said "Nope, didn't work!"

So, I thought I would try it a second time. I can't pull pictures into my blog from blogger, but I can seem to "push" them from Picasa, so that's how I'm doing it. We'll see if it posts better this time!

Anyway, AS I ALREADY TYPED ONCE....LOL.....I've been remiss. This picture was taken on July 12th, two days after my "Page 1 is done" picture. It was the progress I made from the time I took that picture until the time I took my HAED out of my rotations for a couple of weeks. I was working on a couple of little things, but they're gifts for people who sometimes check out my blog, so....can't post them here.

Meanwhile, I've been BUSY the last couple of weekends. Two weeks ago was my sister's 50th birthday party with the family. We went to a lake near my parents' house, and had a nice day. My other sister and I had made her a poster with pictures of her, and we all bought her gift certificates to pamper herself - a massage, and a manicure / pedicure. So hopefully she'll take advantage of it!

Then last weekend (Friday) we went to a free concert in the park with that same sister to see a Rod Stewart tribute band. It was a nice evening - people bring chairs, blankets, food, and drinks and hang out and listen to the music. They even had a dance floor. Saturday I had a reunion with some former co-workers from a job that I worked at from 1989 - 1999. There were about 30 of us there, and it was an awesome day. We were at the beach (always rough! NOT!) and had beautiful weather. Then on Sunday I had tickets with friends to see Mary Poppins (the stage version). I LOVED IT!!! I think I enjoyed it more than my friends 7 1/2 year old daughter, and I'm proud to say so. Mary Poppins is my favorite Disney movie.

Then last night we went to our county fair. I like to go look at the arts and crafts stuff, and the fine arts stuff (photography and painting). I was a little disappointed in the stitchery....it seems like every year there is less and less. And I hadn't been last year (and I don't remember if I went the year before) but they've changed how they display the stitched stuff. It used to be that in various sections there would kind of be themes....and there might be quilts, china paintings, knitting, crocheting, sewing AND stitched stuff that fit that theme (Christmas, Halloween, Babies, Patriotic, Weddings). Now they have a spot for cross-stitching, a spot for knitting, a spot for crocheting, etc. I liked the old way better because people who might be looking at the knitting might see something cross-stitched and become interested. Now unless you're already interested, you're not going to see the stitched stuff. The stuff that was there was pretty, but there just wasn't enough of it!

Anyway - this is a LONG post - I sure hope the picture works this time.

And in a minute, I'm going to try to post a picture of my Spanish Geometric Sampler.....

Page 1 Done

Okay - so this is my first HAED ever - and I'm counting each page as a "mini-finish". So I've finished page 1, and I'm getting ready to start page 2.

Some statistics (probably only interesting to me, but.....LOL)
Started - 5/15/11
Finished - 7/5/11
Days Stitched - 25 Days
Time Stitched - 79 1/2 Hours
Stitches - 7,840
Percent Completed - 3.73%

Now onto page 2 - more of the same, blues and purples! :-)

Queen of the Needle Update

The lighting on this picture isn't perfect - I took some with a flash and some without. Surprisingly, the ones without flash washed the color out until the fabric looked white (it isn't - it's pink). This one was with the flash, and the colors are a little "truer".

I don't feel like I made a ton of progress this week on this one. I finished the leaves in the row of pink and white flowers, and then I stitched the white flowers and the pink flowers. It's hard to see in the picture (I should have taken a close up of just that row). The white daisy looking flowers have smyrna crosses for the centers and satin stitches for the petals, and the pink flowers are just straight stitches in three different colors - I think there are something like 36 or 40 stitches in each flower. It took a TON of concentration because it wasn't just counting! The next row is pansies.

If you aren't familiar, it's a Just Nan pattern. There's a medallion type thing that goes in the middle of that spot with the top of it being between the two pink flowers in the middle. It's kind of challenging (not in a bad way) in that it requires some concentration on my part because of the specialty stitches. The white lacy stitching on the top was supposed to be pearl cotton, but I gave up because I couldn't get the stupid needle threaded! Sad, but true!

Any, thanks for looking!

One more week on my HAED

Well, it's another week on Boulevard of Dreams. Still lots of blues and purples.....still not QUITE done with page 1. I think the next week it comes up in the rotation I'll finish Page 1. It's going to literally take me years, but that's okay - it's all about the trip, not just the destination. (Although in the case the destination is pretty awesome - since it's a picture of Vegas! LOL).

And after I finish this one, I have a Chicago one to do next (assuming I have any inkling of sanity left!).

Frederick the Literate

Here's my progress on Frederick the Literate. One of my stitching groups has been talking about this one and doing a Stitch-Along of it. I'm not officially participating in it (I've got too many other projects I'm juggling to commit wholeheartedly to this one) but it was like an old friend when I pulled it out.

I'm not even a big cat fan - but I am an avid reader, so it's half fitting for me! I just thought it was a really cute picture.

For those that don't know, it's a Dimensions kit. However, the only part of it that's really Dimensions for me is the pattern - I subbed out different fabric (they had stiff aida, and Dimensions - at least in my opinion - doesn't give you enough fabric, and I just didn't want to deal with that. Then I found a Dimensions / DMC conversion and converted it all to DMC floss.

Anyway, thanks for looking. This was actually my progress picture from LAST Sunday (the 19th) I just never got around to blogging it.

HAED Progress

Well, after another week of stitching, I've finished another three rows of blocks of stitching (roughly 2,400 stitches, plus the overflow into the next row). Now it will get put away for another week while I work on another piece. You can kind of see mountains coming into focus in the picture......

Thanks for checking it out!

Finished another page

Well, I finished another page of my "Spanish Geometical Sampler". This has been my travel project forever (it seems). It's a perfect travel project even though it's a little big. Because things repeat it doesn't take a lot of counting (you just have to follow along with what you've previously stitched.

It's a four page pattern, and I just finished page 2. But that's really more than halfway done with the stitching, because pages 3 and 4 aren't full pages. But then again, I'm probably less than halfway done because it gets beads as well.

Thanks for looking!

Progress Picture

Here is my latest progress on my Blue Ribbon Designs project - the name of it is something like "Letters, Leprechauns, and Luck" (or something along those lines!). I'm liking it - it's an easy stitch - the little extra partially stitched squares are just to use up the end of a piece of floss.....

Thanks for checking it out.