Sunday, February 20, 2011

GTG & progress!

My girlfriend and I went to a lovely get-together hosted by Jo of Dinky-Dyes and managed to get in a good four hours of stitching. And some tasty eats. And some chatting - but mostly listening. We're a little shy, you know. :p But our ears were open and we DID listen to everything that was going on around us!

And, of course, we did a good deal of shopping - like YOU could resist with all that shiny silk right in front of you!

First up, progress on my Cirque (30.75 hours now):


click here for full size! :D


And the magazine mermaid (which I didn't work on at Jo's, so this is just progress over about a week or two):


click here for full size! :D


My girlfriend's been working on a pretty design called Gathering Honey from a super-old magazine. She's wanted to start it for years so I kicked her in the butt and she finally dug it out. It's funny because she's always the one with a billion things left to finish, but this is the only major piece she has going right now. I'm the offender with all the different projects going at once this time!

The model:

click here for full size! :D


Her progress:

click here for full size! :D


Sadly, I don't have a picture of the mountain of silk we bought, or the pretty hand-dyed fabrics, but that means I'll have something to show next time. :p

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Mermaid Heart (mini)

Completed this last weekend but of course never got around to posting. :p

This is the mini version of Mermaid Heart by Just Nan. It's a teeny thing, about 2x2 to fit into the little frame. Sadly, after working this up, I didn't feel like doing the full size version, so it's been put away for now. Making crazy progress on the round robin piece I have, though...

Anyway, the pictures! :3




Thursday, February 03, 2011

a mermaid & a finish

Finally updating again. :)

Made lots of progress on the mermaid! She's from a UK magazine. I know it's hard to tell from the pic, but the circle border around her is metallic gold, and the blue backstitching is also a metallic.

TIP for the DMC metallics: Seal the cut ends of the threads with a bit of clear nail polish so the two twisted strands don't unravel! And don't be tempted to just seal one end. It's probably worse than leaving both undone. Trust me. :x

Also, why do metallic threads have to make my hands smell bad, hmmmm?



click here for full size! :D


And my girlfriend finished an old WIP of an iris that we found in our craft bag. I did the backstitching. :)



click here for full size! :D


Hoping to get a lot done on something this weekend (not sure what!) as it's COLD outside and I think I'll be spending some quality time with Netflix. XD