Thursday, April 30, 2015

April/May goals!

It's that time again. :3

April goals:
- finish Floral Fifteen (at least the stitching) - done!
- finish two of the three patterns in Espressioni - done!
- prep for Mirabilia RR! - done!
- make visible progress on another WIP - picked up Angel Procession again!

Ahhh, so nice to meet all my goals this time around! I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished this month since I spent over a week too sick to do much of anything. Just a bad cold, but it still made anything requiring concentration rather difficult! Luckily, my wife was on vacation for a week so we did a lot of crafty stuff while she was home.

May goals: (in order of priority!)
- finish my square on the Mirabilia RR
- finish one angel on Angel Procession (maybe not the backstitch tho ahaha)
- assemble Floral Fifteen
- stitch the last pattern in Espressioni

Speaking of Angel Procession... Look, it's my ancient WIP that's old enough to vote! Or, at least the part that I'll be working on in May.


Every time I look at it, I'm shocked by how small it is. I mean, it's long, but it's not very tall. The most frustrating part seems to be finding the threads, especially for blends. I spent AGES last night trying to find the TWO blue colors for the sleeve. TWO COLORS GUYS.

Sooooo I got wise and put them in order by DMC number in a tray (sort of, they're actually little hardware drawers, haha) and I'm keeping a separate bobbin for each blend. Before, I had the threads in bags, roughly by color family and just... no. Don't do that. It's terrible.

I'm surprised that AP still looks so pristine after so many years. Everything is vibrant and there are minimal stains on the fabric even though it's been folded up and abused for so long.

THIS IS YOUR YEAR, ANGEL PROCESSION.
For real this time.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Floral Fifteen done! (well, stitched)

Sometimes I felt like this day would never come.

All the stitching and beading is done on Floral Fifteen!


Now it needs to be cut out and assembled, but that's a project for another day! I've already ironed on all the little squares of interfacing, so it's completely prepped for assembly. Maybe I'll have a nice fat biscornu to show next time. :p

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Stitch from Stash - April report!

Month: April
Spent: $79.39
Earned: $8

I had three small-ish finishes this month:
- my Mirabilia round robin section (35x75 stitches = $0 because I JUST got the chart)
- Renato Parolin Espressioni flowers x2 (50x100 stitches = $4 each)

Now, I realize that 50x100 stitches actually falls in the $8 bracket, but I feel it would be dishonest to claim that much for each, as the main part of each design is only about 50x50 and there are just some loooong vines reaching up and down from the center that make the design taller. They definitely have less stitching than the typical item that would fall in the $8 range.

I've already shown the hearts, but here's my RR stitching too! :)


So here's the math!
$49.05 (last month) + $25 (this month) + $8 (finishes) - $79.39 (spent) = $2.66 left over

What did I buy? Mostly charts, of course!

- 5x Nora Corbett pixies (Wisteria, Lilac, Geranium, Emi, Ana)
- 4x Hands On Design - Year in Chalk (Jan-Apr)
- 2 packs of DMC floss bobbins (I can't believe I ran out of these!)

Stash is no fun without pics, so...


I'm all stashed out for now! Of course, there will always be a few things I want, but I feel like this challenge has helped me stay on track.

One thing that helps a lot is keeping a wishlist and NOT letting myself buy a chart until it's been on that list for at least three months. It cuts down on impulse buys that lead to shopper's remorse. I already had problems with that earlier this year because I felt compelled to buy because things were cheap, not because I truly wanted them. Maybe one day I'll actually learn this lesson!

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

one more finish! (well, and some knits)

It's the pink flower from Espressioni by Renato Parolin. Not much else to say today, though, I'm feeling a bit sick so I think it's time for a nap...


I've also finished a couple of knitting projects "recently" so... :)

A small shawl, which I really didn't enjoy (the pattern OR the yarn), but it was easy. And a fancy washcloth that was a bit hard since I had to do it on the dreaded double pointed needles.


I'm really not much of a knitter... I only do it so I don't feel totally out of place when I go to knit night at the local yarn shop with my wife. I bring stitching about half the time anyway, so I feel like I need to follow the rules at least part of the time and knit. Blah. :p