Tag Archives: mermaids of the deep blue

April Smalls, Stitch from Stash Update & WIPocalypse

Posted in cross stitch, embroidery, freebies, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stitch from stash, WIPocalypse by

Smalls is hosted by the lovely Heather on her blog, click here for the rules:  http://stitchinglotus.ca/2017-sal/

WIPocalypse is hosted by Mel at her blog http://measi.net/measiblog/

And another month draws to a close and I got some stitching in! Mind you, it was a bit of a race for the last portions of beading on Mermaids but – I got a finish!!! My goal for the month was to finish all the stitching, but I could see the finish line and off I went.

April Goals:

  • FFO the How to Train Your Dragon pieces for the swap & post (bookmark, needle book and small hoop). COMPLETED – but I kept the small hoop
  • Finish all the stitching on MOTDB and get to the beading potion. SMASHED
  • Start Julie’s RR piece (as that has arrived to me super early). NOT STARTED
  • Plan what I will do for the #disneycraftswap (waiting for my partner to post her mosaic still). PLANS COMPLETE, STITCHING STARTED
  • 15th – Diamonds. Beading the clear beads on MOTDB. IGNORED
  • 22nd – Earth Day. Start the Mill Hill Seagull kit. COMPLETED

I also worked on a small Easter piece, the freebie Prairie Schooler chart that Kristine sent me. I chose black aida (stash!) and initially stitched it in similar colours to the original…I plan to repeat with different colours to make a basket of mini eggs.

So here’s my pieces for this month:

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Question of the Month – What projects are in your UFO pile? There’s not too much in my UFO pile, to be honest. Just the one piece that I have kept the pattern & half-completed project away. I am tempted to re-start it on evenweave as it is on aida & I had become a bit of a snob but maybe I should just pull it out. If I can’t get the threads to match it might be worth a restart…apart from this, I do have Tapestry Cat at 11 years of age but as I am still working on this, I don’t think I can call it a true UFO. Just a resting WIP. And I have a few of those!

  • Tapestry Cat, Dec 2006
  • Toy Story Birth Sampler, Oct 2013
  • Nora Corbett Arezzo, March 2014
  • Mirabilia Persephone, May 2015
  • Nora Corbett Reindeer, July 2015
  • Mirabilia Raven Queen, Jan 2016
  • Tamara blackwork, September 2016
  • Lavender & Lace Celtic Winter, Dec 2016

My May goals are fairly small. I’m not going to participate in StitchMAYnia, but there are some new starts:

  • Disney hoop & needlebook for new swap
  • Start Julie’s round robin (if I get a finish, I will start Andromeda!)
  • Finish Mill Hill Believe (about ½ done)

Lastly, I’m still in the black for Stitch From Stash. This is more good luck than management but I’ll take the win.

Apr-17
 Budget $25.00
Andromeda @ CountryStitch -41.40
Kreinik @ RR -27.90
HTTYD hoop FFO 10.00
PS Easter Folk Egg 5.00
MH Seagull 5.00
Mermaids of the Deep Blue 59.30
Rollover $2.92
Total Available Budget $37.92

WIP  (very late on) Wednesday 

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash by

And here I am, beading! I hit my goal to finish the stitching on Mermaids of the Deep Blue and pulled out the beads. 


Loving it! I wish you could see the gleam and glitter. And in true stitch from stash fashion, I’m subbing in the gold that I already have, and the big pony beads are also from my stash. 

WIP Wednesday 

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL by

Yay! I am taking part in the Stitch MAYnia SAL this month, which is a finish line SAL. Firstly I carried on with the Emma Congdon/Stitchrovia design Wise Words Tolkien that was in a Cross Stitch Crazy (note that this will be on her site as a pdf purchase early in the new year):

And I have a finish! I am thinking I will #ffo as a hoop for a quick finish. Plus I want to work on that as a technique. 

I drove Brandon to the last Domain tag round for the year. Because of Christmas in the Park it was moved to Cox’s Bay. The tide was in and it was beautiful. I went for a little walk. Just had to! 

The pohutukawa flowers are out. Beautiful reds. I want to take the kayak out!

And while waiting I started on Celtic Winter by Marilyn Leavitt-Iblum. This is a classic piece so I’m sure you’ve seen it before. I am doing this on a 28ct opalescent Elegance lugana by Silkweaver, which I picked up in Andie’s destash. I am changing out the gold for silver, at least on the borders and motifs. Possibly blue on the skirt. The silver is PTB32. 

Then my next focus-on-a-finish piece is Mermaids of the Deep Blue by Mirabilia. This is on a 28ct Raglan Surf lugana from Countrystitch. This is my start point:

And since Saturday I have got a wee bit done: 
 

Hellooooo July!

Posted in books, cross stitch, goals, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL by

Well, I finished Firefly Lane AND the sequel Fly Away. I enjoyed Firefly Lane very much, getting so engrossed in the characters that I had no shame bawling my eyes out while waiting for Zac’s sweet & sour pork the other night. Fly Away not so much, but it had a redemption theme which I do like.

firefly laneIn the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable. 

I have a bestie like this. We’ve been apart for a long time, but as she’s moving to Auckland very soon I hope we can slide straight back into that easy friendship.

Stitching-wise, I haven’t done a lot this week. I woke on Monday feeling quite dissatisfied with things, and decided that I was going to change. So I hauled a$$ & went to the base early to start.

Now, I used to swim competitively. I went to meets all over, and secondary school nationals a couple of times. I thought I’d slide back in – oh no. But I managed 4 lengths (of a 25m pool!) before everything turned to jelly. And once I was back at work, I rang the local Jenny Craig office and got a same-day appointment (no room to chicken out, right?). Turns out that mentally I’m ready for this. Ready to turn around my health spiral. It took 6 months of being out of the yes-I’ll-volunteer cycle to get myself to this point. I wonder if in a few months I’ll be able to give up the headache pills? Look for an activity/weight loss update Monday – if I don’t post it, YELL at me. Please keep me accountable!

So I’ve managed maybe half-a-dozen threads at work, and a couple of hours on Mermaids at home. And as today is the first, I am rotating out from Mermaids to Persephone for a week. My only issue with her is that she is on the big stand so can’t go to league with me tomorrow. But a limited time period might help me get some progress on that skirt – the carrot being that I plan to switch out to Raven Queen next Friday. Then Arezzo, and lastly nine days back on Mermaids – or maybe 7, with the 2 days of the weekend doing something new? We’ll see what happens!

For the Smalls SAL, I finished a Mill Hill kit (Fireflies) and have two Holly ornaments ready for beading, and another two Berry ornaments being stitched. I decided to stitch a second of each of these on Darine 14ct plastic canvas, not only so I have a set to keep, I’m feeling like I get more value for money. These kits are not cheap here in NZ  – roughly $18 for fireflies and $14 for the Christmas Jewel series, each! I also finished the Bunny kit from Cross Stitcher magazine – he’s going to stay as is, without the ribbon, and become my massive needle minder.

 

Hope you all have a fun-filled weekend with your family & friends!

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, grateful, House, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett by

Oh dear, it’s Wednesday again? Where is this year going to? At least I have something to show 🙂

Si & I went on a short P&O cruise over the weekend. It was lovely being out on the water and being child-free (altho I had some baby time on Sunday morning. Yay for handing back the smelly ones) & we came back oh-so-relaxed. We didn’t do too many of the organised activities – neither of us are party animals nor are we big on alcohol so we used the time to brainstorm an upcoming house reno and to spend time together. Next cruise we think should be a destination one – thinking of around the Pacific islands, or back from Sydney.

As souvenirs I brought only a couple of Pandora charms; a crown (790930) because it was the Queen’s celebration weekend with Trooping of the Colour; and a cruise ship (791043, it’s retired now). It’s so cute, it even has a pool and umbrellas! They’re kind-of visible on my second Flosstube video (search Paula SewScrapMuse, I have some FSG’s on there too).

20160614_191813.jpgStitching-wise I made a huge ammt of progress on Mermaids of the Deep Blue. Basically everything from the halfway fold was done on the boat. I felt that I should have taken Afternoon in London (and I would have finished it too) but I wasn’t enjoying the progress, and I can’t be bothered doing something that I am not enjoying. I worked “in hand” which means my right hand is very, very sore; and I learnt also that Kreinik is best to do on the stand, but I was happy with my progress. Did not give a rats that some people my age were very craftist and looked down on me for what I was doing; frankly I was looking down on them for their behaviour towards other passengers and the ship’s crew. It was a mutual disadmiration society going on.

And last night got home to this: you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s our house on the market! I’ve deliberately taken a very crappy photo so that you can’t determine some detail. Like our street name, or my rego numbers.20160615_055826.jpg

Si is very cross – we can’t get to our spare parking area now until this is moved. I’m inclined to let it go; the auction is July 2nd and I like these neighbours. The only reason they are selling in a hurry is that his job has transferred them to Wellington and I’ll be sad to see them go. Anyone want to buy a 4bed brick & tile?

 

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, family, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett by

well here we are! I missed last week so I have a wee bit to show.

We celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s birthday this past weekend, so there was an extra day away from the desk. Si has gone to Ohakea on Thursday at oh-dark-oclock as he refereed at an inter-base league tournament. He also came home at an equally it’s-dark-everywhere hour on Monday morning. This idiot had driven him too/fro from the base, so I had to get up reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal early to pick him up. But it was worth it to have him home 12 hours earlier than expected.

With no senior footy, B only had the one game to referee so we had a family quiet weekend planned. The bigger boys studied and played the weekend away, Mase whined. And whined. Then on Monday night he crashed big time. Turns out he had a virus. Someone will turn up and yank away my mother card soon. He’s on the mend now, but has binged watched an awful lot of Netflix.

I finished stitching & beading the Mill Hill fireflies kit (and beaded the back a couple of times, doh), and also stitched up a little piece from the JCS Christmas 2014 issue, but on plastic canvas and not quite as designed. I plan to string this up on a cream ribbon and set it into a frame.

I also put Persephone away for a wee while. I was losing heart with that skirt; so as much as I do love the colours that I’ve converted her to, it was time. My StitchMAYnia goal wasn’t the traditional 15 starts but to stitch every day in May, and I very nearly got there. Persephone alone was stitched 23 days of the month & on 3 days she wasn’t touched, I stitched a Small. I’m pretty happy with that.

On Sunday night I pulled out Mermaids again. I’m nearly at the half-way mark of the chart (one more colour to go) so here’s what they look like, as of 5.30am today:

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I also popped up on Instagram my version of parking. Most of the multi-page charts I have used have a greyed-out section, usually the bottom two lines of the chart. I simply DON’T stitch the top leg of the last cross, and then on the next page, I draw a box around the incomplete stitch. I don’t pretend to be an expert at parking, and this probably won’t work for everyone, so no offence if this doesn’t work for you.

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WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett by

The problem with a short week is that Wednesday is supposed to be “hump” day. You know, by lunchtime you can start to anticipate the weekend? Yeah, nah. In a short week I don’t get that until I’m heading home in the evenings. Perhaps it’s not getting enough sleep, trying to cram in heaps of things, or that general “I didn’t get my list done” crap. Not sure, really – how are you feeling?

This month it’s been all about the mid to larger pieces. I realised last week that I hadn’t done a Small this month but on Saturday I realised I didn’t really mind. I got several done in Feb and still none are FFO’s. That’s what I should mind.

Instead I’ve spent time on 3 larger pieces – Afternoon in London, Mermaids of the Deep Blue (I could stitch on the smaller stand while at G’s orchard in between customers) and at home, Persephone ruled the roost. Working out the colour conversion and seeing it all fly together has been really motivating. As of 9.30pm last night, all the stitching & back-stitching on page 1 is completed, and I only have to bead! I have the chart here at work today to make a working copy of the next page. Working copies are essential when doing conversions or stitching while parenting, IMO.

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I’ve also brought Stargazer to work. I’ve decided that her hands need to be re-done, and I’m pulling out the Kreinik I used instead of one level of beads and popping in Mill Hill 00557. I’m glad now that I didn’t frame her as I would hate walking past what I now see as errors every day. My internal debate is frogging all her skin (there’s not a lot, honestly) and doing it over one.

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Have you ever done anything like that? Sat on something that borders the line of being OK/a mistake, then deciding you need a do-over? How did you decide what to do next?