Tag Archives: Persephone

WIP Wednesday

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My goal for Stitch MAYnia was to do something everyday. So far, OK – I missed Monday as I had a migraine but we’ve gone from this:

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I’m well underway in her huge, huge skirt. And I’ve been working on my Small at work. I have a buyer for it already!

Stitch MAYnia begins

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You may have heard of a variant of Stitch MAYnia somewhere on the Web. Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. The standard version is a new start for the first fifteen days (don’t ask me why, IDK) or a madder version with 31 starts.

For me, it’ll be a little slower. I aim to stitch a little everyday so my planner doesn’t have the word “nil” in any blocks this month. Tame isn’t it?

Here’s my starting point for Persephone. I’m into the vast thread chewing skirt, and I think the daily IG photos will help keep momentum as much as a daily stitch. Fingers crossed!

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WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, grateful, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stash cache app by

Dear Diary,

It’s been a while since I last wrote. This is not because I’ve been busy (altho I have) but more because I am simply too tired. Which isn’t really an excuse as I generally update WordPress from work. And it’s on my phone, so this changes the reason to because I’m lazy.

I haven’t stitched much at all this last fortnight. I have about half of my Small to go, and I’ve added a few beads to Persephone so that I can roll her up on the scroll and start that humungous skirt of hers. I’ve changed out the bronze/brown bugle beads to a smaller gold for her necklace, & I love how they look against the blue. So much better that the original. And there’s a little more work on MotDB but that’s about all, folks.

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I won a USD20 voucher from @donnamurray86 (her IG account) through a giveaway she hosted on her flosstube channel, so I grabbed The Silver Dragonfly (I hear it’s nearly OOS) and a more recent release, The Snow Queen. Postage took over half the voucher, so as I was going to have to top up any purchase I made, I made it worth my while. I also won a Trademe auction for Santa’s Magic, a very early Mira. All three are now added to the Stash Cache file page, if you’re using those.

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We gained a digital Freeview tuner and I hooked that up Monday night to our TV – while the TVs have built-in Freeview, they don’t have a series-link capable recording capacity. By adding a 1T USB to the tuner, I’m hoping that I will have some of our favourites recording so I can binge-watch as I want. I hardly stay up to TV past about 8.30 at night, and most of the good stuff starts then. Neil Oliver’s Coast New Zealand started last night – I love his BBC series – & I think it will be interesting to see what he made of our shores. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11623166

WIP Wednesday

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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?

March WIPocalypse

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

I haven’t had as much stitching time this month as I would have liked – it’s the 24th here in NZ and I’ve had ten days so far without anything done. We opened two new stores (one of each brand) at Westgate, with the first trading day yesterday, which was tiring but fun; & I’ve had two migraines to top it off.

London stopped being fun, so it went away just shy of the half-way point (I did finish Buckingham Palace & the tree leaves first, but I forgot to take the photo):

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and then instead of Mermaids, which was next in my rotation, I thought I’d get Persephone’s jellyfish done. I’ve actually moved much, much further along than that & I’m really pleased with how the conversion is working out!

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The question for the month is: Do you use hoops, stretcher bars, lap stands or Q snap frames and why? (viaCathieJ) Well I don’t use hoops anymore (but that’s OK as Mase does). I was stitching in hand but with the issues last year I need to use a two-hand method to get stuff done, so I now have two stands. One is a huge stretcher bar stand, which currently has Persephone; and the other is the lap/table stand Andie gave me, which has whatever other project on it. Persephone’s about 3 inches too wide for the lap stand bars that were supplied, but I think I’ll order some longer bars as it can take them without modifications. I supposed the good thing about the bigger stand is that it displays a far bigger working space than the lap stand, but it’s not very portable at all!

WIP Thursday

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This is becoming a habit! I intended to post yesterday, but a migraine got in the way. I gave myself permission to doze the day away and not feel guilt about letting the little things go – & we ended up with Chinese takeout for dinner too. Today I feel much, much better.

Instagram followers will know that I pulled Persephone out of isolation this week. I’ve gone from this to that, nearly completed the annoying jellyfish on the LHS. After those suckers I will get onto the dress conversion:

and adding to my feeling of wellbeing, I quit facebook. On my phone at least, which means that I can only get to the stupid thing if I log on with my personal laptop. Which I use maybe once a month now, so I’m freeeeeeee!

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WIP Wednesday

Posted in 16 in 2016, conversion details, cross stitch, freebies, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, round robin by

I almost forgot to post! Head down, tail up at work and (mostly) at home, I am still not reading much and writing even less, with the exception of Board reports. Which are boring. Unless of course you want to know more about the good/better/best matrix and how that is affecting sales? Yeah, thought not.

Anyways, I still haven’t got Rahenna’s round robin from Jacqui and I’m getting quite concerned. Not sure what to do – a RR going missing in the last round is rough. I KNOW as I still don’t have mine, and that was from another Auckland address. I’m kind-of scared that this will mean that I won’t be in any more international RRs and that makes me sad.

I’m working on Cherub with Tree. So many threads now have been converted, I have notes all over my working copy (a plus that I don’t know a PDF would keep up with on my tablet). I’ve worked out how to stitch and watch Netflix or Flosstube – blu-tak! – and the only frogging I did was colour related. Si has picked out the blues for her dress and is waiting for me to start – but I am about 20 stitches away from completing her wings and I want to get that nailed first.

This is the original and where I got up to on the weekend:

Not that much further to go! Then I’ll have a second finish (the ornament just needs making up but you can wait until the Smalls check-in to see that).

I also found some large book rings – perfect for the BAP quantities of bobbins! This is Persephone’s, minus the dress…pretty!

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WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, friends, grateful, Mirabilia by

I’m still managing small portions of Persephone most days. She has an “armbow” and last night I found the edge of page one. Yay!

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Today I was totally spoilt by a stitching friend,  Andrea. This box arrived (to scale, that teddy I made sits 30cm high):

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And inside are the bits to make this!

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It’s a lap/desk stand. I’m so grateful and can’t wait to put it together.

Test

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

There’s an awful lot of chatter about the new editor, so I thought I’d try to post as my (android) app updated yesterday too.
So far, so good.
On the stitching side, I’m going with my thoughts of changing out Persephone’s dress. I’m not an aqua/teal person,  I’ll have to change out the brown bugles (oh darn) but here’s my initial floss toss.

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Top row is charted.
Middle row is probable.
Bottom row is the possible. It’s always good to have a set of options!
Have fun this rainy weekend, folks. I’m prepping to get soaked at the concert tonight but hey!  FLEETWOOD MAC BABY!

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, round robin by

I’ve managed to complete a little more of Persephone. Much of it while Z was surfing sport channels; it was too hot much of the weekend to spend time outside from 11-3 & I’d rather they didn’t risk sunburn so it’s easy to say yes to TV, board games and so on. I’ve gotten up and worked on her a little each morning (around 20-25 min) and I’m up to the second “jellyfish” as Mase calls them.

She’s going to come off the stand for a few weeks as Lenna’s piece arrived yesterday. She’s big and beautiful! I need to take a decent photo. My options are Siren’s Song, Undine or Moonlight Laguna. I’m not sure which one I’ll choose!