Has it really been so long?

I can't believe it's been almost a year since my last post here.  Scratch that.  It actually seems like longer than that.  But, I do have a good reason.  Honest!  Wanna see?

Isn't she gorgeous?  =)  As you can probably guess, my hands are pretty full these days so it makes stitching difficult.  I had to stop working on my projects towards the middle of my pregnancy last summer due to headaches and not being able to sit still long enough to accomplish anything.  

My sweet baby Emilia arrived on "Doomsday" -- 12/21/2012 -- rounding out our family of 5.  She's a big time Momma's girl and doesn't like to be put down, but I'm hoping as she becomes more and more independent I'll be able to get back to stitching very soon!  I'm so eager to complete the Cinderella piece and also get started on a baby sampler for her.

Just wanted to let those of you who still check in know that I'm still here, although slightly preoccupied.

Happy stitching!!  =)

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7/25/12 Cinderella

This post is mainly going to be about removing the blue Clover marking lines from page one.  I was pretty worried that since they'd been on for over 15 months -- which is well beyond the recommended two weeks!-- that there would be staining issues.  Thankfully, with just some cold water, the marking lines disappeared within a matter of minutes!  The only issue I had is that it did leave a minor water stain around the edges of the design.  I believe this was either because I used regular bottled water instead of distilled water or perhaps there was some sort of stiffening agent on the fabric itself.  Either way, I'm not too concerned about it because the stain will be stitched over or covered with matting.

Here are some pictures of the process and results!

I placed the fabric in a clean 13x9 baking pan so that I would only have to wash the affected areas.

Before shot of the markings on the side as well as the ones you could visibly see under the stitching.

After only a few minutes in the cold water, all the markings were completely gone!

After drying.  You can see the waterstain around the design.

After going through this process, I've decided to give gridding using 4lb fishing line a try instead of the marking pen.  It took a few hours to grid page two, but overall I'm liking it so far.  It does take a little getting used to.  I did use the marking pen to label the squares since it makes referencing the chart much easier.

Page 2 gridded

Finally, here is a better picture of the progress so far on page two.  I've been taking a break the last few days because of a lingering headache, but hopefully I can get some more stitching done this week.  Happy stitching everyone!

Cinderella mini update

I know I'm slacking on updates again. I figured since I'm about to head to bed I'd throw a quick one up here so you all can see where I am.

Page two has been gridded using 4lb fishing line. I did wash off the previous grid lines, but that process and results deserves it's own bigger post. 

This is approximately 1200 stitches into page two.  Buildings are taking shape and there is a TON of green.

More to come soon!

7/10/12 Cinderella (Page 1 completed!)

Thank you so much for the kind comments on yesterday's post.  I stuck with it yesterday since my stitching bug was still hanging around and managed to get page 1 finished!  Yay!!

Here is all of page 1:

Here is the back of page 1:

And here is the overall progress:

Now that the section I have gridded is completed, I'm left with a bit of a dilemma.  I really really want to wash those lines out since they've been on there so long, but I'm terrified of messing something up by washing it.  I am planning on gridding using fishing line for the next page instead of the pen so I can just pull it out as I go and won't run into this problem again.

Does anyone have any tips for easily removing these lines?  I know they will come off because some have faded away when I put a bit of water on certain sections that hadn't been stitched yet.  I'm not brave enough to do the whole delicate cycle in the wash so I'm guessing hand-washing would be my best bet.

I'm going to start the next page pretty soon.  I'm planning on doing the lower left page, then the lower right, saving the top right for last.  It's the page with Cinderella and the Prince so I want to save it for last!

Cinderella 7/9/12

Just another quick mobile update.  Only around 150 stitches left in page one (not counting the French knots).  Once page one is done I'll do a full picture if the entire page using my nice camera.

5/21/12 Cinderella

Hey everyone!  Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been really crazy and it hasn't left much time for stitching unfortunately.  I do have some progress pics to share (now that I have blogger on my phone!) So I figured I'd go ahead and put them up. So, here ya go!

Sorry if the pics are wonky. Still figuring this mobile posting out!

January Look Back

After doing some more stitching tonight (and spending at least an hour unpicking a few mistakes), I remembered that it's time to do a Look Back!

It's been a few months so I had to dig back through the blog for the last look back photos, so here we go.

Here is the October progress picture (yikes... has it been that long?):

October 2011 - Look Back

And here is today's picture:

January 2012 - Look Back

January 2012 - Back of the project

January 2012 - Overall progress

We are going to be taking a trip -- to Disney of course -- starting on Saturday, so I don't know how much more stitching will get done between now and the following weekend.  I'm hoping to finish this page by at least the end of March so I can get started on the next page.

Oh!  I forgot to mention this... you may notice a red thread running down the right side of the project.  I purchased some fishing line today and I'm testing it out to see if I like using it to grid more than the marking pens.  So far I like it, but I haven't had to work around it too much so we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.  Right now it's just marking the end of the first page, but when I start the next one I'm going to try gridding out the whole page with it. 

Happy stitching everyone!