October 2011 Look Back

I have totally dropped off the blogging map lately, but for a few really good reasons.  First of all, for the first 2 weeks in October we were house/kindergartner/teenager sitting for some dear friends who were out of the country.  Craft-wise I got quite a bit done in those two weeks but, as you can imagine, there wasn't a whole lot of time to update the blog here.  Four days after our house-sitting adventure, my husband and I spent 5 days in Phoenix, Arizona while he was doing some training for his company.  That translates into "I sat on the sofa in the hotel, watched scary movies, worked on my daughter's Halloween costume (another post to come on that) and stitched."

Now I'm finally home, unpacked, and ready to get back into my routine.  Spending 3/4 of a month away from home is a strange way to live. 

Let's start this month's Look Back with Wild Thing.  This will be the last update on this piece until I get it mailed off.

Here is September's Look Back:

Wild Thing - End of September

And, for the final update, here is how Wild Thing looked after being judged in the county fair:

Wild Thing - October 2011

(There is no picture of the completed back of this project, because I framed it before I thought to take it.  Oh well!)

Yes, I won a blue ribbon.  But, since our county had such a small showing EVERYONE won a blue ribbon.  Along with the ribbon came the amazing prize money of exactly $3.00 which I promptly deposited into my checking account. LOL

--On a bit of a side note, my aunt Lesli won Best Overall for her beautiful work. Her blog is http://fabulousfrogger.blogspot.com/ so if you aren't following her already you definitely should! This is what hers looked like:

Isn't it gorgeous?

Now we come to the project I've been waiting to work on again -- Cinderella!!  This is what I brought with me to Phoenix and spent countless hours working on while not having to deal with day-to-day interruptions.

This last time I was able to work on this was in August, so here's what it looked like back then:

Cinderella - August 2011

And here is what 5 days of work amounts to:

Cinderella - October 2011

Back of Project

Overall progress

I love being able to see exactly what I got done.  It was a little discouraging because I spent a majority of my time working on the front of the castle which consists of regular threads tweeded with metallics.  They are so slow going in that it feels like nothing is coming together!  I believe I'm almost done with them for now, so I'll be able to work on the sky more. 

That's all for this month's Look Back.  Hope you enjoyed it!  Be on the look out in the next few days for a picture tour through me making my daughter's Halloween costume and (hopefully) much more progress on Cinderella. 

Happy stitching!!

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10/10/11 - Wild Thing COMPLETED!

Drum roll please.......

Wild Thing is officially finished and framed.  YAY!!  I'm so happy I got it done in time.  There are only 3 more days until I have to enter it into the fair so now I can just sit back and relax without working until the last minute.

I was a little disappointed that his first and middle name wouldn't fit on the design (it ended up being too long by quite a bit) so I settled for just putting his first name on there.  I actually really like the way it turned out... it doesn't look crowded!

Ah, my faithful jungle friends, at last you are completed.  It's been nice knowing you, but after doing this same sampler twice within 8 months I must say I won't be too terribly sad to see you go.

Wild Thing Sampler

Began: June 27, 2011

Completed: October 10, 2011

Soon to be Kentucky bound

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9/24/11 Wild Thing

I really love the weekends.  Saturdays for me mean 1) no waking up before dawn, 2) happy children who aren't forced to run on a schedule for the day, and 3) plenty of time to stitch!
Backstitching is one of my favorite parts of a project.  I know, I know -- that sounds crazy, right?  The general consensus that I hear is that backstitching is one of the most hated parts of a project.  Personally, I love the way it really brings out all of the details and how quickly a blob of random colors turns into something amazing.  Now that all of the main stitching is done for Wild Thing, the only thing left is the backstiching and a few french knots (which I do hate).

Here's today's update:

Overall Progress

 Top half of project has all circles outlined and the title completed.

Giraffe

 Mr. Giraffe is 100% complete!  I'm wondering if doing the french knots was a good idea just yet.  The other day, I bought a set of off-brand Q-Snaps (which I'm really loving!) and I'm worried that these french knots in the center of the flowers may be in the way when I go to move the frame.  Guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Lion

By far my favorite animal to backstitch.  The lion's mane is made up of 3 or 4 different colors which all blur together until you start to backstitch.  You can really see this when you compare the top part of his mane with the bottom (un-backstitched) part.

My plan is to finish the lion by tonight, which leaves me with the monkey and the panda left to do plus the wooden frame, the circles at the bottom, the leaves and then the information.  Crossing my fingers that this will be 100% done by the end of next weekend!

Happy stitching everyone!
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9/23/11 Wild Thing

Crunch time, folks... baby Rowan has arrived!  As much as I'd hoped to be done before he was born, I'm happy with the amount I've gotten done with all the craziness that's been going on.  I'm on the home stretch with this sampler now and I'm hoping to have it done in the next few days.

This picture was taken last night around 9pm -- everything complete but the backstitching!

I decided to lose a little bit of sleep working on the backstitching while catching up on my overloaded DVR.  Before I finally called it quits for the night, I snapped this picture:

I love how the backstitching really makes the letters stand out.  I'm going to finish the letters and the circles first, then move on to the animals themselves.  The very last thing will be adding Rowan's information to the bottom and then it will be complete!

The entry date for the county fair is October 14th (I believe) so I should have no problem being done in time.  While the "prize money" isn't that great for anything entered, it would still be nice to win!
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9/5/11 Wild Thing

What what??  Two post updates in a row?  It's been a good weekend.  My housework has suffered greatly, but I've gotten a lot done on this project and it's looking so good!

Started on the panda bear yesterday (which just so happens to be my favorite part of this sampler!) and couldn't put it down until he was finished.

I love the colors for this part of the piece and the way his feet hang out over the edge.  Although I'm saving most of the backstitching until the very end, I couldn't help but do a bit on his face.  he looked a little creepy without a nose and mouth! 

Now that my long weekend is practically over, I won't have as much time to work on this.  My friend just updated her status to say that she's heading to the hospital and may be in labor which is so exciting!  Once the panda is totally done, then the hardest parts are over with and I can get started on all the little details. 

Tomorrow, our daily grind of school days begins again.  I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and gets lots accomplished today!!
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9/7/11 Wild Thing

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! 

I sat myself down yesterday, determined to finish all the stitching for the monkey panel on Wild Thing, and I did!

There's a light at the end of the tunnel!  =) 

I found out the other day that, if I want to put this piece in my county fair, it needs to be completed by the 15th of October.  If I can keep up the pace set yesterday, that should be no problem!  Then I'll send it off to my friend once the fair is over with. 

Enjoy your 3 day weekend (if you have one!)  =)
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August Look Back

I've decided that every month, I'm going to take the time to look back and see what I've accomplished over the past month.  To make it really fun, I'll also be posting the back of my projects --I can hear the gasps of horror already!-- because I think the back of a project is just as important as the front.  Don't hold it against me though!  I know that you can create a beautifully stitched project and have a back that looks crazy, but I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to my stitches.

This month we're going to start with Cinderella Wishes Upon a Dream.  Unfortunately, I have noticed that there are NO updates in August for this project.  Ugh.  I didn't realize that!  So, I suppose I'll just put up how it looks now, and next month I'll have something to compare it to.

August Look Back - Cinderella

View of total project - August 2011

Reverse side of Cinderella

Wild Thing has gotten a lot of my attention this month since that baby will be born in the very near future.  Let's see how far it's come:

Wild Thing - August 5

August Look Back - Wild Thing

 Not as much progress as I would have liked to complete, but it's still coming along nicely.

Reverse of Wild Thing - August 2011

(Is it sad that I just realized where my "missing" needle has been?  LOL  At least it's stuck where it should be and not lost in my couch cushions!)

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.  If you should decide to do a Look Back of your own, please let me know in the comments so I can see how far you've come this month. 

Have a great day everyone!
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8/30/11 Wild Thing

Another busy few days around here.  I've been dividing my free time between cross stitching and reading, so not as much got done on this project as it would have normally.  Luckily for me, I enjoy doing these at a more leisurely pace. 

Once the dark green leaves go in, the rest is just filling it in with the light green color.  I love when it gets to that point because I can just zone out and stitch without having to count and double check.  Hopefully, this little guy will be done by the weekend and then it's on to the panda!

Happy stitching everyone!


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8/25/11 Wild Thing

Wow... it's been far too long since my last update.  We've had a very busy two weeks with my oldest starting Kindergarten and all of us adjusting to our new schedules.  Now that the routine seems to be in place, I'm back to stitching as often as I can.

Here is the latest on Wild Thing:

It's not a ton of progress, but it's coming along.  The baby I'm stitching this for isn't due for another month, but apparently he attempted to make an early entrance a few days ago.  No more putting this off!  It has to be done! 

Plus, I'm thinking of entering it in our county fair this year.  I've never put anything in before so I think it would be a fun experience.  One of these days, I'll enter the Cinderella project and hopefully it will do well.

It's going to take me a little while to catch up on all the blog posts that I've missed.  Can't wait to see what you have all been up to!


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8/9/11 Wild Thing

This is my little girl's last week before school starts Kindergarten.  I seriously can't believe she is old enough for school and I'm a bit of a wreck.  It's not that I don't think she'll love it (if she's anything like me, she'll be a totally nerd and really enjoy going to school) but I worry about not having my eye on her every hour of the day.  She took her first trip away from me the other day to the water park with the church and I was a nervous wreck from the time she got on the bus until I went to pick her up.  She, naturally, had a great time and didn't miss me one bit while all I could think about was picking her up. 

Anywho, through all the craziness I have managed to finish Mr. Giraffe:

He sure looks better with some eyes!

Overall progress

 There were some difficulties stitching over the past few days.  Two days ago, our power went out in the middle of the afternoon and didn't get restored for over 6 hours.  This was especially terrible because our A/C unit already has a difficult time keeping our home under 80 degrees on a good day.  With no power, our house became unbearable, so we spent a while in the car with the kids.  Once the sun went down the house started to cool off a bit, so we all parked ourselves in different rooms and lay quietly until the power was restored. 

On Sunday, we went to the water park with my in laws.  The kids had so much fun but I'm beginning to realize that I just don't have the same amount of energy that I used to!  I'm sure they would have stayed all day if mommy hadn't gotten so tired!  LOL  Then, yesterday, I babysat my daughter's best friend so the majority of the day was filled with Disney movies, dress up, and popsicles.

Through all that, I managed to find at least enough time to finish the giraffe up.  Now I just have to decide which animal to do next. 

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CONTEST ALERTS!

Kaye over at Kitten Stitching is hosting a giveaway to celebrate reaching the 20 followers milestone!  She's put together a lovely gift pack to the winner, including hand dyed threads and very cute charts.

The giveaway will close on Friday, August 19th so hurry on over and get your entries in!

Click >>here<< for the giveaway page, or visit http://kittenstitching.blogspot.com

Crafty Moo is also hosting a giveaway.  You can enter to win a plethora of prizes, including a keychain, ribbon, and some Lugana!

The giveaway will close on August 29th.

Click >>here<< for the giveaway page, or visit http://craftymoo-sarah.blogspot.com

((Be sure to check out the new feature at the top of the blog, directly above the posts.  Check there for all new contest information and end dates!))
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Happy stitching everyone!

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8/5/11 Wild Thing

Finally got some time to sit down and stitch last night.  The giraffe is taking shape!

...although some eyes would make him look less creepy!

Another color or two on him and it'll be time to fill in the background.  It's a lot of green, but it looks really good when it's all said and done.  I'm still debating on whether or not to fill in the blank spaces in the zebra stripes, even though the pattern doesn't call for it.  The fabric is an oatmeal color, so the stripes seem a little dull.  But I'm thinking that the white may stand out too much.  I'm going to leave until it's time to backstitch the lion then I'll decide.
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7/26/11 Wild Thing & Cinderella!

Happy Tuesday everyone!  =)  I hope you all are getting lots of stitching done today!

Since I neglected to put up the progress update on Wild Thing yesterday, I'm just going to post it today along with my most recent work on Cinderella.  I'm really loving switching off projects every other week.  I never seem to get too bored with the current project and picking up the other one wish fresh eyes is a nice treat.

So, here is Wild Thing's most recent progress:

*rawr*

Total progress so far

I didn't get the chance to backstitch him before switching projects, so I'll just save that until later.  The next time I pick this up I'll be moving over to the giraffe (so cute!!).

Moving back to Cinderella yesterday was so nice.  I got some of the sky above the castle filled in and began the task of filling in the castle as well.  It's a LOT of slightly different shades of the same blue, so nothing too interesting.  It really took me looking back on the last update I did to see the difference, so I'll post that up here as well:

Progress as of 7/11/2011

Progress as of today, 7/26/2011

As I'm filling in the castle, I realize that I've missed a few 3/4 stitches where the sky and castle meet, but I don't think I'm going to stress about going back in to put them there.  It's literally only 4 or 5 stitches of the light grey color and that area will have some backstitching over it.  If it is noticeable once the backstitches are done then I guess I'll worry about fixing it then, but for now I'm fine with leaving it. 

I'm off to clean house and drag my two children out to the grocery store later today.  Happy stitching!
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7/22/11 Wild Thing

The little lion is coming along nicely.  I got on a roll stitching and got a bunch done on this yesterday!  I was hoping to have him completely stitched by the end of the day, but real life bumped its way in and I had to spend the morning killing ants in my kitchen and deep cleaning the house so the exterminator could do an emergency spray.

Now that all that craziness is over with, I'm going to get back to stitching and get this little cutie done.  I'm debating on whether or not to save the backstitching until the end.  I really enjoy the backstitches and I love the way they make the project look complete, so doing it sooner rather than later may be fun.  I guess I'll just wait and see how much time I have to do it.

No matter what, I will switch back to Cinderella next week so I can work on the castle.  I can't wait to see how it looks all filled in!!



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7/20/11 Wild Thing

Not a huge update today, but I'm convinced that if I at least show a little bit of progress then my brain will want to sit down and stitch more. 

Slowly but surely getting there.

I haven't been in the stitchy mood much lately.  It didn't help that yesterday I spent a majority of my morning at the eye doctor with my very uncooperative 5 year old.  Thankfully, she does not need glasses and she can start school in August without me constantly being worried about her vision.  But the appointment was a total nightmare!  She screamed, yelled at the doctors, and would shut her eyes whenever they asked her to look at shapes.  We finally did manage to get her to cooperate but by the end of it I was worn out.  By the time we got home in the afternoon all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and veg.

Today isn't looking too much better for stitching.  We may or may not have company over tonight, so I'm going to be cleaning the house, going to the grocery store with both the kids, and then making dinner.  Ugh!  Need a vacation stat!

7/18/11 Wild Thing

I had a fantastic, fun weekend full of friends and family.  (This update brought to you by the letter "F" apparently!)

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and got lots accomplished.  I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but I kinda figured I wouldn't have much home time so I wasn't totally surprised.

Border complete!

Even though it looks like I missed a part of the wooden border, I assure you it's supposed to be that way.  The panda in the far right corner hangs his feet over it.  The last time I stitched this pattern, I filled that part in my accident and had to do some serious blending to make it look right.

Looks good, but the feet still bother me!

This time around, I'm going to stitch it up right!  LOL  Of course, I sometimes enjoy when slight changes have to be made to a pattern.  Makes it feel more personalized, you know what I mean?

Anyway, I'll probably stitch this design some more this week rather than switching back to Cinderella.  Really gotta make sure this gets done.

Happy stitching everyone!

Still Here

Hey ya'll!  It's been a busy past few days and, unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to take pics of my current progress on Wild Thing. 

Trust me when I say it is coming along nicely and the wooden outline is almost completed.  I've just gotten my invitation for the recipient's baby shower (to be held in 3 weeks) so I really need to get busy.  Even though it can't totally be completed until after the baby is born -since I can't guess his birthday and weight!- I still want to have it done ahead of time.

Look for updated pictures tomorrow or Monday. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!  =)

7/12/11 Wild Thing

I really, really hate putting Cinderella down right now.  It's been so much fun to stitch over the past week!!  But, Wild Thing really needs some attention since my friend's due date is approaching and I want to be done with it before the baby is born.

Got a little stitching in last night:

Filling in the wood outline is so easy.  It's a blended color (one strand of the light brown, one of the dark brown) and all I have to do is fill in the gaps and be mindful of edges.  I was able to get this much done in just about two hours last night.  By the end of this week, I should be well on my way to stitching up the animals!

7/2/11 Update

Got some more work done on "Wild Thing" these past few days.  I'm really loving working on this project again!

The two solid colors of the wood border are completed, so all that's left to do now is blend them together and fill in the gaps.  You can also see the beginnings of the lion in the top left corner.

I've discovered that I am a bit of a thread snob!  Since this project was previously completed using a kit, I still had some of the Dimensions threads left over.  I am supplementing the leftover thread with the corresponding DMC floss colors.  The difference between the two are are astounding!  The Dimensions thread feels very "hay" like and doesn't lay as flat as the DMC does.  I think I'll just stick with the DMC for the rest of this and maybe use the Dimensions for practicing embroidery or something.

By Monday, I'm planning on switching over to work on Cinderella for a week.  I have got to get that one finished so I can start working on the Beauty and the Beast kit... that I don't have yet... but will buy myself once I'm halfway done.  Oh, Joann's is calling out to me!! Must stay home and stitch!

Have a great Independence Day weekend!  Remember to say a thank you to those who serve our country!  To my little brother Josh (who is completing some training in Texas right now) I love you and I'm so proud of you!

6/29/11 Update

Sorry for the delay in updates.  We had a few issues with the laptop and I wasn't able to get any pictures put up.  Luckily for you, you now get not one, but TWO updates on the Wild Thing project.

The first is my progress as of 6/27 (Monday):

And here it is after stitching for a few hours on 6/28 (Tuesday):

The wooden frame is almost completely visible.  I think I'll do the same thing I did last time I worked on this project and completely do the wood before working on the animals.  It's definitely stitching up much faster the second time around!

I'm going to work on this project for the rest of the week before switching back to Cinderella for a little bit.  It's beginning to call out to me and I don't think I can ignore it much longer!  =)

Happy Stitching!

6/21/11 Updates

Happy post-Father's day everyone!  I hope your weekend was lovely.  =)  We had a very busy, but enjoyable, weekend making the rounds to see everyone and eating much too much food as always. 

I believe it was on Friday night that I just couldn't sleep, so I was up until around 3am stitching to avoid just staring at the ceiling.  It's amazing how much you can get done when the house is silent and there aren't any kids running around to distract you!

Sorry for the low light.  We're in NE Florida and the fires nearby make everyday dim and smoky.  There is still a lot more of that dark green color to come and most of it will be covered up by french knots anyway.  I'm also very conscious of the bottom of this page of the design.  I want to avoid the "paged" look where you can see the line where each page ended, so I'm going to try and work down a few stitches into the next page.  I'm hopeful that doing that will help blend that line a little bit.

Also this week, I got started on the Wild Thing baby sampler (pic on left of blog) for a friend of mine.  She's due in a little over 3 months and I wanted to make sure I gave myself enough time to get it done.  I've stitched this design previously for my son and really enjoyed it.  The colors are so bright and fun that it really is a joy to stitch. 

It's not much to look at so far, but here's progress after getting it started:

I'll be alternating these projects, with my focus being mainly on Wild Thing so that I don't run out of time. 

Happy stitching everyone!