Happy 2025 Stunners!

I'm back!!! Some of you haven't truly missed me as we are friends on FB. But I have missed interacting in the blog world. FB is ok, but I love the stories behind everything. The highs, lows, stresses, mistakes, achievements, and just nailing stuff! Also I much prefer to keep up with everyone's progress on a more personal level. And you just can't get all of that in a FB post or an Instagram pic and comment. 

So it's back to my homeland. My original contact with the cross stitch community. 

There are things I will only post here and not on other media. Here I will post all my progress, whereas on other media, I will only be posting significant progress or new starts, or that elusive thing (for me anyway) the FINISH!! 🤗

This is what's been happening since I last posted. I've had quite a few new starts! Those of you that know me won't be surprised. My friend Diane, celebrated her 50th birthday last year and roped me into doing 50 new starts for her 50th. To be honest she didn't really have to twist my arm too hard LOL! 

I made it, but it was a close call, as I started my final one on the 31st December. I  will show the 50 as they come up in this years rotation. 

2025 GOALS

This is one of my focus on a finish wips, Mini Sisters Max Colours by Amy Brown and charted by Heaven and Earth Designs. It is a gift for my sister so you will be seeing it a lot in Gifted Gorgeousness which is held by the lovely Jo of Serendipitous Stitching.

This is where I am currently at with it. 12.28% completed 8,590/69,975

Another focus on a finish. The 2025 HAED SAL

Drinks on the Beach by Lars Stewart

Drinks on the Beach

So far only 843 stitched. This quarter we have 24,735 to stitch. So I need to get a motor on!

The requirement is that you have to stitch 6 full pages minimum, to qualify to receive all of the charts that were offered on the SAL. There are 4 I love and it was a hard choice. It was between Jelly world, Flamingos and Steampunk Portal. I figured that Drinks on the Beach would be the easiest stitch that would help me get 6 pages completed in order to get the others. Jelly world is the biggest chart amongst them all!! What do you think? Which one do you like?

I have started a daily rotation. On my last count I have 148 wips and 30 of them are supersized or even bigger! And they just haven't been getting the love they deserve. So I'm hoping dedicating a day on each of them will help get things moving. The rotation will kick in on Monday 10th February.

This week has been all about Supersized Past Present Future by Aimee Stewart and designed by Heaven and Earth Designs. This was my new start #32 in 2024 for the 50 new start challenge. 

Total stitched for February was 1,541

I am doing this in diagonal stitching across the entire chart. It may be a little ambitious, but I want to stitch an entire diagonal each time it comes up in the rotation. Including when the diagonal is across the whole chart. It's okay at the moment as the diagonals are reasonably small. Let's see shall we 😜

January was not a great month for stitching. I flew interstate to attend my friend, Sharine's birthday. You may remember her, she is a blogger (which is how we first met) called Charbella Stitching, and like me she has let it lapse a little. Click on the link to see her blog. Her last post was in August 2024 and the one before that was in 2020. I'm going to try and get her to go back to it.

Sharine and I have known each other for at least 12 years and last year was the first time we met in person. It was so surreal. We attended a retreat in NSW and the poor thing had to catch a train that took 13 hours. She does not like flying. Luckily I do, as it only took me 90 minutes to fly to her. 

We are both working on a chart together, Ghosts in the Forest by Charting Creations and the artist is one of my favourites, Dusan Markovic.

Sharine is stitching across the chart page by page and I am stitching down in columns. One day we will happily meet somewhere in there 🤞💕

This is not an updated photo of mine. I will have to dig it out. I have completed the first full column of pages and now I am back up the top and halfway through technically page 2.

I took it with me to Victoria and it was so cool to work on it with Sharine in the same room whilst watching movies together. I was there for a week and when I returned to Sydney I haven't picked it up again 😢

Mine

Sharine's

This was what I mostly worked on in January. Castle Cutaway XL by Steve Crisp and charted by Artecy.

From this

To this

I just wanted to finish at least one of the boys!!

I love how Tereena from Artecy, charts nature. I have seen so many finished pieces by other stitchers that have worked on Autumnal trees, and beautiful water designs and it looks like a photograph. Even the trees in this picture, even though the original illustration is an obvious drawing, it still looks quite realistic. 

Total stitched 1,406 in this session. 

This currently sits at 22,276/645,050 or 3.45%. So it's one of my biggest babies!

Rotation

This is my 2025 rotation. But it is subject to change 😆

Monday: Samplers (5)

Tuesday: Focus Gift - Mini Sisters 

Wednesday: Gifted Gorgeousness (stitch on a gift to give to someone - 7)

Thursday: Supersized Babies (31)

Friday: SAL's (14)

Saturday: Ghosts in the Forest

Sunday: One of my regular size or smaller wips (last count - 85)

I  use an app called Tiny Decisions. And I have loaded all my wips by category into the wheels. I spin it up on each day that category is due and work on whatever wins the spin. I love all my wips so it won't matter which one I land on! (I say that now 🤣)

The only thing that changes is that every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month I go to a stitching group. The first one is at an RSL club where we hire the room for 4 hours and the second one is a little more local and we hire the hall for 6 hours. On these days I will be working on Drinks on the Beach 

2025 is a no new start and no purchasing of charts. I have allowed myself to buy things to kit up a stash chart only, but I'm not allowed to start it until 2026. Of which there are currently 36 charts waiting to be started. I know, I know but as my blog description states, it's about a lunatic that loves to cross stitch 😜🤣

I will be updating the accompanying pages soon too.

Ok, that's it from me. Now I'm going to dive into all your blogs.

Enjoy all your stitching and everything else that life has to offer.

QUOTE: The expert in anything, was once a beginner 💖

Love Alicia

July Jaunts!

Hi Stunners!


I've fallen in love with cross stitching again, and it helped that I found time to actually do it. 
I almost had a page finish with Ghosts so very happy about that.

The exciting bit is that the lighter blue wisp down the right hand corner is the appearance of my first Ghost!! I will definitely finish this page in August. 

I have really gotten into diagonal stitching. And I had to re-start "Lost In You" by Rachel Marks as unfortunately the original was damaged and stained. I have tried every kind of fabric cleaner and the white floss (which is alot) has been yellowed. So sadly I had to re-start it. But as I'm doing it diagonal across the whole chart I won't be technically re-stitching parts that I have already done any time soon.

This is where I got on the first one, 

And here is my re-start. I'm also now stitching on 18 count white Aida and the first one is stitched on 22ct. 

So I will be finishing the female elf first as the diagonal progresses. 

I decided to have a work project as so many stitcher's seem to get a lot done on their work wips. So I chose "Lady Butterfly" by Alessandro Della Pietra. I am a Crystal Club member with Paine Free crafts and this kit was one of my club choices.  

It's perfect for work as it's being stitched on 18ct Magic guide fabric and the chart you receive with the kit is printed out in a very large format so no need for any magnifying lamps. This is what I have achieved so far. I've converted it into another diagonal stitched piece to keep it simple but will only be doing it page by page and not across the whole chart. Only reason being is that it's mounted on a Stitch Ezi Frame and it's difficult to have to keep moving the fabric in the hoop. 

It's great to have a work project that I love stitching as it motivates me to actually GO to work. And if I get stuck on a channel with someone that I don't really like, well then it's head down and I cross stitch like mad. Pretty cool right?

That's all for now. I will be back for the GG SAL as I am working on Mini Sisters which is a gift for my sister. So hoping to have something worthwhile to show.

Take care everyone. May life be magical to you always. And thank you for stopping by. 

love

Alicia

Gifted Gorgeousness - January and IHSW

Hi Stunners!

Hope the year is going well for everyone and that life is magical.


My year is starting off well, I have had the most successful IHSW ever. I worked on a gift for my sister, this is mini Sisters from HAED. I stitched 774 stitches on Saturday and.....

on Sunday I managed 720 stitches for Ghost in the Forest from Charting Creations. 

I'm stitching both of these using the parking method that is demonstrated on the Scarlet Qunice website. It really does make for neater stitches as you only bring your needle up in a hole with maximum of 1 stitch. It's possibly slower but I do love how much neater it is. And as Sisters is a gift, neatness is very important, but saying that I have to finish by Halloween as that's her birthday. I calculated that I need to do 256 stitches per day, which I'm a little behind on but I have got 2 weeks leave coming up and plan on catching up then. 

Well that's is from me. I'm going blog binging now as I haven't had a chance to read them and looking forward to read and see what you all have been up to so far this year.

Take are stunners!

xo Alicia

November's Adventures.

Hi Stunners!


I not sure if I can say I had an overly productive November but I did manage a page finish so that's something.

Ghosts in the Forest went from here:

To here:

I am aiming for a page finish per month on this one. My 2 down under friends who are sisters are also stitching this. Sharine and Kate are working across the chart and I'm working down the chart. So the next page for me is 14. One day we will all meet in the middle and have a wicked celebration! 

My other wip for November is one of my favourites which is Gyukou by Tilton Crafts. I didn't take a before photo but here is where I ended. I think I will keep working on this till I finish the page before swapping it out. 

That's all stunners from me. 

December is going to be (fingers crossed) the completion of 3 baby samplers. Plus more of Ghosts and Gyukou.

See you on the 15th for the GG SAL.

Take care and may life be magical for you all

xo Alicia

June's Journey

Hi Stunners

This is what I got up to in June for my cross stitching journey.

I finally managed to finish the first page of Afterglow. This was such a fun stitch. I'm really looking forward to getting to those beautiful blues and purples in the sky. 

Afterglow - Charting Creations

Page 1 - completed

And here is Lost In You - which I started on the 6th May 2010 (gulp). I am aiming to finish page 3 and 4 by the end of July as this is a goal for the HAED Yearly bulletin board challenge. So I'm stitching them together. I would love to get the full row done by the end of the year though. 

Page 1 & 2 completed

Working on pages 3 & 4

And as from the previous post I finished page 5 on Galaxy Girl Diamond painting. 

It was also my birthday on the 25th June and I received so many beautiful wishes from family and friends, which was so greatly appreciated. But one of my favourites was from a colleague/friend who is currently in the US on holidays. Sally used her kids to make a legendary birthday pic. Oh man can you imagine trying to get 4 kids to stand still and hold up paper signs in the middle of Disneyland??!! Very cute! 

I joined the Gecko Rouge Fox Gloves Halloween SAL. This will be the last SAL I sign up for until I finish every SAL I have ever signed up for in the past. I'm so far behind on all of them, but I'm determined to keep up with this one. We get a page on the 15th of each month. So next time you see it, I will have at least both the first 2 boxes completed. 

And finally,  I have framed Spring to Life. I actually finished this wip years ago but have been slack about framing her. I painted the matting and my dad drew in the vines and butterflies. And I stuck on the flowers. I'm so proud of our little effort together. I'm so happy to actually have a cross stitch that's hanging on my wall. All the other finishes I've framed have been baby samplers and they are with the family I stitched it for.

Next on my framing agenda is QS Lovers, Faces of Faery 88 and I found my family in a book. These are my other 2017 goals. I have the frames but they are the ones I bought from Sew it all where you have to paint and decorate them yourselves. Which is actually fun so I don't know why I keep procrastinating. 

That's all stunners! I hope you are all well and that life is magical for you

xoxo Alicia