The road stitched so far!

Hi Stunners!

It's time for the results of my January Jaunts & February Frolics. I'm a little behind on my goals to stitch between 100,000 to 200,000 stitches this year. But I'm hoping to giddy up and get alot done this month.

So for January I had a new start for the new year. 

It's Heaven on Earth by Mystic Stitch and it's worked on 18ct white Aida 2 over 1. 

1837 stitches

I also managed to complete 1000 stitches on my Gecko Rouge - Snow White in January. 

Start of the year

January progress 

And 2176 stitches more for February! How cool are my glittery needle-minders. The lipstick was my most recent acquisition, perfect for a Snow White wip. I'm really excited to finally reach one of the sexy dwarves. See that smoosh of fuzzy brown near her elbow, yep that is the top of his head. Rrrrrrrrr

February progress

The other wip I worked on was QS Theatre of the Absurd. This is from the 2013 Heaven and Earth designs BB Freebie SAL. And it isn't even my oldest wip!! I'm determined to finish this in March. And then I can re-start the 2011 Freebie SAL LOL. 

Start of the year

January Progress

February Progress

Also my new start of Rose Zircon by Maxine Gadd from Imaginarium got 600 stitches. 

My January stitch totals are 4588 as I am including my diamond painting as seen in my previous post.

February was a little less impressive at 3051.

I'm going to need a whopping 9237 to catch up and be back on track for a minimum stitch of 100,000 by the years end.

With the help of all the challenges from the Ultimate Cross Stitch group on FB and all the support I get from you wonderfully amazing and stunning followers, I know I will be able to achieve it. 

Good news is that I got my new computer all set up at home and now I can access my emails and reply to all your brilliant and hilarious comments. 

Happy stitching for March stunners, may this month be full of love and magical things.

Thank you so much for the visit.

xoxo Alicia

IHSW November SAL

Hi Stunners!

I'm still here, sorry for the long hiatus. I've had a busy few months with work, overseas holiday and a cargo load of family flying down under for our Nan's birthday. But I have been stitching.

IHSW is back in action - yay!! Joyse and Jo are running it through Facebook but I will post here as well.

I was on nightshift during the weekend but luckily I am allowed to stitch whilst at work when it gets quiet. So I got a bit done.

First up is Gecko Rouge Halloween SAL. I had a bit of frogging and I (gulp) made a hole in the fabric. But it's easily fixed so I'm not freaking out...yet!

Before

After

At home I worked on Snow White also a Gecko Rouge Design by Omri Koresh. It's been recently retired so I'm glad I bought it when I did. Now this is my kind of fairytale!!

This wasn't my actual start point for IHSW I had a bit more done, but this is where I started at the start of the month.

Before

After

For most of August and September I was working hard on HAED - Lost in You. I managed to get 2 full page finishes. So I'm really happy with this ones progress.

One more full page and a teeny tiny partial and it's a row finish. Which will be the first HAED BAP that I will have managed to accomplish this, you know when I do. 

Thanks for visiting stunners. I've got a lot more time for stitching now so hopefully I will have more to show for it.

Take care and may life be magical for you all.

xoxo 

Alicia

February Finishes!

Hi Stunners! 

I had some page finishes in February that I'm so happy about. I was on leave for 3 weeks so managed to get a bit of stitching in. I didn't realise how much working for the man really interferes with stitching! 

Wip 1 - Our House from Gecko Rouge

Wip 2: David Bowie - Gecko Rouge

Wip 3: Snow White - Eclectic Blokes Design

And I managed 2200 stitches on Afterglow from Charting Creations but I will wait for the page finish before I post. The colours are incredible and I'm really loving it. I've also been working on Rose Zircon for the GG SAL so that will be in the next post.

Thanks for visiting stunners. I hope life is magical for you.

xox Alicia

July's Journey

Hi Stunners!! 

I hope everyone had a Jubliant July.

Just popping in to share my cross stitch progress for July. 

I finally started my biggest cross stitch wip to date. This is "Our House" by Colin Thompson. The designer Kimberley Hill from Gecko Rouge believes it's the largest kit in the world and at 857 x 1189, which is a total of 1,018,973 stitches, I believe she is right. 

I have finished page 1 and made a wee start on the second page. My aim is to complete this room by room. So I will be stitching the boys room first and I'm not sure which way I will go after that. It's stitched on 18ct white Aida and the finished stitched size is 119cm x 165cm. The hardest thing to deal with is all the fabric when I'm working on it. 

Our House

I completed 3 rows of page 3 on my HAED Carnival Moon by Aimee Stewart. Page 4 is the one I will be submitting for the HAED FB Parking Challenge #3.

Sorry it's a bit dark, the colours are closer to the top pic in reality 

And for any Sydey siders I have discovered a shop called  "Achieve Australia" and it's a secondhand craft store with a difference. It is run by volunteers and all the items are donated and all the profits go to people living with disabilities. It is such an awesome shop.  Some are obviously from deceased estates where the next of kin did not have any interest in nanna's and great nanna's craft projects. There were sewing patterns from 1920!!! 

But this is what I encountered when I first walked in - rolls of cross stitch fabric starting at $1 a metre. See that long lemon one in the background? I snagged that baby - BOOM! 

This one made me laugh - had to take a photo of this - Note the "For Women Only" on the front. LOL!

And for those of us that need a bit of a kick start, here are some cross stitches and kits that were in different progress stages that you can buy and finish. 

I bought a few kits for friends that were brand new and unopened? Who are these people that get kits and don't open them to play with at least. But my bonza score was this beautiful brand new (and yes unopened!!) Maia kit - Misaki which retails for about $80AUD for $18.  

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit.  I will be back soon with the next Gifted Gorgeousness SAL post for the 15th of August...yeah right I hear you say LOL! 

Take care and keep being your beautiful selves. 

P.S. Don't forget about the Tilton Crafts Sale. The owner Shelley is having a hard time at the moment with medical issues and it will really help her out.

Love ya stunners 

xoxo Alicia

The Organised Princess

Hi Stunners!!!

I have been a busy little Crafty Princess Beaver over the last 2 months. Yes with stitching but more with organising my stitching. I have updated my Wip's menu (see the tabs above) and added my Supersized Babies. So now you and I can see at a glance how I'm working through my myriad of wip's. I have made a promise to myself and the Craft Gods that I won't deviate from this rotation. So these are the only wips I'm allowed to work on. 

From the advice of my good friend Sharine I tried to whittle it down and have focus projects. So I have developed a rotation that ensures that a few of them are deemed as such and are worked on more often than the others. Plus I have engineered the rotation so that finishes are the goal. It's too long and boring to explain the plan, you're just going to have to trust me on this....please please xo

Anyway to the stitching!!!  I managed quite a few page finishes over the last couple of months.

Lady Hatter - Sandra Vargas - Gecko Rouge.  

This was one of the projects that has been culled from the current rotation. But don't worry once I finish King Tut and Frank the Frog she will be back in play. Those 2 charts are the SAL charts and Frank is only 4 partial pages and Tut is 6 even smaller partial pages. 

Pages 6 & 7 Completed

So Many Books So Little Time - Randal Spangler - HAED

This is another one that got the chop. I had 8 HAED Bap's on the go and I had to halve this number to be reasonable. It killed me to do it but he'll be back one day!!

Page 1 completed

Nancy Goodaim _ Space Ranger - Aly Fell - Eclectic Blokes Design

I finished off page 2 and managed to complete the whole of page 3. Not a great deal of confetti so that was a nice change. 

Pages 1,2 and 3 completed

Carnival Moon - Aimee Stewart - HAED

This is one of my focus pieces and I'm aiming for the row finish by the end of the year (at least anyway) I love the way this is stitching up. The next page is full of blocks of colour so should be a bit quicker than all that confetti in the flowers on the first 2 pages.

Page 1 and 2 completed

Bookshelf - Colin Thompson - Gecko Rouge

I have joined the Gecko Rouge Gold Club plus and this was my Gold Kit choice. As soon as it arrived, wild tornado's and half naked firemen could not hold me back from starting this. It's massive!! The below wip pic is Page 1 completed so you can see how much I have to go. But it's so cool, if you look closely amongst the shelves you find some quirky characters and weird little objects or ordinary objects doing strange things. It's alot of fun. 

Page 1 Completed

I have added 3 new starts to my rotation. They are all tribute charts so I can be forgiven. My world fell apart at the news of David Bowie and Alan Rickman's death. I have loved Bowie since forever and I only got a chance to see him once in concert. So I was devastated. 

This chart was on my Gecko Roughe WL and I bought it on the day of his death. (*Sob*)  It arrived today so I will be making an immediate start. R.I.P Bowie. Forever a legend and forever missed!! The artist is Sara Bowersock.

David Bowie

Another tribute chart to Bowie, it's about one of my favourite movies of all time "Labyrinth" It's another Gecko Rouge and I already had it in my stash including the hand dyed fabric I had bought for it, so what better time than to bring it out. I'm going to watch Labyrinth over and over whilst stitching this one.  It's only Forever by Medusa Dollmaker

It's Only Forever

And for the late great Alan Rickman a tribute to him by Daniel Kordek and charted by Shelley Lee of Tilton Crafts. Snape! I've ordered the fabric from the lovely boys at Sew it All and as soon as I gather the floss I will be inserting this awesome chart into my rotation. 

Snape 

Thank you for all your lovely comments and encouragement on my previous post. I will be posting at least twice a month. Once midway on the 15th for the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching and once at the end with the monthly progress. 

I know this will be a good year for me stitching wise as it's the first time I'm actually organised. I've even started a journal to record hours worked on each chart, recorded goals that are achievable unlike all those previous years and most importantly - CLEANED the CRAFT ROOM!!!!! Oh man that was a week long job.

So thank you for joining me in this journey stunners. I promise there will be more to see this year.

Love you lots and thanks for making my life the rainbow filled playground that it is. 

I'm going to spend the next day reading blogs and replying to all my emails. And then it's down to some serious DVD watching and hard core
stitching!!

Take care stunners and I hope life is magical and enchanting for you all!


xoxo Alicia

P.S. Just noticed that this is my 69th post which is also the age both David Bowie and Alan Rickman were at their time of passing. 

TOTA YOTA GG SAL #6

How's that for a total Acronym title! 

Hi Stunners!!! I'm so sorry for the hiatus, but as I was sooo late with my May updates that it was almost June so I decided to wait for the June posting.

And now I'm late with the June one *sigh*

But I got a lot of stitching done so that's good, right? 

First up my YOTA pieces 

YOTA

TOTA - still haven't quite managed that blasted page finish...I'm determined to have it done by July as I really really want to finish this one this year. Just 2 partial pages after this. Thank the gods!

Before

 

PRINCE RUPERT of  RUPPITSWOOD

Gecko Rouge SAL 2015

 

 





Before



After

I also love how Gecko Rouge are now offering needleminders that match the kit. It's great to have that inspiration right on the fabric as you stitch. Look at that little cute Froggie Prince

GIFTED GORGEOUSNESS SAL

Rose Zircon was chosen for both May and June's GG SAL. I would dearly love to get at least the top row completed by the end of the year. I'm really not enjoying this one at all, which is why it's taking so long to get any progress.

I'm glad it's a gift for my sister because once it's finished I never want to see her again. I know that sounds harsh but there are alot of problems with it.

The Mystic chart symbols are so hard to follow on this. I've never liked the use of letters as symbols on cross stitch charts. MS use all 26 letters in capitals and then another 26 in lower case and if the chart calls for more than 52 colours, then they use symbols. I'm sure there are stitchers that don't mind or prefer this but I'm not one of them. I kept mistaking the "c" for  "e" so many times ergggh! 

Plus the fabric is an ice dye hand dye and on the 20ct it has swelled the fabric so much that it's almost like working on a 25ct using 2 threads over 1, so it's very tight and makes the confetti so much harder to handle. I was thinking of re-starting on another fabby but I just couldn't bring myself to do Page 1 again. So I will struggle through. My sister saw the chart and the fabric that was dyed specifically for this chart and loved it so I don't have the heart to scrap it. 

Before

I don't know what's going on with me and page finishes lately...just can't quite get there LOL!

And speaking of Gifted Gorgeousness...my beautiful friend Helvi, RAK'd this stunning chart to me! It's a whopping 999 x 775. It's going to look breathtaking stitched with all that detail coming through. Thank you so much Helvi, you're so generous honey. 

Supersized - Past Present Future - Aimee Stewart

That's all for now stunners. My next post I have at least 3 page finishes on my wips...possibly even 4 with any luck and no distractions! Ha ha not likely. 

I've been reading blogs for the last 2 days and I've almost caught up. I still have a few to go though. There has been some amazing stitching going on out there stunners. 

I will post again next week or so. 

Take care lovely stunners - I'll leave you with the meme that was sent to me and made me smile! 

xxoxx Alicia