February YOTA

Hi Stunners!

 

Welcome to my new followers, thank you for joining me and all my guest stars on this stitching adventure. Thank you to everyone that left a comment on my last post. I love to reply to you personally but a lot of them were no-reply blogger ones. So thank you to all of you. You guys make me laugh and smile out loud!

 

Now for February YOTA.

I can't believe we are already in February, wasn't it New Years Eve last night????

 

 

My YOTA project is Guardian Angel and I'm hoping to finish the top row of pages by the years end. I have 3 completed and 3 to go.



 

I started stitching the background and I wanted to finish his wing, but I just couldn't wait so I just started working on the Angel. His arm looks a little bit too pink though but I'm sure it will blend in more when I have stitched his cloak around it. Thank you to Pull the Other Thread for organising YOTA, my Angel and I are very grateful as I think it will really help with this project. You're a star! For more info on YOTA just click on the Guardian Angel picture on the left hand side.

 

I also wanted to share with you this beautiful dreamcatcher that my bff gave me for Christmas. I finally got around to hanging it up and it's just gorgeous. She's the first thing I see when I wake up, so I always wake up happy.

 

 

Isn't she beautiful??? Do you recognise who the artist is? I'm pretty sure HAED fans will know.

I'm on holidays at the moment and as soon as I get off the computer and finish packing I'll be in the car and heading to Fingal Bay in Port Stephens. A week on my own on a beach, woo hoo!!!  I'm taking a few cross stitches, audio books and plan to relax and stitch on the beach between, swims and quaffing down seafood.

Take care my beautiful and amazing crafty friends. I'll be back for the Wipocalypse.

xoxo Alicia

 

 





 



Happy Halloween!

Hi Stunners!!!

Happy Halloween to you all. I hope you have a ghoully, ghostly and witchy time! I'm stuck at work tonight dressed as Morticia with a Princess twist (namely pink bling shoes, and metallic pink eyelashes - Hee hee!) I just couldn't do the full black.

Thank you to everyone that left a comment on my previous post. I wanted to reply to you all but when I sat down at the computer to send reply emails they were all gone! Not sure what happened there. I just wanted to let you all know that I appreciated all of your kind, funny and awesome comments. You guys so rock! 

Ok onward to the stitching!

Here is how I have been spending the latter half of October. I needed to complete page 3 of Guardian Angel for a HAED yearly goal. And I did it!!! Woo hoo. I'm using bling thread Petite Treasure Braid PB23 in lieu of DMC B5200 on the Angels wings to give them a little bit of heavenly sparkles... 

Before

After

I'm not sure why the pic came out so shiny but I kinda like it. I can't wait to work on page 4 as the Angel himself makes an appearance. 

And here is my SAL piece that Kim and I are completing, the beautiful Rose Cerise by Karen Middleton (HAED). Kim is starting from the top left and I'm coming from the other end. 

Before

After

The before pic was taken with my old camera that's why there is such a marked difference between the two, and what a difference 10 pixels make!  I love working on Rose! I'm stitching her using Victoria Clayton's HDF thread. Stitching with silk thread is absolutely brilliant. It just glides through, no thread heaven required and the stitches just sit so neatly on top of each other. 




This week I will be working on the freebie SAL piece from HAED. I will get that damn first never ending page finished if it's the last thing I do!!!!!

Oooh I can feel my sugar crash about to kick in. I guess I had better go and refuel on some Halloween candy...Maybe it will also help me to stitch faster! Anythings worth a try! 

Take care my beautiful, supportive and stunning followers and guest stars! Have fun in everything you do.

See you soon
Alicia xoxo 

Photo montage time!

Hello stunning followers and guests!

It's been a month since my last post but I was out there doing things so I would have something to blog about!

WELCOME!

Welcome to my newest followers Erla, Erin, Lucy, Lori, Keeble and Karen. How cool they came in matching pairs of E's, L's and K's. Thank you for the interest. You guys are my inspiration and my muse - I sew for you! (for the Aussie's out there that last is sung to the tune of Johnny Farnham's "I burn for you"). LOL!

A friend in need!

I have an amazing friend Janine who has been a cross stitcher for a long time. However thanx to Mrs. Dibble and I we have helped to ignite her stitching fire. Janine bought a BAP from Golden Kite of an a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting "Jeunes filles au piano". Which I believe means "Young girls at the piano." Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Anyhoo this picture used to be on Janine's piano teachers piano from when she was une jeune fille herself. She has always loved the pic and it obviously has sentimental value.

But I digress as usual...If anyone has ever worked on a Golden Kite chart it has blended threads as well as solid colours. Which means that you use one strand of 2 different colours at a time for at least half the chart. The symbol count can go up to 180 or more. Pheewww.

Janine was becoming a little discouraged with the lack of progress so I encouraged (also read threatened) her to start a blog to visually document the progress. It helps to step back and compare (as you all know) the difference in the before and after. So she has done just that, however she only has 2 followers and is feeling a little unloved, and as I thought you guys are awesome in your support of me I was wondering if you had a spare moment to pop over to her blog and just give her a little encouragement. Her blog which she updated this morning is http://aunty-nene.blogspot.com/. I greatly and fully appreciate it if you get a chance to pop over and visit her. She's a great girl and an avid animal lover as you'll see with her 2 babies on her blog.

OK back to me!!!!

I have put together a photo montage to show you rather than just waffle on in narrative about my cross stitch endeavours. (Since I appear to have waffled quite a bit so far!) I've decided to post before and after shots so that you, and I for that matter can actually see if I've been productive...or not!

Enjoy!

Guardian Angel - L A Williams - Heaven and Earth Designs

                       

QS Fragile Heart - Hannah Lynn - HAED SAL

Spring to Life - Hannah Lynn - HAED

New Starts!

Faces of Faery 164 - Jasmine Becket- Griffith - HAED

She is my free chart that Michele Sayetta kindly sent to me for participating in the reward program for HAED and completing FOF88.

I couldn't resist starting her and I've named the turtle BOB in honour of Thea's (Gizzimomo's) husband who calls them all BOB, which I think is so cute.

My faery is being worked on 25ct Opalescent white lugana 2 over 1.

I'm giving 2 over 1 on 25ct another go as I will not accept defeat. Somehow it's really nice to work on this time. I think my tension must have loosened or something. I thank my Guardian Angel for this. Ever since he has let himself be known to me I've become alot more relaxed in life. And this new me can't be attributed to extra doses of Chardonnay either. So it MUST be his influence LOL!

Froth and Bubble - Long Dog Sampler

Mrs. Dibble strikes again! She has been infatuated with samplers lately and of course it peaked my interest when I saw one of her finished works. So of COURSE I had to go and get one too...I'm so immature! or just easily influenced...maybe both.

The poem will read -

Question not, but live and labour,

Till yon goal be won,

Helping every feeble neighbour

Seeking help from none,

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another's trouble,

Courage in your own

Aww it's so sweet. In comes in 2 seperate charts which I thought was weird as it wouldn't make sense without the 2 verses together. Well anyway I bought them both. But you already knew that...hee hee!

A few firsts for me as it's my first sampler, first time working on 32ct linen and first time using 2 strands over 2. So a bit of new ground for this Princess.

The fabric is Summer Khaki which I bought from the lovely boys at Sewitall. He was so cute trying to describe the colour over the phone and he was asking me if I knew the colour of specific leaves on specific plants....ahhh no Pete but if you were to describe the colours of labels on South Australian wine bottles then I would have known exactly what colour you were talking about!!!

New Stash and stuff!

Went a bit crazy on the Nordic Needle catalogue so bought a bit of stuff. Please note though that the new charts are teeny tiny compared to the charts I normally buy, so it really doesn't count - much!

Sampler - Alessandro Adelaide

Needle threader

Beautiful butterfly needle and scissors holder

Fiber Hider

Awesome find - it's for when you only have that one or two stitches left to go on that colour and you're thread is stretched to the limit...so you just do the stitches then leave the tail at the back. Using this lil beauty you can then grab the tail and thread under the stitches. So no need to re thread a new strand for just one or two stitches....AWWWESOOOMMMMME!!

Fractal Bookmarks

These are only bookmarks and I only intend on doing one or two...ok maybe three at the most!

And the fav purchase is the finishing card. To record all the details of your finished project. They come in packs of 40...so only got just the one pack for now...although will eventually need to purchase 5 to record all the stash I have...you know when I finish them all. YAY!

WOW that was a long post...maybe I shouldn't leave it so long between in the future. If I still have your attention...

Take care my beautiful friends, be safe, be happy and be yourself!

For those living in the Commonwealth have a great long weekend, good time to get some extra stitchy time in.

Love you xox

Alicia



Confessions, Progress, New Car and a Naked Butler!

Hi Stunners

I guess I will start with the naked butler and my new car!

But firstly a big welcome to some new followers - Caitlin, Tammy, Cat and Scully. Thanx for the followship, LOL!

NEW CAR and BUTLER IN THE BUFF

This is Pete from "Butlers in the Buff" looking very buff indeed and posing with my new car.  I was at my Bff's handbag party that she was hosting. As an added benefit she hired young Pete to serve us drinks, food and anything else we needed (within reason). So I asked him to pose with my car as I am so in love with it. In fact he was the first male to get into the backseat of my car. Now don't get any ideas I was driving him up to the local bottlo, he was such a good sport that he went dressed or undressed as you see him below with butt hanging out in all his glory!  The man has no shame. I did feel sorry for the old bloke standing behind him in line at the counter. Poor bugger didn't know where to look. All of a sudden the ceiling held so much appeal for  him. LOL! Didn't help matters when I gave Pete a little smack on his butt cheek to make the old bloke look down. Oh naughty Princess, but it was so funny!



Pete from Butlers in the Buff!

That's me hanging onto him - hee hee

 

Spring to Life



Now the reason I posted this pic is to show you how cross stitching influences almost every facet of my life.  I specifically chose the Mazda 3 as it was the only manufacturer that offered a car with a colour close to DMC 995.  It's the main background colour for Spring to Life. I loved this colour so much whilst using it to stitch and my eye always fell on it when I opened my bobbin box...so it was the obvious choice for my car. My dad thinks it's a little too bright but hey I stand out amongst all the silvers, blacks and reds that everyone seems to be driving!

 Luckily I love the Mazda 3, it's so smooth to drive and it just slides into gear. I love driving manuals and simply can't drive automatics I get bored. Mazda 3 has 6 speeds not including reverse...OMG I'm in heaven! See we were meant to be. The universe answered my prayers with an awesome colour that I love on an awesome vehicle. Happy Princess!

PROGRESS

I've worked hard on Spring to Life this week even taking her to work. Putting stitches into her every chance I got and I still haven't finished page 2. She's moving so slowly!!! Unfortunately she is going to be put on hiatus until the end of June. I really need to get working on Faces of Faery 88. As I want to take her to the Craft and Quilt show being held in Darling Harbour in Sydney on 23rd June.  I promised to show the boys from the sewitall store my finished HAED. Both Guardian and FOF88 are being worked on fabric I bought from them. So....those 2 will be my focus pieces from now till the show!

Progress on Guardian Angel is much faster. I'm almost finished page 1 and hope to get page 2 completed by the show date. Fingers crossed.

It looks better from far away, close up it's just a blob of greys and whites. It's so beautiful to stitch. I'm really loving the 28ct fabby using 1 over 1 the stitches just look so much neater than when using 2 strands. Well for me anyhow.

Here is FOF88 where I have left it and hopefully I will complete it by 23rd June. If I can manage to finish off these 3 pages in a week, then down to a page a week I will get it done. It will be my first HAED finish too if I manage it...very exciting!

CONFESSIONS!

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't purchase anymore charts about 2 blogs ago...wellllll HAED had a sale, it was only 25% so I told myself - no - you have too many, and was so good throughout the sale. Until the last day that is. It went down to 50% off and I have never seen them drop it that low. So I had to buy some of my BAP's in my WL as they were only $9 and with the US dollar dropping it was even less in Aussie dollars. Now I say to you who could blame me under these circumstances so I bought 9 more charts. 5 BAPs, 3 medium sized charts and 1 storykeep! So not so bad right??







BAP's above are :>

Dahlig's - Envy and Wrath

Spanglers - Fireside Fairytales

Christensen's - Superstitions and The Chess Match

Medium charts below are :>

Kimpel's - Purple Orchid

Jelina's - Corina

Nielsen's - SHH Now

and finally

Thomas' - SK Winter Wings

Oh God help me it just looked so bad as I scrolled down my post. Well my guardian angel certainly has his work cut out for him if he thinks I'm going to live to see all these charts finished. Bless him!

I did a tally on the insistence of Aunty Nene and Mrs.D so here is my final confession:

Stash of a lunatic Crafty Princess!
WIP's  - 18

Faces of Faery and small charts - 19

HAED Med charts - 20

HAED BAP charts - 34 (Holy Sh*t)

HAED Quickstitches - 27

Mystic Stitches (Med-BAP's) - 19

Other (inc Miribilia's, Gold dimension kits) - 27

Scarlet Quince BAP -  1

Golden Kite BAP - 3

A grand total of 168 Cross stitches - YIKES

Good news though the last sale completely emptied out my WL on HAED and I refuse to buy anymore charts - oh except for a baby sampler for Blair from work, but that's it!!!

Have a great week gorgeous people. I have checked your blogs and loving the work of everyone. Congratulations sisters and brothers of the creative thread.

 xo Alicia

HUGE HUGE CONFESSION!

OMG!!!! It's not even 24 hours since I posted this blog and already I have blown my promise to myself. It's not my fault though. I've always wanted a "GAIA" chart and never really liked any of the charts with this theme. Closest I liked was Jo Walls "presence of Gaia" or something like that but the flowers all over her head reminded me of those old fashioned swimming hats the elderly ladies wore to the pool and the beach. Then Winkler had to release this beautiful pic recently and I stuck it in my WL with no intention of buying it (well yet anyway).

So trawling through the HAED BB I found a note from Michele Sayetta stating don't forget to check the announcements so I did and she advised to type in a code at checkout for a nice surprise. Curiosity got the better of me, must have been a feline in my past life...so I needed a chart to chuck into the cart just to see what the surprise was, not to buy. So anyway used Winklers Gaia and the surprise was so so so good I found myself clicking on "confirm wahoo" button and now I'm the proud owner of another chart.

So editing my above tally I have 170 charts, adding this med HAED chart of Gaia and the birth sampler for Blair's spawn.

It's all good - I've always loved a challenge - I intend to live well into my hundreds and now I will have something to do to pass the time! YAY!

So here she is the earth mother who broke my will.

*SIGH*

See you next week my stunning followers and guests!

xo Alicia