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

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

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

Wipocalypse #10

Hi Stunners!

This is getting to be a bad habit of mine, being such a bad blogger.  Sorry but it's going to be a little big this post, but I promise it's mostly pics and not a lot of my stuff and nonsense rambling.

I guess first up should be the Wipocalypse wip so here is my progress on Large Treasure Hunt Bookshelf - HAED

Just over half a page progress. I blame the new Jason Statham Needle Minder for not quite getting the page finish. There were way too many ogling stops, but that stern look gets me back on track pretty quickly now.

Monthly SAL with KIM



For My August SAL with Kim, I decided to restart Rose Cerise, the 2 over 2 on 28ct was not working for me. The stitches looked too big and I found it hard doing over 2 on a chart that was not the traditional HAED shape. The counting did my head in and I made a few counting errors as a consequence, which led to...urgh frogging! Now she is being worked 1 over 1 on 28ct Swallow even weave from the lovely boys at Sew it all Australia.



Rose Cerise - August 2014 SAL

For the September SAL we worked on Magical World from Tilton Crafts. I was happy enough with my progress though I would have loved to have achieved a page finish.

My focus wip for August had been "Lost In You". I managed to get a page finish which satisfies one of my Goals for the HAED BB. Only 4 more to go!

There's her thumb in the lower right corner. The next page has alot and I mean alot of white for her hand and lower arm. So it will be time to don those white cotton gloves! 


THANK YOU TO ALL THE BEAUTIFUL EARTHBOUND ANGELS IN MY LIFE.

I'm always humbled by the generosity of all the beautiful crafty people that I am honoured to know. I just want to sing out another thank you to these ladies that gifted me these charts for no occasion. Thank you so much girls I am so grateful and appreciate these lovelies!


A Night of Enchantment from the stunning Downunder Julie



Sharine the gorgeous girl from  Charbella Stitching chose Castle Fest Wendalin Aotenshi


The magnificient lady from Pull the other thread gifted me with the beautiful Peacock my Love


The lovely Helvi chose the gorgeous mystical chart Le Petit



and the fabulous Nguyen of Spices of your of Life sent Wishing on Stars. Which will be my Tilton Crafts new start which Kim has organised in the FB group.



and the naughty little minx also sent me the Lovely Lady Macbeth from Eclectic Blokes Designs.

I want to start them allllll! Do these girls know my taste or what? Thank you so much ladies, you are the stars!

A quick aside, Helvi has recently started "The Key" by Melissa Dawn (HAED) if you get a chance pop over to the site http://firstheavenandearthdesign.blogspot.com and check it out. It's a magnificent chart and Helvi is one of those crazy stitchers that only works one project at a time!!!!! I know right, weird! So Helvi progresses really quickly through her wip and so far it's absolutely beautiful.

On a bit of a sadder note my big sister has been struggling with some womanly issues and has just been advised by her Gyno she will not be able to have her own children. As you can imagine she is devastated. I feel so helpless and so sorry for her.

So I am stitching this chart for Gail (sis) it's called Rose Zircon - October birthstone by Maxine Gadd and the chart is from Mystic Stitch.  And yes as you have probably guessed she's an October baby. The fabric is an ice dye from Colour Cascade fabrics. It's a bit of a lucky dip as you choose up the colours and Tammy dyes it. I think it turned out perfectly for this chart. I chose hot pink, grey, and lilac. I will be stitching all the black background so I think it will really pop on this fabby. Yes? No?

Okay that's all from me stunners. I'm off to start working on Rose Zircon. I'm almost caught up with reading all your blogs, I have about 20 posts to go. So please bear with me. Take care stunners and may only the magical encounter your life.

xoxo Alicia

New Start - Fail!

Hi Stunners!!!!

Welcome Meggie and Shauna Locke to the blogowship of the Crafty Princess and thank you for joining us. 

And to Nina L from Pistellen-Stitching thank you so much for the lovely package I received in the mail. Nina sent me some chocolates from Finland, a bag of Salmiakki (which is a salty liquorice lolly) , and a Star De-Tailor which is awesome as you can use it to grab those lil short tails and finish off the thread and I also use them as needle threaders. I had just snapped my turtle de-tailor as I can be a little heavy handed with those pesky short tails so it was such a lovely gift as it's just what I needed. Thank you Nina that was such an amazing gesture. I can't post pics of the chocies as they were consumed as soon as they came out of the parcel...hee hee!

Star De-Tailor

 

I know I said in my last post that I would be showing off my new starts...well....

New start 1 - Into the Deep Passione Ricamo Mystery SAL 2013 - All kitted up and ready to go. I stitched the first page and was just loving it, until I realised in my excitement to get started I must have turned the square frame  around and started in the wrong corner. So after an hour of frogging I took it off the frame and put it back in it's bag.

New start 2 - Apocalypse Princesses - Paine Free Crafts (oh the irony of that name as it was far from Pain free). I completed about a third of the first page and didn't like the colour I had chosen for the background stitches so I started to frog them (sigh - my unpicker was working overtime) and as the thread was white and I was stitching on white aida - yep you guessed it I frogged the fabric and the thread.....d'OH!!! So mega big hole. Luckily the fabric was large enough to be chopped and still fit the entire project... I took it off the frame and put it away too as I just didn't have the heart to start all over again straight away!

Decided it may be safer to stick with current wip's so I picked the sunniest one I could find to try and cheer myself up and so up first was....

Spiders Queen - Enamorte (HAED)

Before

After 

Page 1 completed on my Beautiful Queen! Yay. I'm stitching her on 18ct White Aida using 2 over 1 full crosses but using 3 strands of DMC for the black in the mask. It makes it really stand out against her hair and looks a little 3D but it's hard to see in the photo. I think I'm going to go down the chart and stitch page 7 next instead of 2 as I can't wait to get my needle into the mask bits. 

And den...

Lost In You - Rachel Marks (HAED)

Before



After



I really missed working on this one. I think I will concentrate on it for a bit longer...well that's today's decision what happens tomorrow will be another tale again! Once again the evidence of the improved quality of the photos with the new camera. Love it!

  

And den...

Purple Orchid - Drazenka Kimpel (retired chart -HAED)

Before

After

I worked on my lovely Orchid as part of the HAED retired chart/artists BB SAL so that's a weeks effort, though I only really got to work on it sporadically over 3 days. I'm slowly buying the thread for this as I stitch page by page as it uses Anchor thread and has 3 and half pages of required colours. So I bought the first lot of purples and couldn't wait to get to the bottom so I started working on her very bodacious purple collar. Ooooohhhhh!

 

 

And den....

 

 



QS Theatre of the Absurd - Ciro Marchetti (HAED) Freebie SAL 2013

Before

After

Page 1 of this chart has been dubbed "the never-ending page" I just can't seem to finish it. I keep plugging away and there's always more to do. So after a week that's where I am.

And den.....

 

 

 

No more and Den!!

And what would a post from me be without some stash enhancements!!!

HAED 50% SALE - STASH ENHANCEMENTS

Mini Eros - Rachael Marks

Nightwing - Renee Biertempfel

Carnival Moon - Aimee Stewart

Inspire - Lisa Steinke

Garlic - Lisa Steinke

  

Next week I'll be working on Guardian Angel as I had another Angel visitation which was really cool. So in honour of him I will stitch the 3rd page. See you soon stunners and have an awesome week!

xoxoxo
Alicia