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

Gifted Gorgeousness - July

Hi Stunners!

Yep I'm late again. Apologies.

I've have spent the last week mourning the death of Chester Bennington and I was so depressed that even stitching couldn't get me out of my grief. Linkin Park was my all time favourite band and I was gearing up to go and see them when they came down under for their latest album tour. I love Chester, and his brave lyrics that ring so close to my own experiences. I hope he is resting easy now and that his demons are vanquished. 

It probably didn't help that I was working on my gift wip of Prince, which just magnified my sorrow.

But I am The Crafty Princess and the show must go on! So here is where I got up to with my new start of Prince - The Legend, which I am stitching for my best friend Lori. 

I've been watching "Grimm" whilst stitching this and I always try and match my minders to the chart I'm working on and the shows I watch. The Minion was included simply cos he's Purple and sparkly, just like Prince. 

He is stitching up really quickly, this was a weeks worth of stitching.

Ready for some birthday stash? Witness the monumentous generosity of my beautiful crafty friends.

Sharine spoiled me with Steampunk Poison Ivy and Batgirl full kit by Charting Creations, Sparkly Unicorn Poo and a whole load of handmade bits from her kids. I think that drawing is a Tiara, but Sharine said Hannah's drawings are open to interpretation ha ha. 

Also from Charting Creations "Miss Poppy" a gift from the owner Nikki. 

"Colombes" from Angie P

"Peacock" from Jayne.

"Fireside Fairytales" and "Geisha" from Helvi

And Bat Tea from Cindy

And with the Gift Voucher from Kim H and Nina I bought 2 long dog samplers - Death by Cross stitch (yep I caved) and Castles in the Air.

So as you can see stunners I will be part of this SAL for the rest of my life. I hope Jo, keeps it going for that long. 

Thank you so much to all my amazing friends for these beautiful and truly generous gifts. And to everyone that wished me a happy birthday. You guys are what sparkles are made of. 

Happy stitching stunners.

xoxo Alicia

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL - June

Hi Stunners!!

Yes I'm still alive. Just a quick GG SAL post. Sorry there won't be any stitching pics as I haven't worked on anything gifted or to gift but I did buy a new chart which I am stitching as a gift. So at least there is another contender for this SAL.

Behold, Prince - The Legend from Tilton Crafts. The chart is no longer available as it was a limited edition. My bff loved, worshiped and adored the Purple icon and was gutted when the sad news of his death (murder!?) was announced. 

I won't be stitching the background, instead I will be using this piece from Sew it All, called Lilac Retro Designer Evenweave blingy fabric.  I think he would be pleased. My beautiful friend who this is a gift for, has not one crafty bone in her body and said she is hoping to get this by Christmas. I just laughed and laughed and laughed at her. Christmas 2017 maybe and that's pushing it. 

That's all for stitching.

I wanted to share this really cool app for those of us that have more than 1 or 2 projects on the go at once, you know us normal stitchers LOL!. It's called "Hours Tracker" and technically it's for employment purposes for wages but it can be adapted.

I have added a few screen shots for you to peruse.  The app is free for up to 3 jobs  (d'oh) but with 56 wips I had to buy the pro edition which allows for unlimited jobs/wips. It only cost 14AUD and is well worth it. 

In the past I have been logging hours worked on each wip manually to get a more accurate time it takes to complete.  With this many wips there are projects that I haven't picked up for 4 years.  So I recorded hours sttiched rather than weeks/months/years and lets face it decades :)) This involved a pretty journal, colourful gel pens and the stopwatch facility on my phone. 

However with this app it's all automatic. I haven't added all 56 wips yet, I'm adding them as I stitch on them. I've only had the app for less than a week.  

List of current jobs

Breakdown of what time was spent on each wip in a specified time period. Can check day, week or month. Not sure about yearly though. 

When you need to stop for food, beverages or changing the DVD you can hold down the Green button and it allows for breaks or just brief pauses and includes them in the calculations at the end of the stitching time. It also has a comment section so you can record how many stitches worked during that time or any other tidbits that keep it all up to date.  I think it's brilliant, though I'm still playing around with it.

For my visual journal of stash(including charts, kits, threads and fabric), kitted, started and finished wips I use the X-stitch app, which I believe a few of you already use so I won't bore you with those details. If you're interested in that someone on floss tube has a post on it that's pretty detailed.

And now for some cuteness.

My bff has adopted a new puppy and she asked me to be God-Dog-Mother to her. Here is my newest love - Lily Rose Marlow. She is 11 weeks old, Brindel Staffie Cross and a bundle of friskiness, energy and a little bit of naughtiness but just absolutely adorable.

That's all my beautiful friends. I'll post at the end of the month with all my May/June wips and I have been hard at work on some pretties. 

Happy stitching and I wish for all the magic in the galaxy to find its way into your lives. 

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

Wipocalypse #8

Hi Stunners!!

I'm BACK! Sorry for the long hiatus, I won't bore you with the details but it was pretty much due to house/dog sitting duties and a fiasco involving a staircase. Anyway I'm back now and the best thing about being holed up with an injury is that there was more time for stitching!

So here is what I have been working on: 

Firstly for my Wipocalypse piece Large Treasure Hunt Bookshelf. I finished page 2 so that's 3 and 3/4 pages done.

My SAL #2 with the magnificent and talented Kim is Magical World by Igor Morski at Tilton Crafts. We will post on the first of every/other month. This is half of page 1 completed and is being worked on 28ct white linen 1 over 1. I can't wait to get across to that magical world!!! 

Another new start is Carnival Moon by the beautiful and very talented Aimee Stewart - HAED. This is a bit of a focus piece because I can't put it down. The colours are amazing to work with and every sttich reveals a bit of detail. It's mad! I love it. I'm stitching on Opal Turquiose Swirl 28ct from those lovely boys at Sew it all and working it 1 over 1. 

My beautiful and generous friends!

I was completely spoilt for my birthday by my awesome and very generous crafty friends. 

Mary Moore gifted me Enchanted and Santa's Workshop from Tilton Crafts!

    

Margaret Hislop gifted me Vintage Toy store also from Tilton

Witchfest another Tilton gem (this one was a gift from the Crafty Princess :>)

 

Nikki Northup RAK'd Awakening from one of my fav artists Enamorte (HAED). Dearest Nikki you know me so well. I love love love this chart!!!! 

Angie, Mark and Charlie RAK'd  Esmerelda from Paine Free Crafts and if that wasn't enough sent me a Gift Voucher for Colour Cascade fabrics 

      

with which I bought the chart "I've been waiting for so long"

Kim Howe sent me a very generous Gift voucher for Colour cascade fabrics which I have ordered the fabric for "I've been waiting for so long" and some thread. New start here I come!!!

And Nina my lovely friend and the beautiful author of Pistellen-Stitching sent me a stunning Pink blingy key ring and bookmark set. And a large block of chocolate which I devoured straight away. Yummy! 

Thank you so much stunners I was so touched and humbled by your thoughtfulness. It totally made my birthday! Thank You Thank You!!

Apologies

I have to apologise to you all for being so behind in catching up with all your blog posts. Due to the injury sustained by falling down said staircase I was forced to languish in my craft room and as the computer room is downstairs I had to use my phone for internet access and I hate reading/commenting on blogs from the phone. It just doesn't do your posts justice. So I will be spending the next few days solely and holy reading and commenting on blogs so I apologise if you get comments from me for posts almost 2 months old. It's okay if you don't reply as I will probably inundate you LOL!!

That's it for now stunners! I hope you have all been well and for my fellow Aussies that the Winter wasn't too harsh for you. 

Take care and be kind to yourselves.

Lots of love and hugs

Alicia xo

New Start Mania!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hi stunners! 

Many apologies for the lateness of this blog and the lack of replies to comments from my previous post. I had computer catastrophes aka computer go BOOM! And even though I'm allowed to cross stitch whilst at work, I'm not allowed to update my blog....Go figure!

However, new computer has been purchased and set up so life is good again for blogging even with having to learn Windows 8 which I don't think is as user friendly as the previous versions. But I digress as usual...

A big welcome to A bit of Thread and Heather Cartwright, and thank you for your followship. I hope you enjoy my lunacy for all things cross stitch!

I have put up a link to Bloglovin as I believe Google reader will become extinct soon or something! So I have transferred all your blogs to bloglovin so I can still keep up with all your amazing work. There are many readers you can use but I just like the one that had "lovin" in it. 

As the title suggests I have spent the last month or so starting quite a few BAP's that I just didn't have the resistance to wait for a finish to get onto them soooo here goes:

Spiders Queen - Little Fairy Art (HAED)

Absolutely love love love working with all the vibrant orange in her hair. As with everything HAED theres about 10 shades of orange so far and it's only the 20th row on the first page! I'm stitching her on 18ct white Aida. So she is going to end up being quite a huge lady.

The photo really doesn't show up how bright the colours are but it's like using the sun for thread...

A Coign of Vantage - Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (HAED)

Heaven and Earth Designs

Golden Kite

This is my comparison project. I'm completing this chart as charted by Golden Kite using blended threads and also by HAED using just solid colours. Both are being stitched on 18ct white Aida. 

The arrival of Guests, Venice - George Jules Victor Clairin (Golden Kite)

This is my biggest project ever! It's 999 x 607 stitches. One row is 21 pages!! I'm working it on Antique White 20ct evenweave 2 over 1, which will make it a whopping 49" x 30". It boasts 200 total colours in which 83 are solid and 117 are blended!! Fabby is from the lovely boys at Sew it all. It's the first time using 20ct and it's quite dreamy to stitch on. 

An Evening of Romance - Robert Finale (Tilton Crafts)

This is my first Tilton Craft Chart and I'm enjoying it so far. It's being stitched on Sky Blue 20ct evenweave 2 over 1 stitches and only uses solid colours.

Vampire Red - Maxine Gadd (Mystic Stitch)

Before

After

This was my very first BAP before I discovered HAED. I bought it as a kit from an online store in Oz. The kit came with 18ct white Aida and so I just used it as I had no idea about fabrics, never even heard of hand dyed evenweave and thought fabric came in either 14 or 18ct!!! I got as far as almost completing 2 rows (8 pages) when I discovered other cross stitch sites and then the stash enhancement and multiple starts began!!! So this project was abandoned for a while and I didn't store it as carefully as I should have and some of the white thread (which was a generic brand of DMC that came with the kit) used on her face became discoloured. 

I suppose I could have cleaned it but I was always unhappy with the coverage of the darker background and in her hair. There was so much white show through. So I decided to do a restart on a higher count. She is now being worked on 22ct white Hardanger and I'm so much happier with the coverage. The detail will really come through now.

I also worked on my current wips as well and managed a page finish. Guardian Angel is now 2 pages down!

QS Theatre of the Absurd also received some attention. I couldn't wait to get to the lovely purples and pinks of the performer so instead of doing the usual organised column by column I decided to just stitch the bits I like. So I just picked a random block of 400 and stitched it. 

As most of you stunning followers are aware, HAED is currnetly having a 45% Mothers Day sale. So of course there is some stash enhancement for the Crafty Princess. Not shocked are you?

QS April Fairy - Hannah Lynn

QS Alice Series - Hannah Lynn

The Butterfly Ball - Aimee Stewart

The Illusionists - Bec Winnel

Baby Grand - Andy Russell

Blue Moon - Andy Russell

The Illusionists and the Andy Russell charts were last minute decisions. I've always loved both these artists and I finally took the plunge and bought them. I couldn't decide between Blue Moon and Baby Grand so - well you know how it goes.  My only wish is that the piano wasn't that drab brown colour but once stitched it may look alot brighter! 

Take care my stunning followers and guest stars to my blog.

I wish you all a very happy month of May!

xoxo Alicia