And the results are in...Pic heavy post stunnners!!

 Hi STUNNERS!!!

Well here it is finally the results of my January Extravaganza of no work all cross stitching and gyming.

Firstly though welcome to my lastest victims, I mean followers Tazzy, Chris, qtknits and Simona. Enjoy stunners and thank you for taking an interest in my stitching!

Well as usual life plays a hand in every plan no matter how well laid and the extravaganza technically didn't commence until the 12th January and finished on 13th February.  As for the gym, well that hardly got off the ground at all. So no more on that story!

So without further ado here are the before and after pics of all the wips on the stitching schedule. 

Passione Ricamo Mystery Faery SAL

Rose Cerise - (the hand dyed threads only arrived in the last week so this is only 4 hours worth of progress)

Golden Wood

QS Theatre of the Absurd Haed Freebie SAL 2013

QS Fragile Heart HAED Freebie SAL 2011

Managed to finish the first 3 pages, so only the bottom row to go! YAY!

And now for the BAPS!!


Vanity

 Faery 2

Faery Ball

Where is my Valentine?

A Coign Of Vantage (Golden Kite)

And I FINISHED QS Spring to Life!!!!

And what is a post from the Crafty Princess without a bit o stash enhancement pics...

Stash

Heaven and Earth Designs

Spider Queen

I loved her so much that I was in Spotlight the day after I bought her, buying all the supplies. When I got home I wound all the threads on bobbins, quaffed a glass of chardonnay and started her. I'll post a pic when I complete the first page! She's so much fun to stitch so far.

Tuscan Serenade

                         Tilton Crafts

Promise to Heart

Buttercup

So there you go stunners, a few page finishes and one complete finish. I'd thought I would get more done but I found there were days in there where I just didn't want to stitch. And instead of making it a chore and forcing myself I went and played games on the Xbox360.  

I've got a few new starts that I've commenced since the end of the extravaganza but I don't want to overload you all with wip's so until next time.

Take care stunners and find happiness in every minute of every day no matter where you are, and no matter what you're doing!!!!

Love 

Alicia xoxo

January Extravaganza aka No work and all Stitching!

Hi Stunners!

I know this is weird for me posting so soon after the last post but I found my SD card and as promised just sharing the latest Wip pics before I start my January extravaganza "No work and all Stitching!"

Below is the stitching schedule I have devised to work my way through my 32 Wip rotation. I'm trying to focus on 4 HAED BAPS at a time as I have now upped my stash of them to 60 so trying to get a giddy up on those babies.

Basically to keep me a bit disciplined and on track each element of the schedule must be completed before it starts all over again for 6 lots of the schedule. After 6 turns the rotation piece will change. I think 30 hours for every rotation wip should be sufficient.

STITCHING SCHEDULE

1)  2 rows on Vanity

2)  525 stitches on Faery 2

3)  450 stitches on Faery Ball

4)  1 row of 3 pages on Where is my Valentine?

5)  370 stitches or 2 rows on Fragile Heart

6)  2 hours QS Salvatore (new start only when QS Spring to   life is  finished)

7)  2 hours on Golden Wood

8)  4 hours on Passione Ricamo Mystery SAL

9)  500 stitches of the black border on Kuik Montage

10) 4 hours on Rose Cerise SAL with Kim

11) 200 stitches on Spring to Life

12) 5 hours on current Rotation piece

(additionally I will complete one 10x10 grid on QS Theatre of the Absurd HAED freebie SAL daily)

The first chart for the rotation piece is the Golden Kite chart "A Coign of Vantage".

I know this sounds like a lot but trust me I have used a variation of it recently and it's kinda cool as it doesn't give me a chance to get bored of a chart before I have to move on, and then it's a welcome sight when it's time again.

So here is where each Wip has progressed to as of January 8th 2013

Vanity  

Faery 2

Faery Ball

Where is my Valentine?

QS Fragile Heart

Golden Wood

Passione Ricamo Fairy Mystery SAL

Kuik Montage (new start)

Rose Cerise - still havent received silk threads from HDF yet for Rose. Fingers crossed they arrive during the extravaganza.

Spring to Life 

A Coign of Vantage

So these are the wips that will be worked on during the extravaganza.

By the way if you read my last post you may recall me mention something about a stash embargo well....BAZINGA!

Just a teeny bit more STASH

HAED just released a new one - Magic Spells and Owls by Annya Kai (damn that sale) and I've been looking for a Halloween one to go with Pumpkin Patch. Aww so cute..

And then just to add a little more lunacy to my cross stitching life I also purchased the HAED version of Tadema's - A Coign of Vantage. So this way I can compare the actual stitched difference between A HAED chart using just solid DMC threads and Golden Kite's version using blended DMC threads...crazy right??? Laughing at myself right now.

And thennnnnn.......

Kim mentioned Tilton crafts to me and I thought uh huh another website - let it go Princess you have enough at the moment. That restraint lasted a whole 2.5 seconds and once I hit the site..hee hee what's 3 more, right stunners you understand.

An Evening of Romance

Isn't this beautiful. It's just so full of colour and there's just so much going on. Not alot of background so bonus right?? I'll be adding this one to my rotation.

The Edge of Forever

I want to live here in forever forever land. I love the little creature in the bottom left corner with the eye patch.

Rainfall

I loved the mystery of rainfall. What has she done?? I think its an act of passion and she is trying to cleanse herself in the rain. Or at least clean her dagger. While the clouds are dark and thunderous there is alot of colour in them, as well as in the riverbank. So beautiful.

Okay stash embargo now back on!!

Hey stop that grinning and shaking of your head. I so mean it this time...truly...really...oh whatever!

My leave finishes on February 7th so I won't blog until then, I want to show you all my progress in its entirety. But don't worry I will take a break and catch up on all your blogs when I can. I apologise in advance if I miss a few though.

Take care my beautiful and stunning followers and guest stars. Hopefully I will be 10 kilos lighter and well progressed on my wips by my next post.

Love you always,

xoxo Alicia

                                                   

Happy New Year and a Happy New Stash!!

Hi Stunners!!!

We made it through the apocalypse! Yes! Thank goodness I have so much work to do craft wise.

Welcome to my 2 newest followers - Gwen from Spices of your Life and MagpieShaz...Shazzie...Shaz - love the names girls! Welcome and I hope you enjoy it here with the rest of the followship.  

Ok so a New Year and I've had no real epiphanies (yet) but I have made one resolution. 

I vow that I will no longer be at the mercy of other peoples moods.  I'm a happy and bubbly person and at times people feel they need to dim my shine because they are miserable. But I am a child of the light and I would rather people come and share that light rather than bring me down into their darkness. Like a plant I always gravitate to all things sunny, bright, shiny, and of course ★blingy★  

So that's it for resolutions!


I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year and are geared up for another amazing year of craftiness and stitching. 

A big thank you to Ewa from Cross stitch and other musings for sending me a beautiful skein of variegated thread. It's lovely and perfect as I received an embroidery book for Chrissy and I can't wait to try out some of the stitches so thank you thank you stunning Ewa!

I'm working on getting pics together for my year in progress but as I can't find my SD card it may be a bit delayed. But tomorrow is cleaning day so hopefully it will turn up.

But here is the Xmas and New Year stash that I bought. I no longer have any charts in any of my Wish Lists, woo hoo!!!

GOLDEN KITE STASH

GK has been popping up on a few blogs recently so I thought I would revisit. Good move Princess as there was a sale and it pretty much meant that if I bought 3 charts one would ultimately be free!!! So what's a girl to do?? Yeah baby~~~

I bought 2 charts by the artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Among the Ruins

The Coliseum

and

 Georges Jules Victor Clairin's

The Arrival of the Guests, Venice

I will have to start Arrival of the Guests soon as this is the hugest cross stitch I own to date. It has a whopping 189 pages, 200 colours, of which 117 are blended colours. CHALLENGE ON!!! This will probably take 10 years to complete so I think it might be wise to get a start on it, like now!

I will be stitching all the GK's on either 18 ct or 20 ct as any higher and the blending thread effect wahoo gets lost and anything lower makes the finishes too massive. So I found a happy medium. 

HEAVEN AND EARTH DESIGNS STASH

Healers Touch - Adele Sessler

Rustle of Wings - Jessica Galbreth

Only 49 colours in this beauty so she will be done in silk threads..SWEEEET!

On the Edge of Universe - Jacek Yerka

I'm becoming quite the fan of Mr. Yerka. This is my third chart of his that I've bought. I think this will be done on black evenweave as it's 47 skeins of black...bleuh cough.

Winter Rose - Rachel Anderson

Neptune Siren - Ching-Chou Kuik

See not so bad, it has bumped up my HAED BAP's to a nice rounded 60. So that's nice. But I really want to get a lot of stitching aka finishes done this year so putting an embargo on stash enhancement. I have a whole month off  from work starting from the 6th January. There is only 2 things I have planned for my holidays - Going to the gym and cross stitching

So I'm literally going to stitch my ass off!!! LAUGH. I will spend a bit of time gaming as I got quite a few new ones for Chrissy that I wanna play. But that's it.

Happy stitching everyone! Will get some Wip pics out soon.

Love you stunners xoxo

Alicia

December - My month of SAL's.

Hello stunners!!!

Welcome Rai Rai to my followship. Thank you for joining us on my cross stitch adventures, I hope you find it entertaining and stay for a while!!

Okay down to biz, this post will probably, (okay let's be realist Ms. Crafty Princess) this will be my last post for 2012.

So when you see my first post in 2013, it will mean 2 things:

1) The world didn't have an apocalyptic ending as predicted by the Mayan calendar. YAY!!

2) I made enough progress on my SAL's to show progress pics, Double YAY!!!

I have decided to dedicate the month of December to my SALs.  I truly need to get a massive shove along for my SAL's as I will be starting the HAED freebie SAL on January 1st and I still haven't finished the one from 2011 - Fragile Heart. Also I joined the Passione Ricamo Fairy Mystery one 4 months late and now we have had 2 more pages sent out since and I'm hopelessly behind.

I started a new SAL with the stunning Kim from Scully's Cross Stitching. We are working on Rose Cerise by Karen Middleton charted by Heaven and Earth Designs. Kim has made a start from the top on a lovely pale lilac sparkly fabby and I will attack from the other end. My Rose is being worked on 32ct Seaworld bling (of course) 2 over 2 full crosses. We bought our fabric from those lovely boys at Sew it all. And let me tell you I love the way the fabric feels. This is my first time working on such a high count fabric from them and it's just so billowy and silky. LOVE IT!! (that last bit was sung in a high pitched note)

Peter was a little worried when I told him the fabric I wanted for mine. But in the end he gave in and said that he trusted me.  So a bit of presh there but I think so far so good~

As a treat I splurged and bought silk threads from Victoria Clayton's hand dyed fibres for this one too.  Which is awesome except they haven't arrived as yet....(c'mon Vic it's been 3 weeks!)

But luckily I had some black premium floss so at least I could make a start with that and the sparkly thread.

So here are the before pics for projects for December:

Rose Cerise

She is going to be a big beautiful girl!

Passione Ricamo Fairy Mystery SAL (sigh)

Fragile Heart

I will be ecstatic if I can at least get the first row of pages completed on Fragile. Which is approximately 20 more rows or so.

I will still be around though as I will be stalking/supporting/reading all your blogs but I really want to have something substantial to show you in 3 weeks time on my next post.

SO TO ALL MY AMAZING, AWESOME, AND STUNNING FOLLOWERS AND GUEST STARS - THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS, ADVICE, CHEERS AND BRILLIANT FRIENDSHIP THROUGHOUT THE YEAR/S!!!

YOU COMPLETE ME!!! HEE HEE.

Here are some Christmas funnies so that the last thing I see before you leave my blog is a smile on your face. Have an Awesome, Fantastical and Merry Christmas. Give everyone in your family a kiss from me!

See you next year xoxo Alicia

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.  ~Bernard Manning

 

Note: This applies to heterosexual singles as well - LOL!!

Has yet to happen to me!!!

IHSW - It's all over for the Lovers!!

Hello my stunning stunners!!

Welcome aboard Johanna, Mountain Ash, LesleyAnne Smith and Emma and thank you for joining me and my other followers on this cross stitch adventure. You're just in time to witness a miracle! 2 not 1 but TWO finishes!!!

The star crossed lovers have met their end WooHOO!

QS Lovers

They are my first yearly goal to be completed (and more than likely my last). I still have 2 more finishes and 6 (large charted) pages on Golden Wood to truly realise my cross stitch dreams for 2012.

Sorry the photo is really yucky but I just couldn't get the light right no matter how many location changes I had. So this is the for now photo and I will post a better one in the gallery when I can figure it out!   

And I also completed my first of four charts that I have in the Bothy Threads Gorjuss range.

So here is I found my family in a book.

She is stitched on 14ct Aida from the hand dyed range from the lovely boys at Sew it all. Next will be "Puddles of Love"

As most of you know HAED had a brilliant 50% sale recently. I could have bought a whole load of charts but the ones I picked were just a different variation of charts I already had. So I decided to only get ones that are truly different to what I own.  Weirdly I could only find one.

BOOTSTRAP BETSY - JASMINE BECKET-GRIFFITH

I just loved the bright red parrot and I was curious about how the tatts  would turn out.

I so so so so want to start her but I'm still on a high about my 2 finishes that I kinda want to stick to my rotation and score a few more finishes under my belt. 

I have already planned 6 new starts as my rotation goes. These include QS Salvatore to replace Lovers in the rotation and I will be starting a SAL with the very stunning Kim from Scully's cross stitching fame with Rose Cerise in December. Just waiting on fabric and thread to arrive on that baby!

So Betsy is gonna have to wait her turn I'm afraid but she is right up the top of the list!

IHSW

With the advice of the Lovely Nina I started on the Passione Ricamo Fairy Mystery SAL for the IHSW.

It started in July and we get sent a page every month for a year. I joined late and had to catch up on 5 pages. They aren't huge but I have been waiting for ages for the sparkly threads that I ordered to arrive. So I thought I would stitch on what I could which is just the normal threads and some beading. It's my first time beading and I found it really really difficult. If anyone has any tips I would welcome any advice as there is a tonne of it in this chart!!

So I made a start on page 1 and 5.

She is being stitched on 40ct sparkly peachy coloured linen 2 over 2. It's pretty cool not knowing what the final picture looks like - when you receive the email the first page is what the final pic looks like up to that page. So I just close my eyes and keep clicking till I get to the chart so I don't peek at what it looks like so far. I know I'm an idiot. But you were forewarned LOL!!!


Moving on!!

HAED have released the 2013 Freebie SAL. Sign ups are still open and the charts are fabulous! I vowed I wouldn't join in next year as I have alot going already, (Yeah yeah I know you've all heard that from me before --- and guess what you'll probably hear it from me again in the future hee hee) but when I saw them there were actually 3 that I really wanted to do. They changed the rules a bit which I think was a pretty cool change as it gives you more incentive to actually continue the SAL all year.


So my choice was Ciro Marchetti's

QS Theatre of the Absurd

Theatre of the Absurd could actually be the title of my autobiography. That's the stage my life is played out on. Truly!!! LOL. Well it makes sense due to being a lunatic in all facets of life especially cross stitch.



I loved the full version when it was released but decided I had enough Marchetti's in my stash so I didn't get it. But I couldn't pass this one up. Isn't it just dreamy, I love how the purples and gold look together. Also the tally as of this date is only 19 stitchers signed up for it with a whopping 106 doing Spanglers Literate Dragon. So I had to go for the underdog!

My second choice was Mystic Garden (another Marchetti).

The full version is actually called "Peacocks Garden"

Although the Peacock's are lovely it was really the white tigers that I adored in this chart. So it was serendipity that HAED released the QS with only the tigers...OMG the universe is friendly!

Anyhoo I already have "Peacocks Lagoon" in my stash which is very similar and the Peacocks are nicer in this one. So it was completely win win for me. I plan on keeping up with this SAL so I will be sent the rest of the charts in the end.

Man that was a real plug for Ciro Marchetti huh? Well he deserves it for producing such beautiful art!

That's all stunners. Talk soon and may your world be filled with sunshine and rainbows..now I'm going to check out every one's progress on IHSW mwah mwah!

xoxo Alicia