No Finish...sorry for letting the team down *sigh*

Hello my gorgeous stunners!

Welcome to some new followers, Lince.80, My mother in law from Hell (very catchy title), Marianela and Fani.  Fani it looks like you may be a gorjuss girl fan. I love those charts and have 3 kits in my stash, which I hope to start soon. So I hope this will give you something to keep you interested in my little blog! It's awesome to have you all along for the ride!

Well didn't get the 23rd June deadline met, I'm so sorry everyone I feel like I let you all down especially after all the awesome supportive comments you left for me.  But the lovely boys were so cool that they decided that the next craft show in April will be fine. But they want to see 2 finishes...I was so happy that I bought 5 pieces of hand dyed evenweave from them. Cool not a problem. I have entered the HAED half yearly goal challenge and 2 of them are to complete Faces of Faery 88 and Spring to Life. Easy peasy!! HEE HEE.

Here is the faery:

Sorry for the colour, she looks a bit yellowy but that's just the sunshine distorting the colours. I will get a good shot for the page finish. I only have to do his wing and then only 1 page and a tiny partial page to go. Very excited.

She will become my take to work project as I will be joining in the HAED freebie SAL this week with Fragile Heart. I have to get going on her as she is one my of my goals. 

Craft Show!

Mrs.Dibble, Coral, mum and I went to the Darling Harbour Craft and quilt show on the 23rd. I was so good. I only bought one HAED chart and 2 teeny tiny little Gold Dimensions kits. I just couldn't resist the Marchetti. This will be my next BAP when I finish the 3 I have going in my rotation now! So won't be long stunners!

Oracle of Visions! - Ciro Marchetti

I stayed in Sydney overnight with my mum and we went out and ate Japanese cuisine for a change. Both had a Bento wahoo. It was gorgeous. Back to the hotel for some wine and checking out the goodies we bought at the show. Me being me I started one of the teeny tiny kits. It was a great day..however note - mum snores like a chainsaw after half a bottle of wine. Never sleeping in the same room as that woman again!  

So I have entered the HAED half year goal challenge. If you finish all your goals that you set yourself your name gets entered in a hat and the winner drawn out receives a free chart! The deadline is July 3 so get on that if you are interested. It's posted on the BB under general discussions.

Here is the challenge I have set for myself:

Finishes:

Faces of Faery 88 (progress as above)

Spring to life



Complete one page of :

Page 2 of "Where is my Valentine?"

Page 2 of "Lost in You."

Page 1 of "Release"

Complete page 1, 2 and 3 of:

Guardian Angel

and finally

QS Fragile Heart   - 

I'm working on her this week and as you can see I'm doing all three pages at once using the parking method. Hopefully this will speed things up a bit. Even if I do one line a day I will have it finished well within the half yearly goal time. Plus we received page 4 this week from Fudgey so it's motivated me to light a fire under my bum to get moving on her.

That's it for this week stunners.
I hope you all have an amazing July and keep up the beautiful stitching.

Alicia xo

Here comes the purple dragon!!!

Hey stunning stitchers!

I have stitched my butt off this last 2 weeks trying to get FOF88 finished by the craft show on June23rd. I haven't got as far as I would have liked but at least I've managed to complete the top row. Thankfully this chart only has 2 rows, hee hee! And the bottom row are only partial pages which is her mouth and a lovely mixture of vibrant greens and deep purples of the dragon, so will be really awesome to stitch.

Only a short update this week my lovelies as I have to get off this computer and back to stitching!

But I will be taking a break and sipping some cabernet savignon whilst perusing all your blogs. Take care everyone. And to all of you that are still under British Rule like us Aussies I hope you had an enjoyable and safe Queens Birthday weekend!

Here's my progress xo

Can you see him???

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

A Fatigued Princess!

Hi Stunners!

I'm so sorry for the lack of blog updates but I have been seriously stretched thin over the last 2 or so weeks. I had a lot of overtime shifts over the Easter break, mother's day, as well as her birthday, visits to Nanna, visits from relos overseas and catching up with friends. So sadly the one thing that suffered was my stitching. Big thank you to Manbroider who popped by to check on my welfare. Very sweet of you, sorry to worry you but I'm great just a little weary.

But that is all behind me now so I can concentrate on stitching. Within all this I managed to get 3 new starts in and some work on Spring to Life! I was feeling a little depressed re the lack of progress on her so remembered how Manbroider and other talented stitchers completed just the black outline of Hannah Lynn's work so I decided to do that to get things going!

NEW STARTS

New Start 1 - Guardian Angel

I couldn't let this one wait. It's really lovely to stitch alot of chunks of colour even though it's mainly greys and grey greens at the moment. Hopefully I will get page 1 finished this week. He is being completed on 1 over 1 28ct Opalescent Antique White. The sparklies didn't really show up on the pic even though I took it out in the sun.

New Start 2 - Fractal 45

I purchased this off the Fox Collections website. I always love fractals and when I came across this one I felt it too hard to resist. I had a whole roll of black Aida sitting in my craft box for years and thought I would whip this one out on that one. Not sure it's a good move as it's going to be HUGE when completed, 25 inches x 23.75 (62.5cm x 59.4cm). Check out the pics below. I'm doing this using 3 over 1 on 14ct Black Aida.





OMG so big, oh there are my toes just noticed that! LOL!

New start 3 - Fragile Heart (restart)

I'm having another go at parking. As she has so much chunks of colour it's working really well so far. I just have to try hard to resist continuing down the page with a colour when I hit a large chunk of it. I'm doing the top 3 pages simultaneously so that is the finished width of her. She is being reworked on 22ct black Hardanger 2 over 1. I dyed this myself in my mums washing machine. I was so proud of myself, until dad's bonds singlets came out pink in subsequent washes. He wasn't too mad but has banned me from using their machine for dying fabrics...As an artist himself (oil painter and sketcher) you would think he would understand ones sacrifices for their art, well in his defence he is the father of a lunatic Princess so I have to cut him some slack! 



That's it stunners from me. I promise Aunty Nene that I will post the new charts I bought from the HAED sale on the next post. I'm now off to check out what you all have been up to whilst I've been offline.

Welcome to my new followers thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and follow. It makes it all worth while to have some friends on the journey!

Take care and love lots
xo Alicia



My Guardian Angel or something sinister?

Hey Stunners!

I know it's only been 2 days since my last blog, but I had a weird experience last night and as it had to do with cross stitching I thought I would share.

I went to bed around 3am as I was still stuck in nightshift mode and couldn't sleep. I was working on Spring to Life (finished page 5 - YAY!) prior to this and thinking how slow the progress on her was and started to worry that there is a chance I may not see alot of my projects completed.

Page 5 - done and done with a little start on page 2!

So with this thought I lay my head down to sleep. Seconds later I was being fiercely embraced by an unseen being. It was soothing at first but then it became uncomfortable as I couldn't move and I started to fret, then I felt extremely light like I was being lifted but still held firm.

My first thought (and this is how I am a certifiable lunatic) was OMG I'm dead and now I won't get to finish Faces of Faery 88 by the next craft show to show the blokes from the Sewitall store and they will think I lied to them and Mrs. D has won the Golden Wood cross stitch competition and I won't even get to enjoy the seafood lunch as the loser!

So I struggled against what I thought was the Angel of Death - and then the grip got even tighter if that were at all possible.  Next with no words spoken I felt this serene feeling come over me and I was elated as somehow I knew that I was going to finish all my cross stitches. I believe it was my Guardian Angel reassuring me that he was on the job and not to fear leaving UFO's before my timely end. When I was released there was no waking up period. I was awake still.

Sooooooo I got out of bed and headed to HAED and bought 5 more charts!!!!



Guardian Angel - L.A Williams

OMG!! It was meant to be. I searched on guardian angel and out of the 4 angels that appeared this just struck a massive chord in me. It was perfect and exactly how I envisoned him. A little scary but strong and protective, with massive wings to either shield you or fly you away from harm.  So beautiful. So this was the first chart I bought as a tribute to my angel.

Next was "The dreamer" by Julie Fain. I searched on dream and out of the 100 over charts this one appealed the most. I always wanted one of her charts but could never decide, but after my experience the choice was easy!

I haven't bought a Selina Fenech for a while and I remembered I had purchased a chart from her ages ago called "The guardian" so was going to leave it at that but I've had this chart "Winged things" in my WL for ages so decided to buy it. I liked the dragon and the girl theme and that it seemed like a companion to her so decided to keep with the theme and bought it too. Here also is the chart "Guardian" which was one of my earlier purchases from HAED 3 or so years ago. It would seem I have always had this guardian angel wahoo going on! 



The next 2 charts I bought have storm themes. I love love love storms and have alot of stormy charts. I bought these 2 charts because I have always thought that my last day on earth was going to be a stormy one and I mean in the weather sense. LOL! So I have an affinity with storms!  So in light of the theme I had going on I bought these 2 beauties!

Storm Runes - Nene Thomas

Cello Storm - Jasmine Becket-Griffith

So there you go. Judge for yourself. I either need to be committed or I had a visit from a ethereal being who took the time to reassure me that it was okay to buy more charts as I am going to be around for a while. However I'm not going to push my luck as my angel didn't mention immortality so therefore I won't be buying anymore charts -- for like ages and ages anyway!

Thanx for reading if you still are and haven't unfollowed me or left in that way people do when they come across a loony - you know the slow backing away and trying to maintain eye contact until it's deemed safe to run away! 

Wishing a happy and safe Easter to you and all your loved ones. Eats lots of chocolate and enjoy the break. I will be working most of Easter but I will be taking my cross stitch in with me so all good!!

Take care stunners

Alicia xo

Every Princess loves a sale!

Stitching this week was very slow to say the least. Mostly because of a toothache, apathy and sloth! I managed to get a bit of Spring to life completed thanks to a lovely day spent at Mrs. Dibble's and an overtime nightshift that was quiet and I managed to get a bit in. Of stitching that is, bwah hah hah!

I took this picture in my craft room when the morning sun hit my craft bed and it really brought out the pink in the Fairy forest fabric in the photo. I've only got the flower armband and the rest of her arm to go and it's a page 5 finish.  I want to continue to the final partial page which is page 4 and joins on the left. However, Mrs. Dibble thinks I should complete page 2 next which goes on top so the project will start to look like a block of work rather than a border.

What do you guys think? Mind you page 2 is a full page!

NOW ONTO MY NEW BABIES!!!

Heaven and Earth designs sale ended today.

I bought 11 more charts which also added 10 more years to my life expectancy. YAY! I was so depressed after the Fragile Heart fiasco and then having all sorts of fabric dyeing problems over the week, I decided there was only one thing that was going to lift my spirits - MORE CHARTS!!!!

So I played it fair and bought 2 or 3 of each kind (except for the biggest charts I bought 4 of them as I couldn't decide between the 2 WALL designs so bought them both. Hey I did mention that I am a lunaticlike Princess!)

For smallish charts I bought:

Faces of Faery 14 - JBG



 SK Rose Adagio - Nene Thomas

How cute are the 2 star clips in her hair and those big beautiful sad blue eyes.

I loved this Nene Thomas picture in the full version so was very excited when I came across the SK of it as I have more chance of completing a small chart.



    For quickstitches the winners were:



QS Nina - Hannah Lynn



     

QS Shimmering Night -Ching Chou Kuik



These are 2 of my favourite artists. I always buy a Hannah in every sale and there is always one in my rotation. Actually there's currently 2 in my rotation! Shimmering Nights was released as a fund raiser for the Japan quake relief. And it's very pretty - a mermaid on the moon with pink hair. It's screaming The Crafty Princess.

Medium charts winners :





Wizards Lab - David Penfound

This is my first chart by this artist. So very excited! Plus I decided I need alot more magic in my life. I love all the variety of colours but most of all the open book in the foreground captivated me. I just wanted to read it. So the next best thing was to stitch it. I can't wait to see how Michele charted that particular bit of the chart. 



Forsaken - Adele Lorienne Sessler

Forsaken - I love this chart! It reflected exactly how I was feeling at the time. I have been rather let down by a few friends lately (Not you Mrs. D you're an awesome friend and sister of the thread).  But decided instead of feeling dejected about it I would stitch about it! LOL! Also my first Sessler chart but definitely won't be my last have an eye on "Healing Touch" as well. SIGH

Mystique - Rachel Anderson



How could I not purchase an Anderson chart in a sale. Impossible!

Now for the BAP's!

The first BAP award goes to: -

Winged Companions - Anne Stokes

OMG I so so love dragons.  I like the cutesy Spangler dragons but the real dragons I truly love are the fierce fire-breathing menancing ones like this fine speciemen. To have a dragon companion would be my ultimate dream come true. This is very strange behaviour as usually Dragons and Princesses are foes and not friends.

 

Past Present Future - Aimee Stewart

I fell in awe of this chart when I first saw it. Aimee Stewart is a recent addition to the HAED artists and I am so happy for it. Her art is mysterious, ghostly, evocative and dreamy. I love this picture as I'm going through a life transformation and really getting in touch with what this life thing is truly all about. So this chart is perfect. Only problem is I wanna START IT NOW!!!

Princess of Light - Josephine Wall

I think this one is pretty self explanatory! Princess - Light - Wall - SOLD!

 

Nature's Embrace - J. Wall

This was the other WALL chart that I couldn't decide between Princess of Light. Life's too short - sale ending today - what the hell - buy it now! That's pretty much my thinking behind this one. I've always loved this chart though, I love nature and anything romantic and embracing. It's why I picked "Lost in You" as well by Rachel Marks.

Nothing beats a warm embrace and a sincere kiss!

That's all for this week. I intend to finish page 5 on Spring to life. Will probably make a start on Fragile Heart, but I really need to get stuck into FOF 88 as June is only around the corner and I have yet to complete a page on her, though about 3/4 of the way through page 1 and 2 combined.

Take care everyone especially on the roads. Seems to have been alot of road accidents recently and I want you all to stay safe and injury free so you can keep stitching for a long long long time more.

xoxo Alicia