Transcendence: Seventh Post - Page 22

I finished page 22, and here it is (with the rest of the row):

I need to work on not taking fuzzy pictures.  I think he's looking good.  I'm getting excited.  This was a very dark page, the next page has green and more butterflies.

Project Stats: Pattern: Transcendence Original Artist: Adele Sessler Pattern by: Heaven and Earth Designs Started Stitching: March 7, 2012 Fabric: 20ct. Black Lugana Evenweave Floss: DMC 2 over 1 Percentage: 15.19% complete Pages Stitched: 4 of 36 complete Stitches: 21,767 out of 143,296 complete

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

I'm going to go back to Little Snap Dragon for a little bit before moving back to pages 23 and 24.  Those two pages have less stitches, but more colors than page 22.  Should be fun.  Depending on how fast Little Snap Dragon goes I may finish it up.

Little Snap Dragon: Third Post

I finished up the color I was in the middle of and did the last of the greens.  When I say greens I mean the turquoise and teals as well since the bulk of those were in the stems and the dragon.

I was going to stop there, really, but I got a little carried away and did a few of the blues:

I'm going back to Transcendence for a while before coming back to him.  There are seven colors left so I don't think I'll be able to keep him locked up.  It's interesting, the two projects I'm heavily working on right now have a very similar color scheme.  I just hope I don't get tired of blue, purple and green!

Project Stats:
Pattern: Little Snap Dragon
Pattern by: Kustom Krafts
Started Stitching: January 11, 2013
Fabric: 14ct. Khaki Aida
Floss: Kit Floss 2 over 1
Percentage: 68.33% complete
Stitches: 8,267 out of 12,098 complete

Transcendence: Sixth Post - Page 22

I'm happy to say that, between the recovery people and my own stash, I am only missing two charts.  Her Special Place and Water Dragon, my two latest purchases.  I think everyone broke the site with the 40% off sale because I can't get on the site to get to Michele's e-mail to see if she'd be so kind as to send me those two charts.

But in the mean time I was able to work on Transcendence, yay!  And let me tell you the time has been difficult.  Rahenna finally started working on hers and is on page three already, she's tent stitching on 28 ct black fabric with two threads.  It was Rahenna's start that got me started on him again.  Also, Thea has been making excellent progress on her Mini Transcendence, so that doesn't help me in trying to keep him in the drawer either.  It's fun, all three of us are working on the same artwork, but we'll all end up with different results.  Keep up the good work ladies!

I just still really love this piece.  I can't say enough good things about it.  Adele Sessler did such a wonderful job with the colors and it just makes this a complete joy to stitch.  I love working on it, but I want it done now so I can hang the finished project on my wall!  With that said, I do have some goals for this year, but with this project I'm not going to keep myself limited to goals.  If I want to stitch him I will.  I think I'll mostly be putting him down during the times that I want to give my eyes a rest from working on the black fabric.

Here are the pics, only of page 22.  Both pics are heavily lit to allow you to see the progress since I've only done dark colors so the color isn't completely true.  Currently I'm over 50% through the page.

Here's where I was when my hard drive crashed:

Here's how far I got today:

Project Stats: Pattern: Transcendence Original Artist: Adele Sessler Pattern by: Heaven and Earth Designs Started Stitching: March 7, 2012 Fabric: 20ct. Black Lugana Evenweave Floss: DMC 2 over 1 Percentage: 12.96% complete Pages Stitched: 3 of 36 complete Stitches: 18,575 out of 143,296 complete

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

I think I might work on Little Snap Dragon to give my eyes a rest and I stopped in the middle of a color which I don't like doing.  Never fear, Transcendence won't be put away for long.

Completed Project Adds: Cross Stitch - Eeyore and Butterfly & Ungloomy

I'm still working on Little Snap Dragon, I should have my hard drive no later than Monday so I'll be able to work on my HAEDs again.  For now here are a few project adds:

My Mother loves Eeyore, so I made a few Eeyore charts for her.


First up is Eeyore and Butterfly.  I can't find a direct link to the chart on Janlynn's website, I believe it has been discontinued.  I did find a few on ebay while I was looking for a link to post.

My mother uses it as a Christmas Ornament.  So during the holidays I was able to get a picture of it to post.

Pattern: Eeyore and Butterfly (Discontinued)
Pattern by: Janlynn

Started Stitching: December 9, 2007

Finished Stitching: December 11, 2007

Fabric: 18ct. White Aida

Floss: Kit Floss; 2 over 1

Next up is Ungloomy.  I think, I found this in a book, I'll try to find the book and update information on it later.  I'm pretty sure it was from Janlynn as well.  Since I found a kit from them with this project.

The kit looks to be discontinued, but I'll look to see if I can find the book anyway.  I really like posting links to the charts since it makes it easier if people want to try stitching it themselves.

Pattern: Ungloomy

Pattern by:  Janlynn

Started Stitching: December 20, 2007

Finished Stitching: December 23, 2007

Fabric: 14ct. White Aida

Floss: DMC; 2 over 1

Back to Little Snap Dragon for now.  I'm not sure what I'll end up doing when I get my hard drive back, but he's closer and closer to being complete, and I don't want to abandon him completely, but I REALLY want to work on Transcendence!

Little Snap Dragon: Second Post

I'm an idiot 2 times over.  One, I ordered the wrong thread for Samurai.  Doh!  Two, I got a bunch of thread to work on another small project but forgot the fabric to stitch it on.  Oh well, at least Little Snap Dragon finally got some more love!

In this picture there are four more colors completed:

I was thinking of posting when I took that picture but held off since I've already made quite a few posts recently.  But I've done over a third of the piece, and here he is right now:

I only have a few more greens left before I go on to the blues and purples.

Project Stats:

Pattern: Little Snap Dragon

Pattern by: Kustom Krafts

Started Stitching: January 11, 2013

Fabric: 14ct. Khaki Aida
Floss: Kit Floss 2 over 1
Percentage: 36.08% complete
Stitches: 4,365 out of 12,098 complete

Tales of Wonder: First Post - Complete

I decided to do another quickie, and I knew it wouldn't take me too long so I just took pictures and decided to post when it was done.

This is Tales of Wonder by the designer of Dragon Dreams.  It appears to be a sampler made for the The CARON Collection to showcase their floss.  This is a free pattern to download off of Caron's website, the link is below to the actual chart.

I've decided to stitch this on the same color fabric as Lost Dragon Sampler, this also has a very similar theme to that piece.  I also have two more pieces that will also use this fabric, Fairy Tale Sampler & A Damsel's Dozen, all samplers by Dragon Dreams.  While the first two I've done deal with believing the last two deal with what makes a hero.

Here we go, this is where I started:

I finished up all of the words and special stitches first.

I was a little disappointed in the green, it didn't seem to have much variation in the color, but there's only one line of it.  I also made a tiny change, did anyone notice?  I made the "O" in "Once" larger than all the other "O"s on the project.  Two reasons:  First, the line was one stitch short of being perfectly centered.  Second, I wanted to make the line a little bit more special and felt the larger "O" made it demand more attention than the smaller "O"s.

Next up, the little guy: 

You can see the variation of the green a little bit better.  One disappointment was that the two greens called out in the chart were very similar in color.  They are both in the dragon.  If you can convince yourself there are two colors you can see it.  This chart is over 13 years old, so I'm wondering if the colors didn't change slightly since it was created.  Looking at the stitched sample, I'm pretty convinced that's the case.

And I finished the castle this morning.  All done!

And I did one more minor change.  I added back stitching around the windows.  I started doing it per the chart, but they just seemed to be getting too lost in the castle.  As soon as I back stitched the first one I knew I was doing the rest.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Tales of Wonder
Pattern by: Dragon Dreams
Started Stitching: February 8, 2013
Finished Stitching: February 9, 2013
Fabric: 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen
Floss: Caron Waterlilies & DMC 2 over 2; Caron Wildflowers 1 over 2.

Because this is my blog I'll just let you know my thoughts on the threads.  I think this was a great little sampler to do in order to learn about the different threads they offer, Waterlilies and Wildflowers.

Waterlilies:
This is a 12 stranded silk floss that comes in 6 yd (5.5 m) skeins.  Overall, I love these.  The tread is so smooth, and it lays on the fabric almost identical to DMC floss.  It's very easy to work with.  Anything you can do with DMC you can do with this.

Wildflowers:

I'm not so much in love with this.  It is a single strand of cotton 36 yd (33 m).  One thing I did really like with this floss was that it's just one really long strand.  That makes it much easier keeping the blend looking correct on the piece.  I think the golden squares look really nice.  However, this is a thick thread.  You cannot use it for back stitching, unless you want a really thick back stitch.  In my opinion the thickness of the thread is equivalent to three strands of DMC.  This would make it difficult to use it with anything other than 14 ct (or 28 ct over 2) fabric.

To the right is a close-up of the castle.  The grayish-purplish-blueish color is Wildflowers, as are the trees.  You can click it to see it larger, but I just don't feel the the floss lays as well as I'd like.  I kinda do like the way it looks on the trees.  (For reference:  The dark blue is Waterlilies and the dark brown is DMC.)   I think it looks fine for this and I'm not going to frog it all, but in the future I would replace the Wildflowers with the closest thing I could find in Waterlilies.  At least in cross stitch.  I'm sure there are other projects where Wildflowers would work better than Waterlilies, and I'd be happy to give them another go.

Well, this post ended up being longer than I anticipated.  And please remember this is just my opinion.  Now I'm going to run home and grab some green thread for the lovely Samurai!

Lost Dragon Sampler: Second Post - Complete

I realized that yesterday I was too hurried to finish my post so I could continue working I didn't really talk about the piece much.  This is by Dragon Dreams, I only found them a few months ago, but they completely rock!  I'm sure you can tell since I've already done two of their other charts.  This will be the first piece that I won't really be changing anything, except the fabric.

The first time I saw this what came to my mind, obviously, were the lost pet signs you see posted every once in a while.  So I thought, if I was making a sign for a lost pet in medieval times what would I use?  No, cross stitch, did not come to mind, but parchment did.  So I went looking at a few of my normal haunts and found a piece of 28ct Cashel Linen called Legacy by Picture this Plus.  The description calls it "a light parchment color."  Perfect.  It's sometimes difficult to see in the pictures, but it looks pretty nice.

Anyway to the pictures!

Here's where I ended last night, okay early this morning, I think it was 1:30am, maybe 2am.

I skipped the part with the beads since I use a hoop and they wouldn't play well with the hoop.

Then I completed the little guy this morning!

And I just finished it about a half an hour ago.

I accidentally made the small wording off by a half a stitch, but you can't really tell so I'm happy with it.  I can't believe it only took two days to stitch.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Lost Dragon Sampler
Pattern by: Dragon Dreams
Started Stitching: February 6, 2013
Finished Stitching: February 7, 2013
Fabric: 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen
Floss: DMC 2 over 2, or 1 over 2 Kreinick #4 Braid

The thread was supposedly delivered today for Samurai, I'll have to go home to make sure, probably this weekend.  Until next time!

Lost Dragon Sampler: First Post

I know, I know... I was going to start Samurai.  However, I found out that I didn't have enough thread.  I was going to start anyway, but realized the new thread I purchased might not be close enough in color due to different dye lots so I ordered two more and will start when they get here.

In the meantime I started on my Lost Dragon Sampler.  And what better way to start than with this line:

Pressing on I did this:

Then this:

All of this was done today.  I think I'll be done tomorrow or Friday at the latest.  It's still early so I'm going to continue working on it tonight.  So no more talk from me, back to work I go!

Project Stats:
Pattern: Lost Dragon Sampler
Pattern by: Dragon Dreams
Started Stitching: February 6, 2013
Fabric: 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen
Floss: DMC 2 over 2, or 1 over 2 Kreinick #4 Braid

Dolphin Trio: Second Post - Complete

I told you to expect to hear from me soon!

So to add more color to my dolphins I added the greens...

Yeah, still not very colorful...

There we go!  Now that has some color.

And finally with the back-stitching and French knots:

And fuzzy.  I'll get a better pic when I frame it.

Project Stats:

Pattern: Dolphin Trio

Pattern by: Dimensions

Started Stitching: January 24, 2013

Finiahed Stitching: February 4, 2013
Fabric: 14ct. Blue Aida

Floss: Kit Floss various over 1

I am also happy to announce that I can now do French knots without looking at the directions!  It only took over 20 years, but who's counting?

I still don't know the status of my hard drive, I should call them.  I found two more charts on a very old drive that I had, but neither of them are the 5 I'm working on.  I'm going to work on either Samurai or Little Snap Dragon now.  Probably Samurai, it's simple and I am so in love with him.

Dolphin Trio: First Post

I've gotten quite a bit done on Dolphin Trio.  I expected that, it's an easy chart.  I did have a little bit of a break.  My sister was sick so I went to help her take care of my nephew.  For some reason 2-year-olds seem to think they deserve more time from me than my cross stitches.  He's adorable so I can't resist him.

Moving on... Here's the first picture I took, I think this was yesterday afternoon:

This is where it is right now:

There were quite a few half cross stitches as well and backwards half stitches as well.  All of the colors in the dolphins are complete, all I have left is the background.  It's kind of lacking in color, so I can't wait to get those stitches in.

Project Stats:

Pattern: Dolphin Trio

Pattern by: Dimensions

Started Stitching: January 24, 2013

Fabric: 14ct. Blue Aida

Floss: Kit Floss; various over 1
Percentage: 61.13% complete
Stitches: 3141 out of 5,138 complete

I think I'll have this done by tomorrow.  But part of my day will be filled watching the Super Bowl.  American Football for anyone who isn't familiar.  My team is in the Super Bowl for the first time since 1994!

Expect to hear from me again soon.