Welcome to the Jungle: First Post - Completed

I was going to work on Ophelia, but while working on my sister's blanket I realized I really should finish another project for my youngest nephew.

This is a discontinued pattern, I was barely able to find a picture of it at all, and the original paperwork was lost.  This originally was being stitched by my mother.  She got frustrated with it, she kept counting wrong and just couldn't get through it.  So I offered to take over and finish it off.  However, it was completely lost, what she had already stitched and the chart as well.  Luckily I had a working copy of it that I was using to chart the name so it wasn't completely lost.

It's being stitched on 14 ct Aida in order to match the one made for his older brother.  That's not really a problem, however, this chart contains an obscene amount of ¼ and ¾ stitches.  Now, if I see these stitches I get a fabric where I can go over two.  Also, working on this made me realize just how much I don't care for Aida fabric anymore, I am a much bigger fan of evenweave.

This is one of those projects that I should have done multiple posts on, but I just kept stitching instead of posting, so I apologize for the insane number of pictures.

I picked up everything I needed on my way to my parents' house where I started working on it.  Then my sister and nephews showed up, and the little one, who I'm making this for, was curious:

What'cha doing Auntie Em?

I finished the name really quickly:

Kellan then decided he needed to help me (which didn't go quickly):

But it'll be a nice story to tell him, he helped with his own cross stitch.  It took three or four times longer to stitch, but he wanted to help so badly so there was no way I could say no, and he's just too cute, it was worth every extra minute.

After his help, with the large light green leaf, I got through the leaves much more quickly.

My favorite animal makes an appearance:

And he gets his back stitching:

As you can see in the previous pictures I was using a purple hoop to stitch.  I usually use a much smaller, red, hoop, especially on the smaller count HAEDs.  I figured since this was a larger count the larger hoop would be better/easier.  I was wrong.  I didn't like how big it was.  It just seemed massive and it seemed more of a chore to stitch.  So I went back to the red hoop, even though I knew I'd have to move it a lot more.  I started stitching much faster after that.

Back to my preferred red hoop I made a green froggy, with some of the blue back stitching to help me figure out where he's supposed to go.

And now back stitching:

Now, you'll notice on the sample picture there's a blank area on the bottom left above the frog.  It seemed to be the perfect place to add the weight and height as I had done on his brother's.

Anyone notice the missing back stitching?  I did fix it, I don't remember when I fixed it, or why I didn't take a new picture.

The next animal foliage

This is the new home of a rather yellow giraffe.

Now some back stitching:

There are three mistakes in the giraffe.  I only remember where two are, and I'm not telling!

I did the rest of the blue lines so I could find where the blue birdy went.

And he got his back stitching, and for those eagle eyed readers, yes, I initially forgot a row on his tail feathers.

The title of the piece. (Viewed with the top of the giraffe's head.)

Last inhabitant's leaves.

A little brown monkey.

He gets some back stitching which was the last thing to do.

Apparently all animals have swirly cheeks or noses... I never knew that...

And here it is in it's entirety!

It definitely needs to be ironed.  We already have the frame for it.  We wanted it to match his brother's so we bought it shortly after he was born.  Unfortunately, we have no idea where it is at the moment.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Welcome to the Jungle (Discontinued)
Pattern by: Bucilla
Started Stitching: March 4, 2016
Finished Stitching: May 4, 2016
Fabric: 14ct. DMC Aida
Floss: DMC 2 over 1
Percentage: 100% complete
Stitches: 7,519 out of 7.519

While doing the stats I noticed that it took me exactly 2 months to finish, but most of the work was done in the last week, April 26th through May 4th.  Off to a different project.  I think it's going to be the HEAD Challenge #2.

Mel's Crochet Blanket - Completed

I realized that I did not have a birthday present for my sister whose birthday was at the end of April.  I had some yarn that I bought over a year and a half ago for a blanket for her.  I decided to finally make the blanket.

I went through a book that was given to me, "The Crochet Stitch Bible" and found a pattern that I liked.  I crocheted the first two skein, then found a mistake in the first skein, which I was going to leave, but the more I thought about it the more it bugged me.  So about ¾ of the work came out and I continued on.

Here's the first two skeins:

April 20, 2016 - 12:20 am

The rest of this will be predominantly pictures.
Four Skeins

April 21, 2016 - 11:05 pm

 Six Skeins:

April 25, 2016 - 11:36 am

Almost eight skeins, I didn't have enough to do another row, you can see what's remaining on the left hand side, getting ready for the border:

April 25, 2016 - 5:11 pm

Finally complete:

April 25, 2016 - 8:38 am

I made up the border based on the rest of the pattern.  I will say borders are still my weakest part.  I appear to not space my stitches very well, they never lay flat, but blankets rarely lay flat, so most people won't notice.  The overall size ended up being 4.5' x 6' (1.37m x 1.82m).

Project Stats:
Project: Mel's Blanket
Pattern: Relief Wave Stitch
Pattern by: The Crochet Stitch Bible
Started Crocheting: April 19, 2016
Finished Crocheting: April 25, 2016
Yarn: Bernat: Blanket - Silver Steel
Percentage: 100% complete

My sister's birthday was on the 28th, so I was very proud of myself getting it done on time.  She has informed me that it is very warm.  Too bad summer is just around the corner, but there's still a little bit of time to use it before it gets too warm at night.

Ophelia: Tenth Post - Pages 5 & 6

After quite a bit of a break, Ophelia is finally making an appearance.

These are the last two pages of the first row!  I stitched them together because the last page in each row are only 13 stitches wide.

First, the color that just seemed to take forever... well it was over 60% of the stitches on these two pages.

Then, continuing on, the rest of the colors.

I know, not nearly as interesting as the last few posts I made on her, but she needs a background to live in.

And, the money shot:

You can see how wide she's going to be.  I'm hoping to get through the next two pages and finally have two complete rows.  I'm more than likely going to stick with her through the next two pages, I might work on something in the middle of it if I get bored of purple, but I'm shooting for the end of next month to get them finished.

Pattern by: Heaven and Earth Designs
Started Stitching: August 15, 2009
Restarted Stitching: January 1, 2015
Fabric: 25ct. White Magic Guide
Floss: DMC 1 over 1
Percentage: 20.27% complete
Pages: 10 of 54 complete
Stitches: 68,595 out of 338,400 complete

12 Dragonlets of Christmas: Sixteenth Post - Framed

Here's an oldie.  It was finished in September of 2013.  I'm almost positive I framed it not too long after that.  However, I just recently hung it on my wall.  It was sitting wrapped up because I wasn't sure where I was going to put it.  It actually replaced a different picture, and the other picture found a new home.  I know it's Christmas, but I just don't want it to be hidden for ¾ of the year.

And finally another long overdue post done.  I have a few more in the wings.

Mini Artists Galleries - Leonardo Da Vinci: First Post - Completed

Let's try a post a day the rest of the month, all two days!  I'm going crazy here!

Okay, I got a little crazy on this post, sorry. ;D  I knew I was going to which is why it took me so long to blog about it.

This was a piece I found on CloudsFactory's website.  My sister loves Leonardo Da Vinci and I found this fun little piece.  I showed it to her to make sure she'd like it, since it is kind of cartoony.  Of course between the two of us we had to mess around with it a little bit.  To the right is the original design.  My sister though it might look nice with the wording surrounded by Leonardo and his works.  So it took a bit of playing around, but I finally came up with something that I thought looked good.  But I won't show it to you now, you'll either have to read to the end, or scroll down to the end.

I decided to use one of my favorite fabrics for this 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen by Picture this Plus, since, again, it's a parchment like color.

First off, was the wording.  I was actually driving home from work, ready to stitch this as soon as I got home, when I came up with an idea.  Leonardo was famous for trying to keep his works secret, one way that he attempted to do so was by writing mirrored.  I found a little information about that here if you're interested.  So I thought it would be cool to stitch the writing backwards.  However, it was a big leap so I consulted my sister to find out her thoughts and she thought it was a great idea, so I did it.

 Here is it mirrored, or unmirrored, so you can read it:

The next thing I stitched was Leonardo himself.

First off I did the three sketches at the same time, which were surprisingly close in color to the fabric I chose.  The titles are links that lead to webpages about the images.

Aerial Screw	Self Portrait	Vitruvian Man
First Color
Remainder of Cross Stitches
Back Stitched
"Framed"

Next, the paintings, again the titles go to pages to learn more about them, if you're so inclined.

Lady with an Ermine	The Last Supper	Mona Lisa
Some Colors
Rest of Colors
"Framed"

I did change the color on the frames for these.  It was supposed to be the golden yellow that you can see in the clothing of the fourth figure from the right in The Last Supper.  I changed it to Kreinik #4 braid, Vintage Gold.

And finally, all together:

It's now in the process of being framed, so hopefully I'll get that posted faster than some of my other pictures.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Mini Artists Galleries - Leonardo Da Vinci
Pattern by: CloudsFactory
Started Stitching: December 3, 2015
Finished Stitching: December 9, 2015
Fabric: 28ct. Legacy Cashel Linen
Floss: DMC 2 over 1, Kreinik 1 over 1
Percentage: 100% complete
Stitches: 2,866 out of 2,866

Dragon Game: Third Post - Framed

Hi all, I know, I went dark again.  Between Christmas and my nephew's birthday, I had two cakes to make, one for his family birthday on Christmas Eve and the other with his friends last weekend, I've been rather busy.

But I have been stitching too.  I finished a piece for my sister that is in the process of being framed, I need to blog about that one.  I'm almost done with one for my mother, I just have to do back stitching, belch.  I did another challenge from the HAED FB page, so that was another start... oops. ;D

Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to show Dragon Game framed, and here it is:

I'd forgotten to mention that I'd altered it very slightly.  On the left hand side there was a leash of sorts coming out from behind his wing.  Without it being attached to anything else it looked odd, so I left it out.

Now I'm going to work on a few more posts that I really need to do.  Framed pieces that have been framed for over a year, Items I've started and quite a few I also finished but was too interested in moving on to the next thing instead of posting... I'm such a bad blogger.  I'll catch up eventually.

Storykeep - Magical Arrival: The Seventh Post

I mentioned last month I had been working on some pieces that were long over due to be finished.  I mentioned that Storykeep Magical Arrival was one of those.  On top of that, Michele Sayetta who creates the HAED charts, challenged us to do 100 stitches a week over four weeks, October 28th to November 28th, which really, is not much.  I entered Magical Arrival as my challenge piece.

Here he is before (left) and after (right)

19,736 Stitches

20,880 Stitches

And what should have been quick and easy wasn't since I started working on something else and got sidetracked.  But I did exceed the 400 stitches with 1144.  They were mostly in the stocking and wall.

I'm not sure what happened, but it looks like something was spilled on it, it's mostly not noticeable, but I'll wash it after I'm done and see how it looks, there's a few sections that I might restitch, but it's mostly okay.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Storykeep - Magical Arrival
Original Artist: Anne Stokes
Pattern by: Heaven and Earth Designs
Started Stitching: January 31, 2012
Fabric: 18ct. White Aida
Floss: DMC 2 over 1
Percentage: 87.82% complete
Colors: 56 of 89 complete
Stitches: 20,880 out of 23,775