Pieta, pt. 11

So there I was, plugging away on Pieta, when I noticed something. “Boy!” I called. “Come down here!”

Ever the dutiful son (cough), he obeyed. “Look at her. Does she look like a Terminator to you?” He agreed she did, so I gave him a substantial increase in his allowance (cough, cough). I confess my schoolgirl self felt terribly guilty and blasphemous, what with this being the Virgin Mary and all, but the brain sees what it sees. Mine sees Terminator Mary. How about yours?

Terminator Pieta

Lo, and behold, about a week later, no more Terminator Mary! You can definitely see her lower facial outline. I’ve always loved her delicate, beautiful face. Crossing the halfway point on this project was as exciting for me as if it was a finish. When I crowed to the boy, he told me to hurry up and finish her. He’s grounded until he’s forty.

Sing with me!
Halfway done, halfway done, I’m halfway, halfway done!
Catchy tune, don’t you think? I may have missed my calling as a pop lyricist.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 62/235, or 52%
Completed pages: 8/16, or 50%  It’s actually 52%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:23260/42300, or 55%

 

Before/After

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 10

She’s sort of like the Phantom of the Opera, one half of her (upper) face stitched, the other part white (mask). Sort of.

This progress is really exciting to me. All that light gray “marble” filled in!

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 61/235, or 26%
Completed pages: 7/16, or 43.75%  It’s actually 45%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:20,554/42300, or48%

   

Before/After

Happy Stitching!

Pieta pt. 9

Her face is starting to take shape. Finally!

This is where I burned out, basically. I was going strong, but then, pffft. ‘S okay.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 61/235, or 26%
Completed pages: 6/16, or 37.50%  It’s actually 38.66%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:18448/42300, or 44%

   

Before/After

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 8

I need to do myself a favor and take more progress pictures. Anyway, six pages complete.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 61/235, or 26%
Completed pages: 6/16, or 37.50%  It’s actually 38.66%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:17548/42300, or 41%

         

Before/After

Pieta, pt. 7

I want to get this up before I forget I didn’t post it. I just realized I didn’t post a progress photo after completing the fourth page. I’ve been recently obsessed with Pinterest, and well, wait…is this my blog? I have a blog? You get the idea. So here it is:

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 61/235, or 26%
Completed pages: 5/16, or 31.25%  It’s actually32%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:14442/42300, or 34%

 

Before/Later

 

Later/After

Pieta, pt. 6

I’ll be on Pieta’s Island for quite a long time. Where’s the Skipper? I’ve got three pages done, three pages done…

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 48/235, or 20%
Completed pages: 3/16, or 18.75%  It’s actually20%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:11018/42300, or 26%

  

Before/After

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 5

Like I said, I was this close to finishing page two. I’ve a bit more to go on page three, but I’ve put a major dent in the big empty spots.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 31/235, or 13%
Completed pages: 2/16, or 12.5%  It’s actually13.33%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:10212/42300, or 24%

ETA: OOPS! I forgot a before/after.

    

There’s so much done on these first four pages that I’m going to look like Superstitcher this week. I’m so impressed with myself.

Happy Stitching

Pieta, pt. 4

I haven’t managed to get my camera and my poppy biscornu together yet. I forget until I see one or another, and am generally focused on something else. I’ll get there.

I meant to make this post so long ago, but it was during the non-blogging period I had last year. I wasn’t blogging, but I was stitching. I completed my first page! It feels like a major milestone, all that highlighter yellow filling in every block. I’d started by working on each row. When I got close to finishing the first page, I abandoned my row-by-row stitching and concentrated on completing that first page. Now I’m this close to finishing page 2, so I want to document my first page progress.

This is actually a picture with a bit more stitching than I expected to show. I never did photograph my progress after completing page one. Oh, well.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 31/235, or 13%
Completed pages: 1/16, or 6.25% It’s actually 6.67%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches: 8400/42300, or 20%

  

Before/After
Still doesn’t look like anything, but it doesn’t look much like a moon anymore, as the hubby said of the first picture.

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 3

I’ve made some progress on Pieta.  My goal was to complete 23 rows.  It doesn’t look like anything.  I take that back.  It looks like smeared pencil and spilled ink.  At least I’m able to recognize what I’m looking at when I study the picture.  It’s a small consolation, but I suppose it will keep me from giving it up.  The boy’s friend asked me if it was a globe, then told me he thought it was a fountain at first. 

I’d originally planned to stitch this with the parking method.  Eventually I realized I’d be rethreading a needle every five stitches.  I so didn’t want to do that.  I know I could park the thread still in the needle, but that sounds like a big mess waiting to foil me.  I decided to skip the parking routine altogether. 

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm ):
Completed rows: 23/235, or 10% (close enough, anyway)
Completed pages: 0/16, or 0%
Completed stitches: 7500/42300, or 17% (that means the big white blob between the black stitches is only about 8%. *sigh*)

I’ve gained 4% overall progress since my last report.  At one point I thought about completing one of the mostly black pages so I could have at least one completed page but decided against splitting my goals.  The tiny numbers can overwhelm me sometimes.  I have to remind myself that every project is completed the same way–one stitch at a time. 

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 2

I knew stitching only the black background would be boring, but I didn’t count on the “mind-numbingly” part of boring or on finding a million reasons to procrastinate.  So, so much for that plan.   I’ve finished the first four pages’ blackground (heh. Yeah, I made that up.  I’m full of win, and stuff like that there.).  I’m going to stop with the black now, because, ugh.  It took me three months to get to this next progress checkpoint.  Most of that time was procrastinating.  Next stop, the top of the Madonna’s head.   I have no idea how this parking business is going to go, but I’m going to give it a whirl.

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm ):
Completed rows: 4/235, or 1.7%
Completed pages: 0/16, or 0%
Completed stitches (rough estimate): 5500/42300, or 13%

Thirteen percent is a nice number.

Pieta, pt. 1

It’s always something.  I got back my blogging mojo and my scanner went kaput.  *sigh*  I think I’m back in business.

Several years ago, my father told me he’d bought a cross-stitch kit of the Madonna’s face from Michelangelo’s Pieta.  He had won it on ebay, and asked me if I would stitch it for him.  I told him sure, just send it to me.  And…well, he didn’t.  We spoke of it off and on over the years.  He moved, and thought the kit was in a box in his garage.  He couldn’t find it in any of his boxes and gave it up for lost.  At some point, I got it into my head that he was talking about Cross Stitch Collectibles’ pattern.  I’d forgotten that it was a kit.  A few months ago, he found it and sent it to me.  It was an old kit by Janlynn.

It’s a nice kit.  I don’t want to stitch it.  It’s too brown for me.  Plus, it makes her nose look big.  I liked Cross Stitch Collectibles’ design better.  So, I got that one and kitted it up.  What am I going to do with the Janlynn kit?  I don’t know. Here’s what I’ll end up with some day~~

Time to wow you with progress pictures.  By rights, the first one should have been in my post showing what I’d stitched up to the end of 2009, but it was still on the camera. 

One whole row.  I’m stitching it on 25-ct evenweave, one over one.  I can do that, since there’s only 14 colors, with no blended colors.  I got lucky with that one.

Here’s the latest progress shot, taken on Jan 24~~

That’s in the neighborhood of 6% complete.  It’s all the black on the first page, and some black from the next three pages.  I plan to get the “easy” stitching (the black background) done first.  It will get boring, but it will go quicker. I have a lot of quirks regarding how I estimate how much I’ve finished of a dense project like this.  Perhaps I’ll torture share them with you in future updates.

Hope to see you soon.  Happy stitching!