Final sharing from 2013

It’s time to clean up the hanging threads of 2013 and make sure I’ve shared everything I’ve meant to share. I’ve been a neglectful blogger this year, so I have a few pictures I haven’t yet posted.

Bone Appetit from Lizzie Kate’s Halloween Thrillogy. I finished this a few days after Halloween.

Later in November, I got Pieta framed. I took a quick picture to show my father before Christmas. He was traveling for the holidays, so I’ll be sending this off to him shortly. I never did get a better picture than this. Dad joked I should take a picture with my phone. I thought it was a good suggestion. That one wasn’t better.

After I sent Wendy her ornament, I started working on ornaments for myself that I’ve wanted to stitch for a very long time–Brightneedle’s “To Thee” stockings from JCS Ornament issues. I stitched them on 28-ct. Country Cream Vintage linen. I used all DMC for each ornament.

           

To Thee Love, from the 2004 JCS Ornament Issue, and To Thee Hope, from the 2006 JCS Ornament Issue.

                     

To Thee Peace from the 2003 JCS Ornament Issue, and To Thee a Very Merry from the 2008 JCS Ornament Issue.

I rotated the colors in Peace to give her a pink dress instead of pink accents. For A Very Merry, I added the year and moved around the eyelet stitches above the year to fit. I also had fun with the eyelets. Many of them are off center.

Finally, I made progress on 272 Words by Primrose Needleworks. I’m not quite done with the first page. Instead of GAST Nutmeg for the text, I’m using soot by Nina’s Threads, which I ordered from The Thread Basket.

That does it for 2013. I’m going to participate in the Sampler World Snoot Parrots SAL 2014 on Facebook, so I’ll have another WIP very soon.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year.  Happy Stitching! 🙂

Oh, my Giddy Aunt

I am finished!! I thought this day would never come. I feel free.

Vitals:

Pieta Detail by Cross Stitch Collectibles
Stitched one over one on 25-ct fabric with DMC threads

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 16

Oh, yeah, that’s right. Fourteen pages done. Go, me! In the wrong light, a photo won’t really show the progress. It does here (mostly), so this pic’s the winner. Ding, ding, ding!

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 183/235, or 78%
Completed pages:14/16, or 87.5%  It’s actually 89%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches: 39024/42300, or 92%

   

Before/After

Happy Stitching! 🙂

Pieta, pt. 15

Twelve pages! I’m thankful for progress pics. Stitching row after row of one color makes it easy to lose perspective on how much you’ve stitched, more than “regular” stitching. If that makes sense, you might be a stitcher. 😉

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 183/235, or 78%
Completed pages:12/16, or 75%  It’s actually 78%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches: 35140/42300, or 83%

   

Before/After

Happy Stitching! 🙂

Pieta, pt. 14

Another page complete! It’s like I never put this down for a whole year. I took a couple of progress pics along the way with my phone–

                  

She looks like this now–

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 62/235, or 52%
Completed pages:11/16, or 68.75%  It’s actually 72%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:33078/42300, or 78%

Over 3/4 complete! I can see the end. The next three pages are very uncomplicated, so when I pull her out again, it shouldn’t take as long as a typical page.

     

Before/Middles/After

Happy Stitching! 🙂

Pieta, pt. 13

That was fast. You know, for someone that puts a project away for months at a time. Like me.

I present to you Pieta with 10 pages completed:

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 62/235, or 52%
Completed pages:10/16, or 62.5%  It’s actually 65%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches:29072/42300, or 69%

      

Before/After

Happy Stitching!

Pieta, pt. 12

Patience. I can has it!

You know that non-yelly piece of parenting advice that suggests that you withhold fun privilege A from a child until they’ve accomplished icky task B? I’ve had frustrations with this in the past, because, boy, can a kid sacrifice A in order to avoid B, you know? Sheesh, just do B, and we’ll all be happy. But, nooooo. I tried this tactic on myself recently. Since I’ve had difficulty motivating myself to stitch on Pieta, I proclaimed there would be no stitching on anything until a page of Pieta is complete! I was very strict with myself. I’m impressed I didn’t abandon this plan in favor of stitching whatever I wanted. I waited TWO weeks before I started stitching on my. Can you imagine no stitching for two whole weeks?!? Neither could I before it happened. She looked over my shoulder from my stitching stand, and I gave her virtual raspberries. I looked through kitted project after kitted project, and didn’t lose my resolve. Finally, after TWO WEEKS of no stitching, I started up again.

This sort of patience is not normally in my wheelhouse, believe me. I didn’t imagine it would take me that long to return to stitching Pieta. Or, if I did, I certainly didn’t imagine I would wait that long to stitch anything. It’s more my style to tell myself stitching is supposed to be fun, so get busy stitching whatever it is I want. What a surprise. Anyway, here is the current progress pic:

It always amazes me how seemingly random stripes of gray start to actually look like something as a page fills in. I made a point of “touching bottom”, since the page I was working on doesn’t reach that far. That was thrilling. Remember “touching bottom” in the pool as a kid? Yeah. Same feeling. Sweet memories. I’m also really satisfied to have her entire left side solidly stitched. It was a joyful celebration thinking that I’ve now completely stitched more than half of the pages. Seriously, you’d’ve thought I was this close ( || ) to being done. When I realized just how far I have to go, I started looking for my fainting couch. Turns out I don’t have a fainting couch. Time to go shopping, I suppose. sigh

Well, stitchers, I’ve earned the privilege of starting anything I want. The excitement is palpable, believe me. 😉

Progress stats, according to Terri Reckoning (tm  ):
Completed rows: 62/235, or 52%
Completed pages: 9/16, or 56%  It’s actually 58%, because the design isn’t a square.
Completed stitches: 26,865/42300, or 64%

   

Before/After

Happy Stitching! 🙂

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 :D):
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!