Mirabilia Christmas Tree 2007

My current focus is the Mirabilia Christmas Tree 2007, which is only available in kit form. Even then, it's not a full kit since it doesn't include the fabric, but that's fine with me since I prefer to choose my own fabric anyway. I don't think I've shown this one since it was a tiny blob of a start back in January!

It looked like this on October 18:

And here's how it looks now!

The fabric is a steely blue so you can just imagine how bad the colors are in these pictures!

I might keep working on this all the way through to a finish, but probably not. It's solidly stitched with variegated threads, and some of those threads change color pretty drastically in places, so there's a lot of one-x-at-a-time action here. That gets a bit tedious after a while, plus the overall slow going because it's basically full coverage. But it's cute. :)

Alpine Garden - finish!

YES ANOTHER FINISH. To be fair, this will be the last quick finish for a while!

Alpine Garden by The Drawn Thread was a quick stitch, since it's a narrow band sampler with relatively small flower panels. Each one took about a day except for the central motif with the mountain scene. That one was a bear with all the confetti in the border! Took me about five days to suck it up and power through all the layers of colorful flower bits and backstitching.

 

 

This was charted for NPI silks which I converted to DMC. The only changes I made were to use a different thread for the words (Viridian by Carrie's Creations, I think) to match other Drawn Thread designs I've stitched, and adjusting the color of the mountains because the original DMC suggestion blended into my fabric too much.

My only regret is not recharting and standardizing the alphabet used for the text before starting this project. The inconsistency in letter shapes and spacing is annoying, and while I did some adjustment on the fly, it would have been a lot easier if I'd planned ahead.

Oh, I also looked up mountain violet flower meanings and changed the text from "faith" to "balance" to fit my personal values.

PS: I believe the "right" color for the wording is Pine Forest Waterlilies silk, in case you're looking at this post as a reference or something. Or in case I'M looking at this as a reference later...

Tudor Bee - finish!

Finished on October 13 but as usual, posting late. :)

October 11:

October 13 (finish):

I made a few small changes as I often tend to do! The original pattern calls for NPI silks but I converted to DMC, plus made a few tweaks to the flower colors to reduce the contrast between the two lightest shades. I also did the vines and leaves in the lighter green (instead of the darker green) and left off the veins in the leaves. I didn't stitch the border either - it was a plain one stitch wide box around the entire piece and it doesn't add anything to the design.

The honeycomb is supposed to be partially filled with white, which I did at the bottom, but I changed it to a honey yellow in the top cells. I'm not sure which I like more, or if I like either at all, so I'm leaving both as-is for now. I also put an extra stitch to make the top honeycomb centered and symmetrical under the crown because it was driving me nuts to have it off-center.

Oh, and I stitched the crown in gold metallic because it's a CROWN after all! :)

Okay, I guess I made a LOT of changes...

Ringing Dragonflies - finish!

Still can't get a good picture of this one, but I tried. The fabric is more of a yellow-green than the pictures show, but I can't get it to show up well even with color correction. If I change the fabric to look more accurate, then all the thread colors are a disaster!

This is a little better, I guess? 

If I ever dig out my scanner again, that might be the best option. Alas, I am lazy. :)

I want to try for a couple more finishes this month, so my focus projects are going to be Tudor Bee and Alpine Garden since they're both small and more than halfway done.

Ringing Dragonflies - still going!

At this point I think it's safe to say I'll carry on until I finish this one! I've been enjoying this design a lot and it's always exciting to creep closer to the end of a project. :)

Also, all these pictures are gross. The colors are terrible even after applying color correction. Hopefully I'll be able to take some good pictures once I finish!

September 29:
  

 October 2:

October 3:

And for reference, here's what the full design looks like. I just finished the dragonfly in the red box today (not shown in the picture above!), so the parts circled in blue are all that's left. Probably not going to finish this week since I usually don't stitch on the weekends, but maybe...!

Ringing Dragonflies - progress

My latest focus project has been Ringing Dragonflies by Owlforest Embroidery. I picked it up again on the 14th and made a ton of progress between then and the 25th! Not sure if I'll continue with this one some more or try swapping to something else. :)

 

September 14:

September 17:

September 21:

September 25:

Alpine Garden progress

Ahhh I'm so behind on posting progress pics! I haven't touched this project in almost three weeks but I keep forgetting to update here. This is Alpine Garden by Drawn Thread, one of their many long band sampler style designs.

I started here on August 26:

And got to here on September 3:
(fabric color is much more accurate in this picture, too!)

I was defeated by all the color changes and fussy bits in the square border at the bottom and had to put it away for a while. This is more than half finished and DT projects go fast, so I'll finish this the next time I pick it up, I'm sure.

more Mira progress! (and goals)

This time it's September Sapphire Fairy, who doesn't look like she has anything to do with September or sapphires, but whatever. :3

I put in a good 5-6 days of work on her to finish up the portion of the dark blue sash that's on the bottom of the chart. She went from here:

To here!

A little less impressive since the pictures aren't of the same exact area, but I think the difference is clear! It was a lot of stitching, but as usual with Miras, it went pretty fast due to the large blocks of color.

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And since I haven't posted about goals in a while, here's some thoughts!

I've been enjoying the No New Starts group on FB all year, and thanks to getting a good variety of projects started before the "no starts" went into effect, I haven't felt tempted to start anything at all this year! There are a few things I'd like to start once the challenge is over, and I think I'll choose a different challenge for next year for a bit more flexibility - squeezing all my starts into the few weeks at the end of December was rough!

I started the challenge with 24 WIPs, 17 of which were new starts in December so I'd "have enough" for the coming year, haha. I have 13 left now, which means I've had 11 finishes. Only one was an "old" WIP, so that means I've finished 10 of my 17 December starts.

Here's what's left!

RED = old WIP, do not plan to finish this year

BLUE = new WIP, do not plan to finish this year

GREEN = new WIP, plan to finish this year

Alpine Garden (Drawn Thread)

Chinese Garden Mandala (Chatelaine)

Christmas Tree 2007 (Mirabilia)

Dragons of Sumatra (Ink Circles)

Mini Beautiful Light (HAED)

Mushroom & Fern Mandala (Chatelaine)

Night (Teresa Wentzler)

Ringing Dragonflies (Owlforest)

Rosarium (Chatelaine)

September Sapphire Fairy (Mirabilia)

Transcendence (HAED)

Tudor Bee (The Blue Flower)

Violet Patch Mandala (Chatelaine)

In short, I plan to finish everything new except for Rosarium, and all my old WIPs will be hanging around for another year. Not sure how realistic that is - Dragons of Sumatra is a chonker and I haven't gotten too far, and the Mira Christmas tree is a solid stitch that I've barely started. And I haven't touched any of the oldies this year except for Mushroom & Fern and Violet Patch, but I still love them all. Well, except for the HAEDs, which should really be listed as UFOs at this point... :p

Next time I ramble, I'll talk about what I want to start at the end of the year! :3

Lilith of Labrador - finish!

Lilith of Labrador by Mirabilia was a finish back on August 25, but my desk was too crowded for me to get good pictures until now. She's stitched on Belfast from Chromatic Alchemy, though I'm not 100% sure of the color. I wanted to say Aether but looking at the site, I think this might be Eostre instead. It's a light teal with orangey-brown, if that helps. :3

I made a few changes as usual. I didn't use the recommended Waterlilies in the skin (I hate the look of variegation in skin, and the color looked too pink anyway), and I changed all the blue beading in her hair to purple. I think I subbed some other beads and definitely the Kreinik because I didn't have the exact colors, so I picked something that was close enough.

Her face is so pretty. I love that she has an almost alien look with her sharp features. I get a little tired of the Miras with almost no facial features, or the side profiles with the overly prounounced chins (I feel like I can complain about this as the owner of such a chin, haha). I mean... Lilith is the same old side profile as well, but at least her face is different.

And some detail of her massive tail! Kind of thought this thing was going to be the end of me, but it looks so good now that it's finished. :)

And finally, my boy Noodle "helping" me with the beading. :3

little bits of progress (Aug 11 to 16)

Another week of progress to share! This time I worked on two projects, September Sapphire Fairy by Mirabilia and Tudor Bee by The Blue Flower.

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One day of stitching on September Sapphire Fairy:

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Five days of (slowly) stitching on Tudor Bee:

I like this design a lot but I'm not super thrilled with my fabric choice. I love the fabric on its own (PTP Tycho) but I think it's just a bit too light for the colors in this design. It's also 40 count which is normally fine, but since PTP shrinks a bit from the original count, the weave is tighter than a normal 40 count linen and I'm not a fan.

My next post will be a finish, but not of either of these! :)

MORE Mushroom and Fern Mandala progress

Ten more days of Mushroom and Fern progress!

From here:

To here!

I'm amazed at how much I was able to add to this project in a little over three weeks! Pretty much everything shown in the second picture above is new, with the exception of the borders above the solo mushroom and the tree trunk above the triple mushroom.

And now I'm tired of working on this, haha. I'll be swapping over to something a little less intense to give my brain (and fingers!) a break.

Mushroom and Fern Mandala progress

Finally, something that's NOT a finish! :p

The last time I posted any progress on Mushroom and Fern Mandala by Chatelaine was back in September 2020. I was struggling to work on it because I had it in a massive square q-snap that was too big for my Lowery frame, and even the large frame adapter was too small to hold it properly. Lots of stitchers seem to have success with working on Chatelaines by extending their q-snaps as it grows, and I wanted to try that too, but it just wasn't working out for me. I could barely get my arms behind it while it was mounted! I'm a short person but I didn't think my arms were THAT short, haha.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was whining to my wife that I wanted to work on it but it was so hard with the large q-snap and she was like THEN USE A SMALLER ONE AGH. So we swapped it over to a smaller one and surprise, I was able to work on it again!

When I left off in 2020, it looked like this:

I continued working on the area in the lower left and made a HUGE amount of progress. I was super motivated to stitch once I could work on it comfortably!

July 18:

July 22:

July 28:

Amazing what a difference using the right tools can make!

Christmas is Coming - finish!

My last finish for a while, I promise! This is Christmas is Coming by Barbara Ana Designs. The snail sled (chariot?) is what drew me to this design, as it's so cute and unique.

No progress pics this time as I only took a couple as I went along, and they're kind of boring. :p

I did make a couple of small changes as usual. The blues in the design are actually charted for greener threads (503 or 504 was one of them) but the cover picture on the chart looked more blue to me. I preferred the colors of the model picture, so I changed to 597 and... something in the 33xx range, I think. The plant behind Santa uses one of the charted greens for the stems, so you can get an idea of what it was meant to look like. :)

I'm so far behind on posting! I already have plenty of progress pics for my next post, I just haven't been keeping up with the actual posts. Maybe I'll just post again tomorrow so I can catch up!

Mexico - finish!

I know, I know, another finish?! I haven't been keeping up with posting here so it seems like there's so many of them, and my next post after this one will be a finish too! But after that I'll be down to mostly large and HUGE projects, so probably no more finishes for a while. :)

This time it's Mexico by Owlforest Embroidery. I stitched it mostly as charted but with a few changes to the colors in some places and other tiny adjustments. Most notable is the skin color.

Before: ghostly!

After: human!

People of Mexican heritage can be quite pale (my wife is one of them!) but the recommended color was almost white - like one shade off from DMC blanc - and not appropriate for any living human. :p

A few more progress pics:

And the finish!

The fabric is PTP Lupine in Belfast, a pretty close match to the recommended solid brown.

Next time... yet another finish. Are you tired of me yet? :3

City of Cats - finish! (and Lilith progress)

Not much to say except that I finished on June 30! :)

I also made some good progress on Lilith of Labrador by Mirabilia, including finishing up her huge tail and getting a good start on her body:

Yes, there's an oddly pink patch on her belly that I need to fix. I'm not using the suggested Waterlilies color in her skin as it's far too pink, but the DMC I initially chose to replace it (23) was also too pink! I didn't feel like frogging for a second time - because I originally tried a blend of two colors that didn't work at all - so I just carried on with DMC 27, which is a very pale purple.

Next post will be yet another finish, oops. :3

City of Cats - getting closer!

After finishing my roses, my next project was City of Cats by Owlforest Embroidery. This is a complete kit with fabric and threads, so it's pretty much stitched exactly as charted. I made a couple of minor changes to where colors were used, but that's all.

Here's how it looked when I picked it up on June 11:

And then I made steady progress over the week:

Finally ending up here on June 17:

The sky is a beast, but it looks amazing (even better in person) so I don't mind too much. Next time I work on this will be a finish for sure. :)