February YOTA

It's YOTA time again! I'm a wee bit late-ish, depending on your time zone that is.

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, check it out/sign up here. It's hosted by Pull The Other Thread and is a very (thank God) relaxed SAL. Each month we post before and after pics of the progress on our UFOs, or in my case our WIPs, since that's really all I have at the moment. Folks are obviously encouraged to post each month, but coming and going as the months roll by is allowed too.

So this is where Hummingbird Welcome left off last month. Mind you I'm only doing the backstitching and a few details. My Grandma sent me this one years ago and, since I began stitching again, have only recently pulled it out of it's hiding spot to complete it.

And this is how far I have progressed.

Not really a ton, but I'm happy with it. The backstitching on the purple flowers is all finished, and I've begun the leaves at the bottom of the piece. It is hard to tell unless you zoom in on the pictures. Hoping to have a bunch more done in February as I am trying to get this one completed by May to have framed for my birthday.

That's all for the moment folks! Until next time. :-)

January YOTA!

Hello all! It's time for YOTA, and here I am squeezing this post in before Saturday ends. We're posting a little later than the first weekend this year since the New Year fell so close to the weekend and everyone was running around like a headless chicken for awhile there. :-)

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, check it out/sign up here. It's hosted by Pull The Other Thread and is a very (thank God) relaxed SAL. Each month we post before and after pics of the progress on our UFOs, or in my case our WIPs, since that's really all I have at the moment. Folks are obviously encouraged to post each month, but coming and going as the months roll by is allowed too.

Onto the progress. :-) I must first apologize that I don't have a before pic. Suffice it to say that before I began there was no backstitching done at all. I've managed to make a little progress this month. All of the black is finished on the bird at the top. I just need to finish with the grey-ish thread and then I can move onto the other one.

For those that didn't catch my previous post about this pretty little thing... I did NOT do any of the stitching on this. My Grandmother started it many years ago and sent it to me as a gift to finish for myself. I found out the hard way that there are a few different kind of stitches in this one that I've never run across before so it's going to take me a little longer than I originally anticipated. Always fun to learn something new though!!

You may want to click the picture to see the backstitching detail a little bit better.

I can't wait to have this one framed! Hopefully YOTA will keep me on track with this one.

Starting Off With a Bang

Dear Friends,

Hope you're all enjoying the beginning of 2015. I don't make new year's resolutions, but if you do I wish you all the best of luck. I'll happily be there cheering you on. :-)

We spent NYE with friends and DB's company Christmas party was Jan 2. A little late, but they throw an amazing party so it's well worth the wait. DB even managed to win a smart watch. Not sure what we're going to do with it since he's the total opposite of tech-savvy. (I'm lucky the man has a cell phone.)

A New Stitchy Start SAL began as of Jan 1. This brought about the beginning of my first ever HAED piece! For those that aren't following that blog, I shall recap my progress thus far.

Of course, I had to take a photo of the very first stitch going in, and the first 10x10 block that was completed. I'm stitching this one 2 over 1 on 25-count, with full crosses. So many threads in such tiny tiny holes!!

This is where I left off as of last night. I'm guesstimating that I've done about 1500 stitches. I'm still trying to decide exactly how to do this whole parking thing. I tried stitching one 10x10 at a time for the first 1000 stitches which worked quite well. Then I moved onto stitching the same color for 10 columns, basically the height of the page. That seems to work alright as well. Not sure how I'll continue, but parking (however I decide to do it) really is the way to go with this piece.

I also NEED, not want, a magnifying lens. The first night I gave myself a headache trying to see all those stitches. It doesn't really help that our living room has next to nothing for light and we don't have a lamp. Ugh. I've been looking at some of those Ottlite things, but good lord they must be gold-plated they're so expensive!!

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL also begins this month with our first post coming quicker than I'm ready for, though I'm thrilled to start. I've decided to begin this journey with Fantasia as my Mom bought it for me for Christmas and it's really the only thing gifted I have at the moment. I also plan on beginning Grumpy Owl as it is a gift for Mom, but as of this moment I don't have all the floss or fabric yet. I'm hoping to get that all together by March-ish.

I've also joined YOTA which was probably the best idea I've had. Maybe this will help me get through the pile of UFOs that I'm very quickly accumulating!!

The last (for now) that I plan to join will be TUSAL, but as of the moment the sign up page isn't quite ready yet.

I'm hoping all of these will keep me organized-ish in my blogging and stitching. Of course if another SAL pops up that I can't refuse I'm sure I'll add it to my ever-growing list. :-)

That's where I'll leave you for now. Please be patient with me as I do plan on revamping the look of my blog sometime this week (I hope). So it may look a wee bit strange from time to time. :-)