No Crazy 15 2012 For Me

Just a quick update as things have been going slowly this week but at least steady.  I managed to finish 6 more squares on the Advent Calenday so I am now half way there.











I may have mentioned how I was really itching to start a HAED pattern after I bought Direwood.  Common sense kicked in and told me to start small before I go nuts.  I started the Freebie SK Flower Bride but not much progress happend.  I found out that my eyes don't like such small stitches and I was straining my eyes to do this little bit.

I have ordered one of those magnifying glass thingies that go around your neck and then rest on your chest so you can have your hands free.  It should be here by the end of next week so if I have a couple of late night next week maybe I can make enough of a dent on the Advent Calendar that I will be able to spend a few guilt free hours on Flower Bride once it arrives.

I also started one of the bookmarks for my daughters school.  It didn't get very far due to my guilt of working on another project even if it is one that also has a deadline.  Hopefully these will go super fast once I really dig in as I want to make four of them before the end of the school year.

I have had a bit of a bittersweet week.  We live in a town that doesn't have a movie theatre so I only got to see Deathly Hollows Pt 2 when it was released on DVD Monday.  It has been such a big part of our lives for so many years that I just can't believe that there will never be another one.  I felt the same way when, after three years, LOTR finished.  Luckily (and don't give me any flack for this)  I still have the two finale Twilight movies to look forward to.  It opened at movie theatres on Friday and *sigh* I will have to wait until maybe March / April to see it.
Although major watching plans in the hopefully near future will be the purchase of Merlin Seasone 2 as I am really looking forward to watching it.  I went online to view prices and was shocked to see Seasone 3 is already released and now to try figure out how I can get that too:-)

I have had to come to the decision to not take part in Crazy 15 2012.  I wanted to start kitting everything in preparation and realised that I just don't have enough fabric.  Whenever I have had a bit of extra cash I put it into dmc threads to try get all the colours  but it has meant that I have only bought fabric whenever I have needed to and I thought I had more than I do have.  There is no suppliers of cross stitch items in SA so most of the items we can purchase locally are all either DMC, Dimensions and Heritage.  All of these are imported and unfortunately for us that means it is pricey.  The shops have to cover the items cost, the postage and whatever taxes they have to pay when the item comes into the country and on top of that they have to make a profit.  DMC threads cost R9.50 each at my local shop and I had to pay R25 for one of the metallic threads the other day.

But I look at it in the sense of how many hours of pleasure I get making the items and I would never say I regret paying what I do.  I have about 70 more colours (excluding the metallics and variagated) to get and then I will have every colour so 2012 will be the year of buying fabric and then in 2013 I will join the group again, if it is still going, and I am okay with it.

I have joined TUSAL though and look forward to using my cut offs as a decoration in a pretty bottle/vase instead of vacuum cleaner fodder:-)

The ABC's of Me

 I saw this on Black Belt Stitching Wizards Blog and it looked interesting so here goes:-)

The ABC's of Me

A - Age: 30, I think that's the first time I have every written that number down and it looks so strange.
B - Bed size: Double
C - Chore you hate: Washing Windows, although if you asked my hubby I probably am not over enthusiastic about any housework.
D - Dog's name: I am a cat person but due to hubby being allergic I have none, but my DD has a dog named Jack

E - Essential start of the day item: Coffee and about 30minutes to myself to drink it in peace.
F - Favorite color: yellow, it's my happy colour
G - Gold or Silver: silver
H - Height: 5'

I - Instruments you play: none but did piano lessons for a short while
J - Job: I take care of my family
K - Kids: one daughter who is 7.
L - Living arrangements: house in a small town with hubby and daughter.
M - Music you love: Rock and a bit of metal!  Favourite picks : Nickleback, Prime Circle, Cold, Evanescense etc
N - Nicknames: Micky
O - Overnight hospital stay at hospital: Oh I have had a few of those, one was to have my daughter by emergency surgery and the other few times were to have a couple ops on my eyes.
P - Pet Peeve: Not having all the thread colours in my stash yet, I hate wanting to start a project only to know I don't have all the colours and then only being able to start it once I have been shopping.
Q - Quote from a movie: Oh boy I love movies but a brain like a sieve, hence the liking to watch movies over and over again, so no quote comes to mind.
R - Right handed or left: Right

S - Siblings: Older sister by a year and a half.
T - Time you wake up: 6:00am in the week and if I am very lucky to sleep late on weekends then it's 7:00am

U - Underwear: didn't know it was optional, although I agree with Stephanie Pearl McPhee that bra's are sometimes optional, alright honestly very optional if the clothing I am wearing allows for it.
V - Vegetable you dislike: brussle sprouts
W - Workout Style: In my dreams.
X - X-rays you've had: dental,
Y - Yummy food you make: A chocolate Cake and yes I know it's not technically food but the cooking fairy missed me completely when they were handing out skills.  My cooking is still just as bad as it was 8 years ago when I married and cooking for my family became my responsibility.
Z - The best place to visit: Anywhere we go on holiday or for a overnight stay where the cleaning and cooking isn't mine to take care of... lots of extra stitching time!

Tooth Fairy Complete

Things are progressing nicely here even though I am so itching to start something new.  I hear a HAED calling my name... but I am resisting so far.

I finally found a few charts I like and last night I charted 2 of the 4 bookmarks I want to make for the teachers.

I also finally completed tooth fairy.  I finished stitching awhile ago but I never turned her into anything.  My DD decided she didn't want a pillow but rather wanted it to hang on the wall.  So a bit of eye searing pink felt, two buttons and a hanger later she is now the happy owner of this:

Her Advent Calendar is coming along well and I love how it's looking.  It's working up at a decent pace but not fast enough for me as I know I can't / shouldn't start anything new until this is done.

I have also changed my Crazy 15 2012 list as I realised that it's suppossed to be crazy and not irrational, and that there is a slight differenct in the two words.  My list was irrational because I had chosen 15 big projects to complete and there is no way I would ever meet the end of year and have all finished.

So I changed a few items to smaller projects and I am pretty sure I will be changing a few of the larger ones soon too.

First HAED Purchase

I have been trying to be good, really I have but I just couldn't resist falling down the rabbit hole.

I have just purchased my first HAED chart!!!

Due to the $ verus Rand exchange rate purchasing one is not cheap for me and thus I wasn't sure I wanted to start but after much thinking I realised that they are so worth the cost.  The art is beautiful and the amount of stitching that will be done to complete each piece is hours upon hours.

I also knew that having one design is not ever enough so I also made a promise to myself that I would not purchase more than one design every quarter.  Hubby gets notices when the credit card is used and he is not against my stitching but he is also not all for it so there is obviously a limit I could spend at any given time before it would bother him.

Meet  Direwood

Blu Stitcher Blogoversary

Wow boy was I suprised today to see that I have 3!!! followers since yesterday.  And I got such a lovely comment.  It really makes one feel good to be complimented on ones work.

Blu Stitcher who is the person who commented incidently is having a her one year blogoversary and is celebrating by having a competition.  So pop over there if you feel lucky:-)

http://blustitcher.blogspot.com/

Blog Revamp

Today I decided to sit down and sort out my blog.  I don't know what took me so long to do it as it turned out much easier than I thought it would.

As you will see I have added a new list to my sidebar.  It's a SAL that I joined and am sooo looking forward to participating.  I have already chosen the fifteen designs I plan on starting but some of it may still change.  I am lucky enough to have found this SAL early enough so that I can spend the next two months making sure I have all the fabric, threads, enlarged patterns that I can mark on and then put them all nicely into ziploc bags in my basket and have them ready to pull out.

Now for what you actually want to see, my WIP's:

I won't post any pictures of my doors for now because they have not had one stitch added to them since the last pics.

I realised that I never did show the finished table numbers that I was doing.  I ended up making 36 of them and they were well liked at the dance.  I got a bunch of compliments and they have kept them to use for next years dance.  Luckily only one was taken home so I just have to replace No.  11:

Started:  05 August 2011
Completed:  12 October 2011

Sadly my dragon/castle has been scrapped.  Not once but twice.
The first time was because I was doing it on 14 count, which the design called for but there are so many fractional stitches that I felt it was looking extremely messy.  I bought myself 28 count evenweave and tried to work on that but my eyes just won't allow it for now.  I know a magnifying glass for stitching will help with that problem but the purchase will have to wait until next year some time due to the fact that christmas is just around the corner, we want to put up a higher front wall in December and my daughter starts her first year of school next year so right now its uniforms, sports stuff, stationary and all the other stuff that is needed.

Pefect Pets
Designer:  Joann Elliot
Started:  20 September 2011

Art Nouveau Lady
Designer:  Lesley Teare
Started:  October 2011

I also started an Advent Calendar for my daughter and I am going to give each kindergarted teacher a bookmark to say thank you for beeing teachers.  I have no photo's of them yet so hopefully next update.  These will be the only things I will be working on for the rest of November as the Calendar has to be finished by 30 Nov and the 4 bookmarks need to be finished by 4 December.

The rest of the year will be spent working on my three UFO's and some christmas tree decorations.

Dyeing

I was going to do a blog post concerning all the wonderful designs out there and how left out we are if we don't live overseas. As I was walking around the house cleaning I was thinking about what I would say. I came to realise that it just wouldn't come out in a way that didn't sound like I was moaning and I didn't like that idea.

I look at alot of blogs and have seen all the wonderful dyed fabrics out there and there are a few of Joann Elliot designs that I want to make but would of had to do them on white. We don't have the lovely fabrics in South Africa and I was feeling sad about that fact. Then I decided to do some research and found a youtube video showing how to dye fabrics with effects and then I pulled out some easter egg dye.

First I soaked a bit of one tablet in hot water with a little bit of white vinegar.



I then put my fabric in the "dye" and turned it over after a minute. I then put it in the microwave for 30 seconds because the water was already hot.



I then poured out the water and left it to cool. Once it was cool I rinsed and rinsed it under the tap and watched it become lighter as the excess ran out with the water.



I then dried it with the iron and this is what it looks like:



Now I just need to wait until I can go to the shop where one can buy the powdered food colouring and try the youtube video experiment and see if I can come up with some interesesting effects. From now on my fabrics will never be white unless they look better that way:-)