Happy New Year and Hocus Pocus Update

I hope that everyone is going to have a very nice New Year.  I will be enjoying the evening with my stitching.

Linda asked me what my previous update was so here are the details.

It's called Glass Aglow and is published in The World Of Cross Stitching Issue # 163.

I worked on Hocus Pocus for the last 4 days and here it was before:

And After:

Next time I will do finish off the backstitching of her face and hair.

I have a new start today and it's a TW freebie called Futurecast.

The main thread that will determine the dragons colours is a South African dyed thread and this is what it looks like:

I am not participating in the Crazy Jan 2013 but I am so looking forward to reading blog posts of everyone who is participating.

Merry Christmas And New Start

I hope everybody had a lovely Christmas. We had a nice but peaceful time. We went and had lunch with the husbands family and were home by 3:30pm. The husband spent the rest of the day having a nap and reading, daughter played with her presents and I had tea and stitched.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who leaves comments. I love getting them and really appreciate the fact that you take the time to leave them for me.

 I also started a new design. Well technically it's six small designs but I have chosen four that I am stitching on the same fabric and will get framed. I loved the way it looked in the magazine but since stitching it, I am not sure if I like it as much. But I will give it chance till I have at least one of them finished before I make up my mind.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Summer Fairy Update

This is how she looked the last time I put her away:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

I usually backstitch as I go, but I enjoyed wathing her come to life, that I only started the backstitch this time round:

A Small Finish and Update

It took me two days to actually get buttons but it's done. The finishing could of been better and I should of stuffed it more but I like it and am happy with it. Sorry for the not so great pics. I tried using my cellphone camera and digital camera and they both look washed out. I wish I could find a camera that took details and colours well. 15 Sided Biscornu ( I will put the details in my FO tab as usual.

I used Threadworx Wildfowers, that I won at TryllaCraft Blog and then DMC 964.

Then here is my new start:  A Friend Like You

It is not as far as I would of liked but hopefully next time it comes up will be more productive.

TUSAL and Update

Sorry for being absent... I have had technical issues which kept me away.

Here is my December TUSAL:

I can't believe that it is the last one of the year.  I will continue saving my threads until the end of December as I want the whole years worth in my bottle.

I also have a finish.  I can't believe it, as I though I would have no more finishes this year.

Cut-Thru Fairy Hill:

I will add the details in my FO's tab.

I have 2 new starts, although one is technically finished and just needs finishing.

15 Sided Biscornu:

This is a pic I took of it while I was putting it together.  It is finished and I am busy spraying it with scotch guard.  I wanted to go get buttons for it today but I was too busy here at home.  Tomorrow is Sunday so the fabric shop isn't open, and I will have to go early Monday morning.

 It was one of my close friends birthday recently and I didn't want to give her the usual gift.  I sort of gave her an IOU until I found the perfect gift and I finally found it.  This is what the finished item will look like:

I still have two days of work on it before I put it away, so I will post what mine looks like then.

Sadly I have put my HAED starts on hold.  With all the end of year expenses like, stationery and books for the next school year, new uniforms because she has outgrown her last ones and of course Christmas presents, I just could not still ask hubby if I could buy 3 meters of 16 count for the 3 new starts I want to do.  But it's okay...  my daughter is priority and as long as she has all she needs it's all good.

An Award

I remember last time, when the Liebster Award was making the rounds, how much I enjoyed seeing the blog links that were chosen and it made me find a few new fav's.

This time I was lucky enough to receive one of my own from the lovely Kasey who thought my blog was good enough to get one.  Thank you Kasey, you definitely made my day.

Liebster is a German word meaning dearest, favorite or beloved. Liebster Awards are given by bloggers to other bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help newer bloggers gain wider recognition. 

1. Choose 5 bloggers with fewer than 200 followers to award the Liebster to.

2. Show thanks to the blogger who awarded the Liebster to you by linking back to their blog. 

3.  Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving awards to, with links to their sites, and comment on their blog to let them know that you have given them the award.

It is amazing just how hard it is to choose 5 blogs out of all of the ones I enjoy but lets see if I can do it.

1.  Sharine at Charbella Stitching
2.  DJH at Sometimes, I am Not Nice
3.  Mimi at Stitchy
4.  Emma at XXXStitching
5.  Megan at Stitchings Of An Army Wife

HAED Sale

I could not resist the sale but I at least didn't go nuts.

Its amazing how hard it is to choose just two designs.

I chose:

Mini The Eternal Promise

Mermaid

While downloading Mermaid the download failed.
This has not happened before and so I wasn't sure what to do.  I emailed Michel via the website and (I am not kidding) 2 minutes later she replied with Mermaid attached!!!!  What stunning service.

A SAL and Fairy Hill (again)

I decided to participate in the 2013 HAED Freebie SAL this year.  I just need to make sure I order extra fabric.  It feels like next week will never come.  I will only be able to order the fabric round about next Wednesday, and due to our Postal Service vehicles not working on weekends, I will probably only get the fabric the following week.  So I estimate at least a 2 week wait before I can start on my HAED journey.

This is the design I chose to do:

QS Literate Dragon 139 x 145 - 20,155

I chose this design because it reminds me of my husband.  Okay it makes me think of what he will be doing later in life.  Excluding the dinner jacket and Shakespeare, but otherwise that's exactly what he will be doing with alot of his time once retired.


I have been stitching and stitching on Fairy Hill.  This project feels like a bit of a black hole.... like it will never end.  Though I get like that at the end of every project.
Though I don't like starting a project either... my favorite time on a design is where I can start to see the picture forming but still have lots to do.

This is how the last room looks now and here is the overall view:

I just wish I could find a camera that takes true pictures.  These pics were taken in natural daylight and my camera just washes out the colours.  They are alot more vibrant then I can get it to show.

TUSAL and Stitchy Update

Firstly here is my TUSAL jar as of today:

A nice amount of stitching this month!

My Ladybug Jar topper was finished on the 28 October and I love it.

Sorry for the flash.  I dropped my phone at some point and I think I damaged the camera a little.  So now it doesn't take pics well and they either come out dark (without flash) or grainy.  I will have to start remembering to use the camera for my updates.

I got into the spirit of Halloween and started a new project on the 31st.

Hocus Pocus by Joan Elliott

I will be ordering enough 16 count for 2 HAED projects end of Nov and hopefully it will arrive early Dec.  My plans will be (don't hold me to it) that I will rotate between the 2 projects after a page completion on them.  Saturdays are normal days here but Sundays are my "day off", as I only do general cleaning like dishes and beds etc and enjoy the day with stitching, so every Sat and Sun will be me working on a non-HAED.

Right now I am working on finishing Cut-Thru Fairy Hill until my fabric arrives, and then after that I will concentrate on Fancy Fairy as it's been months since I touched her.

I finally finished the kitchen and will now be working on the last room and then only the front entrance to do and then a Happy Dance.

2013 Goals

I have (hopefully) decided to make 2013 the year of the HAED.

This whole scare with HAED maybe having to close really got me anxious.  I have admired and drooled over the designs for awhile now but I just got busy with projects I already had and just assumed that HAED would always be there.

I already own 3 of the designs which I will show in a HAED stash tab after this post.

Even with the exchange rate their designs are still a bargain.  To make something that looks like art when you are done is just something that amazes me.

I have tried to start the projects with no luck so far.  I bought 2m of 22count only to realize that I would never be able to work on it.  I then bought 18count and even though it is more manageable my eyes still hurt after about 15 minutes.

Due to unforseen expenses end of October I had to sadly miss the 50% off sale but I am sure there will be another one at some point.  But I plan on buying 16 count fabric at the end of Nov and Dec and hopefully will have my first HAED start in Dec.

So the reason for this post is that Christmas is speeding it's way here and I am hopeful that my husband will be willing to buy me a few charts as a Christmas present.  I will be sending him a message with the link to this post and hope he takes the hint:-)

I have been working my way through all the charts and have managed to get to view over 3000 of them and I already have 49 on my wishlist.

But to make the husbands life easier, I have selected a few that are Must Haves for you to choose from and the rest are ones I will happily purchase as time allows.

I don't know how to add a direct link to my wishlist as its not giving me my wishlist number in the web addie, so just go to this link:

http://heavenandearthdesigns.com/index.php?main_page=un_wishlist_find

And use my email:

MoniqueLHinze@gmail.com

Hopefully Santa (hehe) will be kind to me this year.

Autumn Flowers Famed and Fairy Hill Update

I got Autumn Flowers back from the framer and I absolutely love how it looks.  It's going to be so hard to give it away.

I didn't enjoy stitching it much so I probably would never do it again, but I just wish it could hang on my wall:-)

But I will be good and hand it over tomorrow at lunch for my MIL's birthday.

Here is a update on Fairy Hill.  I worked on it for the last 3 days and made alot of progress.

I started a new project today but I think it won't even make it a full 3 days in my rotation.  It is a small Jar Topper for my 2013 TUSAL jar.

Very Late Tusal and SF Update

We have been offline with our internet for awhile.  Luckily I could still use my phone to read blogs and comment, but my phone doesn't like the new blogger interface.

Okay first my very late Tusal for October:

Its a good thing that there are only two months left at my Jar looks like this already:

 

I wone a prize over at http://tryllacraft.blogspot.com/ and this is what the very generous lady sent me:

Wow, what a lot of goodies, and such a nice package to receive, Thank You.

And lastly here is how Summer Fairy looks now.  She is so fun to work on but she has been put away for awhile:

 And lastly I don't normally get too personal on the blog but I just had to share this pic of my daughter.  We were at a bird show and the kids got to hold one of the birds.  I think her expression says it all:

Summer Fairy Progress

I worked on Summer Fairy for a whole week and her skirt is still not done... but it's close:

I have put her away for awhile as I really want to catch up on the PR SAL.  I completed Clue 1 and 2 but 3 and 4 are already out and not a stitch done.

I am also trying to work on BT Cut-Thru Fairy Hill every third day just so that I can try get it done.

I find stitching weird sometimes.... At one point I loved working on this design so much that I could barely put it down but now I can barely pick it up as I just can't find the love I had.
I am trying to complete it because the daughter is feeling a bit unloved atm due to the fact that both this design and Mythical Muse are not being worked on and they are for her.

Autumn Flowers DONE

I can't believe it is finally done.  I have literally just put the last backstitch in it.

The last few days have been hard in the stitching department as I really wasn't in the mood to work on this, but I pushed myself to complete it.

It will get a bath and gentle ironing this weekend and on Monday I will take it to the framers.

Now I need to finish packing for our weekend away and tonight I will be happily working on Summer Fairy.

Finally A Small Finish

I completed a small finish and it has made me feel accomplished.

I finished the stitching and and almost all the the running stitch last night:

And then I spent most of today turning it into this:

So Close To A Finish

I am actually so close to two finishes that I can feel it.

This is Autumn Flowers with a before and after pic.  I only spent 2 days on her so not much progress but enough.

 

This has to get done asap because it's my MIL's birthday on the 27th October and it still needs to go to the framer.

 Here is what Celtic Wheel looked like on the 24th.

I have spent another 1 and a half days on it and I am on the third panel already.
I couldn't finish the backstitch on the second one until today due to the fact that I took the black thread outside with me while we had a braai last night, and when it got dark I took it all into the house.  But later that evening I realised that I didn't have my bobbin of black.  I searched all over and it's just POOF gone.  So I had to buy myself another one today and it bugged me because threads here are not cheap.  R9.00 a skein which is over $1.

My daughter is going to a sleep over in a bit so I will continue working on it in hopes of having lots of TV and stitching time tonight.  I may even have a finish to show next time I blog.

We had a special event this week.  My daughter has been going to cub scouts for awhile now but on Tuesday she finally got to wear her uniform and got all her official badges that have to go on the shirt.  Next month they will get their first interest badges.

Stitchy Update

I can't believe its been so long since I did a post with an update.

I have worked on Autumn Flowers but I forgot to take a pic.

Here is Summer Fairy so far.... please excuse the wrinkles and the hoop mark.

I am really enjoying working on her as I love the colours and she is so fun to stitch.  I am glad that I started with her skirt first because boy is it alot of stitching.  I got a bit bored with it so once I got about half of it done I moved onto the left side of her dress.  It is almost done and then I will complete her skirt and then do the right side next to her skirt.

I plan on doing the backstitch once all of her skirt is done and then move onto the top of the design and that way I won't have a lot of backstitch in the end.

I veered off of my rotation a bit and started a small design.

It's JE's Celtic Wheel... It's suppossed to be a lot smaller but I am doing it on 14 count.

It has been so long since I had a finish and this won't take too long and then I will at least feel accomplished.

My plans for this year are big and I hope that I can complete them.

1.  Finish Summer Fairy

2.  Finish Autumn Flowers

3.  Finish Celtic Wheel

4.  Start and finish Santa Stocking

5.  Finish Mythical Muse

6.  Finish Fairy Hill

Most of these are at least half way or more so maybe it's not so mad after all.