Finally delving into the worlld of HAED

I have been saying for ages that I wanted to try one of these and now I have two started and two more starts planned, as soon as I buy 2m of 16 count aida.

It has been a hard thing to get into as I am doing them on 18 count and it is not easy for my eyes, and also progress is alot slower and one gets a bit frustrated with it.

First up is QS Literate Dragon (the BB year SAL).

It doesn't look like much, but I have worked out how many stitches per day I need to do to get this done during the year, and I am actually a few days ahead of schedule.

My new start is Mini Eternal Promise.  This one really doesn't look like much but once again I am ahead of schedule for my goals for the year.  I want to finish Pg 1-6 this year.

I will leave my 2 starts as a surprise till I get the fabric and actually start them.

TUSAL 01 and Updates

Here is my first TUSAL post of the year.

Lots of stitching being going on here:-)

 Here is what my Fancy Fairy looked like last time she was worked on:

And here is my progress now:

And lastly here is my QS Literate as of yesterday:

Yesterday I spent all day working on this.
It amazes me just how fast other people manage too stitch on a HAED, as it's so time consuming and I wonder how fast they stitch.

A Small Finish and HAED BB Sal First Update

My first finish of 2013...

Its a very small finish and only took 3 days.

I still need to count how many I will be doing through the year but at least 1 is done.

And here is my first update on QS Literate Dragon:

In retrospect probably not the best chart to choose as my first HAED project but I am committed now and will continue on.  I found out that I do not like parking but I have found a way that I like.
I will only be working on this every fourth day from now on as I don't want my other projects to suffer and I have all year to finish this one anyway.

Futurecast And Request

I have been keeping to my rotation but I have changed the days on a project from 4 to 3.  I found that by day 3 I was already itching to move on and I spent most of day 4 wishing I was working on something else.

So here is Futurecast after 3 days of work:

Today I will be starting to make Christmas Decorations.  Over a year ago I made my daughter an advent calendar and I am going to choose my fav patterns from that design and just make them so that I can hang them onto the tree next year.

We have a smallish tree and next year I will be buying a larger tree  So I have decided to use the smallish one as a totally hand made tree.  Any decorations I make and any others that I buy that are hand made will go on there.

On that note I have a request.  I have been wanting kits like the these two for ages now but hubby has said no to me buying them from 123 Stitch due to the expense of postage and tax I will have to pay when I collect it from the Post Office.

24 Festive Ornaments - Janlynn

Tiny Christmas Stocking Ornaments - Bucilla

Now my request isn't for someone to provide me with kits.  But maybe there is someone out there who reads my blog, and has made them for themselves and might still have the designs and instructions lying around, and might be willing to part with them?

I can't offer much in return as what we get in SA does not compare to cross stitch that can be bought in UK or USA.  But I do have a stash of South African dyed threads that I would be willing to exchange.  Just mention what colours you like and how many skeins you think is fare for your trouble.

They are just plain simple threads and nothing fancy buy here is my collection:

And lastly here is my threads ready for the start of QS Literage Dragon:

I have a few HAED designs I want to start, but looking at the amount of threads needed for a QS got me thinking.

I am not a person who likes not having all the threads needed for a project when I want to start it... so I spent four years collecting all the dmc threads.  I used my birthday money and any spare cash I had and bought them little by little.  Now I have one set of all the plain dmc threads and now you see my problem.  I might be willing to slowly start adding to my threads as I will not need to purchase all new colours every time I start a HAED but what I can't wrap my mind around is how people who do multiple projects store their floss when they have completed a design as they will be storing multiple bobbins of some colours.  Any advice or tips would be appreciated.