2009 ~ A productive year indeed!

I wanted to sort through what I've been working on in the last year, and it's been a very productive year to be sure! So let's start with the finishes, most of which were started prior to 2009.

2009 Finishes

Mirabilia's Fairy Idyll:

Finished in February 2009. Fairy Idyll was a long time favorite pattern from Mirabilia, and was a joy to work on. I love all the details like the bed canopy and the bunny statue. She is definately a "boudoir" piece!

Mirabilia's Summer Queen:

Finished in May 2009. This is the last of the Seasonal Queens series for me to finish; I started with Spring Queen in 1999, so yes, that's 10 years to finish. Ack! Here's all the Queens together:

One day I'll get them framed all to match LOL Have to save my pennies.

Mirabilia's Crystal Symphony:

Finished in May 2009 as well (good month!). I gave her to my mother as a gift, so she had her framed rather quickly (usually it takes me a year or more to get pieces framed).

And finally: Silver Lining's Edith Wharton:

Finished in December 2009. I was doing really well rotating projects, but stuck with this one so I could get another 2009 finish.

Crystal Symphony Framed!

Although she looks a little monocromatic with the grey matting and the pewter frame, she'll be hanging in a room that has a lot of roses and pinks in it, so it really picks up the roses on her dress. As always, the picture doesn't do her justice.

And she's finished...

There isn't a square inch on Crystal Symphony that doesn't have beads - it's not quite as obvious on the photograph as it is when you see it up close. As you can see, I opted to leave off the frame and chandelier - there's so much going on with all of the beading that I thought it was overkill.

As it turned out, I did have enough Magnifica beads - there were all of five leftover. Whew! Talk about cutting it close.

Beadwork Teaser

Just a close up of some of the beadwork that I've been doing on Crystal Symphony

I'm going to be short on some of the black Magnifica beads, so I'm going to have to do a little shopping so I can finish her up.

2 skeins of white later....

While it may not look much different from the earlier picture, I've actually managed to fill in all the white on the dress - it took two whole skeins of white floss. Ack! I also got most of the backstitching on the dress finished.

I may actually be able to get Crystal completed soon.

Full Circle

I first learned to cross stitch before I was 10 years old, and have been doing it on and off ever since then. There's been some periods in my life where I've done more and I've done less. For various reasons, I really wasn't stitching much between about 2002 and 2008 - I did a few projects here and there, but not very much.

I'd wanted to get back to stitching, so after finals were finished last spring semester, I visited a needlework store in PA (I am up there visiting my boyfriend often), and picked up the materials for Crystal Symphony (I had a choice of all of two Mirabilias that they had on hand LOL). So I got started back on Crystal (Nothing like a simple project to ease back into stitching, right?)

I worked on Crystal on and off during the summer, rotating with a filet crochet tablecloth (which I did finish):



It's worked from the center out, much like round lace doilies are worked. It's done with a size 10 thread, so it's a little thicker/more durable than a finer thread (the slightly thicker thread is also easier for me to work with - size 20 kills my hands and eyes). I've done so many afghans over the years (I learned how to crochet in the late 80's) that I rarely do them anymore - there's only so many I need :-). Extra lace pieces, however, are easy to store (and I end up giving away a lot of the smaller pieces).

A close up so you can see some of the detailing:

This is how far I got on Crystal Symphony before she got rotated out:

Crystal got bumped when I finally got the Mermaids of the Blue (Mirabilia patterns were a little tough to get last summer because of distribution reorganization). I really have not worked on her since - she didn't stand a chance once I started working on getting my Queens finished LOL.

With my finish of the Queens series last week, I've been kind of bumping around all week, deciding what direction to go in. I've been bouncing around projects this week trying but really haven't been able to settle into anyone. I ended up sitting down last night and spreading out all my WIPs and my kitted projects (an impressive pile, I must say) to basically work out what I should be focusing on for now.

Crystal is currently my oldest WIP, so I need to get back working on her for a while. I'm debating about simplifying the design, because I'm not thrilled with the chandelier at the moment. I may skip the frame entirely, or perhaps just leave that part out and lower the top edge of the frame. On the body, I have most of the colors filled in, and need to fill in a LOT of white, which will take a long time AND make it appear that I'm not progressing LOL. I was having trouble with her left arm (I did the flesh parts in over 1) so I frogged a chunk of that last night (ouch). I've since decided that over-1 just is not compatible with my eyes and my patience, so I won't be doing any more over-1's, but I'll have to finish up Crystal that way since it's nearly finished. As my official oldest WIP, I think I need to focus on getting her done.

There's also Edith Wolford, also started last summer, which has so little done that I haven't even bothered taking a picture LOL It's a beautiful purple and orange iris from Silver Lining, which I put aside because there's a lot of confetti stitching with very similar colors. I'm going to go back and start working it in 10x10 blocks (working off what I have already done), and I carded up all the floss last night so I can keep the cut floss on the cards as well to tell the colors apart better.

I'll no doubt work on some other projects as well, but I'm going to try to focus on getting these two finished this summer.

2008 Cross Stitch Projects

2008 was a great year for me as far as getting a lot of work done on various projects. I started some new ones, finished a very old WIP, and completed two major cross stitch pieces, as well as several larger crochet lace pieces.

I started off the beginning of the summer with a visit to a cross stitch shop in PA, and picked up Mirabilia's "Crystal Symphony" and got started on her.

The background is 32 count antique white linen, and I stitched the face/arms in petit point for a smoother appearance. I'm about halfway finished, and plan on getting her finished sometime in 2009. I put her away to work on Mirabilia's "Mermaids of the Deep Blue Sea", which I finished in September 2008. The background fabric is Amsterdam Blue 32 count linen.

I found the darker fabric somewhat of a challenge to work on, so I bought my first OTT-Lite floor lamp - while expensive, it has definately been well worth the price, and I recommend them highly.

Additionally, I started Silver Lining's "Edith Wolford", a beautiful purple and orange iris. While I love the Silver Lining's designs, the amount of confetti stitching with very similar colors makes them borderline frustrating to work on, so the projects get put aside after only a few days of work. I honestly think that the quantity of color changes could be simplified and still have amazing results - I would definately do a lot more Silver Lining designs if they were. Still, I'd like to get this one finished sometime in 2009.