The Crafty Writer

Archive for the ‘Cross stitching’ Category

Super Fast Stitching

Had a bit more stitching time than usual recently and it’s showing in Faces of Faery 70.  I managed to get page 4 finished in a week.  I was hoping that it wouldn’t take too long as it’s a partial page but I think it’s only ten rows away from being a full page so it didn’t really make much difference.  I’ve now done most of the heart that she’s holding and you can just see her thumb at the bottom of the page.  This chart seems to be a lot more blocks of colour than the train which probably helps me feel that it’s stitching up quicker.  The next time she moves onto my rotation I’ll be working towards finishing her.

I think it might take a few weeks to get her finished as I’ll be doing pages 5 and 6 together because of the small size of page 6.  I counted up the actually stitched weeks last night and I’ve done 6 weeks so far.

Next up should be the stitch along week but I may delay that slightly while I wait patiently for the next page so I may be going back to the Train for page 13 and heading towards that 50% mark.

Here comes the Frog

Frogging, something you’ll often hear stitchers talking about often in dark mutterings.  The Frog is the last thing stitchers want visiting them and it visited me the other week.  Frogging is the name given to unpicking your stitches, there’s a couple of origin stories for it the one I like is the ‘rippit rippit’ as you rip your stitches out.

Last weekend I had to rip out a number of stitches from Sunny when I discovered that I had put a colour back in the wrong place and I was stitching an area with blue thread rather than with the cream thread.  I managed to get it unpicked without damaging the fabric, unpicking one strand stitched over one thread can lead to problems.

Luckily I have some lift and snip scissors that I bought some time ago and they really helped.  The bottom blade is a hook shape and you hook the thread of the top stitch into that isolating it before you cut the thread to help with the unpicking.

I did get the page finished before moving back to Train of Dreams to finish page 4.  The dragon at the front of the train is complete now as is the sun sleeping behind some of the books.  Another carriage is beginning to take shape, this one is crammed with stars and some of these are flying out across the background.  I now have seven pages stitched in total, nearly halfway now and I’m still enjoying it.  For now I’m moving on to page 4 of Faces of Faery 70 as well as continuing to prepare for my next project.

Catching up

I missed an update last week.  I got myself into a bit of a tizz with my Train of Dreams, not with the stitching itself but because I couldn’t get comfortable sitting behind my frame.  It’s a very big 36 inch frame and when it’s on the floor stand it was quite uncomfortable, especially when it’s warm.  So I dug out my q-snaps and used those instead, then I was getting flustered by the tangle of threads on my needle organiser so I’ve had an equipment reductions and I’m feeling a lot happier with it now.  I had just less than a week on the train before the Sunny Stitchalong started again so it was probably good going to get three columns done.  Most of the sleeping sun is done now and it took ages because of all the confetti and colour changes in the hat, the dragon is nearly done too just a little bit of tail before he’s done.

This week I’ve been stitching the Sunny Storykeep.

I decided to concentrate on getting her face done because it’s a bright white.  I kept picking up stray bits of grumpy cat in my thread but thankfully it isn’t so noticeable  now I’ve begun to get the detail of her eye and hair in.  I think we get the next pattern page for the next stitchalong so I’m tempted to get the page finished before going back to the Train.  Sunny is being stitched on q-snaps too, I was looking at the grime guards you can get for them to hold the excess fabric and keep them tidy but I’ve only seen them for sale in the US so I’ve decided I’m going to make my own and I think I can work out how to make one.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Cookies

I thought that finishing page 12 would take longer that it did to complete because of the details in the page.  The little jewelled box felt like it took ages there were lots of colour changes in it.  But I finally have a cookie in my stitching.  Before going onto page 4 the plan is to finish page 2 of Faces of Faery #70 as I’m about halfway through that at the moment.  When I picked it up though I noticed that page 3 is only about 20 stitches wide so I may do that page as well before going back to the train – or picking up the storykeep if it’s stitch-a-long week.

Pages 4 and 13 will be marking the middle(ish) point of the train – the middle is actually two stitches into pages 5 and 14 but that real milestone is more likely to slip by unnoticed.

Here comes the Sun

This has been the 12th week on Train of Dreams, I’ve finished page 3 now so I’m going to finish page 12 before going back to finish a page on faces of faery.  The sleeping sun is just beginning to appear, that’s his sleeping cap you can see at the edge of the picture.  I’m really pleased with the progress I’ve made this week I didn’t expect to get the page finished so quickly at the moment it looks like it will be my usual two weeks before moving onto the faery face.  Once the two pages are completed I’ll be moving onto a full page rotation system and we’ll see how long a page takes then.  Five pages in 12 weeks is working out to be a good average, even better when I think that I’ve done most of page 12 as well.

The weather has cooled now and I think that has helped, also the rain means the garden doesn’t need to be watered so much.  I’ve also got a little application on my phone so I can keep track of the hours that I spend on a project.  Talking books have probably helped too, I like having some background noise but if it’s the television or my husband playing computer games I find I look up too much.  Is there such a thing as a back-seat games player?  I think I might be, I keep offering useful advice such as “They’re getting you.” or ‘They’re behind you.” but it takes my attention away from my stitching and my place on the chart.  No I prefer music (although I like to sing along) or books, hours can fly by with me stitching while someone is telling me a story.

Stitching along

This week has mostly been about the Sunny Storykeep stitch-a-long.  I got a lot done after my initial huff with the flower which taught me that I prefer to work in columns in areas packed full of colour changes.  Once I got onto the blocks of colour I was able to go back to following the colours happily enough.  I want to get to a point where I can start putting in the white stitching for her face before putting in all of the dark and detail colours, just because it’s a very bright white and I don’t want them to pick up too much fluff from the surrounding areas.  That’s for next month though tonight it’s back to the Train.

I’m thinking of trying out a new rotation where I stitch a page of my chart before swapping projects, I’ll be excluding Sunny from this she’ll be stitched during the monthly stitch-a-long.  The plan so far is to finish the current pages of the train and then to finish the current page of Faery Face, then back to the train to do page 4.  And then maybe a new start, I’m trying to resist again but there’s been so many new Nene Thomas designs released by Heaven and Earth Designs that I’m not sure I can resist getting one started.  Of course I won’t be able to resist I never can, my main problem is deciding which one to start.  But Train of Dream is the focus piece and I’ll be stitching a page of that between each project, I want to see how long it takes me to do a page though before I reach any final decision.

Fairy Day

It was fairy day this week so I have been working on Faces of Fairy #70 for the occasion.  Her face is now complete so I’ve started filling in some of her lovely purple, blue and pink hair.  I seem to be able to stitch around half a page a week on this design and the fewer colour changes make a welcome break from the constant colour changes on the train.  I’m also using a slightly bigger needle on this design even though it’s still stitched on 25 count lugana, a size 26 rather than 28.  I haven’t had any problems with getting the needle through the fabric and stitching but I am stabbing myself with the needle less often.  Although the size 28 needles that I use are tapestry needles the seem really sharp and very good at finding their way into my finger.  I’ve ordered some Piecemaker needles to try, I’ve heard some very good reviews of them, otherwise I may see about swapping to the size 26.

I’m also getting everything prepared for the storykeep stitch along on the heaven and earth designs forum.  My thread is ready I just need to finish edging the fabric and then I’ll be ready to start next weekend.

Trains and Dragons

Had the time to get lots of stitching done this week and without hurting my shoulder or my neck.  I’ve put in just over three columns since moving onto the next page.  There’s a lot more of the dragon beginning to appear, he looks to me like he’s having lots of fun riding on that engine.  The engine itself is done and the coupling has just been put in for what should be the coal truck, in this picture it’s the chocolate truck.  There were lots of little fiddly colour changes around the dragon’s night-cap but it was worth it because it looks so cute.

I’m taking a break from the train now to stitch some more of Faces of Faery #70.  International Fairy Day is on the 24th June so I shall take the time to work some more on my little pouting fairy.

The garden is still alive, still cultivating weeds which need to be pulled up regularly.  We’ve had some beautiful red roses open and the pansies are doing really well, it’s a shame the weather is not so good at the moment it needs some really nice sunshine to show off the colours.

Mind the Fairy

Sometimes it seems that the less time that I feel I have to stitch the more I actually get done.  I think it could be the design though.  This week was a week for Faces of Faery 70 which has lots of nice areas of blocks of colour.  I’m not parking on this one just stitching each colour and working the others in as I finish off each area.  Even in areas where there is confetti it’s all contained within slices of colour like the pink and purple stripes in her hair.

Page 1 is finished now and it only took two weeks I have a feeling that her feathery wings are going to contain a little more confetti but there’s the rest of her face to complete first.

You might just be able to make out the little sparkly area of her nose, I stitched the area around the nose first before putting in the sparkly thread.  I used the Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid rather than the Kreinik and it’s stitched up really nicely and doesn’t feel too thick.  I also ran it through some thread heaven before starting to help it through the fabric and the thread held its shape very nicely.

I worked on the train of dreams tonight and the dragons nose has started to appear.

Late Update

It’s been another of those interrupted weeks of stitching.  I’m not sure where the time has gone but there doesn’t seem to have been enough of it for sitting down and doing stitching.  I did manage to finish another column which means that I only have two columns left on pages 2 and 11 and more importantly the dragon will soon begin to appear.  It’s probably just the looking forward to starting the dragon that makes me feel like progress has suddenly slowed.  The areas I’ve just done have had some confetti heavy marbles in them and so although I got through the rest of the column fairly quickly the sudden slowing down for the marbles made it feel like it was a slow week.  I’m still enjoying my stitching though the picture is so full of colour and detail that it really is a lot of fun to work.

This week I shall be stitching faery face #70 before spending another two weeks on the train and I’m hoping a good week on that will set me up well for the train.