Sunny 10th September

This week has been Sunny SK stitch along week so I’ve started on page 2.  This is where all the colour changes start so I’ve reverted to stitching in columns of ten stitches and parking colours in the block beneath.  Which ended up being a real pain as I was using a small q-snap and could not find a comfortable position to support the frame and keep the extra threads out of the way.  So Sunny is now on one of my needle needs frames which means I can use the lapstand and stitch with two hands which is my preferred method.

My progress so far has mostly been her hair, it’s such a lovely bright piece of work it cheers me up just to look at her and that makes up for all of the colour changes.  Progress feels like it’s been very slow this week but I think part of that is down to me wanting to get back to stitching my Train of Dreams.  I was tempted to carry on stitching Sunny for a couple of days to get to the middle of the chart but I keep thinking of my Train so I know that I’m not going to be able to do it.

I’ve also seen that Dimensions are releashing a Fall Fairy kit which would act as a companion piece for Woodland Enchantress.  Now that I’ve been hooked stitching Heaven and Earth Designs I would prefer to stitch their more detailed version Fall Fairy the crop of the picture is different so you don’t lose the extra detail of the woodland sprites watching from the trees.  I’ve seen a couple of examples of this being stitched and it looks beautiful.

Faces of Faery 70 1st September

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.

Sunny Page 1 Complete

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.

Train of Dreams 24th August

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.

Train of Dreams 5th Aug

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.

Sunny Week 2

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.

Faces of Faery #70 30th July Week 5

It’s taken just over a week but I managed to finish page 2 and stitch the small page 3 on Faces of Faery #70.  Once I had got her hair done it was time to move onto those lovely feathery wings.  I’m not sure that the photograph picks it up but the highlights in the wings are sparkly thread, I’m using the Rainbow Galleries Petite Treasure Braid and using some Thread Heaven on it to help it through the fabric.  The top row of my faery is now complete so there are only 3 smaller pages to go and as I can’t resist I’m already kitting up for my next project.  The plan now is to start another Heaven and Earth Designs chart Whispers by Nene Thomas.  It’s a huge project and I think it will take me about five years to complete, I should say longer than that as I know what I’m like for getting side tracked.  So far I have the fabric and I’ve ordered my threads, I’m getting them all together especially where multiple skeins are needed so that I don’t have any problems with dye lots.  In stitching I’ve found nothing more demoralising than a change in dye lots midway through a picture so I’m minimising the risk.  Faery Face will be finished before I start the new one (possibly), but I’ll try to remember to post pictures of how I prepare my fabric and gridding.

Next it’s time to move back to the Train of Dreams to stitch page 4, although it will be interrupted for the Sunny StoryKeep stitch along that I’m taking part in.

Train of Dreams 22nd July

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.

Train of Dreams 16 July

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.

Sunny StoryKeep week 1

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.

Train of Dreams 2nd July

I really don’t like the hot weather and it’s been hot and stuffy here for quite long enough, which although it’s only been a week or two is still long enough for me.  It’s so stuffy and it’s putting me off my sewing so last week I didn’t get much done on the train at all.  I can’t blame it all on the weather though, I’ve had a few columns now where there’s been a lot of colour changes.  Suddenly there’s a lot of detail in the books at the back, part of which is the steam which is just beginning to form into the head of a dragon but it might be the next column before you can really see it.  Then there’s the jewelled trinket box at the bottom and the fuel cart, lots of colour changes and lots of colour changes when my head is running on slow.

I’ve also tweaked the rotation (again) I had switched to a Saturday start day but I’ve switched to a Friday because of the storykeep stitch-a-long on the heaven and earth designs forum.  I’m stitching Sunny, appropriately enough for the weather, and I got started on Friday.  I was going to take a picture of prepared fabric, sorted threads and final picture but I forgot so here’s a picture of what I’ve done so far and some of the floss bags I’m using.  I started with the flower on her hat I thought I’d get the challenging part done first, not sure I’d do the same if I started again but it’s mostly done now and I’m onto the main part of her hat which will help to fill in some of the areas around the flower.  When I’m bored with blocks I’ll go back and fill in the centre of the flower.

Sunny Story Keep a new start

Faces of Faery 70 26th June

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.