Train of Dreams 11th June
Yes I’m about 25% of the way through the Train of Dreams, this week was week 9 and I now have 4 pages complete so only 12 pages left. If you say it quickly it doesn’t seem quite so much and I’m ignoring the tiny pages at the end which is probably just a columns worth of stitching so it’s about 14 pages really. At last the dragon is making an appearance but you might need to squint to see him. I think he looks excited riding on the train, I was excited to see his face emerge as I stitched.
I have lots of available stitching time at the weekend and next week and I’m going to spend most of it working on the train, it’ll be good to see more of the dragon appear. Lots of confetti stitches dotted around I imagine because I’ll be stitching more of his nightcap. I’ve tried to take some picture of the details in the sewing and I’ll post them up as soon as I have them sorted out and sized.
Faces of Faery #70 5th June
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.
Train of Dreams 29th May
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.
Train of Dreams 22nd May
It’s been a couple of weeks since I picked up the train, mostly because I was weak and started Faces of Faery after finishing the sunflowers, so it’s been nice to spend a week on it again. I think I got more done than I expected especially as it’s been a busy week. The front garden seems to sprout weeds every night and now the weather has improved I’ve got to get out there and water the plants that I do want to survive. Grumpy cat has also been in the wars, the other morning we noticed that his eyelid was swollen and he couldn’t open it properly so we had to make a trip to the vet. Grumpy cat actually likes to visit the vet he likes the fuss and attention he gets from the nurses, he isn’t so enamoured with the scales. His eye is looking better now, we have to give him eyedrops but he’s very good about having them put in, much better than trying to give him pills.
So in between all of that I’ve done well to get almost two columns stitched. Most of it went very easily apart from the last little bit with the marble, it’s taken me hours to get through all of the different colours one or two stitches of each colour, but it does look lovely. I’m going to spend another week on it, there’s more books coming into the background now and the cab of the engine to look forward to. There’s another marble as well but it looks like it has less colours.
Faces of Faery 70 13th May
Last week I finished sunkissed and the sensible thing to do would have been to concentrate on Train of Dreams and the quick stitch of Fairy Tales. Instead I gave in and started Faces of Faery 70, another Heaven and Earth Design by Jasmine Becket-Griffith. I’ve spent a week on her so far and got half of the first page done, there are only two full A4 pages of chart on this one; the remaining four pages are just part pages. I just got her eye finished last night, there’s just one more stitch to put in which is a sparkly thread and I’m leaning more to putting that in once I’ve got the page finished as there are more stitches of it on her nose.
I would usually use Krenik thread but several people have suggested the use of Tiny Treasures Petite Braid which I am going to try instead. Metallics are generally difficult in that they like to split and unravel so I use short lengths and Thread Heaven. Filling metallics at the end also means that you’re filling in the unstitched areas, unpicking stitches is frustrating at the best of times but unpicking metallic threads is a nightmare.
Next week I shall get back to Train of Dreams, I’ve left it longer than intended because of my finish and new start and I’m looking forward to spending more time on it. Poor Fairy Tales hasn’t been picked up in weeks again as well so I’ll have to think about when I’m going to spend some time on her as well.
Sunkissed Finished
I knew it wouldn’t take long to finish Sunkissed but I didn’t think it would be that quick. The last stitches went in last night and were completed well before midnight before taking a couple of quick pictures of it. I had a count back through the rotation and it only took 8 weeks to complete which is quite good for me. Now it goes onto the waiting to be framed pile, I’ve heard of a good framer so I might take it along and see what they suggest for the framing. Personally I think something simple will be better so that the flowers really stand out.
So what next? Should I stick with rotating between the two others for now or do I give in to temptation and start the Faery Face which is all prepped and ready to stitch?
Train of Dreams after 6 weeks
I spent another week on the train this week, not a full week but I still had the time to get loads done. The other half had been away for a couple of days the previous weekend and grumpy cat was so tired from having us around all the time that he didn’t really hang around much wanting the attention. All that meant to me being able to spend hours just stitching. So the train has really grown in the week, not as much as the previous week but there’s a wheel starting to appear and lots of detail on the engine itself. There are so many colour changes on the engine, the rest of the background stitches quite quickly until the train really slows you down. I think I’m almost halfway through the second pair of pages and I’m really looking forward to getting onto the dragon that begins to appear at the end of these pages.
I’ve also been spending time doing some gardening, just the front garden which was a mess and in desparate need of attenion before it was completely swallowed by a bush. With lots of help it has now been tamed and planted up with some new plants and flowers and I’m going to be putting some more in for lots of summer colour. After all that work though my muscles were aching too much to let me get on with any stitching and I’m going to take a break from the train this week.
The plan this week is to get on with more stitching on the sunflowers, I think they’re very nearly finished now but this last part is really dragging and I’m just keen to get on with my other so enthusiasm is waning quickly. Hopefully the time spent in the garden will give me the inspiration I need to work on my stitched flowers.
Daisys in the 'new' front garden
Train of Dreams Week 5
Had a week off work this week. Not to go anywhere just to have a week away from work, time to relax and get on with the things I enjoy. So most of the week has been spent with my stitching and getting lots done one Train of Dreams. I finished page 10 which was just a part page underneath page 1 and decided to work in columns down the length of pages 2 and 11. More detail of the train is beginning to emerge, most of the chimney is in and I’m just about to finish it off in the column I’m currently on. I’ve been parking as I go but got into a bit of a pickle as I went from page 2 down to page 11 with a couple of miscountings . I haven’t totalled up how many stitches I’ve actually done this week but I know it’s going to be a lot, I spent so many hours sitching I had a sore shoulder and stiff neck. I do get up every so often and have a stretch and a stroll around as well as finding and fussing grumpy cat. Poor grumpy cat he loves having us around, he likes to know where we are, but he gets so tired when we have the week off work because he wants to be with us rather than getting a proper sleep. He’s napping now but he did have a grumble when I turned the light on.
Also went for a visit to hobbycraft this week and got some threads ready for another couple of projects as well as a really lovely book on painting fairies and mermaids, I really must find some time this weekend to do some drawing.
Fairy Tales 16 April
I’ve been enjoying catching up on Fairy Tales this week I finished page 4 and got onto page 5 which means I’m now about 45% of the way through. There’s a lot more of her hair on this page though so it’s lots of changes of dark browns and it can be a bit more difficult to see the difference between them all. Parking and working in columns really makes a difference for me. But I did forget to park the colours in the next pages and finished them off instead there isn’t so many colour changes so it shouldn’t take too long to get them all started again.
I’ve treated myself to some bars for my millenium frame so I can swap this piece onto them. I really like the tension I can get with this frame it holds the fabric nice and taught.
Pretty spring rainbow
I used a different camera to take this picture and found some pictures I took a few weeks ago, it had been a lovely sunny day before it began to rain so there was a beautiful rainbow that just got brighter and brighter. Luckily I had a filter for the camera so I was able to get a nice picture it really makes me think of spring when I see rainbows.
Bit of a later update than usual and I’m showing progress on Sunkissed that I only worked Monday to Friday last week. It’s getting there now, decided to work up the right hand side and get onto that last sunflower, it’s looking at the back of the sunflower and I haven’t put the green bits in just yet. According to the rotation rules I should have been stitching Fairy Tales last week and on with the train this week but I’ve decided to take a more relaxed rotation approach. It wasn’t that I disliked the rotation as it was or that I wasn’t looking forward to stitching each picture in it’s turn it was more a case of feeling that I wasn’t putting enough effort in with each of the pictures. That doesn’t really explain it properly, what I was finding was that I wasn’t leaving myself any time to do the other things I enjoy, like writing and playing computer games and I really want the time to practice drawing and painting. There’s so many things to do and not enough time to fit it all in and I found that when I set a week for a particular sewing that was the only thing I was doing. So the rotation has been changed and I’ll now spend a week or two on whatever picture I want – only no starting any new ones until one is done (this really is the hardest part for me, I love starting new sewings). This way I should be a little more relaxed about taking a break more often to spend time on the other things I enjoy.
As for Fairy Tales, I picked her up again on Saturday and I’m having fun spending time on her again after the five week break she took I’ll post a picture of her towards the end of the week just before I swap over to the train again. Although I might be tempted to sneak another couple of days on those sunflowers as I’m getting closer to getting them finished.
