Waiting for Neptune

Here is my progress on Waiting for Neptune. I never really look forward to stitching this project much, because I can't visualise the finish, its such a long way off. But I do enjoy it once I'm stitching it though.

Thank you for all your kind comments on Celtic Winter, I get myself in such a strop over that one! I decided the following morning maybe the snowball didn't look quite so bad after all. Its never going to look perfect, but then I've also made other compromises on CW and there comes a time to stop and accept it for what it is. Besides, that wipser thread doesn't come out too easily and theres a danger if I pull it all out again I'll make holes in the fabric and that would be terrible. I think there's less than an hours work left on CW now, the rest of the snowball, the tiny bit of backstitch and a few beads, so I'm going to try & get this done outside of my normal rotation, hopefully this weekend.

Today and tomorrow I will be working on Fantasy Triptych.

Celtic Winter ..... grrrr

Earlier today, I was at the point of writing something positive about Celtic Winter. Anyone who has followed this blog would know that is a rarity indeed - I've always got some moan or grumble about it. But today I finished the beads. I like the beads! The beads make it look really good. This is a terrible photo btw, WIPs generally come out fairly well with the background of the white lino in the bathroom but I guess CW needs daylight.

Alas, my enjoyment of CW wasn't to last. I have searched and searched the internet including the blogs of those ladies who have finished it and I can't work out how to make that infernal snowball look good. Mine just looks a mess - it probably doesn't notice too much in this picture, but trust me, its not good enough and needs to be pulled out and started again. I would appreciate advice from anyone who has already finished CW - what did you use? The pattern calls for 3 strands, but thats not working for me - maybe just 2 strands of wisper and skip the one strand of B5200 or the other one it is supposed to be blended with. I did write a whole diatribe, much more whingeing and complaining than you see here, but I deleted it. Its my fault it looks a mess and I will fix it, but not today, I've had enough of it.

Tomorrow and the next day I will work on Waiting for Neptune.

ps. I know its a muff but to me it looks like a snowball, so a snowball it is!!

Sleeping Beauty

Here is my Sleeping Beauty. At first glimpse she doesn't look much progressed from the last WIP back in April, but she has grown quite a bit on the left hand side. I am now getting quite close to the face so hopefully next month she will start looking like a human rather than a bunch of rags!

I lost the pattern for SB a couple of months ago. I was almost tearing the house apart, I just couldn't find it. I gave up in the end and bought another one, fortunately SB is an earlier Mirabilia and quite cheap. This experience should have taught me to make working copies of my patterns, but it didn't. Again, I am working from the original.

I didn't get to wash and press all my finishes yesterday as I'd hoped. It was a bit ambitious - whenever I get a day off work it instantly gets filled with all sorts of chores, there's never a minute spare. Today is the school fete and this year I am the only facepainter. I'm expecting lots of red and white England flag faces - that's fine, they're easy, but I do wish some other Mums would volunteer to help me. My youngest child only has one more year in the junior school so after she's gone, I'm gone and they'll have to find someone else! Sunday, hopefully, will be a free-ish day so I might get around to doing that washing and pressing.

When I flop in the chair exhausted this evening, I will be working on Celtic Winter!

Primrose Fairy

Thank you for the kind comments left on yesterday's entry. I don't deserve you all!

This morning I pulled my finished Primrose fairy out of the cupboard. She's all screwed up! I need to wash and press her. I now have at least six finished projects which need preparing for framing - I have the day off work on Friday so will put that on my list of things to do.

Primrose Fairy was a kit I received for my birthday last year - I swapped the kit fabric for some 32ct evenweave I had in my stash. She never was my favourite of the Flower fairies - always thought she looked like she had a beard - I have a thing about bearded ladies! But now she's done I think she looks quite pretty.

I got a bit more of that leaf done on Rose Fairy yesterday - I lied, it only has 7 different greens, that's enough! Today I'm going to work on Sleeping Beauty.

Rose Fairy

I have no original excuses for not having written here for so long. I am a busy full time working mum of two and something has to give, so ........ But I do like writing about my stitching and the stitchy friends I've made online so this is another renewed attempt at some sort of consistency.

I've decided that rather than writing an entry with progresses on all my WIPs - and there has been progress on all of them - I will write about them one at a time, that way I have less excuse not to write again for another two months. Celtic Winter still isn't finished - I don't know why she is taking me so long!

Here we have Rose Fairy which I started on a couple of weeks ago -it replaces Primrose Fairy which I finished about a month ago. I will post a picture of it but its tucked away at the moment in a room where a sleeping man lies (ie. my bedroom!), so I will save that for later. Rose Fairy is a kit, its one of the larger DMC kits which was provided with evenweave fabric which seems to be getting rarer these days. I think this kit is discontinued now. Its an intensive design but not huge - the finished result is 9"x12". What you see is bits of a leaf - it has about 10 different greens in it, I'm trying to follow the guide of doing all the darker colours first but there's always this fear in me I will miscount and have to frog a huge area. I think I'm ok so far. My goal is to finish this leaf by the end of June.