Got this finished up today, despite becoming suddenly sick. Even got it cut and framed and all. You know what I love most about q-snap frames and buying rolls of Aida? Not having to fucking iron my embroidery (I still do sometimes, of course, but mostly not).
That's definitely my last Christmas embroidery. There was one more thing I was going to work on, and maybe I still will but I'll frame it after Christmas. I just don't want to go up to Michaels any time between now and Christmas, even on a weekday morning.
I just finished a wonderful novel, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie. Highly recommend both it and this talk she did on "the danger of a single story," (which is why I went and found her books in the first place).
Now I have to struggle to at least read 50 pages of this terrible book I got through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. It's partially that the subject matter isn't quite what I expected, but mostly the writing is terrible.
Today I finished the largest chunk of my current project, using patterns from Charted Peasant Designs of Transylvania.
I think my dad will enjoy the insane horse quite a lot.
Granted I've been quite busy but that horse took forever! Lately I've been talking to people IN PERSON. I find it all quite shocking. I started a real, live book club (for non-fiction only) and I feel overwhelmed by the pressure to make it succeed.
I've also started listening some finished embroidery pieces, which I should should have done last week or the week before to make them more appealing as Christmas gifts. Right now only I don't feel I have to explain my art to you is left.
Oh, the holidays. Keeping me from starting new projects, until yesterday, that is.
This uses motifs from the Dover Needlework series book Charted Peasant Designs from Saxon Transylvania, which is an awesome book to have around. It has a lot of neat dragons and elk and things.
Under the tree thing will be this crazy dragony looking horse and above that a double-headed eagle.
If only I could think of something else interesting to say then I could put off chores, but alas.
Finished this yesterday and I AM happy it's done. All the DMC colors (barring the eight or so that are listed as complete duplicates by DMC) stitched in numerical order starting from the center. After the first color there are six stitches of each color done with two strands of floss on 18 ct. Aida.
Now that my numerical order projects are done I'm going to put my floss back in the order I like. I still keep the colors separated out, but I had each color in numerical order so I could find things. Now I can obsessively put it in shade order. Oh joy.
No idea what I'll stitch next. I might not work on store patterns until after Christmas, as I really should get some more work done in my wisteria project. I've finished enough of it that I would hate myself if I didn't complete the thing.
Well I've picked this up again! I'm a little over halfway through, I think.
In the last month I knit eight pairs of slippers (though three were for children). I've also been doing a lot of baking.
Cold weather, hot fresh bread, and cheese are pretty much my life. This is not necessarily a good thing, given how much cheese I'm capable of eating.
My four, sweet animals are all done. I don't mind saying that the mouse is my favorite.
The pattern is now for sale in my Etsy shop.
The pattern is quite large when stitched on 14-ct fabric (almost 11 inches wide!) and I really didn't want to use Aida as I wanted a softer look. Around here finding linen or Monaco in smaller than 28 ct is difficult, so I just stitched over one thread instead of over two. I was worried that the finished dimensions would just be too small, but I think it's actually a good size.
No idea what I'll be working on next. There's one thing I need to stitch for a Christmas present and something I need to finish knitting for a birthday in a couple weeks. Really I need to focus on doing a good thorough house cleaning now that I'm not saying "But I have embroidery to finish...."
Here's the second animal for this pattern, a lovely deer. I made a mistake around the tail, which wasn't so major that I wanted to unpick so many stitches but it does annoy me.
With this pattern I've managed to make most of my tweaks before stitching those parts, other than changing one thing around the ear and horn after finishing.
In general, I think I'm getting better about that. At least I feel like I'm paying more attention while stitching and really before starting to stitch as well. Go me.
I've been feeling a general sense of accomplishment for having most of my Christmas shopping finished. The few things still to do are crafty things and shouldn't be too onerous.
