Catching up: WIPocalypse April, Smalls, April, Maynia Week 1

So yeah… it’s been a while. Sorry about that. Life has been really really really busy lately. And almost none of it has to do with Precious’ new brother:

His name is Dasher

This is Dasher. He is the new addition to my collection of puppy dogs. Precious does not wish to share however.

We are not amused!

Honestly though, she mostly ignores him as he does amusing things. But I haven’t been busy with little Dasher, I’ve mostly been busy with new workouts, cleaning the shop in preparation for a possible visit from the District Manager, and general life. Hopefully I’ll do better after this big catch up thing!

So, let’s actually start with the WIPocalypse Update. As always, WIPocalypse is hosted by the lovely Melissa at Measi’s Musings. The challenge is to get as much stitching as possible done before the end of the world or year. Whichever comes first. Be sure to go over there and check out all the lovely entries! This post also was supposed to be up some time ago…

Whoops.

Like I said, busy busy busy life! I’m gonna start out a little different and answer this month’s question, then talk about all the stitching I’ve been doing.

What projects are in your UFO pile?

So far, I really have only one: Chibi Chocobo. I liked the preview image, but as I worked the project I realized more and more that I was not enjoying it. There were far more color changes than I thought necessary and I just was not clicking with the pattern. So I got rid of the piece, I may have thrown it away, or its just folded up somewhere. But I did rework it’s threads into my regular stash so it’s really done.

I do have a few projects that are extended “in progress” pieces. The main one I can think of is Galloping Horses by Dimensions. It’s sitting in my closet waiting for me to decide to pick it back up. Which I keep promising it will be soon.

Onto the other updates!

Tying into the Smalls SAL, hosted by the lovely Heather of Stitching Lotus. The challenge is to complete a small piece each month. We get to decide what a small is, and for this month I have been working on Ingleside Imaginarium’s Birthstone Dragons and Connie Gee Design’s Rainbow SAL.

As usual, I started Birthstone Dragons on the first. I adore this piece and cannot say enough good things about it! This month was based on the diamond gemstone, and here is the lovely Diamond. She is technically a wyvern like her cousin Amethyst, but she is quite a stylish one. Look at those brilliant gold and jewel-encrusted accessories! She is fabulous!

Yes, in my head, she is voiced by Rarity from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. That is about the best approximation of her personality I can get. Stitching her was quite easy, although I got wrapped up in the backstitching and forgot to take a before picture. I did make up for that in May which you should see next week.

Speaking of May… here’s a sneak preview of little Emerald. Do not judge by appearances my friends, though Emerald be little, he be feisty. Look at the size of that jewel! And he’s just perched like an adorable little bird!

I just wanna squeeze him. He probably wouldn’t like that though. Regardless of the silly stories, Emerald is stitching up very very nicely. He was my first “start” on Maynia and I have worked on him a little every few days. I need to get better at that.

Back to April. After I finished Diamond, I pulled out Rainbow. There really isn’t too much to say. This was stitched in DMC 165. It’s actually a lot greener than it is showing up in this image. I really enjoyed doing this one, though the back of this piece is starting to get a little messy. Oh well, sometimes those lines and dots just don’t make for easy ways to hide carrying threads.

But I really love how this is shaping up! I have started May’s installment and it is going pretty well.

Though really there isn’t much to say. I am stitching it in DMC 922 which is sort of a burnt orange. This one has given me a lot of thinking problems for how to do things with the least amount of carrying threads as well as the most efficient route. But I won’t be picking this back up until I get Emerald done. So this is probably where it is going to rest for a while.

And that is all with the Smalls update. But not all for the rest of the updates.

Following Rainbow’s monthly finish, I tackled Cloudsfactory’s Fabulous Women in History.

This week, it featured Queen Elizabeth I and author Jane Austen. It was here I realized that there was a rather large error done somewhere (I won’t say where) and I’m just gonna roll with it. I’m not picking out 50% of what I have done to fix it.

I am very very happy with this pattern and all the fabulous women it features! I have enthusiastically agreed with all the choices thus far. Next month features the impossible to spell Sacagawea and Queen Victory. I got a small start on this one:

And I’m doubtful I’ll get back to it any time soon. Not at least until Friday at the very best. But I’ve got the top phrase almost done in that limited time I had for it last Thursday.

Then, I tackled Snowflower Diaries’ Joyful World April. And oh boy did this one give me trouble! I did not want to work on it at all. It was a fight. Which is sad because I really did love the flowers and the colors on this one but I just did not want to work on the pattern. I was very happy to work with some blended threads, which offered me a solution to a problem I’d been having on Heaven and Earth Design’s All Creatures Great and Small (which was what I actually wanted to work on). I have not started the next section of Joyful World, but I should be starting that today.

All Creatures Great and Small saw a few days of work:

I am really really really enjoying this. Although,I have made a few errors and such, but I am fighting through them. They are tricky to fix. I know what I’m going to do for one of the issues, but the other is giving me some thinking problems. I need to spend some time with the pattern and with my error and see about how I want to go about correcting the wrong and getting everything back on track.

Changes? Well, so far it is the yellow roses, the teal/blue alphabet and the brown griffons. The letters are DMC 3808 and 930. I loved both colors and I couldn’t decide between them. I was going to just alternate 3808 and 930, but while working on Joyful World and a blended color I realized that I could go 3808, 3808-930, 930 and it would get sort of a ombre look. I love it! I got my first StitchyBox this last month and in it I also got my first Gentle Arts thread, Shaded Sands, and I loved that color. I knew it would work perfectly in this pattern and turned it into the griffons.

For the most part, this piece is so big and the motifs are so disconnected that I’m trying not to worry about small errors overall because it makes this sampler more me. I also don’t think I’ll be keeping the grey initials box. But I will be putting my initials in there. I just don’t like the way the box looks. It also got one day of work so far in May.

Following the completion of Joyful World I also pulled out Blitzen for some work. Now, during April I only made progress on his antlers. In fact, I finished them.

I just have to backstitch his back leg and I’ll be finished with the reindeer body. At first, I thought I was going to move onto the swirls, and I did work on some of them further.

However, when I picked it back up in May, I decided I wanted to work one of the corners. I was really close to the top left and so, I put in the pretty greens and added some of the border.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure I’m about halfway done with this piece. At least the stitching part of it. I’m still a little worried about the beading.

My first attempts with beading have been in All Creatures Great and Small, but none of the beads lay next to each other. Blitzen will be my first heavily beaded piece. As well as my first real use of Kreinik. But that gold border really does add a lot to the piece, I was not expecting that.

I cannot wait to get back to Blitzen and keep up with him. But May is marching on and I have plenty of other projects to work on.

So far, Maynia has gone like this:

1st. Birthstone Dragons
2nd.
3rd. All Creatures Great and Small
4th. Fabulous Women in History
5th.
6th. Blitzen
7th. Eagles
8th. Rainbow
9th. Joyful World

As you can tell, I missed two days and that means I haven’t touched two projects like I had planned. Maynia may go longer, but I am working on playing catch up. I was trying to make the 4th. a double start day, but I just didn’t have time at work. So, that mysterious project on the seventh?

A new start!

No, sadly, not much has happened and I don’t think much will happen for a while. It is called Eagles and it is a Dimensions Petite Kit. When I opened it, I had to wonder if all petite kits were so confusing in their instructions or if this was an older Dimensions kit and they have changed the way they build the kits.

It worries me if it is a newer kit and this is how they are all done. Because these instructions were awful! It took me forever to find the numbers-color key. The symbols key is not well done either, being buried in the regular instructions and the backstitch instructions were even worse.

I think that is all I have for you guys! My super long post is over and now I can actually relax and get some stitching done! Until next time!

Stay sane and don’t die!
❤ Madison