Monthly goals time, and lets just say I think I am keeping my tradition of not quite getting there.
Getting sick this month certainly didn’t help,neither did going out a lot and being social but that part I didn’t mind so much. So how did I do??

July Goals Stitching

1. Finish page 3 of St Nick (this will be a tough one but I really need to pull my finger out with this) Nope… But I did make reasonable progress and even managed to hit the bottom of the page.
2. 2 lengths of DMC (that’s 12 strands) into Sea Beacon This one was easy seeing as it was the only thing my brain could manage while I was sick.
3. Keep up with my 20sts/day SAL – this has been great so far as I do it at work each day during my lunch break. Yep, slow and steady wins the race.. or somehting like that.. close to haveing the first page done on this.

July Knitting Goals

1. 20 more rows of my jacket Yep, almost up to shaping the armholes on the back (scary I am going to have to try and remember how to decrease for shaping etc)
2. Start the fingerless gloves from here <— ravelry link (because Nancy had one that looked so nice I need to try it too) Started these I think 3 times before my brain got the hang of it… probably should have waited until I wasn’t sick. The latest start barely qualifies as progress but I don’t intend to rip this start back.
3. 2 repeats of my falling water lace scarf Umm no didn’t even look at this one.

I’m a little bummed I didn’t make my St Nick goal .. I really did try but all the detail stitches and all that brown…. well you get the idea.

Now for August… Sheesh I can’t believe it is August already, what happened to the first half of the year???

August Stitching Goals

1. Finish page 3 of St Nick and start on page 4
2. Finish my Lesley name tree before 22nd of August
3. Work on Rose of Sharon (5 hours)
4. 6 Strands into Sea Beacon
5. Keep up with the daily stitching and weekly updates for Bramble and the Rose

August Knitting Goals

1. 20 Rows into my jacket
2. Finish one glove

You will notice a couple of old wips coming out to play this month in an attempt to make a dint on my ‘list’ as per Sharons advice I have picked my smallest and nearest to completion piece to finish this month. I have also pulled out one of the wips I would most like to see done before the end of this year (ROS) I want to get her to her new home this year,, it is a gift that has been too long in the making.

Stats for the month of July

• WIPs: 27
• Items for finishing : 4
• New Starts: 0
• Planned Starts: 4

Well here we are, St Nick as of tonight the last night of July.
What is rather obvious of course is that I didn’t make it to completing the page. I did make it to the bottom edge however, and made solid progress. Being rather social the past two weeks and then sick before that didn’t make for speedy stitching or many stitching hours at all in the latter part of this month so here’s hoping next month will show a little more progress.

Before that though I think I will be taking a break from all the browns and detail stitches and stich on something else for a bit. 🙂

It is an odd sensation when I do not feel like a new start, but that is how I have felt for some time now. I think it is because I have so much cluttering up the place that I want to finish, it makes  a new start just seem like it will add to the pressure… so this list is to help keep me on track. I like to keep statistics of what I do… it is odd I know but I am not as rigid as some and often lose track along the way and for all my ‘statistics’ it really is just for fun and nothing I obsess over.

This is a listing of all the wips I have that I intend to finish or at least keep working on. Some are for gifts or things I have promised to do for people but mostly it is the remains of all the projects I have started since getting hooked on stitching. I have finished only a few projects over the past 6 or 7 years and none for myself. I doubt this will increase the number of finishes I have (seeing as most of my projects are large HAEDs) but I should at least be able to see how I am progressing from month to month .. year to year. Every six months (or whenever the fancy takes me) I will regroup and check my counts to see how much I have added and if I have managed to strip anything from the very long list. I plan  on grouping the projects into categories e.g. small, medium, large and HAEDfs (full size Charts) and HAEDqs (quick stitches) but really that is too much effort for this post (I will group them when I put a link to a permamnent page where I intend to keep proper track of them all).  I have also added a list of my expected starts, these are gifts / planned stitching that I am yet to make an actual start on yet but are committed to. There is also a small list of items I have stitched but not ‘finished’ yet thatI have plans for.. one day.

Projects

1. Lesley Name Tree
2. Trick Or’Treat – JustNan
3. Rosemarkie – Long Dog
4. Cirques des Circles – Ink Circles
5. Bramble and the Rose – Ink Circles
6. Rose of Sharon in Pink – Mirabillia
7. Gaelic Banner – Dracolair
8. Red Dragon Book Mark – Dracolair
9. Autumn Dragon – Patricia Allison
10. Dragon Lore – Ian Daniels
11. Aredhel – Mark Potts
12. Turquoise – Linda Ravenscroft
13. Metamorphosis – Sheila Wolk
14. Perfect Poison – Annie Rodrique
15. Violet Sometimes – JBG
16. Belladonna’s Gift – JBG
17. Sea Beacon- JBG
18. At the Masquerade Ball – JBG
19. Snow Princess and the Polr Bear – Ruth Sanderson
20. Phoenix Rising – Linda Ravenscroft
21. St Nick in His Study – Scott Gustufson
22. Return of Spring – Ian Daniels
23. Tarot: The Devil – Stephanie Pui-Man Law
24. End of the Quest – PR
25. Lost – Lisa Victoria
26. Broken Angel – Meredith Dillman
27. Fire – Sara Butcher

Items to be ‘finished’

1. Lost Dragon Sampler
2. Good Knight Sleep tight
3. Red wyvern ornament
4. Griffin christmyth ornamant

Planned Starts

1. Letters By Nora – A
2. Letters By Nora – L
3. Colin Name Tree
4. Oriental kit for Lesley

I’m sure to add more to this list as I enevitably find thingsthat were started and completely forgotten about, but for now this is close enough. I think I will keep a running tally and maybe look at it each month but I haven’t quite decided yet.

** Quick edit to add the projects that have been stripped for either not really beinag started (100 odd stitches) or pieces I wish to restart with newer charts / different fabric or designs I jsut don’t think I want to stitch anymore. These are: Scotland – Ian Daniels, Storykeeper- Wentzler, Storyteller- Fenech, Phoenix Rising- Linda Ravenscroft, Cice Tree – Sara Butcher, An elizabeth designs piece that may or may not ever see the light of day again, red square 9 -AMAP- as a biscornu, Sanman originals halloween banner, My aunts attic butterflies and Autumn Queen- Mirabillia.

Well it was that time of year again, The Craft and Quilt Fair. Nic and I used to run away from work and attend this in Brisbane most years.. It was always a fun day out even if we pretty much always left having spent way more money than we even intended to.

This year the location is a little more southern and the company a little different but the end result was rather similar. I had a fantastic day yesterday running around with Nancy, Sharon and Tracy oggling at all the pretties and enabling each other at every turn.
I came away with a rather different selection than usual though, with no fabric from stitches and spice and not a cross stitch chart to be seen ( I think Nancy bought the only chart if you can believe that). We were dazzled by so many local producers and stores that don’t travel up to the Brisbane show so the variety was amazing, and there are so many more wool supplies in Victoria.

I think the biggest win for the day was the stall selling hand crafted Jarrah wood pieces, boxes, spool holders of all shapes and sizes, frames, stands even little knitting Nancy’s and wooden spools. I picked myself up a Jarrah box with a place for needlework in the top (I am going to use this to store my Vikki Clayton Minis and also a spool tower .. it spins! It also doesn’t hold all my spools but sure looks pretty all filled up. I also got some pin cushion bases and wooden spools from the same couple. They are based out at Geelong and will do custom work as well so I forsee a trip out to see them again at some point. Their prices were really good (made all the better by the wonderful sale prices they were having at the show) and the quality of the pieces is lovely.

My other big purchase was two stumpwork books by Jane Nicholas. If you get Inspirations Magazine you will have seen some of her work in there from time to time. The stumpwork designs are stunning to say the least and photos just do nothing to capture the three dimensional beauty of the pieces she creates. I got both the Beetle Collection and Medieval Flora books (the second being a complete lack of willpower after walking past her stall a second time). They are both signed by the author and Jane was incredibly lovely talking to us for quite some time and showing us the pieces and in some cases wip stages of some of the wing sections etc. She said not to be afraid and just jump in and give it a try so here’s hoping I can. My current evil plan, seeing as we were all so wowed by the bugs, (who knew so many of us were gaga over insects) is to pull a bunch of goldwork supplies together to attempt at least one of the bugs each next time we meet up for a stitchy day. I didn’t buy a kit as a have a bit of goldworking supplies which I have been stashing away with the hope that one day I would build up enough courage to try some things with it. The only materials related item I bought was the wires for the wings etc. Her website seems to have everything though so I will need to decide if I get things from there or put in an order to Hedgehog Handworks which has an amazing supply of historical embroidery and clothing resources (yes an order to them will just be an excuse to get more books and way more than just a few supplies for some stumpwork bugs).

Everything else was bits and piece that caught my eye really, some acrylic paints in copper and purple for doing stamped embossing styles things on velvets. These are mainly for a few ideas I have floating around in my head for a Stempunk alchemists costume for a steampunk ball we maybe attending for New Years eve… still lots of planning to go into that one. Some fabric for the wonderful guys from the fabric stall I can never remember the name of. They do great36ct evenweave that I love but this time around also had a bunch of new hand dyed products in 28 and 36ct. They also had some fantastic new opalescents in black there was black with silver, I think gold and a purple opalescent sparkle as well. Unfortunately at this point they are only doing them in aida but they assured me they are working on having it done on their black evenweaves too and it should be ready for the next show (which I got reminded I need to take show and tell of my stitching along for because I forgot this time).

I also got a pattern for one of the best goblin dolls I have seen the interpretation of the patter that the stall holder had done blew me away and he was so soft and cuddly I just had to get the pattern so I could make my own. He reminded me a little of the Brian Froud goblins I love so much. Oh and in case you are wondering all that coiled ribbon at the front of the picture.. yes it is about 60 metres of velvet ribbon in purple , black and a dark deep blue in 5mm up to 16mm widths. At 50c a meter how could I resist?

Here we are again, another week and a nother update on The Bramble and the Rose.

This weeks picture is really bad, but seeing as I am heading out to the craft show this morning I don’t have time to retake it and I wanted to get blog update done.
So apologies again for the bad quality picture… you will haev to trust me that neither the fabric of my stitching looks that bumpy, rough and ugly.

I think I have fallen well and truly  behind everyone else now, but that’s ok, This is about the first half of the page if ou were to draw a line diagonally across the corners. It is a super stress free stitch and I am still amazed at how different it looks when you compare the different threads everyone is using.

Well I best get myself organised as the usual suspects will b ehere for a day of stashing soon 🙂 … and I am all cashed up with my tax return burning a hole in my pocket.

Just over half way through the month and I have finally managed to make it halfway trough this page and as promised I have a picture 🙂
As time consuming as this piece is with all the colour changes and single stitches it is coming together beautifully. Of all the HAEDs I have started I think this one holds best to the adage of stitching away and then all of a sudden you get that “oh” moment when everything falls into place and all of a sunned there is a recognisable object staring back at you from a region that just moments before was random blobs of colour.

Yep another week another update. Bet everyone is shocked that I have managed to blog almost consistently for over 4 weeks now.. I sure am.
As of this week I have managed 1184 stitches or just over 5% woohoo. So yes I am still stitching along at a snails pace. I am still having troubles with my new little happy snap camera in getting the colours right it seems I can only manage too light and washed out or too dark and gloomy. May have something to do with the inconsistent natural down here too.
Not much else really going on here at the moment, maybe some baking this weekend but mostly I am hoping to relax and stitch in between catching up on the house work that has been sorely neglected o_O

Well with the whole being ill thing these past couple of weeks my brain wasn’t much up to dealing with St Nick. This however means that Sea Beacon has gotten her 12 strands done this month, in fact so far she has gotten 14. For lack of anything else more interesting to show I have put up a new pic of her new extended patch of 939.

I’m feeling much better now though… still a bit congested but capable of stringing together small sentences at least :p

This means that any spare moments I get this weekend are going to be spent on dear old St Nick and hopefully means some progress. I am very close to half way on this page… ack did I really say I would finish the page this month??

There will of course be another bramble update over the weekend too.

Well it is that time of week again so here is the picture of Bramble as of Saturday (yesterday). The picture is probably a bit dark bit I think it is the most accurate – on my monitor anyway- of the fabric so far.

Still sick but slowly getting better, hopefully I will be well enough to get my mind around a bit more stitching in the coming week.

Oh and Mr Adam…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

I have put my little lost dragon away again now, I made reasonable progress on him over the weekend, between little sessions on St Nick and also on Bramble. I realised the stitch count on my sidebar was far from accurate but that should be all fixed up now.. hard to believe I am over 60% with this guy. He is so cute. I spent a lot of the stitching time on him this weekend filling in holes and stitching the lily pad, I guess I have been avoiding the more ‘detail’ rich dragon body but there is not much else to do now so next time he comes out to visit there will be no avoiding it.

To re-cap Original artwork by Lisa Victoria, charted by HAED, stitched 1×1 on 25ct light blue lugana.