This months ornament SAL weekend was far more successful than last months. While I didn’t get time to do the finishing on my little ornie I did finish the stitching (less the french knot for his eye) and get over halfway on a little secret stitching project as well. All in all not too bad considering the weekend was broken up with a friends 30th Birthday celebrations a late night at work friday and a day in at work saturday.

It is of course one of the Chrismyth series of ornaments from Dragon Dreams (the Griffin) Stitched 2×2 on 32 count , natural linen I think. The kreinik for the beak etc is meant to be 002V butI only had 002 on hand so I used it instead.

Now it is full steam ahead on Sues RR

If for no other reason that you can stitch so many of thier designs in a day I love dragon dreams
As a little break from the Santas I stitched the latest dragon dreams ornament yesterday during flights whilst playing World of Warcraft. I finished it off during breaks at work today There are a few little changes.. A black mug (seemed more appropriate for the person who it is going to) adn I used red kreinik in place of DMC 321. It is stitched on 32ct opalecent antique white lugana from silkweavers. I just need to do the finishing on this little guy and send him off.
That makes 3 projects now for the challenge 7 more and I can buy an ink circles chart to join in on the SAL, at least that gives me time still to plan out a colour scheme.

My other break from the santas this weekend was to restart Dragon Dreams Blackwork dragon. I started this back in June initially but the wildflowers thread I used was just too thick for the fabric count and the fine black work. I ordered the same colour: “emerald” in waterlillies and just got around to restarting it. The fabris is wandering Ivy linen in 32ct belfast from silkweavers. I am much happier with how it is looking this time round, not to mention how quickly it stitches up.

2006 seems to have been a Dragon Dreams year for me.. maybe I should choose a theme for 2007. this is of course in addition to my ever growing pile of HAED wips.

Well I finished my little lost dragon sampler. Squee!

He is just so adorably cute, I had to take a picture even though the lighting is really cruddy. He is so much richer and sparklier in real life. I am going to show him off to Nicole at work tomorrow. *gush*

I finished my first project for my 10 project challenge!

It’s the Evening Dragon freebie from Dragon Dreams. I got it in my last order from Stitching Bits and Bobs. He is so adorable and stitched up in two nights :D. It is stitched on 32ct opalescent lugana in this gorgeous soft prurple colour. I doesn’t have a name it just says limited edition. I got it as part of a fabric of the month package from silkweaver some time ago.
I made a couple of changes becasue I was missing some threads. Firstly the yellow areas of the dragon I subbed Kreinik 028 #4 Braid in instead of DMC 743 and the Knights shiny bits were stitched in Kreinik #4 102 not the called for 001V vintage silver. The words were stitched in Kreinik 060 #4 braid midnight (love that colour) and to avoid doing french knots the knights eyes and dragons nostrils are mill hill petite beads #42014. You can’t see the sparkle much in the picture but it’s there I am thinking I might try turning him into one of those cute little flat fold thingys I have seen about on peoples blogs and send him to my nephew for Christmas. (well 2nd cousin actually but he calls me auntie)

I have three packages full of stash I’m waiting for that were ordered before I signed up for the project challenge. One is all the specialty threads for the lost dragon smapler which will be my next start. It should be another quick stitch.

I promise I will stop posting soon…honest. This is the most active any blog I have tried to maintain has been, it is all rather freaky.

Anyway, seeing as this is a stitching blog (well mostly) I thought I would share some stitching *gasp*
First of all my “guilt free” birthday start from Sunday (it has now been replaced with “dragon Lore”). I need opinions on whether or not you think I did the right thing in deciding to not continue. The design is the Blackwork Dragon from Dragon Dreams here. I was orginally inspired to do this piece when I got sent a skein of caron wildflowers thread in “emerald” by mistake in an order once and I got to keep it. I thought the colour was perfect. What I didn’t think about was the thread type. On sunday after deciding that this would be a small enough new start I pulled out my chart and thread and went looking for fabby (decided on wandering Ivy from silkweaver) and got stitching…. I love the colour combination between thread and fabric but the stitch definition is leaving me somewhat lackluster. My apologies again for the poor quality of the pic. When I was stitching I noticed that the thread was quite thick on the 32ct fabric and became a little worried so I went from the two stranded outline and tried some of the patterns in 1 strand. the single strand simple pattern fills are fine but as soon as there is any detail within the pattern fills they jut look like blobs

Having seen the silkies fudgey sent me and compared them I think the finish would be much better using a silk thread. Does anyone have suggestions for one that may work on the wandering Ivy. I liked the rich green of the emerald and would like to have a similar effect I think. That or I am just going to cave and stitch him in purple. I have had one opinion that I should just continue with it as is (mind you from a non stitcher) because the thickness of those stitches gives the overall desired shading effect but I am not so sure.

The charity morning tea auction was today, and morning tea is a term I use loosely for an event that went from 10am until around 3pm this afternoon. It was quite a fun day all told though and I have managed to come home with four bottles of wine at last count mmmmm. I also lucked out in the bidding and got a lovely embroidery book which has victorian pillows and some very nice ribbon embroidery etc. It has me all inspired to go out buying pretty silks and ribbons now, which is challenging my latest urge to start knitting again.

I have way too many hobbies and not enough time :p

Funnily enough Nic ended up with my little spot, still feels odd to have a stitchy friend bidding and winning my stitching. I wasn’t lucky enough to get her wonderful pillow that she did using TWs “The Castle” but Lesley was making death threats to people that even thought about outbidding her on it. I have piccies of it that I will share here if Nic says it is okay, or she can put them up and I will link to them. It was very lovely and all hand stitched too.

Spot (as in spot of tea) was finished up like an ornament late last night and I was quite happy with the results. I even managed to make the cording and tassel. All in all I was quite impressed at the way the finished project looked even if there were a few things I may try and do differently if I finish a piece that way again. He was all bundles up with a selection of teas in a little box and will hopefully go to someone who “really” likes tea. hehe

The auction was a big success making over $900 for the day for the Cancer Foundation and somewhere along the lines Nicole and I have volunteered ourselves to make a candlewicked single quilt in celtic designs for next years raffle…. did I mention I have too many hobbies?

It is 2:30am … I should go find sleep but there is updating to be done. I was slack on Thursday morning and didn’t add my SAL update of fire. This week I actually got a little time to work on her (331 stitches bringing the total to 5341 which is a grand 16.57%). Fudgey has moved down to the face on hers and it is looking amazing. I can only imagine how beautiful and shiny it looks in the silks …. mmmmm.

In other news … one of my goals for may was to choose a small design to stitch for a charity auction that a dear friend of mine holds every year for the Cancer Society Big morning tea. I chose “A spot of tea” which is an adorable little freebie from Dragon dreams. Surprisingly I made my decsion , found some fabric and got started on thursday night. It turns out I even had all the threads so he was finished up earlier tonight *bounce* He is so cute the piccie doesn’t show the sparklies that well though. He is stitched on Opalescent Antique White Lugana from silkweaver (32ct) and was so incredibly quick to stich.

Now I just need to owrk out how to finish him for the auction … any ideas?

I just realised I didn’t post an update of Snow Ball Fight after the weekend… ooops. It isn’t quite finished but I have done all the actual cross stitch. Just back Stitching, the text and beading to go. It is easy to forget about all the fiddly bits like backstitching and how long it takes when you mostly work on HAEDs. It is not something I can say I miss. I always seem to struggle with the backstitching and end up having to redo it too many times. You’s think it would be the easy part, hehe I am just backstitching challeneged I guess. Thinking about it though that isn’t going to go well for my obsession over blackwork.

I have also add a pic of how my floss arrives when the floss fairy blesses me with a package (not a very good photo) The little packets are just so gorgeous I had to share. The two shown are for the Shrine and St Nick in his study. All the floos for St nick is now on bobbins and ready to go over easter so I can fill in all those gaps and hopefully get a long way to completing the first page over easter. I have fudgeys RR done too, just need to get to a post office. Being on an enforced sick day again though it is unlikely I will be able to get there today. Maybe it will be best if it waits until after easter to be sent off anyway, things in transit over holiday periods can sometimes take longer detours than deasired and I would hate that to happen to Fudgeys RR. That reminds me I should make sure to post a piccie of my section.

Todays plan seeing as people insist on me being sicker than I feel is to spend the day watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Pirates of the Caribbean (nice Johnny Depp fix) and stich my little heart out on Fire for the QS SAL. Should be able to make some good progress I’m thinking. This enforced relaxation stuff has its benefits I guess

*bounce* I finished my February goal for snow ball fight. Last night I managed to finish all the snow cover on the ground. It doesn’t look like much but it was. I had to go back and do the two other shades of grey at the base of the snowman and dragon etc too. It’s all done now and I even put a few stitches into the tail of the second dragon.

Seeing as I have met my monthly goal for this it will take a rest from the rotation next week so I can work on one of the whimsical santas or rose of sharon. He will be coming back in march though and hopefully I will be able to finish it then *boogie*

The piccie is really washed out… that is what I get for doing colour adjustments on a really dark monitor. I could change it but I am too lazy :p maybe sometimes later I will get around to it, but really I doubt it.