I thought I might update this cute little guy. Even though stitching time has been sparse I always try to get a little done on him on Wednesdays. So here he is.

And just for reference he is stitched 1×1 on 25ct lugana in light blue.

I best update… I have been promising to update for weeks and I keep getting waylaid before I get around to it.
I did manage to change my theme though…. not too sure about it but the old one was boring me to tears. I have lost most of the plugins I had so there is still a lot of work in fiddling around with layout etc. For now though I think it will be okay, that is until I change my mind again … lol

Anyway I have a quick stitchy update, my goals are not seeing too likely at this point but I am determined to get as close as possible with them. There has been a lot of work on “Lost” since my last update  I really do love how it is turning out.

It’s the retired artitst SAL on the BB this weekend so Aredhel comes out to play… and this time I will remember to post a picture. So look out for another update in the next couple of days.

I hope everyone has a good weekend

Woops… I have been reminded somewhat lately that I have been neglectful of my blogging duties. I just never seem to have found the time or had the inclination to blog for a while. Which is kind of odd because I have had quite a bit to blog about since July. So what have I been up to?

Lets see.. not long after my last blog post I ran away to Melbourne for a week. It was kind of a spur of the moment, hell I need to get away from here kind of thing. The trip was just what the doctor ordered too. It was loads of fun and I was lucky enough to have the chance to catch up with the wonderful Nancy and Sharon for lunch and stitchy chat :D. There are a few photos to be found here but not all of them have been uploaded yet just a few from the trip we made out to St Kilda and a couple from about the place.
I have more of the wine tour we went on (yummy!) and a few other bits a pieces as well that I will upload to flickr once I get home to the computer they are on. This last trip to Melbourne has pretty much set in stone that it is somewhere I really could see myself living, so plans are in motion for that to happen as of October 2008 and I can’t wait. I have dreams of owning a little terrace house somewhere around Brunswick St in Fitzroy, or at least that close to the city. I really feel like I “fit” in Melbourne though I am sure the dream will be much more glamorous than the reality for now I am happy to be delusional :p

As always there was a fantasitc array of restaurants offering a huge variety of food. The stand out for this trip though was a great little mexican bar come restaurant called Mi Corazon. It was somewhat of an adventure getting there with the discovery that Lygon street actually starts from 1 again at around 2000 so it was a very long walk to find 462. But after a few phone calls, sore feet and some persistence we eventually found the place. All that for some mexican hot chocolate with Chillie but it was so good… and so were the margaritas.. oh and the food too.

Other than running about the countryside and making grand plans to move a few thousand kilometres south I have been busy with the evils of my PhD but making slow progress, which is better than none. There is sitll hope to be out of the Lab and writing full time within the next few months but for the moment I am just trying to make each day as productive as possible so I don’t feel to overwhlmed by what there is left to do. The goal remains to have this done and dusted by February so I suspect my stress levels will only rise from here on in. Bring on the chocolate! lol
To keep myself as sane (or as close as I am want to pretend at least) I have been baking .. yep my cupcake obsession still grows with each week and I now own more than a few books dedicated to these sweet littlw morsels. Pictures of my latest baking adventures can be found here. The list of recipes I want to try isn’t getting any shorter that is for sure. While in melbourne I picked up some must use ingredients like Saffron syrup and some mexican chocolate. I am also all inspired to make Horchata cupcakes which will be based on the incredibly yummy mexican rice based drink Horchata (ooo it was so good and being lactose free it was something creamy that didn’t leave me in pain and sick afterwards).

There has also been knitting… being all officially car-less now (it has passed on into the wreckers hands) bus travel has meant time to knit. So far I have finished 2 scarves and I am over halfway with a long sleeved rib and lace shrug. No pictures though but I am enjoying knitting again. It had been about 12 years or more since I seriously picked up a pair of knitting needles so it took a bit to get back into the groove.

And of course there has been stitching… I am quite happy with the progress I have been making on some of my wips of late so here comes the picture intensive part of this post. Most people will possibly have seen these posted about but I wanted to collect them together on my blog.
First up is Lisa Victorias Lost Quick Stitch. I am almost at 50% with this guy and have finished 2 complete pages and started in on page 3. I am doubting the likelihood of finishing him this year but I still plan to give it my best shot. He is stiching up so well and even though there are 90 colours in this chart it moves along at a fairly good pace. Most of the detail stitches tend to gather around the edges between the highly detailed dragon and the plainer background.
I had another page finish this month too with the first page of Violet Sometimes Originally I was a little concerned that the striped candy cane like swirlies would get lost in the background being as it is mostly 939 and the stipes are black and purple. Originally it seemed like there wouldn’t be quite enough definition, with the whole page done now though you can clearly see them and I htink the more that is completed the picture will really start to come together.
Taliking about Violet reminds me … I went to see The CURE play live at the beginning of august!! I was hoping they would play charlotte sometimes which is what this piece always reminds me of.. but no luck there. The show was awesome though with the band playing a massive three hour show. *bounce*
Wow so much … I guess this is my punishment for not blogging for so long. For those of you still reading my blather I have a few more pics.
I finally got around to taking pictures of Dianes Round Robin and I am really happy with how my selection stitched up(the whole RR so far can be found here). I chose to stitch a section from Keeper of Secrets by Selena Fenech for Diane, her theme was faces. This artwork is amazing but know I am never likely to stich the whole thing so this seemed like a great opportunity to get to stitch just a portion of it. For anyone thinking of stitching this.. Do! her hair is just sublime to stitch and looks fantastic in person the shading is remarkable.

I have also stitched a little more on cirques but nothing worth showing yet and did more of Aredhel for the long past 5th weekend SAL. I never posted a picture of her though (sorry fudgey) I will be sure to add one to this post (probably just a link though as this is way too long already) when I get home. I think I even added a little colour to her last time… but not much :p If I am right we shoudl be able to get ehr out again this month. I will need to check my calendar to make sure.
I have been trying really hard to keep up with the SALs as they keep what little stitching time I have somewhat focused and remind me that I am making some progress. In spite of the fact that the SAL always seems to fall on what ends up being a very busy weekend for me I made a little more progres on Return of Srping for the august challenge SAL. I had hoped that hainving this as my challenge pice this year I would make good progress but 8 months in I still haven’t even finished a page .. I htink I am just too easily distracted.

Which leads me to this past weekend where against my better judgement I joined in with the new start SAL over on the HAED BB. With close to 20 wip on the go the last thing I really needed was a new start but I have no will power so I caved with little to no pressure having to be applied. Really I think I am always looking for an excuse for a new start so I couldn’t pass up such a good one as the SAL
I didn’t get to stitch all weekend like I had hoped but did manage a really good amount friday night when Nic and I had an impromptu stitching / DVD night (almost finished watching the rest of Escaflowne) I even managed to get Nic to have a new start too ;P hehe.
My Start was Broken angel by Meredith Dillman and I have to say she is just wonderful to stitch. I think I came close to getting 2000 stitches done with about 1200 or more of those being done friday night. I would love to keep stitching on her but I don’t think I can fit her in just yet. I still want to try and meet my HAED goals for the year… lol, not that it is likely but I can still hope. I look at it this way putting her to the side will just give me all the more incentive to finish Lost.

Ok if you have made it this far I am very very impressed and thank you hehe. I promise not to take so long to update again. I have been really bad with commenting on other peoples blogs lately too… worse than usualy even. So sorry everyone I have been reading blogs but have just been a bit quiet. Oh and Nicki.. if you still check here the carries creation threads stitch up really well and I compared them to weeks dye works and they feel much the same. I meant to email you but I am notsure I have all your current details.

Well here he is after QS Wed my little lost Dragon. I had to pretend to be a part of the nothern hemisphere this week as really I had not time on Wednesday to stitch. I was too busy off having rather decadent meal type things with a dear friend and drinking absinthe

I do have a dilemma though … I need to stitch faster. I made myself a promise no new HAED starts until I finished at least this guy. The problem is though that all the incredilby cute Lisa Victoria draggies have been released and I want to start them all! (actually there is still one to be released that will probably be fudgeys downfall).

So now I want to finish him asap so I can start the pirate dragon before I explode .

I haven’t been stitching much lately.. but I am still here.
I even have a few things to post about so hopefully I will get around to doing at least a little of that before I head off to sydney for the weekend.

Mostly I wanted to say thankyou to everyone for the lovely comments on cirques etc. I went dead silent there for a while but I do apreciate all the comments. I was even quite surprised to discover that thee seem to be more people visiting my little space in the web than I thought.

The one bit of stitching I have been keeing up with s QS wednesday so before dashing off here is a pic of my progress since last itme. Page two is over halfway complete now but will slow down now that most of the background is done and I am headinginto full dragon detail

It seems so many of the designs I am stitching of late have large amounts of 310 in them.. no real surprise there really but it is kind of amusing going from one wip to the other essentially stitching the same thing with the same thread .. and in some cases if you were to campare the grids it is basically the same spots getting filled in too :DThe wip this time was of course Lost by Lisa Victoria. I picked him up for the HAED BB QS SAL (how’s that for a string of acronyms), I am desperate to get him finished as soon as possible. Especially seeing as Lisas Hubby (hope I got the association right) let it be known they have sent images to HAED for the pirate and marshmallow dragons as well as the gorgeous little merdraggy. Once these are released I am not sure I would be able to hold out for too long before a new start and I promised my self no more HAED starts until I at least finish a QS.

So 700 stitches in one night I am more than happy about. I am still only stitching this on wednesdays for the SAL but that may change later if I am going to really push to get him done I made it all the way over to the right hand side of page 2 which was unexpected but nice. This week was background so next week I will probably tackle some of the more detailed sections in the dragon again.

I’ve done it! The first page of Lost is completed! I thought those single stitches were never going to end they seemed to take forever. I was determined to get it done last night though and even managed about 40 stitches extra into page 2.
I am going to continue to the left and do the rest of his head becasue I just can’t wait to see more of this little guy. That and page two still has some significant solid blocks of colour unlike pages 3 and 4. the blocks are so much faster and help me feel like I am making progress each week, especially when my stitching time is limited.

I am still having issues getting used to my new camera. I can’t seem to get pictures of my stitching that I am happy with. It isn’t helped by that fact that the colour on my monitor at home is so different to that at work or on my laptop so I am often confused as to if the pictures look anygood. On one monitor they look fine but then when I look at htem from somewhere else they look dull. Lighting is most likely the isssue seeing as I often take pictures at night. Hopefully I will find judt the right combination of seetings and lighting soon.

Well I treated myself to an early night home last night (about 6ish) and settled in with my draggie. I need to get moving on him so I can start the little Pirate guy if he gets released and the little merdraggy too (thank you miss Fudgey) but neither will be started until this guy is finished. One of my HAED goals for 2007 was to finish a QS either this one or fire. Some how I think this guy has more chance even with the fact that he is still about a page behind where I last left Fire. HE has suckered me in though and it also helps that I am not stithcing this 2×1 on 25ct

Since my last posted update I have done probably 900 stitches… I did take a picture earlier in march but forgot to upload it so I can’t even backdate my last progress pick.

This time around I reached the bottom of page 1! it was all background though withno more progress on his cute little snout this week. I think I will get back to that next week though. I am trying to alternate between the high detail areas and the background.

It was the last day I feel like I stopped to take a breath ….
It was infact the last time I was able to stitch so far this week, but boy did I get soem stitching done. Wednesday night after work I managed to get in around 600 stitches on Lost taking him to just over the halfway point of the first page
I keep telling myself I need to alternate between this and Fire but this little guy has me firmly in his grasp adn I can’t wait to actually see some more of him develop.

While it wasn’t officially a QS Wednesday over on the BB with the valentines SAL in full swing I decided to give my little lost dragon some attention anyway. This week I finally added the last stitch of the multitude single stitches that made up the edge of the butterfly! *boogie* So now it is full steam ahead on the little guys snout. He’ll be back next wednesday for sure. This weekend is CC on 3 finally I will get around to restarting Hermit. I love the Lisa Hunt tarot cards so I am hoping Kerry has plans to chart more. Not that I will ever have time to stich them.. but a girl can dream can’t she?