WIP Wednesday: The SAL's

As always I like to start with a photo of what things looked like last week so you can more easily see the progress made rather than having to go spot the difference between this post and last week’s post.
The pattern given by Vakje per Week was great fun this week so I decided to make a box that is half of the available space for it, so the contents had more space to play. As it happens the box is 42 stitches square and I decided to go with the ochre yellow/orange/beige this week and used DMC Color Variations 4126 for the birds and made some a little bit different as well as slightly playing with the placement of one of the birds - just for a bit of fun.

The pattern calls for 5 rows of 3 birds over the 49 x 29 box but with my change that was impossible so I made 4 x 4 instead. I'm really hoping that this week's pattern will work for the box next to it or I'll have to already decide what size I'm going to make the boxes below.

Last week I was thrilled that I had completed the February and March bands for the Linen and Threads 2017 Mystery Band Sampler Stitch Along. This week I am able to show the completed embroidery so far! It didn't take long after last week's post I'd made to finish the embroidery, and then choose the beads to use for this as I wanted the birds to have some eyes and the flowers to have a spot in the middle of the + shapes.

I used TOHO beads as per usual: Transparent-Frosted Cobalt (TR-11-8DF) for the bird’s eyes and Trans-Rainbow-Frosted Dark Sapphire (TR-11-87F) for the flowers. A few more days and the April pattern will be released! I can't wait for it as I am eager to get stitching on this.

Next up is another of the SAL's I started but set aside so I could catch up with the other two:
The Never Ending Band Sampler Stitch-Along. It was barely started when you last saw this but I've made quite a bit of progress on this over the last week - in fact I completely finished stitching this panel - in as far as it fits anyway as my panels are smaller than the ones called for, However I had decided to use my stash for this so that's what I'm doing - even though sometimes it's hard going as the pattern is made for 14ct Aida or 28 count even weave so sometimes things are harder work than they could have been.

I was able to get the first 16 bands on, leaving a little space for me to date it and still have space to sew things together later, as I am planning on turning all the panels into one longer band over time. As you can see I went for a tone on tone theme of colours with some white and silver thrown in - you can see all the colours on the picture below.

The beads are TOHO Transparent Crystal (TR-11-1) and Higher Metallic Iris Violet (TR-11-504). The Fabric is Jodyri January 2015 Limited Edition: Winter Sunset. With this panel done it was time to start the next Panel which is the February 2015 Limited Edition: Lonely Hearts.

It's a very dainty pattern and I decided to use some threads that look faded as if they were an antique, even though the fabric isn't faded they show up a lot better IRL when there isn't a bright light of an OttLite shining on them. I am using DMC Colour Variations 4170 for the flowers and DMC 369 for the leaves.

That's all for this week - see you Friday when I'll have another Mucha Princess inspired free fob pattern!