Celtic Wolf - WIP post 15

I'm seriously late with this but I did get photo's done of yesterday's progress before Real Life (TM) got in the way of posting. Tuesday's progress can be seen above as per usual so you are reminded of where I started that day. Yesterday was a day of stress due to some personal stuff and I didn't really get stitching till the evening after the kids were in bed.

It doesn't look like much but somehow it's 234 stitches, those long lines of stitches really do make it look like not much was done. It's starting to look like I will need more than just one spool of Kreinik to do all of the stitches needed - I have done 609 stitches of this Kreinik and still need to do another 932. I have perhaps 1/3 spool left so will have to order another spool for this project.

Stitches done: 234

Total stitches: 6094
Total backstitches: 42.76 inches

See you tomorrow, hopefully at an earlier time.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 14

Monday I had made a bit of headway doing the mouth and ended up on a total of 5340 stitches.. Yesterday regular readers of my blog will have read that the Kreinik #4 very fine braid "finally" arrived. I had been waiting for it so I could do the other part of the braid in the neck before moving my hoop. As metallic thread doesn't like to be squished I am trying to limit the number of times I move the hoop so putting it off as long as possible was high on my list. This was the first time I was going to do any real amount of stitching with Kreinik braid - the last time I'd used it was for an ornament and that was a mere 20 odd stitches, stitching hundreds is a whole different learning curve.

If you don't take your time, let the thread untwist and work with it correctly then the above happens - every time - which wastes many inches of thread. It was quite the learning curve for me.

Thoughts on the use of Kreinik as a result of my first real stitching experience:

• Speciality threads have instructions of use - read them.
• Kreinik suggests threading the needle using a strip of paper - it works brilliantly!
• Threading the needle with the loose end of the spool of thread means you use the thread in the right direction, like sewing thread it twists less like this. I thread the needle first then cut.
• Use short lengths - I measure across the diagonal of my tablet to get the length, which is approx 10,5 inches.
• Like any braid it unravels when cut and not fixed - just think how fast your hair unravels if you don't fix it in place with an elastic or ribbon etc. - a fix is to tie a small knot on both ends (after threading the needle) if you pull the knot tight enough you will barely notice it's there AND you have less issues with it unravelling.
• As Kreinik suggests - use a bigger needle as it results in less wear and tear on the thread, you don't really see the difference afterwards either.
• Drop the needle every 5 - 8 stitches to let the thread unravel. With the little knot in place the needle will not fall off!

Using all of these things I learnt while stitching I have gone from wasting a good 5 -7 inches to as good as no waste at all. This is a good thing as I really hate waste, although I might still have to get a second spool as the waste from my learning curve means I might not make it with the one spool I have.

I was good and finished the gold of the mouth after completing the first section using Krenik 001L. The thread is so sparkly! It's has a full rainbow in the sparkles and is so pretty! While the learning curve did slow me down with stitching I still managed to do 520 stitches yesterday, so I'm pretty pleased with my progress.

Stitches done: 520

Total stitches: 5860
Total backstitches: 42.76 inches

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 13

Sunday I somehow managed to do quite a bit - probably due to my bf encouraging me to do a bit more every time I wanted to stop. Yesterday was not so productive - it was a busy day for me with bf leaving after his visit and making my fish pie as dinner so he'd not get hungry before he got home after travelling. I didn't really get any stitching time in till after I'd dropped him off at the station.

I did however do 147 stitches in the end in the gold area - bf travelling proved to be a bit of a distraction and I was so very tired.

This morning my SHINY Kreinik thread finally arrived! What you see here from left to right is: 001J - Japan Silver, 001L - Solar Silver, 021L - Coptic Copper and 021HL - Copper High Lustre. It only took a week to get from the UK but when you want something so you can keep stitching it seems to take forever - you can guess where today's progress will be hehe.

Stitches done: 147
Total stitches: 5340
Total backstitches: 42.76 inches

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 12

Saturday I ended the day having done all of the rest of the blue background that I can do without moving the hoop, which brought the total to 4749. Yesterday I completed all of the available silver area's, then I did the white gold on the tooth and started doing the old gold on the mouth area.

It doesn't sound like much but in total I did 444 stitches yesterday - not so bad really.

Stitches done: 444
Total stitches: 5193
Total backstitches: 42.76 inches

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 11

Friday I was at 4249 after another slow day. Yesterday I was not so busy with doing stuff but having a down day just chilling and stitching while my bf did his own things resulting in a nice relaxing day for the both of us. I was even able to join Carla and the girls for a bit in our IHSW hangout - always fun to catch up and see what everyone got and has done! As a result I got quite a bit of stitching done and ended up doing 500 stitches AND 9.14 inches of XL back stitching! I finished doing the braided area as much as I could and then did the blue background around and between it all.

Today I shall be doing 2 things: first is choose which colours to use for the stitching of the face as I have not yet decided on that and the second is to do some more of the silver area's to hopefully get a chunk more done of them though today does look like it's going to be busier than yesterday.

Stitches done:500
Backstitches done: 9.14
Total stitches: 4749 (= 26.38%)
Total backstitches: 42.76 inches

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 10

Thursday's progress was minimal but at least you could see it. Yesterday was another busy day and I didn't get any stitching time till after my bf and I had paid my local bar a visit - not the time to be doing anything complicated or at any speed so I did a bit of filling in of the top silver braid. I only got 63 stitches done but that's better than none at all hehe.

Still no Kreinik braid in the post - silly slow international post, but then when you want something *any* post is too slow!

Stitches done: 63
Total stitches: 4249
Total backstitches: 33.62 inches

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 9 & TUSAL

Wednesday's lack of progress can be seen above, although I did get a lot of XL backstitching done, so there was *some* progress. Yesterday I didn't do much better, however I did have a lot of "life" happening. All good though! I met my bf at the station nearest the airport he arrived at and after a cup of coffee to rehydrate after travelling we went to my house where he is staying the weekend.

Between making bacon and eggs for him and the kids for lunch, catching up on wash and making roast lamb for dinner as a nod to the Chinese New Year (this year is the year of the sheep), I didn't get much stitching done. I managed 100 stitches, which is more than I thought I'd manage to be honest.

 You can see 2 threads trailing up, these are parked so I can continue the lines later.

Stitches done: 100
Total stitches: 4186
Total backstitches: 33.62 inches

Tusal is all about showing off your orts - if you click the button above you will find out all about it. Since last time I have done quite a bit - above you can see what I've been working on for the last 9 days - yes 9!

Before that I worked on my February Ornament Of the Month - I always make 2, one to use as an ornament and one to make a garland with.  If you head over here you can see the garland ornament and find out where to get the pattern for free.

Going back in time and through the layers you can see that before all the purple is some lighter coloured threads, some of these are from the owl ornament, owl scissor holder and the "A" letter book lasso I also wrote about in the post I linked above

So quite a bit has been achieved since the last ort report, Hopefully I can finish the Celtic Wolf before the next one, or be very close to doing so!

See you all tomorrow (hopefully) for my next Celtic Wolf WIP report.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 8

Above is as always the reminder of where I was before I started stitching. Yesterday was not a good stitching day. I ached quite a bit as I'd pushed myself too much on Tuesday with the pancakes and I'd had to take my oldest son to an appointment and do grocery shopping - my body hated me for it. I did however take my embroidery to the appointment and did some of the blue backstitching while I was there. When I got home I finished it. So far so good

Then I started cross stitching and things seemed to go well, seemed because at 89 stitches in I discovered that my stitches were off - and the place it went wrong was 5 stitches in from the beginning of what I'd done. This was one of those times when fudging was not an option so I had to rip it out. Have you ever noticed that the ripping seems to take twice as long as putting the stitches in?

If you look carefully you can see where I had to rip between the curved cheek area and the woven strands.

Total stitched: 89 - 89 = 0
Total backstitched: 22.87 inches.
Total stitched so far: 4086 +  33.62 inches of back stitching.

See you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 7

When I started yesterday I was at 3598 stitches. I didn't expect to get much done as it was pancake day and I was expecting 5 additional kids to invade my house and play till it was time to stuff themselves with pancakes. I was right too. First I lost my chair to the kids wanting to play board games (YAY!) at the dining room table, sadly the kids didn't seem to have either volume control buttons OR indoor voices so I managed to gain a lovely case of half a dozen gnomes drilling into my head. I retreated to the sofa to do a bit that I didn't need to be at my Nerd Central Command (NCC for short) for but soon lost that place as well to my eldest's friends, so I gave up and made a double batch of pancake batter from scratch. Apparently this is unusual as none of the younger kids have seen their parents do it like this. I did eventually get my NCC seat back but even though I put headphones on to listen to music I was not really able to concentrate as the noise almost overpowered the safe levels of sound from my headphones.

4 pints of milk (2 litres) , 2 pounds of flour (900 grams), 2 tablespoons of cocoa and 8 eggs later I was exhausted having made over 30 pancakes, some of which I'd made into chocolate pancakes with the cocoa (best eaten with a sprinkling of sugar and fresh orange juice). By the time the last of the kids had gone home I'd barely done 30 stitches + a bit of the XL backstitching in the blue area, which isn't counted in the stitch count.

Somehow in the evening I perked up enough to do a whole lot more, all in black as I worked on doing the outlines on the cheeks and lower jaw. With the Kreinik threads on the way I want to see how much I can complete before it gets here so I can hopefully get going with them straight away. I want to postpone re-hooping for a long as possible.

My total stitch count for the day was 488 stitches which brings the total to 4086 - not bad for a week's work.

My average stitch count this week was 568, which is 140 more than the minimum average I need to finish on time.

See you tomorrow with my next instalment.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 6

Yesterday when I posted this I was at 3225 stitches. I had to do a bit of cleaning yesterday as I'd been letting that slide a bit while having far too much fun stitching. I also needed to make the kids do something about their rooms - not the easiest of tasks as many of you will know but I'm not one to do it for them as they made the mess. As a result I didn't get nearly as much done as previously, and didn't even make my stitch count.

 Here is a close up of the background area so you can see what I have done there. As you can see my stitches with the silver aren't always perfect hehe.

And here I am at the end of yesterday - only 373 stitches unfortunately but the middle blue filling in has been completed for this section, there is more to come but I'll need to first do some more black outlines.

I'm at 3598 stitches now = 20%!

I have ordered the Kreinik Solar Silver #4 braid I wanted - I had to order in the UK as none of the Dutch online shops had it in anything but blending filament. I am eagerly awaiting it but I probably won't get it till next week.

Till tomorrow when I return with another super exciting instalment of "what I did yesterday" lol.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 5

Above is the Celtic Wolf at 2697 stitches. Yesterday I took things slowly as befits a lazy Sunday and did a chunk of the background, first by doing the dark blue lines of background in the loops, then by doing all the red corner stones. After that I started filling in the rest with the lighter blue.

At the end of the day when I finished my last thread I was at 527 stitches, which annoyed me as that was 99 stitches above the required amount so I started a new thread and did one more stitch to round it off to 100 - crazy I know but 100 more feels better than "just" 99.

So yesterday my total stitches was 528 bringing the total to 3225, which is where I thought I'd be after 7 1/2 days so I'm 2 1/2 days ahead of my schedule!

See you tomorrow with another update.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 4

So after the marathon stitching effort on Friday I was here - 2055 stitches in and surprised to be that far already. I did pay the price the next day, my right lower arm was rather sore. I decided to keep stitching as muscle ache needs gentle movement to help it get better faster, so I stitched slowly and took many breaks and gently stretched the offending muscle and by the early evening it decided to stop being silly and work normally. At this point I was at about 250 stitches. I had decided to listen to music yesterday as I'd run out of documentaries I can watch while the kids are around and only had shows left that are 16+ as things like Criminal Minds are often a bit too gory for kids.

I didn't expect to find that at the end of the evening I had managed to stitch 642 stitches! Somehow listening to OMD, Nik Kershaw and a whole lot of other 80's music got me into the stitching groove and lots got done after all.

I started yesterday by closing off the left side of the middle so that I'd be able to do the blue grid there later. The light gold (E3821) filled area to the left is the throat area of the wolf and is the first outer line of the wolf. Once this bit was done I started with the darker blue (820) of the background grid.

This brings the total to 2697 stitches, which is just under 15%

Today I shall be continuing with the background grid and I'll be back tomorrow with the next update.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 3

Above is the daily reminder photo of where I was the day before. I was at 1203 stitches when I started stitching yesterday and it was a really good stitching day too! I did a bit of the background to see what it would look like, including over 2 cross stitches "back stitching" which looked better than the normal over 1 for this particular design. I also got a chunk more of the black outlines done so I have some area's where I can go full on berserker stitcher and rack up the stitches. To top it all of I also managed to complete the section of silver I had started the day before

In total I did 852 stitches yesterday! Not sure how though lol. This brings the total to 2055 stitches which is just over 11% not bad for 4 days stitching.

I'll be back tomorrow with another update, though probably with less stitches completed this time hehe.

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 2

Yesterday I was at 764 stitches in total at the beginning of the day. I didn't get as much done as the day before but I did do 439 stitches which is a smidge more than the 428 that I need to do to make it. I'm now at 1203 stitches which is close to 7% complete. Between shopping and an unexpected nap, as I dozed off when I was taking a short reading break, I lost quite a bit of time but I hope to manage more today.

As I need time to do my March ornaments I'm trying to build a bit of a buffer stitch count wise to make sure I can do them on time without effecting my chances at finishing this, so every day I do a bit more than the required amount is good.

That's all for today's update - see you tomorrow!

Celtic Wolf - WIP post 1

The Deviant Art group Stitching Pirates is having a competition with tribal and totemic as the theme. I spent some time looking around trying to find something I liked to stitch and finally found an amazing Celtic wolf line art image, the artist was amazingly kind and let me use her artwork to make a pattern for myself. As the image was only the lines this gave me a lot of freedom as to how to fill in all the spaces as just lines for a cross stitch is boring. I decided to go down the route of illuminated manuscripts and let them inspire me with the colours and fill in patterns. So I will be using lots of metallics, some interesting patterns from manuscripts done in normal DMC floss and for that extra bling some beads too. I found some amazing Dragon scale beads (manufacturer is All Beads ) that I will be using and I'm considering some rose petal beds too.

 I started this project a couple of days ago but didn't really do much as I was tired and had a busy day. The starting point for yesterday is 101 stitches which you can see in the photo above.

The fabric I'm working on is white 18ct Aida that I hand dyed with Dylon velvet black dye which resulted in a grey slightly splotchy fabric.

Yesterday I got my skates on and did a lot - 663 stitches to be exact, 396 of them using DMC 310 black and the rest using DMC E168. The bit I'm working on is a woven section and I hope to get my hands on some 001L - Solar Silver or 001HL - Silver High Lustre Kreinik #4 braid so I can have 2 different silvers in this area.

As this project is huge and I need to finish it by the end of March I need to focus on this project and keep progress going so I am using my tried and tested method of posting my progress every day in an attempt to make sure I do enough every day. My goal is to do at least 428 stitches a day to make sure I finish in time. I will be back tomorrow with today's progress.

Ornament of the Month & Tons of Tiny February editions + finishes

 

I'm going to start with my ornaments from my Ornament of the Month project. The patterns were already posted on the NCC International Headquarters site (click the button above) so you can rush over and grab them if you like what you see.
This months Birthstone is amethyst so I went for the purples that you see so often in these stones. As the month is February I decided that a wink to Valentines day was ok. Hearts are also popular during Christmas as it stands for loving your family, friends and neighbours. I included a little candy backstitch on each of the corners as candy is a favourite during both Valentines and Christmas.

For the beading I used some amazing TOHO permanent finish silver lined amethyst size 11/0 seed beads which I sewed down with the darkest purple thread. I managed to get my hands on some lovely amethyst pieces that had a hole drilled through and I chose 2 to use for the ornaments. A larger drop shaped one for the tassel of the bigger ornament and a really light one as the pendant bead on the garland finish ornament.

Since I can imagine people wondering how those long ears on the garland ornament work I decided to make a photo of the January and February ornaments linked.

While I was taking photo's of the February ornament I decided to also take new photo's of the January one as the original photo's were made indoors after dark. And I also took the following photo so you can see the two together.

Stats: 
Size: 3 inches along each side for the bigger ornament and 2 1/4" for the smaller one.
Fabric: 16ct antique white Aida
Colours used: DMC 550, 552, 553 and medium purple craft thread for the loops.
Beads: TOHO size 11 Permanent Finish silver lined milky amethyst and a real amethyst
Pattern can be found here: Ornament of the Month - February

Next month's pattern will be posted on the NCCIH site on Friday 6th March.

This month I am a bit early with posting the Tons of Tiny but I decided to do a 2 in one post as my ornaments also count for Tons of Tiny. What is Tons of Tiny? In short it's a SAL where you stitch small projects and talk about them and hopefully also send your used and useful patterns on to someone else who might enjoy them. Last month I had 3 to talk about, this month I have quite a few more to add to that total.

First of all is the scissor keeper and fob that I made using a kit from CrossStitcher, you can read all about it in my blog post I have been informed that this counts as 2 items for ToT.

Just around the time I finished this my much delayed January issue arrived with another little kit in it. Again I had a bit of bad luck with it as the metal necklace pendant the cross stitch was supposed to go into was broken - the hanger bit that had been spot welded on had not been welded properly and had dropped off in transit. However the metal bit has been very useful to put seed beads in while beading so it's quite handy to have it! I turned the fabric and some of the thread into a lasso bookmark for my youngest son.

These were really the only colours he liked from the kit so unfortunately the letter isn't as clear as it might have been I added a lot of backstitching in an attempt to make it stand out more.

This little initial is 22 stitches square on 14ct white Aida and uses 3 colours.

Next up is this lovely little owl ornament . I found the cross stitch pattern for this a while ago and kept it in a tab so I'd not forget to make it (things that go to bookmarks tend to get lost, even though I am careful about sorting them lol). I decided that it was madness to keep the tab open till autumn so decided I may as well make it and then I would have a Halloween ornament ready well before time for a change as more often than not I never get round to it.

I decided to do the pattern on black Aida and use variegated thread to make the design itself, so I reversed the pattern. I had some trouble with the pattern at first as the designer did not use the standard 10 square grid but a grid of 14, 15, 15, 5 so I re-charted it and worked from that instead.

The pattern is free and can be found here

Stats:
Size: 41 stitches square
Finished size: 3 3/4"
Fabric: Black 14 ct Aida
Floss: Cosmo variegated thread 8034

That brings the total of small projects to 6 for this month and 9 in total. Funnily enough I haven't managed to do much on my bigger projects this month.

Now on to the patterns I shall be offering this month to whoever puts their name down for them. Last month Leonore was sent the Daffodils and Carla will be sent the dog rose soon. The other pattern was not asked for so that will go back into the box for a later date.

This month's theme is Paddington. I have 3 little patterns for him all of which are stitched with DMC colours.

The one on the left was a freebie with a magazine, meant to entice you to buy a bigger pattern that this was taken from, on it's own it's fun too though. 8 colours, whole and back stitching. no grid so I'm not sure of the size.

The middle one is Paddington sitting on his suitcase with a lollypop, made by Permin of Copenhagen. It's 33 stitches wide x 42 stitches high, whole and backstitches, 8 colours. It also contains an alphabet and 0-9 numbers. Downside of this pattern: I used a red ballpoint pen to mark where I stitched however you can still clearly see the symbols.

On the right is the smallest of the lot - 19 stitches x 30 stitches, 5 colours - they are not listed as DMC numbers but it uses the same colours as the other Permin Paddington pattern so I'll write down which number floss is what.


I will be sending one of these to 3 people, just comment with which one you'd like and I'll get in touch with the new homes for snail mail addy's some time next week. Please note that you are only supposed to request one of these if you are planning on making it yourself as part of the Tons of Tiny project, these patterns are not for resale! If you were given a pattern in the month before you can still join in!

If more than one person asks for the same pattern I'll write the names on a bit of paper, drop them in a jar and let one of the kids pull a name.

Ornament of the Month - February

Welcome back to the second Ornament of the Month! This month's birthstone is amethyst so I chose some lovely purples to use, it also being the month of Valentines day I decided to use that as a theme too because everybody loves *someone* even if they don't have that special someone at this time.