Way too long!

OMG guys, it's been so long! I really didn't mean to be absent for... months. I started a new (great) job in February and for awhile it was just so busy that when I got home the last thing I wanted to do was jump on the computer and write a blog post. Or check email. Or Facebook. Or anything really. It's really calmed down since then, either I know more, or it's just not as busy, Or a combo of both, any which way I'm back for an update today at least.

I'm in the process of packing up the townhouse that my husband and I have been living in since 2007 (for him, 2009 for me) so we can move to sunny North Carolina! We are both keeping our jobs and will be work from home employees. The hubby has been since he got his new job in August, but it'll be a first for me. I'm excited and sad at the same time!! We don't have an official move in date yet (the apartment we're renting is still being built) but I'm thinking by this time next month we'll be North Carolina residents!

Anyways, you read my blog for cross stitch news! I had been so busy with work that I really haven't gotten much done. :( I did finish a couple things, and start a few others and leave some behind in the dust. You all know how it is!

Most recent first (since that's what I can remember!)

I just started my third design in Angel Stitchin's ... coffee series, Cafe Latte:



That means I also finished two, Hot Cocoa & Espresso, but I'm going to have to dig up the pictures somewhere... they are all packed now.

I also finished this little ornament from one of the Just Cross Stitch Ornament editions:



And this little lady was a freebie on Durene Jones' Facebook page in October:



I finally finished this guy too (I started back in.. 2013 I think):



I started Glendon Places' Friendship Compass (and then stopped, I have ADD ...):



I started Damask Square by Ink Circles (on 40 count, my eyes!):



And I did work on my Plum Pudding by Glendon Place, there's just no way I'll get it done for the SAL that I was hosting. I'm still going to draw for the winner though! Sorry I poofed and didn't have regular check ins.



I think there are a few more things sprinkled in but I can't track down pictures right now. :) I'll update when we move and I find them again :)

How is everyone else's year been? It's almost over, it's gone way too fast!

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May Update

I haven't been super busy but I have managed two more finishes for 2015 as well as working on my Glendon Place Plum Pudding & a new Ink Circles design. Hopefully no one minds my switch to a once a month update. I just can't find time to update every week anymore.

Here are my two finishes:

I have two more in the series to compete. I'm unsure if I will want to frame them separately or all together in one frame, but I'm planning to find a spot for them in the kitchen.


Here's my new start, Damask Square by Ink Circles:


It's on 40count sparkly fabric from SilkWeavers with Peacock floss from Weeks Dyed Works. It's sooooooo tiny I can only work on it in good light, with my reading glasses on for short periods of time, but it's going to look so great when it's done. I'm almost a fourth of the way done. :)


And last but not least, Plum Pudding update:





What's everyone else working on? Have any bug summer stitching plans??

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Glendon Place Stitch Along Check In

Sorry guys for being MIA lately. I started a new job and it's been taking up more time than the old one. I've still been stitching and even finished a piece! I'll eventually post about it, but I just wanted to get this quick update out.


Here's where I'm at with my Glendon Place Plum Pudding:

It's coming along slowly, but then again I had put it away for awhile to work on other projects.

How's everyone else? What did I miss??

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Winner!!

Thanks everyone for entering to win a selection of cross stitch goodies from me! In total between the blog and my Instagram account I had 48 entries!

I wrote everyones' name down with a number then used www.random.org to pick the winner:

Congrats Sharon H (who is mysticstitches on Instagram & http://witchyknits4ewe.blogspot.com/) Please send me an email with your contact information so I can get this package out to you!

Thanks everyone for entering!!

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Small Update

I really didn't get any stitching done in the past two weeks. I quit my job, went on a week vacation, then started a new job, so I've been pretty busy. I was planning to finish this little Lizzie Kate before Valentine's Day but it didn't quite work out that way, no rush. It'll just be early for next year!



I changed up all of the colors. I only have one of the called for colors (purple haze, which I haven't even used yet). I'm using a selection of Cosmo floss, Weeks Dye Works and Sampler Threads from stash. I think it's turning out super cute. It's being completed on a mystery piece of linen from my stash. I did another Lizzie Kate with it as well, the Halloween piece from October. It's really not my favorite I've decided. The threads are pretty "wiggly" and it's difficult to keep the tension the same. I prefer even weaves over the linens, depending on the project of course!

Speaking of fabrics, my Quarterly Silkweavers Fabric of the Month came!!! They have about a million different ways to sign up for their fabrics, I chose the "classics" line in either line/evenweave counts higher than 28 for 3 13x18 pieces per quarter. And here's my first quarter selections that they sent:



It was extremely difficult to get all of the colors to show up, the one one the left is actually pink-ish, it's called "Brandied Pears" the blue is a solo color (which means it's not in their regular line up) and the tan one is "Moon Dust". They are all crystal newcastle linens (40 count) which I've never used, but it could be fun to stitch with! I really love their classics line because the shading is so slight on them. I have found that I don't really like the fabrics that have a tie dyed look. Just my opinion. I will have 3 more shipments of this, I decided that it was better on my wallet just to do it 4 times a year. I still get fun new colors though!

What's your favorite type of fabric to use? Leave your answers in the comments!!!

PS don't forget to enter my sweepstakes!

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Sweepstakes time!

I missed last week because of being on vacation, but I'm back early this week with a Sweepstakes to honor my 1 year blog anniversary AND hitting 800 followers on instagram! All you have to do is leave a comment below letting me know that you are interested. I'm going to keep this open until Saturday February 28th at midnight EST and I will chose a winner randomly on Sunday March 1st.

This is open worldwide, I will ship anywhere!

I am opening this both to blog comments and to instagram, so if you do both then you'll have two chances to win! You can find me on Instagram @xstitchhaven. There is a photo to repost and a hashtag as your entry.

Here's a picture of what you can win:



Included are three patterns, Lizzie Kate Flip It "Halloween (#F17)", Lizzie Kate Snippet "Winter Wishes", and Little House Needleworks "Season of Love"; three skeins of floss, Weeks Dye Works Grape Ice and Aztec Red and threadworx 10341; a huge 18 x 27 inch piece of 32 Lugana from Picture this Plus, in the color Heather. I have stitched all three of the patterns that I am giving away and they were all great quick stitches with easy to follow patterns. There are no marks on any of the patterns, they all look brand new, two are even still in their original packaging.

Feel free to share with your friends and don't forget, if you are on Instagram as well, repost the picture in my profile for a second chance to win!

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Winter Wishes

I have a finish!!! That makes two for January. It would be totally awesome if I could get two done a month. I'm not holding my breath though!

Here's Winter Wishes by Lizzie Kate





I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I think it's quite darling! I didn't buy the "official" snowflake charm, which was silver. I instead opted to buy this Mill Hill set which had 4 charms. I think it looks just as cute. I also changed the smoke from the blue charted to gray, made more sense to me. None of the colors were the called for ones, I just kinda went with what I had in my stash. :)

I don't think I did any work on the Plum Pudding, but here it is anyway, I know you all love it as much as I do. ;)



And a closeup:



My goal is one page every two months, and I'm very very close to finishing the first page. :) You can see the darkest purple petal in the lower right hand corner, I've almost reached the center of the design with that motif. It seems to be going more quickly than my Tiramisu was. Not sure why.

I bought these both on eBay (photo credit to Glendon Place):

Baked Alaska

Cherries Jubilee

I got both of them with shipping for $14. I'm so excited about that. I think I'm going to change the Baked Alaska colors to shades of teal instead of the blues charted. And Cherries Jubilee I'm going to keep the same. Someday. After I finish Plum Pudding & Tiramisu. :D

I also managed to do some more hardanger. Not much, but I did my first cutting!!! It's more work to hide those stupid threads than I thought it would be.



I practiced in the upper left corner, I have a bunch of cutting to do in the diamond shaped one on the right. I'm still practicing before using the new threads I bought. I also think I want to work on 25 count instead of the 28 I'm currently using. It's a bit too small in my opinion for the size threads I have. I think I've got some 25 count hiding around here somewhere.

That's it for this week! Hoping everyone had a wonderful January and that February will treat you well!

PS I'm planning a giveaway for passing my 1 year blog anniversary AND for hitting 750 followers on instagram (xstitchhaven). I'm still sorting out what's in the package. Stay tuned!

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January Blues... Purples!

Hi all! This should be a pretty short update. I have not gotten much stitching done this past week because my wrists/hands have been hurting. This has happened before, so I'm not terribly concerned about it, but it is putting a damper on my stitching abilities. I think I might have a touch of carpel tunnel, but not really because my pinky fingers are affected as is my entire hand. I am not sure, maybe it the two handed stitching. It is a bit different on my wrists. If it persists I'll go to the doctor, but hopefully it goes away soon because my husband and I are planning a getaway to Texas in two weeks! We are both quite tired of the weather and are looking forward to some sunny skies. We've never been to Texas so I'm looking forward to adding a new state to our list!

Anyways, to the stitching!

I worked on Plum Pudding some more. Most of this was done on Sunday afternoon. I am almost the entire way through a page. I did overlap onto the next one if the motif did. That whole variegated thread thing!





And I worked on my Lizzie Kate Winter Wishes:





That's pretty much everything. I told you it was a slow week! Until next time!

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Progress and a Haul

Hope January is treating everyone well! I've had a good one so far.

I won a Little House Needlework pattern from CJ over at Tea-n-Stitches! I think the card is handmade too, which is totally awesome!



I also had $50 to spend over at 123stitch so I picked up the following:



Watercolors and Wildflowers cottons for some hardanger, the thinner strands look like they could be used for cross stitch too. Has anyone used them?!? The Watercolors seem to be thicker than the DMC pearl #5, maybe I need to pick up some smaller count fabric? I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this hardanger thing out!

Some cute valentines day charts (the other one was out of stock, hopefully it'll come later this week), black anchor, a heart button for a different chart as well as some snowflake charms.



This Weeks Dye Works fabric was on clearance too:



Then The Drawn Thread released some new patterns that I just had to have:





I bought the full kit for both of them. I'm hoping to do the Love Birds one for my husband for V-Day.

I also have some progress (this was as of Sunday afternoon), Plum Pudding:



and Winter Wishes:



I also purchased a LOWERY STAND. I'm so excited. It arrived Wednesday last week so I've been using it with Plum Pudding and trying out two handed stitching. It's been going well as long as I pick up the correct color. Whoops! I'll try to do a review for everyone if they are interested after I've used it more than a week.

Does any one else use a needlework stand?

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Glendon Place SAL - I

Hi everyone, two posts in one week! Pretty good for me!

This is going to be my first post of the Glendon Place SAL that I am hosting along with Neil. You have until tonight at midnight (or until whenever tomorrow I remember to take it down) to sign up here and you'll be able to get caught up on all the rules. There are current 9 links up, 7 blogs, one Instagram (#gpsal) and the cross stitch forum has 6 members participating. It's not limited to people with blogs only. I am quite active on both Instagram (@xstitchhaven) and the cross stitch forum so I thought I would open it up to everyone! The same rules about posting progress still apply.

I will be working on Plum Pudding. This is not the first Glendon Place Amazing Dessert that I've started, if you've been following me for a bit you'll know I started with Tiramisu in 2014. I have not finished it yet (clicky for last update photo), but because there was interest in starting a stitch a-long I took the plunge and started another one! I have already decided on a third too (but I"m going to change the colors to shades of teal instead of what is charted).

Here's a picture of my supplies that I bought myself for Christmas:

I am stitching this on 28 count Antique White Lugana. I choose to do it on white instead of a hand dyed fabric like the Tiramisu project of mine because every single picture I've seen of this completed it has looked washed out and I really wanted the purple colors to stand out.

I decided to start January 1 and here's my progress so far:

I've already had to frog (rip out stitches) which is very sad. I try really hard not to have to do it with silks, but sometimes it's unavoidable. It was over a block of color that had a page change and I didn't follow through correctly, I thought it was a bit lower than it was. At least I noticed before I moved on to other blocks I suppose! Be careful with page changes everyone! ;)

There are only 4 required posts throughout 2015 for this SAL, but I am 100% sure I will be posting regular updates throughout the year. I am easily distracted so even right now I have 3 projects in Q-Snaps. Since there are 6 total pages to the pattern, my goal is one page every other month. I think that'll be sufficient for my "easily distracted self" to keep on task and not totally put it away in favor of another project, as happened to Tiramisu.

Once you've updated your blog, post a link in the comments below so everyone can go find yours!

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Updates and a New Start

Hope everyone's January is going well. This should be a semi-quick update.

I've been working on the Glendon Place's Plum Pudding, here's were I'm at as of Sunday.

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

I ended up needing to do some frogging because one of the blocks was over a page change. At least I noticed before I went ahead and did a bunch more! Plus one for me!

I started this cute Lizzie Kate pattern, Winter Wishes. I like to have something small that I can take with me places, like the sofa, to the chair, over to the bed. You know how it is.

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

No firm plans on what I'll do with it when it's finished though. Maybe I'll try my hand at another flat fold! I made a 123stitch order and in it will hopefully be a snowflake charm it put on the little house. The Lizzie Kate one was $11! Instead I bought the Mill Hill version where I got 4 snowflake charms for like, $4. Hopefully they'll be a good size!

Also, my friend came over and we exchanged Christmas presents. She made me this awesome pillow with my last name on it. She crocheted the white background then cross stitched the purple. Isn't it super nifty?!?! I love it.

I think that's it for today! I'll be back tomorrow with a Glendon Place specific update. :)

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New Year New Starts

That's how it goes for you too right? New Year = New Starts!

I'm starting off the year strong. My last start of 2014 turned into my first finish of 2015! I decided to cross off one ornament on my long list (which can be found here), Peppermint Latte by Casey Buonaugurio Designs (you can find it in the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue).

It was done on a mystery piece of pink linen. After I took the first two pictures I realized that I forgot the bottom line, so the final picture has that! I like how it turned out! I'm going to add it to my to-be-finished pile (there's only 3 pieces there right now). I would like to go find some fabric for it, I don't really have anything suitable in my stash.

I tok one final picture of my Tirasmu before putting it away for my Plum Pudding start:

I started my Plum Pudding by Glendon Place for the SAL that Neil and I are hosting (you can still sign up here).

I was debating back and forth on the fabric choice. My Tiramisu project is on Jazlyn and has a much thicker weave to it, while this Lugana is very open. I was thinking that they would look weird side by side, but, who knows if I'll even be displaying them side by side, so I'm going to keep on with this. It'll be the same dimensions anyway. Which is what I actually cared about. The colors are so difficult to photograph. They are totally dependent on the lighting, and it's been gray clouds here for days, and probably won't let up until March!

I have also borrowed some hardanger books from the library. I thought it would be fun to try! Here's the books I got:

And here are my first two designs. Let's not talk about the counting mistakes I made on the kosher blocks that I didn't notice until way later (the white bits)... I think it's pretty fun and I am going to order some Caron Waterlilies threads (the ones that are equivalent to the DMC perles, I keep forgetting their names) to have fun with.

The JoAnn's near me really didn't have any options, so I got 2 purples, one green and white to start off with, I've found a few patterns I like so I'm thinking I'll start with the non-cut work ones and then try some cutting too.

That's it for today! Anyone else starting off into new hobbies for the new year?

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