First part of a challenge.

Today, July 5th marks the end of the first part of the Giro d'Italia challenge.
The second part will start in September (really looking forward to a more chill and cool weather).

It was fun seeing the pic come to life stitch after stitch. The castle is almost complete, it will be done within the next diagonal.
Right now this wip has 93595 stitches completed and it's still a pleasure working on it.

I know i have to stitch on other projects, but it's difficult to put this away. I need to think about what to do.


What are your summertime stiching plans?

As always...                                 
See you soon,                              

      

Challenges: finished and starting.

Hello stitchers!

Since the last post, i've been stitching almost non-stop mostly because i really like how WWAVMC is turning out and due Italy being in quarantine.

First 12000 crosses were stitched between the 1st of January through the 1st of February. I thought that i would fail, but no, i did it!

Then i was able to fully complete the first row of pages.

In the last couple of days I've also took part in the "Last minute" challenge that requested 1500 crosses to be stitched through March 24th to the 28th.
                           

                                            

Before...   

Where i'm now, after 1500 crosses.

On March 30th will being the "Giro d'Italia" challenge: 20 legs representing the 20 regional capitals of Italy.
The number of stitches represent each km of distance from city to city, plus a "0" to make the numbers more interesting.

Here's a pic of the details.

What about You? 

                                        See you soon,

More challenges completed and news.

Hello stitchers!

It's been quite some time since my last post but i kept stitching and hopefully you did that too.


Let's see what i've been up to:

-Finished the Stitchig Gainz challenge;

-Finished the second part of the #100daysofHAED challenge;

-Finished the #StitchAroundTheWorld challenge.

All three were done on Spiders Queen and here she is at the moment:

Now she will take a nap...

-Finished the 2500 crosses challenge in the "For the love of diagonal stitching" fb group.

-Finished the 2000 crosses for the month of November working on the diagonal on 

WWAWMC.

Both challenges were hosted by the sweet Karen, who you can find also on Youtube here.


Yes, i've converted this project from a sort of cross country to diagonal. This stitching method is now my way to go to face the many changes of colors of the Max Colors chart. Yes, there are many instance of threading and re-threading the needle but working every little row after row (10 crosses wide) down the diagonal without leaving blank holes in the squares is perfect for me and it reduces the risk of missing a stitch.

The other news i want to share with you all is that i'm now using Pattern Keeper to search and mark my stitches. This app is simple to use but it's become a great help. There's also a fb group for support, in case you need it.
If you stitch you must try it, i promise you won't regret spending a little sum for puchasing this app after the two weesk trial.
Sadly, at the moment this wonderful app is only available for Android (after the 5.0 release) or, if you're like me and stitch from a pc, you can download  it after having installed Bluestacks 4.

Let me know what you think!
I'll take my leave now, happy stitching.

                                                                             See you soon,     

    

     


 

Progress on Spider Queen.

Hello stitchers!

After many days i finally finished the first row of pages on Spiders Queen for a total of 39200 tent stitches!

First row of pages completed.

Lately I've slowed down on this wip because WWAWMC was (and still is) screaming at me for attention.
I've resolved to stitch (whenever i can, obviously) on my fourth HAED in the afternoons and SQ after dinner. So far so good, as this is the first time I'm rotating two projects in a day and i still manage to get some progress on both wips.
*Maybe I'm a little crazy doing things this way, but it works for now.*

The #Stitcharoundtheworld2019 #challenge nonetheless is far from over, so wish me good luck...

See you soon,                             

100 days of HAED challenge.

Hello, goodnight and good morning!

As of 16th of April, the first #100daysofHAED challenge of the year is finished.

It was a long-ish journey, filled with many emotions other than many, many cross stitches.

I'm quite happy with my overall progress made on WWAVMC. I've managed to complete the page i was working on when the challenge started.


Then...

The starting point.

And now...

The finished challenge.

Now i'll have to stitch some white on white for the sky highlights. Oh well... The colors are many but the result is so worth it. 

 See you soon,                           

     

First legs of the challenge.

Hello there fellow stitchers!

As i promised last time, i will show you the progress made on one of my current wip, HAED's Spiders Queen, while stitching for the #StitchAroundTheWorld2019 challenge.

I leave you with some pics of the first legs already stitched.

The start, with the first page complete.

In January I've completed 12140 points on this project and i'm happy with the actual result.
Let's see how many stittches will bring the months ahead...

See you soon,         
   

Still there, still stitching.

Hello there!
I know, i'm bad at updating my own blog, but i'm trying.

Since finishing Leo and Night Moves, i've switched to stitch Window With A View Max Colors (my first MC! Whoohoo!) by Dominic Davison.

This is my fourth HAED start.


Well, after starting that in mid August 2018 and also participating in the 100 days of HAED challenge, and finishing just a bit more than two pages, i've found myself wanting to implementing Spiders Queen in the rotation.
She asked and deserved some attention after two long years and thus i gave in and in 2019 i'm participating in two challenges hosted over facebook:

1. 100 days of HAED with WWACMC
2. Stitch Around the World with SQ 

These challenges are fun and i'm still making good daily progress on both wips.
(Pics to come, after the first 100 days challenge is over).

See you soon,     

How time flies when you're stitching...

Well it's been a while since the last post...

Been busy stitching and searching myself in those last few months.
Did i find what i was looking for? Probably not, so let's skip to the point of this post: i've been stitchin a lot (in all honesty i'd spend every single moment with a needle in my hands and the beautiful threads... If only that would be possible). 

Let's now take a look at the progress made.

• Leo 

Finished on March, 8 2018. I'm so happy with the result and honestly it looks so much better in real life than it does in this photo.
*Pics of the framed piece to come (hopefully soon)!

• Last Minute project for Christmas 2017

I almost forgot to post this but better late than never, right?

It was fun stitching with three threads, as i already knew the feeling and the outcome it's not so bad with the 3D looks.
It was so much easier than stitching an HAED but I needed it.

• Night Moves

As I'm typig this post I'm prepared to do the #60daysofHAED challenge after partecipating in the #30daysofHAED hosted over Facebook.
The first challenge was easy, focusing one month on only one project it wasn't so hard in my opinion but with this new challenge (that starts April 24th) we will see... Maybe I can commit on stithing Night Moves on 60 days or maybe Spiders Queen will scream at me for attention (I negleted her since having completed the first page so long ago) after the first 30 days... Who knows what will happen?
Returning on the subject at hand: on Night Moves I've surpassed the halfway point and I'm very happy about how it's coming along.

See you soon,

Period of progress.

Hello stitchers! How have you been? Hope everything is alright with you all out there.

I was a bit busy and didn't feel ok (and thus I almost forgot to post this little update on my personal progress on Leo), but don't worry! I'm here to make amend.

Let's start with some photos...

Those were taken through the last year, 2015.

This,

was the first photo taken in the new year.
You can see a square 10x10 already stutched, that was the requirement of the new HAED fb group challenge. That stated to stitch ten full square in a checkered pattern in a new area.

I remember it was fun stitch in this new way and at the end (which I'll show you next time) there weren't the feared lines between each squares.
The confetti stitches has slowed me down a bit, but that was a little price to pay for having tried something i never thought to do while stitching.


I wish you a week full of happiness and cross stitches.

See you soon,

Of finished challenge and birthday.

Hello stitchers!

In the last month (just some days after the last post i wrote) I've managed to finish the Facebook NEW HAED group second challenge.

This time the challenge was to complete an entire page with the "cross country" method, one colour at time.
I've tried to resist (well, not so much!) from starting another HAED pattern, but Night Moves was calling me... And when a particular chart calls you only have to listen.
So... Yeah, I've dismounted Leo from its frame and i've started the second wip.

This is the first of many "first times".

Night Moves is the first pattern I've worked with the tent stitches thecnique.
More specifically i've opted to try the "continental" tent.
Theright side is looking like this "////" and on the back the stitches aren't like this "||||" but a bit slanted.

Challenge finished.

This method prevents the fabric from distorting itself when stitching with tent stitches.

The other first thing is... The loop method for starting. It's easy to make and saves a good amount of time from having to reach back for bolcking the threads.
I'll add that this techinque is really fast. So fast indeed that I've completed the first page and the challenge in two weeks. (!)
50 colours in that short time frame was really something!


Another first time: the use of Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid pb10 (first thread i've brought from the USA). This thead is sparkly and it gives the pattern a nice "feeling".
Last of the first times: the parking method. I've tried it with six threads on Leo when it was still placed on the Q-snaps frame but with so many colours i've feared (stupid me!) to mess up in some ways, so i quickly gave up and stitched it like i've always done before, following no particular scheme or the 10x10 grid.

Oh yes! One last thing.

Last Wednesday was my birthady and though I didn't brought something stitchy related (yet) i've brought this cute necklace.

I had many reasons for this purchase. I've wanted this necklace from the first time i've saw it, years ago but through one thing or another I didn't get the chance to buy it before and soon it was out of order. From all this I laerned a lesson: if you want something don't wait too much or you could end up a bit sad.
But this year, with a graet deal of luck I had finally found a seller and quickly made the decision to buy the three stars necklace before it would be too late. Long story short: at the end the neckalce has traveled way more than me and showed up just a couple of days before my bithday.
Now I'm happy but something will make me happier.
Guess what? Another purchase of an HAED chart, since Leo and Night Moves, when they will be finished and framed will go to my mother... And I too want an HAED all for me.
The wishlist is ever growing, it's so, so so very difficoult to choose only one, but sooner or later I will make a final decision.

Ok, rant is over! If you managed to read this far: congratulations! I hope everyone will have an awesome week end, filled with happiness and many cross stitches!