Lady Justice - Confession Time...

Yes, I worked on Lady Justice again, but I have something to confess...I cheated...twice! Everything started as planned, I finished her upper body...but then I just couldn't resist, and instead of stitching her right arm with the scales, I started on the head. I made it past the 100h mark (as planned), but when I reached my 10 hour cut off, the head was sooo close to being finished, in fact, she was just missing a few of her flowers, so I continued for a total of 11 hours and finished her head. So she went from here (kind of headless Greek-statue look):

To here - gorgeous, no longer be-headed, with flowers and hair and blindfold. There will be a lot of beads added to her head, but I think it already looks amazing. There were probably more colours in here than in all the remainder of the design!

So now there's just that pesky right arm (and corresponding shawl thing) left to stitch, but I think Im up to it now. I have to admit that I am getting into a bit of a 'I just want this finished' stage now, but that's okay, I think my next rotation will probably the last ten hours of full cross stitch. Maybe a little more than ten hours, but not a lot! After that, there's a minimal amount of backstitching, and a moderate amount of beading (at least for a Mirabilia I guess it's moderate) and I am VERY much looking forward to that. The finish is getting so close now! I ordered a frame and mounting board, and I really hope it will arrive with the current situation. But then I'm not even sure I'll see my mum for her birthday, so I might not be in that much of a hurry after all!

March WIPocalypse

Time for another WIPocalypse update! The world isn't the same this month as it was last month, but this SAL is, and it's good to have some constants in life (although I'm constantly late for these things, and now I am on time, sooo....). So, the question of the month is Have you ever adopted a piece from someone else or gave up a piece to someone else? Which piece and why? and I can honestly say, I have not and I'm not likely to. I'm a little strangely wired this way, I think I couldn't bear the thought that the stitching wasn't all mine. Although of course there are special circumstances (like a round robin thing, or finishing a project someone dear to me couldn't finish) that might very well over-write that wiring. As for giving up a project to someone else, I am not opposed to that...so if I'm ever about to bin something, I'll let you guys know! (and I'm assuming we're talking WIPs here. I have picked up unstarted kits/charts from friends several times before when they decided they were not going to stitch them, and vice versa, but that's different I guess).

Now stitching wise, this is the place were I get to talk about my The Loneliness of Autumn SAL I'm doing with Rachel. Here progress report for the month just went up here, and doesn't is look fantastic?

As for me, I have two milestones to celebrate this month - for once, I'm at 7094 stitches now, which means I have less than 10.000 stitches of 939 to go (9576, to be exact). Yay? xD That's 5.97% total, by the way. Also, and perhaps more excitingly, I reached the left edge of the design (although I still have some work to do on the lower half of pages 4, 5 and 6). So next month, I'll probably finish the first row of pages, and start on the right half of the second row.

It's a strange feeling...like it's going sooo slow and sooo quick at the same time! By the way, as Rachel has just reached her 30 hours, I do one length a day which averages to a little more time a month, so I'm at a total of 38:23h. So maybe not that quick after all!

March Gifted Gorgeousness

For the past couple months, these posts have been a little bit boring...probably because I haven't made any fancy baby gifts lately and only had repeat pictures to show! Still, I have gifts to show, and being this late even allowed me to get one other picture in that isn't a repeat. But let's begin...

My main gift project is, of course, still Lady Justice. I've been making lots of progress on her (and will have another update to show soon) and even got to stitch something other than green and blue for a while, so I think getting her finished by the deadline shouldn't be an issue now (baring smaller desasters *knocks on wood*). Here she was the last time you saw her - looks pretty close already, eh?

I also stitched the bookmark of the month - I'm making these to have a nice collection of gifts to give away by Christmas, so it also qualifies for GG:

And last but not least, it was my birthday last week, and I invested some money I got in stitchy supplies that came in today from Casa Cenia! The linen (rightmost fabric), floss and beads are for a new start I'm allowing myself once LJ is done (I think you'll like it). The others are just stash enhancement - I was running low on my favourite white 32ct, and there was a 20% sale going on when I ordered, so why not take advantage on some fabric basics? I've wanted a nice light purple (it's a gorgeous lavender that of course totally messes up the colours of the whole picture) for ages, and platinum is always a good choice!

March Boomark of the Month

After my latest rotation on LJ, I worked on the March Bookmark, and this one required a little planning on my part. It uses aida banding for the construction and was charted in some pretty greens, but careful inspection of my stash revealed that I only own two kinds of aida banding - red with gold, and dark blue. It's not Christmas yet, so I went with the blue, and picked colours to go with it - Jodyri's Winter Solstice (one of my favourites) as the main colour, and DMC 775 and Kreinik #4 018 (from LJ) to go with it. I really liked how it turned out! (It's almost the same colour as the blanket on my couch, so I had to take the picture on my journal):

Next up is another rotation on Lady. I had a slight change of plans and started working on her face...couldn't help myself!

Lady Justice - Look at the size of that thing!

I've been quiet for a couple of days (although I still have plenty of stuff to post about!)...I think I let the crazyness of the current situation get me down for a bit, but I'm doing my best to not let myself go, not give into panic and despair, and be positive and stitching! I guess I'm just a little bummed out, it's my birthday today, and the fourth year in a row I can't really do anything for it. Maybe birthdays just aren't a thing for me anymore.

So anyways, I've been stitching, and since I was so excited to get on with her, I already finished the next ten hours on Lady Justice! It's been a few updates since you saw her, so here's a reminder of where we last left her:

Now during the new rotation, things moved pretty fast. First, I finished that part of bow on the right, which means I'm finally all done with the lower half of the chart (I made a working copy which is in two pages). Then, I moved on to her left hand, holding the sword! It's sparkly and huge but still stitched up very quickly. It also goes up almost to the top of her head, so we can really see her final dimensions now. Next, I stitched her belt (which leaves me with only one piece of blue floaty stuff left to do!) and made a start on her upper body, working up her right shoulder. So here she is now:

So in my next rotation, I will finish her upper body (no more green after that!) and make a start on her right arm with the scales and last bit of scarf. After that, it's just her head left to stitch! I'll also hit the hundred-hours-total mark during the next rotation (I'm at 95h now). I never though she'd take this long, but so far it hasn't been boring even for a moment :)

The People's Choice SAL: Coffee

Again it's time for Jo's 'The People Chose' SAL, and this month the theme is coffee! Personally, I like both coffee and tea, but I came to coffee only in my late twenties and have to admit that I'm mostly a fan of 'fancy coffee' - at the very least I need lots of milk, I usually drink Latte Machiato from our fancy coffee machien at work, and when I'm out I enjoy trying all kinds of really fancy coffee drinks (although I don't often get the chance to do so).

Stitching-wise, there's only one coffee-related thing I did so far, and that is this little cup of coffee I model-stitched for my friend Ashley before finishing it as a coaster (I put it om a small frame for protection after taking this picture):

It's one of a set of four, and I plan to eventually stitch the other three and finish all of them the same way!

March Blackwork SAL

I arrived home from my very productive train trip just in time for the release of the March Blackwork SAL :) Again, there were four patterns to stitch, all of which I really enjoyed! The green one (on the left) is one of my favourite patterns so far. And as you can see, I have now reached the lower left corner! After just three month, my pattern feels almost half full, so I'm curious to see how nine more month are supposed to fit in there...

This part only took me 3:51h to stitch and usually, I would have filled the rest of the slot with the Bookmark of the month...however, the pattern release for that was still a few days out when I finished, and I didn't really feel like throwing anything else into the mix when LJ is getting so close, so I'm back to her and almost ready to post another update, so stay tuned!