Teeny Update

This is going to be a short one. Boyfriend and I are somewhat exhausted after an awesome day shopping for  Iceland supplies (we're going to be roughing it part of the time to save on costs) and mini golfing at a glow in the dark monster-themed mini golf course:

EDIT: If anyone is interested in monster mini golf, here's the website. They might have a course near you!

On to the update.

Before:

After:

Not much progress, but I finished all the 310 and now I've filling in the sections that have been created by the outlines. Hopefully I'll have a page finish soon, but we'll see. I won't be around much in August. I quit my job at the end of this week (Friday is my last day), then Iceland, and then I move. So not much stitching to be accomplished in August, I'm afraid.

Until next time, happy stitching!

Chart Lust

I'm not letting myself buy any more charts. I'm leaving everything up to the reward program now so if I want a new chart, I have to finish one (FIE!) But, I still have chart lust!

Posting the links to the charts instead of pictures of them since I'm totally not at work right now (lie).

First let me get my Myles Pinkney obsession out of the way:

Magic I just think this chart is so pretty and would be so much fun to stitch. Even the background sky parts wouldn't be boring since there's so much variation in the colors.

The Alchemist Love the dark colors in this one and how much detail there is, especially in the things he has on his worktable. I would just LOVE stitching that candle on the right.

Treasure Dragon love love love this one! The dragon's treasure would be a confetti-heavy pure joy to stitch and I think the stalactites in the cave would look awesome. Plus, dragons!

"Lady Godiva" by John Maler Collier This piece is beautiful and soft. I keep seeing it pop up everywhere, which has only worked to enhance my lust for it.

"Tarot Town Two" by Ciro Marchetti Fun and colorful and full of magic and imagination.

"The Course of Empire - Destruction" Just beautiful and powerful, though I can see the sky getting on my nerves.

"Old World Map" I really like maps...

Ok that's not even COUNTING my wish list that already exists or my stash. As you can see, it's a hopeless case.

In other news I may be changing around the look of this blog some. I'm getting kind of annoyed with how it looks, but have no idea how I WANT it to look, so if you see stuff moving around some in the next few days, that's what's going on.

Boyfriend is learning to share me with the stitchery now, so I've been getting some stitches in, and it's been lovely. We call it our quiet couch time. I stitch like a demon and he reads nerdy geology magazines. It's kind of wonderful.

Happy stitching all!

IHSW - July results!

It was a pretty low-key weekend, which was nice and meant that I got plenty of stitching in as a hermit. Here are the results!

Before:

After:

I finished all the 939 and have only three columns of 310 left! Not sure what color I'm going to go with after, but I'm thinking maybe a bright one to get some happiness in with all those dark colors. We'll see. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the results and have only about 3000 stitches left on this page. Yes!! Whenever I get to the end of the page I get extra motivated. Hopefully time will allow for this motivation to come to fruition.

In other news, I have to learn to drive stick in preparation for Iceland. Since we're going to be driving the Ring Road around the island, I don't want Boyfriend to have to drive the entire distance (about 832 miles), even though he's perfectly alright with it. So today, we borrowed a manual and Boyfriend began the arduous task of teaching me stick. Let me just put it this way: he has the patience of a Saint and believes in positive reinforcement. More lessons will be required, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it (read: I can't believe he hasn't killed me yet).

As always, thank you for all your kind comments. It's a pleasure reading them! I was actually expecting everyone to say they got their charts large chart format and was surprised to learn that isn't so! I will be steering clear of the HAED sale but wish you all the best!

July IHSW

So for anyone interested in joining the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, go ahead and visit Joysze's blog and sign up! It's really a fun thing to do especially if you want to focus on your stitching and haven't been able to! I will once again be participating this month... if all goes well... I hope....

Confetti Frustration

First of all, I want to welcome all my new followers! It's nice to know people enjoy seeing my stitching progress. Before I used to stitch and have to be embarrassed about being so young (24) and having such an "old lady" hobby. But it's nice to know there are so many people out there who appreciate it.

Second of all, I wanted to thank all of you for your lovely comments. They really help keep me going. Even when Boyfriend is doing his best distraction work, I try to get in at least a few stitches a week.

Now, the title of this post says it all,  I think. I got frustrated with 939 confetti and decided to switch to Spangler for a little while to take a bit of a confetti break, shall we say. He's easier to stitch and although he's not confetti-free, it's nice to alternate between blocks of color and bits of confetti.

So, here's a before and after.

Before:

After:

I was focusing on the green sash-y curtain, then switched to the background curtain, then changed my mind again and switched back to the green. All in all I'm pretty satisfied with the progress, especially since I only got to stitch an hour here and there.

I have a question for those of you who stitch HAED designs. Do you purchase the pattern in regular format or large chart format? I get mine in regular format and I feel like it takes me 10x longer to do a page than anyone else. So I was just curious to know if it's because I'm an insanely slow stitcher or if it's because most people get the large chart format... or both? I'm interested to find out!

It has been UNGODLY HOT here. 108 just today. It's 9:38pm and still 86 degrees outside. Blergh. I don't react well to heat, Eastern European and all that. This is also why I'm vacationing in Iceland. With a high of 55, you can't really go wrong! Boyfriend and I have our plane tickets, we reserved a rental car, and now we're going through the arduous task of booking hotels one by one. We'll be taking the Ring Road starting in Reykjavik and traveling southeast around the perimeter of the island, diverting from the route to go through the Western Fjords. All in all it's going to be absolutely amazing, and we just booked our tour of the Laki Craters! We had to do it via tour as we didn't rent a 4x4 vehicle, but that's alright. It is, basically, going to be amazing :)

So until next time, dear friends, happy stitching!