WIPocalypse 2015 - April 2015

Ha! You thought I forgot, didn't you? I mean, I'm only, what, 2 weeks late? (We'll ignore the fact that I did nothing for March.) I haven't been stitching much due to another life project popping up and consuming most of my time. I'm out of the manic/frantic phase with that one, though, so my other interests are starting to reassert themselves. I thought I would just post the series of progress pics I have for each project "on the list" at the moment. You might notice that the February and April pictures look sadly similar for many of them. I'll do the topic question first, though.

Topic: Which specialty stitches do you love doing on projects? Which do you dread?

I like satin stitch and eyelets. I find any sort of "tacked" stitch (queen, lazy daisy, etc) very frustrating. I'm not so hot at buttonhole stitch; I can do it, but it's not smooth and rhythmic like it is for most people. I find it difficult to get everything to go right. And I cannot, for the life of me, do any kind of knot (except the unintentional ones that all stitchers loathe). French, bullion, doesn't matter. They either slip through to the back of the fabric, look so different from each other that it's embarrassing, or just look all kinds of wrong. If at all possible, I will substitute with beads.

I've finally "upgraded" to using the Blogger photo uploader, so each photo is clickable to make it bigger and will bring up the "slideshow" so you can scroll through all of the pictures at once, if you want to. Enjoy!

Titania, by Mirabilia

I don't think I've made any progress on Titania since February. I find the wings frustrating, which means I shouldn't have left them for last, but too late now. I also need to start filling in the white on the dress. I left it to the end so it wouldn't get dirty/dingy while I stitched the rest of the stuff. I also like that I have a few "blocks" of color that I can just fill in instead of actually having to focus on the chart. That will come in handy later this summer when I meet up with some of my stitching friends. I would like to get some more done on the wings before then, though.

Adia, by Mirabilia

Definitely more visible progress each month on Adia. More dress on the bottom left, a little more wing on the top right, and lots of hair (with flowers)! I'm trying not to make the same mistake here that I did with Titania and work on the wings and the dress alternately.

Taj Mahal, by Chatelaine

More non-stitching progress on Taj Mahal. I couldn't start the piece until I cut off a section of the fabric (that I need for a different project). I don't sew, nor do I have a serger, so I decided to "finish" the edges with a nun stitch (which I've never done before, but it was super easy) and cut in between them. That's 54 inches of nun stitch over four (26 inches wide, two rows of it)! But it's done now, so I can *actually* start stitching on the fabric. YIKES!!

Tiramisu, by Glendon Place

No progress on Tiramisu since February. I've needed to swap this one to the larger q-snaps that I had on Baked Alaska (next picture!), since the rings are pretty large, but I hate moving/redoing q-snaps. As many years as I've been using them, I still find them frustrating to get straight and tight. But since I had to take everything off the snaps to take pictures, I can swap them and maybe get back to work on this one.

Baked Alaska, by Glendon Place

I made a little bit of progress on Baked Alaska since February, but it's hard to see in the flat overcast light. If you look closely next to the curved blue border on the far right, you can see that I filled in the "white stripes" just to the left of it, which is missing from the February picture. (I promise, it's more visible in person!) The coloring on the three photos looks radically different. I think the center picture is closest to reality, at least on my monitor.

And lastly, just for fun:

Plum Pudding, by Glendon Place

This is actually the piece that started me down the Glendon Place Dessert Mandala road in the first place: Plum Pudding. The problem is, I couldn't find fabric I was happy with. I bought the recommended fabric initially (Sprite, by Picture This Plus, a blend of lavender and gray; this is 28 ct Lugana), but when I did the floss toss after receiving it, I thought the lighter colors would get lost on it. I bought 3 other purples to try, all of which were much too dark. I finally decided to reconsider the recommended fabric and at least try stitching the light colors on it to see what I thought (I've learned from the other two pieces that they can look much different when stitched than they did even from a floss toss). These are the two lightest colors of floss in the piece (plus a small dark patch to help with counting/placement), and I think they look great!I should have just trusted the designer's recommendation here. Ah well. Anyone need lightish-medium toned purple fabric? I have a plethora! LOL I don't intend to work on this one any more than this until at least one of the other two is either finished or much further along. (Yeah, we'll see how long that resolve lasts, especially since two of the friends I will be meeting with this summer have this one in progress and are much further along than I am.)

Not sure if I'll have much (or any) progress to post in May, but I had some time today to actually take pictures, so I wanted to go on and do it. Hope to see you again with at least a little progress in 2-3 weeks!
Currently feeling: embarrassed that I'm so late with so little progress to show