A Finish and Haul!

Hi everyone I'm back!  I hope you all had a nice holiday.  I had a good one but I'm not ready to start back to work tomorrow.  I have to go to my regular job for a week and then I start my student teaching until the beginning of April.  I'm so nervous about it and feel like I have no clue what I'm doing.  I'm sure I'll be fine though.

The good news is I have another finish to share!  Not quite in time for the end of the year because the beading took waaaaaay longer than I thought but I finished Raven!  Last time you saw her I had only done the black so there are quite a few pictures to put in.  I also have a lot of new stash that I got for Christmas so let's go!

Here's where you saw Raven last:

Then I started to add colors alternating between her dress and her skin as the skin was over one (well technically over 1/4 as I stitched this on aida).

First I added some eggplant purple:

 Then I did her darkest skin:

Sorry for the brown hue my mom's house didn't have very good lighting for pictures.  I added a lighter purple next:

The lighting gets better I promise!  Then a slightly lighter skin color:

Then my favorite purple color:

Another much lighter skin tone:

The next purple:

The final skin color:

Then the skin backstitching which was a color not used in the rest of the pattern:

The final purple in her dress was really pretty too.  It was more of a blue I thought but it's DMC 156:

Then I had the moon to do:

The second color:

And the final color was a blend of the other two colors:

And finally the beads!

If you click any of the pics you can make them bigger but the pics really can't do it justice.  The beads are gorgeous in person.

So she took me a little longer than two weeks to finish but I was a bit obsessed with her.  She still needs washed but for now she's put away.  My plan is to finish all 12 and put them in the same size/kind of frame so I can display them all and have them look cohesive.  I want to say I'll do it all when I'm done with all of them because they're all different sizes but it'll really be when I can afford it, which won't be for a LONG time.  With my student teaching I'm going to be working without pay for 3 months and we're going to be looking to buy a house (finally!) after our lease is up in March.  We'll probably have to live with my mother-in-law for a couple of months so we can save up for a down payment.

Anyway, I got a lot of new stash in a kind of last-chance binge.  First off two of the things I got were presents from my mother-in-law for Hanukkah.   I told you guys last time that I sent pics to her with a very subtle hint ;)  But she got both that I wanted which are Dimensions Gold kits.  The first is Fall Fairy:

And Aurora:

Then since I was finishing Raven I decided to get two more Bewitching Pixies:

These two are not my favorites but I love the colors in the last one.  I also got all of the beads needed for them.  Raven was my first time beading on a project so I got a bead organizer (which has all of the beads for all of the Pixies so far):

I love it because I can just grab what I need and put it in my travel case.  I also got a great tool off Amazon.  It's called a Bead Smith and was only I think $7.  It's better than a Sticky Bob because it's cheaper and once it gets dirty you can just rinse it off and let it air dry and it's completely sticky again.  I keep it with the plastic covers on when not in use but it's great for travel because it holds the beads well and is flexible so it fits in my case.

The last thing I got was another piece of Aida for the next Pixie I do (they only had one silver sparkle one left) and a piece of gold sparkle for my new start.  I still need to dye both of them but I'm not rushing it.  Oh yeah my new start?  ;)

Blimeycatstitches on Flosstube is hosting a SAL this year.  I haven't started it yet but I'm not worried about it at all.  I'm still debating what color to dye the fabric.  Or colors I should say since there are going to be a bunch of different colored dragons (including white).  The pattern is for sale in her Etsy store and a new one will be e-mailed each month.

That's all I have for now.  I'll have a couple of new Needleminders to show when they come (I may have done some tipsy shopping on New Years Eve) but luckily it's only $7 with shipping.  I deleted some of the ones I didn't absolutely need before she billed me luckily!  Even then it was only like $25 I think but still!

I'm going to apologize in advance if I don't update in the next few months.  I start my student teaching next Monday and will not be doing much stitching at all.  The only thing I might work on will be the SAL.  I have an hour long phone call every Tuesday as well as lesson planning, meetings every Thursday and creating a portfolio.  I'm hoping to still read blogs in my off-time though as that's easier to me than stitching.  Well not easier because I like to comment but less time-consuming in that I don't have to take everything out and set everything up.  I can just grab my computer and go.

Thanks for listening to me ramble I hope you enjoyed the update!  See you all later!