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!

Mini-Finish, New Start and Some Stash!

Hi everyone! I know it's been almost a month since I've posted on any progress but I have a lot to show and talk about!  So grab a warm beverage and a snack because we're off!

First off, I have made some progress on Santa in the Clouds.  The last time it looked like this:

And now I've filled in more of the top:

Next I get to put in some gray which will be a welcome change from blue.  That spot in the middle is where the star is.

I didn't stitch much on this because I got distracted with holiday stuff.

However, I do have a finish to show!

Yep Halloween Green is done!

Last time it was here:

I was surprised because the color on the bottom is 307 which is bright yellow and it's the same color as the windows but looks really different.  Now I only have Halloween Yellow to do and then I'm done with them all.  I haven't fully finished it yet but I'll probably wait to do that until I finish Yellow.

Finally, I have a new start!  I told myself I wouldn't start it until I finished Halloween Green which is what pushed me to finish it but ever since I have I've been a stitching machine!  Curious yet?  😈

It's Raven from Nora Corbett's Bewitching Pixies series!  I stitched all of the black in the last two days and I think I'll have her finished in no time!  She's stitched on 14 ct opalescent Aida that I dyed a stormy gray with a touch of purple.  It's a tad darker than I was planning but I like it.  I chose the gray because it's something that all of them will look good on and with the sparkles it's like they're conjuring magic on a stormy night.  Each one will have a touch of the same color as in their dress.  The purple didn't come out super well but I still like it.  I'm excited to get into the purples in her dress and the moon.  I'm going to do the skin over one so that will take a while but I don't think it'll be too bad.  All of Halloween Green and Raven have been stitched since the weekend since I am now officially on break from work.

I also got a bit of new stash.  The first I'm not going to show but I finally finished my DMC collection after 3 trips to the store.  I only was short by 50 or so colors.

The second thing I got was the Dimensions Gold kit Woodland Enchantress.

It was on clearance at Michaels for $20 originally $45.  They had 2 other kits on clearance that I like which are Fall Fairy and Aurora.  I sent pictures of them to my mother-in-law with a 'very subtle' hint that I'd like them for Christmas and that they were on clearance 😀

Finally, I received a very generous gift from Keiley at Keebles World.  She got me a HAED!

This is After the Ball and I love it because not only is Cinderella a brunette with blue eyes (like me) but she's so pretty and has such a wistful look in her eyes.  I also like that it's not a blatant in-your-face fairy tale picture (although I like those too).

Whew that's a lot!  I'm still catching up on blogs but I'm only about a week behind now instead of over a month.  I haven't been reading a lot lately because I've been too busy stitching but I'm okay with that!

After the new year I won't be stitching much because I'll be starting student teaching which is going to eat up almost all of my time.  Luckily the school is less than ten minutes from me.  I'm hopefully going to have one day a week that I won't do any planning or anything and can just stitch but we'll see how things go.

Thanks for stopping by!  I probably won't be back (well depends on how Raven goes) so if I don't see you again have a Merry Christmas or happy whatever holiday you celebrate!  We celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah at my house.  I'll see you (hopefully) before the new year!

I was Sort of Right! 2 Page Finish

Hi guys I'm back with another update!  I've finished 2 pages at almost the same time and have finished another section!

Last time:

First page finish:

Second page:

I have 9 pages left to stitch which I'm going to do in 2 sections.  There are only 4 whole pages left and I'm going to do one more section just like I did this one and then the last section will be the same set but with the partial pages added too. Depending on how many letters are left on the last page I may just go ahead and finish them.  

I'm getting really excited to finish this and I'm getting kind of anxious because I'm so close.  

I also have some stash to show...I got my first Miras!

I went ahead and got these two because they shared beads but I think the model stitcher for Zenia (the red one) used a different colored bead because they look red in spots that have the blackish beads.  So I may have to make another order :D.  I actually got these a few weeks ago but I forgot to show them.  

In other news I finished my state tests that will allow me to be a teacher but won't get the results until late this month.  I don't feel very good about some of them though but I won't stress until they get here.

Unfortunately I won't be able to stitch much until I get caught up on my schooling.  I've been slacking off a bit but if I finish two classes I'll be back on track so I just have to take like a week off to catch up.

Whew I feel like I talked a lot! 

Is anybody still with me?

Well I'm off its hubby's and my 5th wedding anniversary tomorrow so we'll be celebrating.  No plans yet but we'll see what happens.

Thanks for stopping by I'll see you all next time!