Sharing a little secret

I have to confess there is another love in my life now, other than stitching and that is the love of drawing :)

I have a secret desire, a wish that I have held close to my heart for a few years, that is to be able to create a beautiful original artwork, which could possibly one day be turned into a HAED type stitching.

It is a big dream I know, but you've got to have a dream, right? I never thought it would be possible, and figured it would always be just a dream. But then, after a bit of a fed up moment, I started trying to draw, using some online tutorials, with a little success, so I then brought a book or two, some artists pencils and a few sketch pads, and by this point I was totally hooked.

Encouraged by my family and friends I signed up to the London Art College online and began their Drawing and Painting Diploma course.

Its been a difficult thing, and a huge learning curve, handing in assignments and being marked, laying bear my inner artist, but they have really helped me, my confidence has grown as my skills mature, I still have an awfully long way to go, but i'm loving the ride!

Here is a picture i have just finished of two sweet welsh ponies, its not perfect, but I love it

I know that my dream is still very far away, but today I feel one step closer :)

I have had to make the decision to say good bye to stitching for CrossStitcher magazine, I need to be able to devote at least an hour every day to practice my drawing, which was impossible before, I am now stitching just for Origin magazines and will be trying not to take on as many projects as I have been doing.

I hope my fellow stitches do not mind me sharing a picture which isnt stitched, I hope that one day I will be able to share one of my original pieces which is stitched

Thank you for reading!

Page 4 finished! Woop

Woohhoo, page 4 finally finished:

One of the biggest headaches (or should that be shoulder aches) with this weight and size of fabric is lifting the frame up and down to start and finish each thread. I use a floor stand with either a large hoop or a 12 inch square q-snap frame, and flipping the work all the time was taking its toll on the fabric, the frame/stand and my poor shoulder, this huge piece of fabric is really heavy!

I started to experiment, leaving the tails on the top of the fabric, some distance away from the section I was stitching, so that the tail would be worked over on the back of the fabric as I stitched, then when I got to the tail, I could just snip it off.

Its been a bit trial and error, but I think I have finally figured out a way which works for me, from now on, I will start each page from the top, working in rows of 10. I will start and finish the thread a full 10 rows below where I am stitching, this should make it easy to see where the tails finish and give me a clear working area.

It does use a bit more thread than usual, but i'm stitching much faster and enjoying it more. When I work on the next page I will take a couple of photos to help explain it better.

Now, I need to take a break for a few days as I have more work in, plus some drawing assignments to complete, but I will be back to it soon. Page 5 is a part page and only 3822 stitches, so i'm hoping it wont be too long before I can post my next page finish

Shhhhhhh dont disturb......I'm stitching!

This is the sign I need to tape to my head, so everyone leaves me to stitch lol

First off, apologies, I had great plans to get so much done over August, but the magazines had other ideas, so some manic stitching created works for Cross Stitcher, World of Cross Stitching and Crazy, leaving me with little time to do anything other than daydream of working on my HAED.

Now, I am officially on holiday!!! Yay! I spent the first couple of days catching up on course work assignments for my art diploma and a bit of knitting, but I am ready to pick up Night Queen and work to finish this page.

Quick calculations- page 4, I have 4998 stitches left, I will try to work 1000 today, then the same for the next 4 days and I should have the page finished before my next commission comes in next week.

Here are a couple of pictures of commissions which have been recently published

Page 3 Finished! (Finally)!

Wow, this page has taken me forever! But its finally finished -yay! I know its only a page finish and not the whole thing, but its going to take me such a long time that I really need to celebrate the little things.

At this rate I will probably be 50 before it is finished, but I will keep going, even if its just a dozen stitches at a time.

It looks as though I have at least another day without work, so I am going to strike whilst the iron is hot and get straight onto page 4, I might even have another page finish before the end of the summer???

Thank you for sticking with me, I hope you enjoy the pictures, I have added the next A4 page of chart to show scale, as you can see its pretty much the same size as the chart

July 26th 2011

Almost at my page finish, I hope! Just 2100 stitches to go.

I havent been able to do much these last couple of weeks as I had two commissions, one for CrossStitcher which I finished Friday and another for Gold, which I have just finished, phew! Thankfully, at least for a day or two I have no other projects pending, so the plan is to catch up with the housework I have ignored whilst working, then get these last stitches done on Page 3, I feel like I have been working this page forever.

I have just been playing with the numbers a bit, I placed another order for threads today, this brings my threads purchased for this project to 120-ouch!

The total number of stitches on this project is a whopping 151,200 stitches, so far I have stitched approx 17,752, just 11.7% So only a teeny 133448 stitches to go........................

I can usually get 1000 stitches done on a good day, so I hope to be back with you by Friday with a page finish (finally) thank you for sticking with me through my slow times, I hope it will be worth the wait.

And finally......an update on Night Queen!

She is a little neglected, but I stitch on her when I can, even if its just 100 stitches at a time, and slowly, but surely, there is progress.

I have brought, just 10 more skeins of threads to add to the tally.

Here she is, page 3 almost completed

A closer image:

Please ignore the slightly grubby fabric, as you can imagine with a piece this large it is picking up the dust a bit, the whole thing will be carefully laundered when it is completed.

Thank you for reading :)

And a few more........

Projects published so far in 2011

Thank you so much to everyone who has emailed me and messaged me about this project, good news is, I have stitched on her some more, bad news is, the next page isnt quite finished.

I thought I would share a few pictures of some of the stitching projects which have kept me busy so far this year, I only share pictures once they are published in the magazines

Progress At Last!

Apologies, I've been a bad, bad blogger!

I am so sorry that I havent kept the blog up to date, unfortuntely I just havent had the time to stitch on her.

Its not all bad though, I am now working as a commission stitcher for for Origin, so I stitch projects for Crazy, Gold, WOCS and Card Shop as you can imagine, this keeps me very busy!

For the last few months I have stitched soooooo many hours on tons of different projects, but nothing of my own :(. But I wont complain because I love my job! There arent many jobs where you can work at home, watching telly, listening to the radio or just chilling in your PJs.

Its taken me a while, but I have now gotten to grips with planning my time to meet deadlines whilst finding a bit of a balance between working and everything else.

This weekend I found myself in an unusual position, I finished my latest commission, but had nothing else waiting, this was just the opportunity I had been waiting for.

She is now back on the frame! Woop! Also, the floor stand I purchased to help me stitch faster for work, is making handling all this heavy fabric much easier.

So far I have done about 1400 stitches into the new page, I have an evening of stitching planned tonight and its looking like my new work wont get here until Wednesday, which means lots and lots of stitching time just for me!

I'm hoping to get half a page done before I have to put her away again and will pop up a new update with a picture as soon as I can