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

September 4th

No stitches done since my page finish :(

Having a bit of a downer about it i'm afraid, I sat last night looking through the chart, 23 more pages to go, even if I worked on it as my only project I could do a page in maybe 2 wks, but thats over a year before it would be done, why on earth did I take on such a huge project?

I've just done a thread count & have used around 70 skeins so far, at 85p per skein in theshops thats £59.50 worth of threads alone, add in the fabric & chart & were around £100 already, yikes!! Thankfully I found an ebay seller so my threads cost about half of that price, but its still a huge amount.

I've been tempted more than once to turn it into a UFO to pick up at some time in the future, but as much as she scares me, I imagine just how stunning she will look & it helps. Right now i'm staring at the huge piece of billowing blank fabric wondering if it will ever be filled.

I guess the only thing to do is to put in the first stitch of the page & just take it one stitch at a time. I'm going to try to do daily totals while she is on the hoop, the page contains 7546 stitches

September 3rd 2010, Page Finish!!

Woohoo!! Finally I have finished page 2, one of thebest things about working the project this big, is that while you are stitching you cant see any detail, its not until you take it out of the hoop & lay it out that you realise what you have stitched.

Full size (with a skein of DMC for scale)

Close up

I'm already on page 3, but another thread order will need to be made, I will do a running total of threads used a little later. Page 3 is 7546 stitches, which doesnt sound that many, if I can get the threads in, I hope to have this page finished by the end of September

Update September 2nd 2010

I managed about 1000 stitches yesterday, really pleased with that. Hubby was late home from work, so once children were fed, bathed & in bed I sat down with Twilight on the telly & stitching on my lap last night, bliss.

My husband is working away in Germany all week next week, so i'm planning DVDs for the evenings, of course I will miss him but the quite evenings alone with uninterrupted stitching time will make a nice change.

Speaking of hubby, he has been very sweet & has offered to hit Hobbycraft on the way home from work this evening, which is brilliant I hope they have plenty of 413 in stock!

So about 1800 stitches to the page finish, I could usually do that in a day/night, but were getting ready to go back to school tomorrow, so lots of little jobs to be done, it will be finished by tomorrow night I hope.

September 1st Update

Yay, managed 700 stitches on Night Queen last night, the page finish is just approx 2800 stitches away.

Bad news though, i've worked my way through the 5 skeins of 413 I brought & its looking like i'll run out of a couple of other colours too, this project certainly eats through threads. I wont be able to get to a DMC supplier until Friday, i'll have to do my best to work around the threads I dont have for now.

Then I think another big order of threads is needed, will read through the next page of the chart & try to get everything i'm going to need.

I'm planning 1000 stitches today, but it depends on the floss situation.......................