July 2nd First Page Finished!

Apologies for the lack of updates, I was lured away from the house by my new allotment, i've still been stitching, but not as much as usual.

I have finally finished page one & I love how it looks, here is a picture full size, I had to take it outside to find room to take a picture today, I popped a pen in the picture for scale, but not sure you can see it

and here is a close up

I've estimated I used approx 45 skeins of thread in this first page eek! Onto page two now, I will try to remember to post more update pictures, hopefully once per week at least.

Update June 4th

My plans to be a good girl & work at finishing off Celtic Spring lasted approx one hour lol, I managed about 1000 stitches last night & hope to do the same tonight. I'm hoping to have this page finished by Monday.

No piccie today i'm afraid as the camera is somewhere down in Kent with hubby.

I have had to order more threads again, I started with 85, added another 30 & have today ordered another 50 YIKES!! So threads so far total 165, fingers crossed I wont need to order any more for a couple of weeks

Update June 3rd

Half term at home with three children is leaving me with little stitching time & by evening I need wine & TLC lol, but managing to stitch where I can, i'm approximately half way through the first page now, I will be taking a break for a few days to crack on with Celtic Spring, which really needs to be finished,then I will be able to carry on with Night Queen without feeling guilty.

First pic is a full fabric shot:

Second pic is a close up:

28th May Update

Morning all!





Had a bit of a long night with my youngest last night, so didnt get much done i'm afraid, but I took a pic this morning, i've popped a pencilon the fabric to give an idea of the scale of the project

I'm hoping to get a fair bit more done tonight, then i'm going to need to hit hobbycraft in the morning for even more threads I think!

Progress Pic 27th May

I managed to get some time to work on Night Queen last night, frustratingly I am missing a few colours, which i've ordered online but the postie has decided he'd like to hold onto to them for a while, so there are lots of gaps. Fingers crossed they arrive later today so I can do some filling in tonight.

Its odd working on a hoop this huge & the extra fabric takes a bit of getting used to, but i'm loving working on it, the stitches are lovely & plump & squishy because of all 6 strands being used.

Its difficult to get an idea of the size, i'll have to add something to the next picture for scale

I spent yesterday afternoon organising threads, then I found a 12" hoop to use, which is a perfect size, then I popped in those first few stitches. I've gathered the extra fabric together in hair bands to stop it getting inthe way.

I tested with, 3, 4, 5 & 6 strands of DMC threads, 6 strands gave me the perfect coverage.

I normally like to get all of my threads together at the start of a new project, but I dread to think how many skeins of yarn this will take, so I will be ordering them as I go, I will try to remember to keep track on here, so that when I am finished I will know how many I used.

At the start I have 85 skeins. But using 6 strands at a time, I think I will be ordering more within the next week

The chart is 25 pages & a total of a whopping 151,200 stitches, I will be trying to keep track of the number of stitches done as I work as well.

I'm guessing that this will take me probably a couple of years to finish, I am going to post pictures of my progress & updates as I go along, so please feel free to follow & watch this take shape.

My new HUUUUUUge project

After finishing All Hallows Eve, I started to think about what new chart I wanted, of course I should be working on old WIPs but i'm a naughty stitcher :) I love Eve, but I wish she were a bit bigger, so my new chart needed to be stitched on a smaller count fabric.

Whilst I was deliberating, my favorite artist Jessica Galbreth released a photo of her new throw range, featuring the Morrigan I think, it was stunning, so big, but every bit as beautiful as the smaller items.

That got me thinking, would it be possible to stitch a HAED to throw dimensions? What size fabric would I have to use?? Which designs would work best??

I finally decided on Night Queen by Jessica Galbreth, as the large focal point & lack of fussyness I think would work well for a larger design.

So then I had to decide on the fabric, I wanted this to be BIG, originally I thought 14ct, but that would make it only 24x31 inches, not big enough, so then I looked at 11ct, this would measure 32x40 inches, still not quite big enough, then I thought about using an 18ct & stitching over 2 threads, this worked out around 39x48 inches, which sounded just about perfect.

I found a fabric cut big enough on http://www.sewandso.co.uk/, I ordered a piece of Zweigart Davosa 18ct fabric measuring 55x60 inches, it arrived the very next day (thank you Daniel).

This is it covering my double bed!

Yesterday I sat & hemmed the ends, then marked my start point & got ready for that very first stitch.