Spring updates!

Hi all! Today is a gray and rainy day, but yesterday the sun was shining so I managed to take some decent pictures!

I guess I've been busy since my last update (the pictures tell me so) but I don't feel like I've had much stitching time. We've just been so busy! My husband is away for work this week, so last night I made dinner, did my nails, watched Mr Selfridge & stitched. Not all at the same time clearly, but I did get some more progress on Plum Pudding then you'll see below. Not a ton, but I finished another motif.

First up is The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Pumpkin Passport:

and slightly closer:

It's cute, but I get bored working on it. I did see someone on Facebook omit some of the busy-ness and I liked that a whole lot more, so I might do the same thing.

I can't remember how far I was on the Peacock last time, but I think I filled in a bit more of the flower since last time:

It's a Dimensions Gold kit, so there are tons of blended threads and fractional stitches. It's going to look amazing when it's done.

I also started a freebie by Durene Jones (you can find it here). I was in a spring mood, I was hoping to finish by Easter but that didn't happen.

It's super cute and Durene has so many cute free patterns. She releases new ones every Friday on her facebook. I'm stitching it over 2 on 28 ct fabric that I had in my stash. It's a pale blue.

Last but not least, Glendon Place's Plum Pudding:

My goal for this past weekend was to finish the dark purple petals in the center, which I did manage to do! It's on 28 ct antique white fabric with the called for dinky dye threads.

Now I'm going around in a circle and trying it that way. I think I should start in the middle of a pattern instead of the top left, it's more gratifying to me to see it take shape that way.

I ordered Feburary's Fabric of the Month from Crafty Kitten for my Cherries Jubilee pattern and it came this past week!!

I didn't do a floss toss (I forgot) but one of my favorite things about Crafty Kitten is that she'll do custom sizes. This is a 20 x 20" cashel linen. I think it'll look awesome.

I also received a RAK from a friend in CO (no blog though).

I love cats AND she noted that I could probably finish it in one evening which is perfect for my attention span! Oh how she knows me well. It even came with fabric and the trim!

How's everyone's spring starting? Getting lots of stitching or is it slowing down with the warmer weather?

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May Update

I haven't been super busy but I have managed two more finishes for 2015 as well as working on my Glendon Place Plum Pudding & a new Ink Circles design. Hopefully no one minds my switch to a once a month update. I just can't find time to update every week anymore.

Here are my two finishes:

I have two more in the series to compete. I'm unsure if I will want to frame them separately or all together in one frame, but I'm planning to find a spot for them in the kitchen.


Here's my new start, Damask Square by Ink Circles:


It's on 40count sparkly fabric from SilkWeavers with Peacock floss from Weeks Dyed Works. It's sooooooo tiny I can only work on it in good light, with my reading glasses on for short periods of time, but it's going to look so great when it's done. I'm almost a fourth of the way done. :)


And last but not least, Plum Pudding update:





What's everyone else working on? Have any bug summer stitching plans??

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Glendon Place Stitch Along Check In

Sorry guys for being MIA lately. I started a new job and it's been taking up more time than the old one. I've still been stitching and even finished a piece! I'll eventually post about it, but I just wanted to get this quick update out.


Here's where I'm at with my Glendon Place Plum Pudding:

It's coming along slowly, but then again I had put it away for awhile to work on other projects.

How's everyone else? What did I miss??

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Winter Wishes

I have a finish!!! That makes two for January. It would be totally awesome if I could get two done a month. I'm not holding my breath though!

Here's Winter Wishes by Lizzie Kate





I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I think it's quite darling! I didn't buy the "official" snowflake charm, which was silver. I instead opted to buy this Mill Hill set which had 4 charms. I think it looks just as cute. I also changed the smoke from the blue charted to gray, made more sense to me. None of the colors were the called for ones, I just kinda went with what I had in my stash. :)

I don't think I did any work on the Plum Pudding, but here it is anyway, I know you all love it as much as I do. ;)



And a closeup:



My goal is one page every two months, and I'm very very close to finishing the first page. :) You can see the darkest purple petal in the lower right hand corner, I've almost reached the center of the design with that motif. It seems to be going more quickly than my Tiramisu was. Not sure why.

I bought these both on eBay (photo credit to Glendon Place):

Baked Alaska

Cherries Jubilee

I got both of them with shipping for $14. I'm so excited about that. I think I'm going to change the Baked Alaska colors to shades of teal instead of the blues charted. And Cherries Jubilee I'm going to keep the same. Someday. After I finish Plum Pudding & Tiramisu. :D

I also managed to do some more hardanger. Not much, but I did my first cutting!!! It's more work to hide those stupid threads than I thought it would be.



I practiced in the upper left corner, I have a bunch of cutting to do in the diamond shaped one on the right. I'm still practicing before using the new threads I bought. I also think I want to work on 25 count instead of the 28 I'm currently using. It's a bit too small in my opinion for the size threads I have. I think I've got some 25 count hiding around here somewhere.

That's it for this week! Hoping everyone had a wonderful January and that February will treat you well!

PS I'm planning a giveaway for passing my 1 year blog anniversary AND for hitting 750 followers on instagram (xstitchhaven). I'm still sorting out what's in the package. Stay tuned!

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January Blues... Purples!

Hi all! This should be a pretty short update. I have not gotten much stitching done this past week because my wrists/hands have been hurting. This has happened before, so I'm not terribly concerned about it, but it is putting a damper on my stitching abilities. I think I might have a touch of carpel tunnel, but not really because my pinky fingers are affected as is my entire hand. I am not sure, maybe it the two handed stitching. It is a bit different on my wrists. If it persists I'll go to the doctor, but hopefully it goes away soon because my husband and I are planning a getaway to Texas in two weeks! We are both quite tired of the weather and are looking forward to some sunny skies. We've never been to Texas so I'm looking forward to adding a new state to our list!

Anyways, to the stitching!

I worked on Plum Pudding some more. Most of this was done on Sunday afternoon. I am almost the entire way through a page. I did overlap onto the next one if the motif did. That whole variegated thread thing!





And I worked on my Lizzie Kate Winter Wishes:





That's pretty much everything. I told you it was a slow week! Until next time!

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Progress and a Haul

Hope January is treating everyone well! I've had a good one so far.

I won a Little House Needlework pattern from CJ over at Tea-n-Stitches! I think the card is handmade too, which is totally awesome!



I also had $50 to spend over at 123stitch so I picked up the following:



Watercolors and Wildflowers cottons for some hardanger, the thinner strands look like they could be used for cross stitch too. Has anyone used them?!? The Watercolors seem to be thicker than the DMC pearl #5, maybe I need to pick up some smaller count fabric? I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this hardanger thing out!

Some cute valentines day charts (the other one was out of stock, hopefully it'll come later this week), black anchor, a heart button for a different chart as well as some snowflake charms.



This Weeks Dye Works fabric was on clearance too:



Then The Drawn Thread released some new patterns that I just had to have:





I bought the full kit for both of them. I'm hoping to do the Love Birds one for my husband for V-Day.

I also have some progress (this was as of Sunday afternoon), Plum Pudding:



and Winter Wishes:



I also purchased a LOWERY STAND. I'm so excited. It arrived Wednesday last week so I've been using it with Plum Pudding and trying out two handed stitching. It's been going well as long as I pick up the correct color. Whoops! I'll try to do a review for everyone if they are interested after I've used it more than a week.

Does any one else use a needlework stand?

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Glendon Place SAL - I

Hi everyone, two posts in one week! Pretty good for me!

This is going to be my first post of the Glendon Place SAL that I am hosting along with Neil. You have until tonight at midnight (or until whenever tomorrow I remember to take it down) to sign up here and you'll be able to get caught up on all the rules. There are current 9 links up, 7 blogs, one Instagram (#gpsal) and the cross stitch forum has 6 members participating. It's not limited to people with blogs only. I am quite active on both Instagram (@xstitchhaven) and the cross stitch forum so I thought I would open it up to everyone! The same rules about posting progress still apply.

I will be working on Plum Pudding. This is not the first Glendon Place Amazing Dessert that I've started, if you've been following me for a bit you'll know I started with Tiramisu in 2014. I have not finished it yet (clicky for last update photo), but because there was interest in starting a stitch a-long I took the plunge and started another one! I have already decided on a third too (but I"m going to change the colors to shades of teal instead of what is charted).

Here's a picture of my supplies that I bought myself for Christmas:

I am stitching this on 28 count Antique White Lugana. I choose to do it on white instead of a hand dyed fabric like the Tiramisu project of mine because every single picture I've seen of this completed it has looked washed out and I really wanted the purple colors to stand out.

I decided to start January 1 and here's my progress so far:

I've already had to frog (rip out stitches) which is very sad. I try really hard not to have to do it with silks, but sometimes it's unavoidable. It was over a block of color that had a page change and I didn't follow through correctly, I thought it was a bit lower than it was. At least I noticed before I moved on to other blocks I suppose! Be careful with page changes everyone! ;)

There are only 4 required posts throughout 2015 for this SAL, but I am 100% sure I will be posting regular updates throughout the year. I am easily distracted so even right now I have 3 projects in Q-Snaps. Since there are 6 total pages to the pattern, my goal is one page every other month. I think that'll be sufficient for my "easily distracted self" to keep on task and not totally put it away in favor of another project, as happened to Tiramisu.

Once you've updated your blog, post a link in the comments below so everyone can go find yours!

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Updates and a New Start

Hope everyone's January is going well. This should be a semi-quick update.

I've been working on the Glendon Place's Plum Pudding, here's were I'm at as of Sunday.

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

I ended up needing to do some frogging because one of the blocks was over a page change. At least I noticed before I went ahead and did a bunch more! Plus one for me!

I started this cute Lizzie Kate pattern, Winter Wishes. I like to have something small that I can take with me places, like the sofa, to the chair, over to the bed. You know how it is.

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

No firm plans on what I'll do with it when it's finished though. Maybe I'll try my hand at another flat fold! I made a 123stitch order and in it will hopefully be a snowflake charm it put on the little house. The Lizzie Kate one was $11! Instead I bought the Mill Hill version where I got 4 snowflake charms for like, $4. Hopefully they'll be a good size!

Also, my friend came over and we exchanged Christmas presents. She made me this awesome pillow with my last name on it. She crocheted the white background then cross stitched the purple. Isn't it super nifty?!?! I love it.

I think that's it for today! I'll be back tomorrow with a Glendon Place specific update. :)

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New Year New Starts

That's how it goes for you too right? New Year = New Starts!

I'm starting off the year strong. My last start of 2014 turned into my first finish of 2015! I decided to cross off one ornament on my long list (which can be found here), Peppermint Latte by Casey Buonaugurio Designs (you can find it in the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue).

It was done on a mystery piece of pink linen. After I took the first two pictures I realized that I forgot the bottom line, so the final picture has that! I like how it turned out! I'm going to add it to my to-be-finished pile (there's only 3 pieces there right now). I would like to go find some fabric for it, I don't really have anything suitable in my stash.

I tok one final picture of my Tirasmu before putting it away for my Plum Pudding start:

I started my Plum Pudding by Glendon Place for the SAL that Neil and I are hosting (you can still sign up here).

I was debating back and forth on the fabric choice. My Tiramisu project is on Jazlyn and has a much thicker weave to it, while this Lugana is very open. I was thinking that they would look weird side by side, but, who knows if I'll even be displaying them side by side, so I'm going to keep on with this. It'll be the same dimensions anyway. Which is what I actually cared about. The colors are so difficult to photograph. They are totally dependent on the lighting, and it's been gray clouds here for days, and probably won't let up until March!

I have also borrowed some hardanger books from the library. I thought it would be fun to try! Here's the books I got:

And here are my first two designs. Let's not talk about the counting mistakes I made on the kosher blocks that I didn't notice until way later (the white bits)... I think it's pretty fun and I am going to order some Caron Waterlilies threads (the ones that are equivalent to the DMC perles, I keep forgetting their names) to have fun with.

The JoAnn's near me really didn't have any options, so I got 2 purples, one green and white to start off with, I've found a few patterns I like so I'm thinking I'll start with the non-cut work ones and then try some cutting too.

That's it for today! Anyone else starting off into new hobbies for the new year?

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