February Updates

So here's my first end of month update. So far, so good, I'm hitting all my goals. The best thing about being off work for a few weeks is that I have had a lot of time to stitch. So here's the differences from the last time I posted.

This is my Halloween Alessandra Adelaide mystery chart. Since my last update, I've done 6.5 hours of work on it. I'm done with part 1/7 and so relieved! The next part doesn't come out until March 10th so I'm ahead of what I thought I would have to expect. The best part is that the eyes in the house and the face of the jack-o-lantern were done with a glow in the dark Kreinek blending filament to add a bit of spooky flair. 

My mom bought these for me on a trip to Big Bear. The piece on the left is a cross-stitch ornament with beading on perforated paper. The kit includes the beads, thread, paper, and chart. I'm looking forward to starting it! The kit on the right is a learn to do hardanger  kit. I've been wanting to learn so I'm so excited that I got this as well. It's a little funny actually because I never told my mom that I wanted to learn this needlework skill either.

This came in the other day! I got "99" from 123stitch.com for a sale price which is even better. My goal is to get this done for my husband's Christmas gift this year. I'm not sure if I can do it by then but that's the current plan. I can just envision it in our dining room or living room as a great conversation piece. The fun part is that it comes with a checklist of all the beers in the piece that he can check off as he drinks through them. We are both craft beer aficionados (or snobs), in fact my husband works at one of the fastest growing craft breweries in the whole southern California region.

This is the progress I've made on that Christmas wreath. It's very challenging because there are 3 shades of green and it goes from using the 3 colors separately and blending them for color and shading variations. I only had the opportunity to put 3 hours into it so it's very slow going.

This is the progress on my snowman piece. I only worked on it for about an hour but I had gotten the fence finished and a large chunk of the birdhouse.

This is the first Christmas ornament of the year and it's soooo close to being finished. After working on it for 4.5 hours, I just need to go buy some blending filament that it calls for, do some backstitching, and then I can wash it, iron it, put in some beads, and frame it. What a relief to be so close to a finish already!

My goal is to have at least one finish to show off next month! I'm not sure if I'll have anything framed by then, but as long as it's done that is most of the battle, right? I hope that you liked looking at my pieces and just like always, any advice is always welcome! See you next month!