Miras and quidditch and finishes

I've started my first Mira.  It is Rain Queen.  I'm using fabric from Angel Wings Mermaid Tails and I won it as a door prize at the Nashville Retreat.  I chose this Mira for a couple of reasons.  One is that as far as Miras go, this is a fairly small one.  I didn't want to take on something huge.  And also ~ this Rain Queen looks like my daughter.  If someone were to make my daughter into a cross stitch, she would look like this ~ perhaps not with floating flowers all around her, although she would love that if she could manage it, lol.  So this will be a gift to her once it's completed.  

She works up quickly, but I had one major frogging session.  Actually, it was caused by what *I* (personal opinion) consider a mistake in the charting.  There is a vertical line charted for a thread color and then a horizontal line charted as a bead.  However, the horizontal lines are sometimes turned around so that they are vertical!  So of course, I thought that was a thread.  I was wrong.  The horizontal line gets turned around into different directions all over this chart.  I had another stitcher tell me they had the same issue.  Gah.  And grr.  Ok - done complaining.

So I had to frog quite a bit when I realized this issue.  You can see exactly where the problems were.

I also started a Harry Potter piece that I've had for a long while, just needed an excuse to get on to it.  The FB group Stitch Maynia hosted a Harry Potter themed SAL day, so when I found that out I lined this one up to start on that day.  I had already purchased fabric for it when I first bought the chart.  My fabric is a gray color, that's actually called Twilight Blue.  I wanted the background darker and gray because so often when quidditch is being played the weather is dank and rainy.  I didn't think a bright white or blue sky would be right.

This one is working up quickly as well, although I am missing two thread colors to finish.  My local fabric store doesn't have them, so I'll either pick some up the next time I leave town and go to Hobby Lobby or the next time I order from 123Stich - whichever comes first.  This pattern can be found here on Etsy.

I also finally got my approval to get onto the Flossible website!  I had been pretty confused because I applied very close to the beginning when beta was opened and then...nothing.  I really thought I'd be among the first ones in.  It was Tuesday of last week when I finally got the link I needed to get in properly.  The owner does have a post written on the site explaining what happened and why it took so long for so many of the beta users to be let in.  So it's ok ~ life happens.  :0)  I'm enjoying add my WIPs to it.  I decided to simply add projects to my account as I go instead of trying to load up all the finishes I already have.  That would just be too much.  So right now all I have on there is my quidditch piece and I'll add Rain Queen soon.

Oh!  I do have finishes to share!  This is one of the freebie patterns we were gifted at the retreat.  It's designed by White Willow Stitching.  I really love it and can't wait to get it framed.

This is a stitched piece I finished last year ~ originally started by a friend who then gave it over to me.  I finished it into a pillow using red checked picnic cloth.  I knew when I was stitching this one, that this was the fabric I wanted to use for making the pillow.  It turned out super cute.

So that's what I've got going on at the moment.  Happy Stitching everyone!!  :0)

Retreat + Gift Exchange = Stash Influx! (Retreat pics included)

I recently met with my stitchy friend and the two of us had lunch and a day of shopping before we both headed over to the Nashville Stitching 2016 Retreat.  

So. Much. Fun.  On both accounts ~ our day out and the retreat.  My stitchy friend and I love to shop for each other and decided to do a stitching and book related gift exchange. When we met for lunch on our day out, this is what she gave me in our exchange.

She stitched this awesome Harry Potter themed pillow for me.  I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so this was so perfect.

This beautiful A Stitch In Time themed coffee mug.  Love it!  I've got a few of these patterns as HAED QS's.  :0)

Patterns.  Love!

Beautiful necklace.  :0)

Matching set with scissor fob, needleminder, and frogger.

This Harry Potter themed bag from SewMuch2Luv.  Eeepp!!

Gorgeous zippered bag and qsnap cover set with Victorian ladies.

And since we're both avid readers, this copy of The Great Journey by David McCullough as well as The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.

There was also a travel thermos and candies.  All of this was also contained in another lovely green chevron printed tote bag.  

Exchanges with friends.  It's such a fun thing to do.  But ~ she had one really big surprise left for me!  This was completely, 100% unexpected.  :0)  She had asked her husband if he could make a stitching stand for her, made from pvc pipes.  He did and she had him make me one too!  What an *amazing* surprise!

After lunch we went to Parnassus Books where I picked up this lovely stitching themed edition of Little Women.  I've wanted this one for a while and was so glad to see that they had it.

We eventually made it to the retreat.  It was so much fun.  All of our old stitching buddies were there and there were several new people as well.  So much fun to make new stitching friends.  

There were lots of door prizes and give aways at the retreat.  Leslie from Under the Sea fabrics gave all of us one of these pretty mermaid scissor fobs.

I purchased two froggers from Nicole (The Cole Collection.)  I just love them.

Barbara who owns TrulyN2Stitching was the hostess and had lots of qsnap covers, zippered bags, project rolls and other items for sale.  I purchased three qsnap covers from her.

We were given several free patterns and this is one of them.

Here are some more retreat pics ~ merchandise tables, finishes, etc.

Sunday morning upon leaving the retreat my friend and I went to Shoney's for a good breakfast before saying our goodbyes.

So I actually have a stitching induced injury

Honestly.

Leave it to me.

I've known for a long while now that I find stitching in hand painful.  I know that some people can stitch in hand just fine but others, like myself, find it very taxing and painful to the hand holding the fabric.  

My orange/black accessory set that I showed in my last post - I had been stitching that in hand because I didn't have a hoop or snap small enough to work well.  So I figured ~ what the heck, I'll just stitch in hand.  It might hurt but no big deal, right?

Wrong.

That was last Wednesday night.  I noticed all day long on Thursday that I was having quite a bit of pain in my left wrist.  It felt like an injury induced pain, not simply soreness.  I kept wondering what in the world caused it?  I knew I would have remembered if my wrist had taken a hit or if something heavy had been dropped on it - because truly, that is how it felt.  The outside of my wrist was even quite swollen. Then it finally dawned on me - I had spent about an hour stitching in hand.

I knew I had to allow it to rest.  That trying to forge ahead like it was nothing would make it worse.  I could barely lift anything with that hand, even opening the front door was painful.  So rest I did.  I didn't stitch at all on Thursday or Friday.  Saturday I carefully did just a tiny bit of stitching on my Christmas in the Kitchen and my plastic canvas owls.  And here I am on Sunday night, still some soreness in the wrist, but thankfully not nearly as much.  I'm still babying it though because I don't want to make it worse.  One hour of stitching in hand has equaled days of pain and needing to be careful.

All from stitching in hand!  Let me just say ~ never again.  It's not worth hurting myself and compromising my ability to stitch.  So my black/orange piece is put away until I get a tiny hoop for it.  I'm going to order one from 123 at the end of this week.  So hopefully by the end of next week, it will have arrived and I'll be able to resume work on it.  I might also think about getting one of those wrist supports to use while stitching.  It's amazing how when your wrist is out of commission...it effects almost everything you do!

So this is me ~ still healing and taking it slow until things are back to normal...

Progress on WIPs and a New Start

I've got a lot to share, so I'm going to jump right in.

You may remember the spinning box I had started working in on this post.

I got another one of the outside panels done.  Only one more of those to go and then I'll move on to working on the inside.

In that same post, you'll see my last update on Christmas in the Kitchen.  

Here we are now:

I spent one evening working on my Fall owl plastic canvas piece.  There is something about plastic canvas work that is so relaxing to me.  When I started that night, the owl only had eyeballs and ears.

I started the Wee Beastie series.  This one is so fun and has lots of sparkle, but it is detailed work.  I can't work on this one if I'm tired or rushed.

But the thing that I'm very excited about is *finally* getting to start this set that I previously told you about.

I don't have all the fabric I'll need for it, but enough to get a good start.  I have everything else - all the beads, threads, etc.  I found the perfect pair of scissors to go with the scissor fob.

This is my start.  The camera really washed the color out on this picture.  It's vibrant like in the pic above.

So that's where I'm at, at the moment.  I'll need to get back to my HAED soon, but I'll probably spend some more time on this accessory set first.  I've been looking forward to this set for so long!  It's so excited to see it finally coming together.