1 Fat Man

Yes, yet again, apologies for the totally crap picture.  It was dark outside when I took it and the flash did nothing to help the situation.  You can at least see some of the sparkly bits in the fabric even if it isn't even close to the actual colour.

Stitching WIP List

As it's around half way through the year I thought I'd revisit this list and see how I'm doing. I split the list into groups of 'hope to finish this year', 'want to make progress on' and 'probably won't be touched in 2011'.

I've crossed out finishes and italicised those I have worked on so far this year.

1. Bent Creek - Snapperbets
2. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
3. Dimenions - Noah's Ark Quilt
4. Prairie Moon - Thine is the Trick and the Treat
5. Tournicoton - Coeur de Brodeuse
6. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
7. Stitching Kitty - Snowman Trio
8. Polstitches - Beaded Heart Biscornu
9. Anchor - Baby Sampler
10. DebBee's Designs - Hot Stuff
11. Just Nan - Counting Bats
12. Wool Tapestry Butterfly Cushion
13. Lizzie*Kate - Halloween Sampler
14. Shepherd's Bush - Halloween Night

15. Margaret Sherry - Santa's Journey Afghan
16. Glendon Place - Murky Manor
17. Just Nan - Four Wishes
18. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
19. Ink Circles - Cirque des Cercles
20. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
21. Lizzie*Kate - ABC Lessons
22. Lizzie*Kate - Christmas by the Letter
23. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride

24. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
25. Stoney Creek - Noah's Sub
26. Shepherd's Bush - Be Attitudes Afghan
27. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan
28. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
29. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet
30. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven Above
31. The Primitive Needle - Witches Hollow
32. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds

On paper I've not done that much but 4 Wishes and Cottage Garden have had a lot of attention and will probably be finishes this year.  The Noah's Ark quilt and Baby Sampler may well be finishes this month too and, if not, they'll definitely be finished next month.  Along with 4 Wishes as I want to get that one out of the way.

So fingers crossed I'll have 7 finishes for the year by the end of August which I'll be very happy about.

Cottage Garden 2 WIP

I've been stitching on this quite a bit this month - lots of nice blocks of colour so easy on the brain.

Here it is when I picked it up:

And here it is as of today:

Not only a lot more stitches in, a much better pic from my new camera!

4 Wishes WIP

So here's my WIP as it is now:

And here's how it was when I picked it up:

Snapperbets Progress

I've been stitching on this one for the last week or so and enjoying it.  I remember why I stopped before, it was because I had run out of Maple Syrup and discovered that the new skeins ordered were much much lighter than my original.  I was convinced I'd had an extra skein to start with but it never appeared so I must have imagined it.  A friend was good enough to send me some that she had but it still wasn't as dark as the original but a better match than the ones I bought.

So I'm in the position that I'll probably have to frog a huge section of the border as I've never found another skein of Maple Syrup as dark as the one I used originally.  However I have decided to completely finish the design and then see how I feel about how noticable the colour change is before making any rash decisions.

Enough of all that here's how it is now:

And here's how it was before I picked it up:

Not exactly like for like pics I know but you can see that the F and N were only just started and W is entirely new work.

Cottage Garden 2

I love Michael Powell designs and I probably have 80% of them in my stash and usually at least one WIP...

Santa's Journey Afghan

A Margaret Sherry design that was serialised in a stitching magazine.  Again there's quite a lot left to do but the footprint and writing blocks are obviously quite quick so it's not quite as bad as it looks!

Baby Sampler

I can tell you why this is still a WIP - all that hideous backstitching required on Tatty Teddy designs! Still I must get this finished as said baby is now heading for a year and a half old...

Dragon Virtues afghan

Oh how I love Dragon Dreams designs!  I was even lucky enough to win their limerick competition a number of years ago now and this was one of the chart packs that I won.

As you can see it's a long way off finishing - from memory there are 14 dragons, 14 stars, 4 moons and a sun and I've done 1 moon and 1 dragon.  I think I can safely say I'm a long way from finishing this one!

Halloween Sampler

Lizzie*Kate's Halloween Sampler - one of the WIPs I'd totally forgotten about! Apologies for yet another crap pic - I don't know why some come out so dark!

Wild Ones Alphabet

Yet another design I love - I had plans to finish this for Lia but now they've slipped to finishing it for Connor and, more than likely will end up as finishing it for Grandchildren along with Noah's Sub LOL.

Beaded Heart Biscornu

A Polstitches kit

Noah's Ark Quilt

This really shouldn't still be a WIP. I literally only have the backstitching on the elephants left to do but it's so unpleasant to work on I have to force myself to pick it up LOL.

Witches Hollow

The Primitive Needle's Witches Hollow - another design I love but haven't done much on. It's 1 over 1 on 40 count!  Oops!  That should be 36ct.  I'd edit it properly but then the comments wouldn't make sense!

Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag

I've stitched all the accessories for this design (but haven't finish finished them). I have to finish this panel and stitch a second identical one too!

Sleigh Ride

This has been a WIP for a while - it's one of those icky Dimensions colour charts that's a nightmare to follow plus there's loads of blends and it swaps between full and half stitches all the time. Oh and it mainly uses just slightly different blues which is a nightmare. But other than that it's a dream to stitch LOL.

I do love it though so it's worth the effort. I picked it up at the beginning of December with the idea that it would be my Christmas focus piece but then I was ill for three weeks and not much stitching got done - I mainly worked on the left hand side house which was no more than a roof when I picked it up

Snowman Trio

Stitching Kitty's Snowman Trio stitched on an unknown piece of Polstitches fabric with the recommended DMC and Weeks.

Thine is the Trick and the Treat

This was my last start of 2010 - I put the first stitch in between Christmas and New Year as I knew that come 1st Jan I wouldn't be starting anything else...

Butterfly Cushion

I got this wool tapestry kit in the sale in John Lewis a couple of years ago - it appealed to me because it's so bright and cheerful. It's currently the only tapestry I have in my stash but I love the way it looks (and feels) stitched up so I'm sure there'll be more in the future (although stitching the wool through canvas has knackered my thumb!)

Handmade Houses 4

Another Michael Powell. I've finished one of these already but there's five in this series so still three and a half to go...