Year of the Sheep (2)

Here is my first repeat. It's the Year of the Sheep on Lavender 14ct 2x1 full. I was wondering if having to do repeat ones would make me more likely to make a mistake and I almost did with this one. I almost forgot the little guy's tail. Thankfully I remembered. I'm going to have to be more careful with the next repeat.

The Accolade update

This is the first ever Heaven and Earth Designs pattern that I bought. But it wasn't the first one I started. That was The Last E Ticket Ride. I now own 70+ charts and will probably have to live to 300 or something just to finish them all.

I started this back around October 2010. I got the large chart format but I still have to enlarge the page to decipher the symbols. Too many of them are too much alike. I finished the top half of page 1 and then put it away. I got caught up in making things for other people and lamenting the fact that doing it 1x1 in full stitches (on 25ct cream Aida) would take forever. Once I started Pirates and was working in tent stitches I realized things could go much faster. But only if I was willing to rip out thousand of stitches and start over. It was just easier to set aside and work on something that didn't feel like a failure.

I decided to pull it out again and add it to my regular rotation and hopefully I'll get it done in this lifetime. And I'm not ripping out stitches. I guess I'll just have to stitch faster.

This is what it's suppose to look like:


This is page one completed:

Year of the Ox

Here's my latest Chinese Zodiac finish. It's for the Year of the Ox. I only had to do one of these so I'm done with this character. It did it on the light pink Aida (which once again doesn't look pink unless it's with something white) 2x1 full stitches as always. It was a nice easy change of pace from the Dragon evn though I hate working with brown thread because it seems to knot and tangle up so much.

Pirates update

This is a project based on the artwork Pirate by John Patience. It's another Heaven and Earth Design's chart. I'm doing it on 25ct DMC Aida in 2x1 tent stitches. This was my first attempt at the tent stitches and overall I kind of like them. I think the dignal lines mess things up a little bit but it's so much faster to stitch up. I think I'll be doing all my HAED projects in tent stitches from now on. I might even try one out on 28ct fabric and see if my eyes can see the holes.

Here is a picture of what it should look like when done:


Here are the 2 pages I've done so far:

Year of the Dragon (1) on red

Here's my latest finish of my Chinese Zodiac. I found the design to be fiddly to stitch and the backstitching was confusing for the headdress and the tail. I have to stitch 2 more of these up and I was planning on doing one of them on black but after the navy fabric for the Tiger and the fiddly nature of this design I'm not so sure about that. Fortunately I'll have a couple of months to think about that before I have to decide before this pattern comes up again.