Storykeep The Wild Swans

Yes, I am working on a SK (HAED story keep) :-D

There is a reason why I put away DCD (Dandelion Clock Dance) and M&A (Merlin and Arthur) to focus on this project.  This will be a gift to my husband who always support me. I want to stitch this to congratulate him on his first step of reaching his scholar dream. 

He will go for his PhD this August and as a result we will move to NJ this autumn. So I decided to quit my job - the job that i love. This is a hard decision for me though. I know that there are many things that we might have to face in the future in such a new land but I will like to face it with him. 

We both grew up with the fairy tales of Hans Anderson and one of our favorite tales back to our childhood is "The Wild Swans" (the tale is about a princess who rescues her eleven brothers from a curse by an evil queen). So I went to HAED website, found this SK and started stitching this.

I really hope that I could finish and hand it to him before we leave to NJ. It would a perfect bookmark for him since he does not like reading books on Ipad like me :D

SK The Wild Swans by Yvonne Gilbert (click here to the chart)
Stitched on 25 count linen, 2 over 1 tent stitch
90 colors ( I change DMC 032 t0 DMC Metallic E5200)

Original painting

Mock-up

My stitching

The difficulties of mine while stitching this SK are the heavy confetti colors and the linen slubs with uneven weave. I have never done tent stitch before and another issue here is...I hardly see the swan at the bottom left...So a bit unhappy and very afraid that if this SK does not turn out right, I might have to find a backup plan for the gift :(

SAL: Autumn by Jacek Yerka 1st Post

Hi guys

Just for your information, this is the SAL that I join with my fellow blogger Pull the other thread. We will post our progress of this pattern on monthly 15th, goal free. I started stitching on page 54 (last page of the pattern and she will start on page 1 (you can find her post here). If you are interested in this SAL, you are most welcome to join us. It will be so fun!

So here is my preparation:

Autumn by Jacek Yerka ( please refer here to the chart)
Stitched on 25ct Dublin
Started date May 15th
1 x 1 FULL CROSS

Progress: Oh well, actually I started stitching this few days ago but I made a huge mistake about the placement so I was mostly frogging. I managed to start over again this morning and here is the result:

From distance

Close up

Basically, I completed page 54 since there was only few blocks to stitch. You might not able to see anything from here yet but good thing will come later. So keep your eyes on this blog for my next post on June 15th.

Leave a comment!

xoxo

Gwen

Dandelion Clock Dance: Some progress to date

Hi there

In the last update on DCD, I was working mostly on the sky and the dandelion fairies. So I was thinking maybe I should jump downward the pattern to change the atmosphere. As you might know, oh I am so bored at stitching peachy colors. As I decided to skip page 4-6 and move to page 7, I soon realize that the obsession of heavy confetti on the sky is nothing compare to the pages in the middle and the bottom of the pattern. Symbols keep changing all the time and I swear to God, the symbols even jumped into my dream. So I made another decision is to switch stitching projects between days to get more balance. It means that I will have less progress than normal and I figure out this is the only solution for me at the moment. So here is the progress:

Finished half of page 7 and a bit of the sky on page 4

Close up on the stitched part. There are about 70 colors within this half a page!

I hope you guys enjoy and any comment is appreciated.

I will take a break from DCD for a while to do a SAL project on Autumn by Jacek Yerka with Pull the other thread. The first post and details of this SAL  will be in this blog tomorrow!

Have fun!

Gwen

Oopzz, I bought new charts!

On the very last day of HAED Sales, as a result of some over excitement with HAED's brand new releases, I ended up build another floor of charts in my stash. But look, it is too beautiful to resist. So I just want to share with you guys the new charts that I have bought.

Tales of the Red Swans by Aimee Steward

Dancing like a Dervish with Fox by Aimee Steward

Swimming Lessons by Jacek Yerka

SK Effects of Caffeine by Randal Spangler

Hmpf by Suzanne Gyseman. Look at him! So cute owl!

Snow wizard by Randal Spangler

So there are 2 charts by Aimee Steward and 2 charts by Randal Spangler. Joining the list of my fav designers until now is Jacek Yerka and Gyseman. Their charts are so funny and funky. I would love to kick a new start right now, it is so fun!

How do you guys think? Not too bad choice right!

xoxo

Gwen

101 Curiosity: How do you guys normally stitch?

Hi guys

I know that there are many of my fellow bloggers have already brought some of the stitching issues in their blogs with fantastic solutions but I have to pre claim that this blog is all about my curiosity about the problems that you guys met while stitching HAED.

As everybody probably knows that HAED charts are fairly big and require a good period of time to complete. HAED is always a challenge yet a pleasure to any stitchers.

Curiosity 1: Thread organization

Do you guys order thread for each chart or have a whole collection of DMC thread to sort by yourself?
How do you arrange thread for each project?

For me, I have a collection to sort out by myself. When there are colors that requires more than 5 (yes I have 5 collections of DMC, oopzzz), I will go down to the store or order online. I pre-sort threads before stitching and make something like this to keep those threads close to me:

 Curiosity 2: Hoops or frame?

I love hoops but frame does justice to HAED in my opinion. I experienced Qsnap, lap frame and millennium  frame while stitching DCD but I feel most comfortable with millennium frame as it does not mark my fabric and comfortably stretch the fabric to the tension that I wish for.

Curiosity 3: Cross country or parking method?

I have been trying both method in my current project. As HAED is fairly big, I divided each page in quarters and fill up with cross country method. It is really time consuming. Besides, I often mis-counted the symbols and led to unsatisfactory result. Good thing about cross country is I can keep the back of the fabric clean looking. On the other hands, parking method helps me to finish every single block neater and faster. For now, I am quite happy with this method except for the fact that the back of the fabric scares me out every time I attempt to look at it.

Overall, I think stitching method is very personal and it works differently depends on each stitcher's taste.

How do you guys think?

xoxo

Gwen

DCD: Finished page 3 and new stash for the hardwork!

Hi guys

Apologies for all of the waiting. I have been stitching and ... frogging DCD for the past week. It was a pleasant stitching yet a nightmare of confetti with bunches of same peachy and pinky colors. When I first started this chart I could not differentiate all of similar colors in the pattern and totally did not understand why do we need so many similar colors for all-looking-the-same background (this chart contains 89 colors). Having said that I still patiently stitched and stitched. Let me tell you, it is well paid off. If we view the stitched part from far, we can definitely realize the differences and can tell if we stitched wrong color. And it is so detailed. I love it.

So here the progress:

Page 3, as of May 2nd (yellow lighting)

(natural lighting)

My goal setting:

12 pages more to go!

Comparison to previous finish:

Before

After

Details of the transformation of Dandelion fairy:

For new stash, as you might know HAED extended its 45% off sale to May 10. I thought that I would just ignore it but you know... I just can't. So I bought this lovely chart, a new chart from HAED by Spangler: I LOVE YOU (Click here for the chart). Oh i love you little dragon. And I love you too all of my fellow bloggers.

Have you bought any new charts during the sale? Any progress on your W.I.P? Please share with me cause I'd love to hear!

Till then!

xoxo

Gwen