Incoherent Scribblings

It’s getting late tonight so I probably won’t have it until tomorrow, but I am super close to a happy dance… betcha can’t guess which one it is!

Even though I was only home for part of this month’s Stitch-A-Thon weekend, I did manage to get a fair amount of stitching done.

On Friday night I worked on “Four Seasons Cats – Fall.” As you may remember, this is a project I started a couple of years ago that turned into a UFO. I then organized a round robin and used it for my project, but when it came home to me last week one of the squares was only about 25% complete.

The stitcher who was supposed to stitch this square had some life issues come up and so I had her send it on to the last stitcher incomplete. She offered to finish the square after the last stitcher finished, but I decided it would just be easier if I got my fabric back and finished the square myself. Right now I only have two WIPs (”Fairy Flora” and “Spring Queen”) so it’s actually no big deal to stick “Four Seasons Cats” back into my rotation. (Wow! Only two WIPs! How exactly did that happen I wonder?! )

Today I beaded some more on Flo. I have now finished the beading of her wings and have moved on to her scepter. I actually think that I am probably a little over half finished with the beading now. As I look at the chart I see that I still have to bead her dress, but the majority of the beads really seem to have been in her wings. I decided not to take a progress pic of the beading tonight though because I am going to try and get one tomorrow when it is still daylight and see if I can’t get a better shot of all the bling!

On Sunday, I started beading “Fairy Flora.” Oh. My. God. There are so many beads! I have been beading for 11 hours and I am not even finished with the wings.

So anyway, remember how I decided to order the beads instead of sorting through the pack that came with the kit?

Good idea… in theory.

I ordered the beads, but silly me, I didn’t realize I needed more than one package of the crystal beads. (Note to self: Check chart next time to see how many packs of beads are called for.) I was merrily beading away, a little over half finished with the first wing, and boom! I ran out of the crystal beads. As a result, I ended up sorting the bead package that came with the kit anyway. Sorting the beads actually didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought because the crystal beads were easy to pick out and the mauve and lavender weren’t as similar as I was afraid they were going to be.

I can’t believe how sparkly the beads are making the wings. I tried and tried to get a picture that 1.) shows the beads and 2.) does the sparkle justice, but I am not sure I succeeded. Hopefully you get an idea though.

Once again, every time Flo gets closer to being finished I am blown away by how gorgeous she is. Take my word for it. Even in her not-quite-finished state she is simply stunning.

I guess I will do my goals real quick before I head out tonight.

For January, I wanted to:

• Participate in the January SAT. – No. I guess I must have spaced if off.
• Finish “Snowman Wisdom.” – Yep!
• Backstitch and start beading “Fairy Flora.” – More or Less. I finished the backstitching and I am ready to start beading.
• Participate in January NaBloPoMo. – Yep. Counting this entry, I posted 19 times in January.

For February, I plan to:

• Participate in the February SAT.
• Finish “Kitty Cottage Sampler.”
• Work on (and hopefully finish) “Summer’s Magic.”
• Start beading “Fairy Flora.”
• Participate in February NaBloPoMo.

You know that “goal” about continuing the whole blogging every day thing into January? Yeah, well, obviously that didn’t happen.

Anyway…

I had a nice three day weekend: I read a book, did my nails, went to a housewarming party, took a day trip to El Paso, and today I sat down and stitched… a lot… on “Fairy Flora.”

After seven and a half hours, Flo is backstitched. (It wasn’t Flo that took so long. It was the border… around the ENTIRE design!) I am now ready to bead.

Now here is the funny thing. I bought Flo on clearance at Michael’s as a kit. The fabric was boring, so I substituted it. The floss was good DMC, so I used it. And the beads that came with it… mixed all together in a little baggie.

Let me just say that there are lots of beads… in colors that are awfully similar.

So here is my dilemma: Do I spend hours of my precious time in an attempt to sort the thousands of beads into separate colors, employ some mentally unstable person who likes to sort tiny things (like beads) into piles to do the dirty work for me, or say fuck it and just order the beads online and not worry about separating the little bastards?

Decisions, decisions…