Last Finish for January!

So, I actually finished this yesterday, but I was holding off to see if I could squeak out a finish of Mademoiselle Rose from Jardin Prive tonight. Alas....

She's super close though. So expect a post tomorrow with a finish for her!

No, the finish I'm talking about is the Lizzie Kate exclusive design that we received at the Acorns & Threads 2018 Acorn Gathering on Sunday, January 28. It was SUCH a great day!! There were 30 women there to stitch, plus all four of the lovely ladies who keep Acorns & Threads running. 

Lizzie Kate designed the piece, Jeanine (the owner of A&T) stitched the model and chose the colors, and JoLyn did the soft finish for the hanger. Here's a few pictures of the progression:

 The colors in this kit are:

• WDW Guacamole
• WDW Bright Leaf
• WDW Molasses
• WDW Sweet Potato
• GA Cinnamon
• GA Pumpkin Pie
• GA Black Crow
• GA Butternut Squash
• GA Burlap
• CC English Ivy
• CC Hayride

Isn't the the perfect autumn pallet?

This is where I ended the day on Sunday. I did all of this stitching during the stitch in at the shop; we were there from 11am until 5pm. After a two hour drive home from Portland, I didn't stitch any more on Sunday. Wimpy; I know.

I thought for sure I would finish this on Monday. However. Life.

Rose and I are taking a Family Clay class and that was tons of fun and took precedence over stitching on Monday night. Still, good progress for one day. 

If you're comparing my piece to the model above, you'll notice that I changed the words...

dramatically.

 I wanted to really celebrate my first Acorn Gathering with a piece that shouted out its origins, so I went through all of my Lizzie Kate (and I do mean all) charts and "harvested" the letters for "acorn gathering 2018". 

Everything about this piece and the Acorn Gathering was a blast!! Next year I'll be in the know and bring my own chair; rookie mistake. 

If you're ever in the greater Portland area, definitely stop in at Acorns & Threads. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly and helpful you won't even notice how many new things you're leaving with!! ;-) 

Cross your fingers for a February 1 finish of Mademoiselle Rose! Until then, keep sprinkling the stitchy kindness. <3

WIPocalypse January Update

How is it time for our first WIPocalypse update already?!? HOW is it the end of January??!! (this is me agonizing over my lack of progress on WIPocalypse pieces...)

And then I remembered what Newt Scamander said in Fantastic Beasts:

And I thought, let's just look and see what I've done. Lo and behold, it was quite a bit!

The first WIPocalypse project that I worked on in January was BeInkspired by Stitchrovia on Etsy. I'm stitching from the 2017 Summer issue of Cross Stitcher Magazine, but this is now available in Emma Congdon's Etsy shop. I worked on this for six days at the beginning of January and made really good progress. I'm stitching it on (what I think is) a 27 count light blue linen that I bought on the bolt at a thrift store. I dyed it with a bit of Navy Rit and I couldn't be happier. I'm hoping to finish this in February. 

My next two WIPocalypse projects were my #torchtwins Sue and Moe. You can't really tell yet, but these are both Lady of the Flag. Sue is the yellow version. I'm stitching her in all of the called for colors on 16 count Aida Preamble fabric (of which I still cannot remember the origin). And Moe (short for Mother of Exiles) is a Statue of Liberty conversion by my girl Diana over at itiskismet_stitches stitched on the called for 32 count French Lace linen from Wichelt. 

I love them both in different ways and I'm STOKED to be on the second color in each. I'm clearly a color completer when I stitch, as you will see. I like the way the chart goes from "what the HECK is THAT" to "ooooh! I see!!" when you color complete. 

The last WIPocalypse piece that I worked on in January was Halloween Luck by Glendon Place. This is stitched on an 18 count Aida that I randomly found on eBay. Pro tip: There are SO MANY amazing fabrics for not so much money on eBay, like here. It's always worth a look. 

Anyhow, I stitched on the Black cat and on the pumpkins. This allowed me to post in Stitch Maynia's Designer of the Month SAL for January: Glendon Place and Stitch Maynia's Halloween Year Round SAL for January: Pumpkins. Gotta love that double dipping! I really enjoy this piece and I hope to get back to it soon.

Otherwise my January was spent on new starts and ATCs (artist trading cards), which are tiny 2.5" by 3.5" works of art that can be created quickly and traded. 

Now for the official WIPocalypse prompts: 

January 28 (I know, I'm late) What SAL’s are you participating in this year? and If you are participating in the Olympic Stitching Challenge, what challenge are you accepting?  What are your goals?

What SALs am I participating in this year? Well, I was going to participate in the Class Schedule SAL by Armada Designs: 

And I even made a start on it: 

But after seeing January, I just wasn't happy with it. And I thought (after a lot of discussion with dear stitchy friends) why am I stitching this if I'm not happy with it? So I gave it up. How cute is that Dobby needleminder though? 

Oh no, you're thinking, are you out of SALs Michelle? Ah. No. 

I still have the By the Bay Needlearts Harbour Haven SAL: 

Have I started this? Nope. Waiting on fabric. But I'm collecting the HECK out of the charts!! Funnily enough, that's my only monthly SAL this year. And it's 650-ish stitches by 84-is stitches, so I think that will be PLENTY.

For the Olympics challenge, we have the option to do a Rotation Relay, where we work on as many projects during the Olympics as possible; an Endurance Race, where we try to stay monogamous during the Olympic games; and the third is Celebrate the Nations, where we stitch in the colors of the Olympic Rings or of our country's flag. 

I'm feeling very monogamous lately, so I'm going to go with the Endurance Race. Which project I'll be working on remains to be seen. ;-) 

Happy WIPocalypse!

Finish: Brooke's Books Alice in Wonderland

It's my first finish of 2018!!! Huzzah!! Finally. Whew. I was feeling the pressure of not having finished anything yet this year. Silly, I know, but there it is.

So, my good friend Angel, @girlwithaneedle on Instagram and Girl With a Needle on Flosstube, asked me to do a birthday start with her for her birthday on January 19. OF COURSE!! We both started Alice in Wonderland by Brooke's Books. Brooke Nolan is a genius, a GENIUS, with color!! 

I stitched Alice from 01-19-18 to 01-23-18 because I did not put her down. She's stitched 1/2 on 32 count Belfast linen in the colorway Flapper by Picture This Plus with the called for DMC. She was an absolute joy to stitch.

Here's my progression:

Next up is the White Rabbit. I need a coordinating but not exactly the same fabric for him, which I'll look for at Acorn & Threads next Sunday. 

Thanks for checking in!

What I do when I can't start YoW pieces.....

You guessed it, I start things!!!

I had my Flosstube live sale on Monday (with TONS of help from my loves, Helga and McKenna) and it was EXCITING! And it was exhausting! But so much fun. So when you're exhausted, what do you do? Start a new thing!

I've been holding on to Mademoiselle Rose by Jardin Prive for longer than I care to assess. It was a gift from the lovely Anne P.

 I've been thinking a lot about using my Fancy Floss rather than hoarding it, so I went ahead and kitted Mme Rose up in mostly all fancy flosses: 

Here are my conversions: 

• DMC 224 = Colour & Cotton Chiffon
• DMC 152 = Gentle Arts Tea Rose
• DMC 223 = Weeks Dye Works Romance
• DMC 221 = Weeks Dye Works Baked Apple
• DMC 3021 = Ship's Manor Ancient (this is the gold on the left, picked to match my Rose's hair)
• DMC 733 = Gentle Arts Tropical Ocean (much more teal than the called for)
• DMC 732 = Weeks Dye Works Kentucky Bluegrass (again, much more teal than the called for)
• DMC 640 = Colour & Cotton Heath (still considering changing this)

I used the called for DMC 3774 for the skin and changed the eyes to DMC 732 because my Rose has hazel eyes. I'm stitching this 1/1 on 32 count natural linen and I'm in LOVE: 

There was some discussion over stitching her shoes in Petite Treasure Braid and calling her McKenna. We shall see.

And today my dear friend Angel is celebrating her birthday! So we HAD to have a start!! We chose Brooke's Books Alice: 

And it's safe to say we were both SHOCKED by the sheer number of flosses in this piece. Here is a partial floss toss: 

To be fair, that is MOST of the flosses, but DANG! Brooke Nolan is a genius when it comes to color so I'm going to trust her, grit my teeth, and change colors often. I mean, Blanc and B5200? Really? 

Since I've gotten rid of two of my Year of WIPs pieces, I'm going to add these ones in to substitute. Mostly because I can actually FINISH them! 

Thanks for coming back y'all! See you again soon. 

Lady of the Flag and Flosstube Live

Hey y'all! I feel like it's been an eternity since my last blog post! That must mean I'm liking this blogging thing, huh?

So what have I been up to? I've been stitching on three major projects this week: Stitchrovia's Be InkSpired, Moe (Mirabilia's Lady of the Flag, Statue of Liberty conversion), and Sue (Mirabilia's Lady of the Flag). I've also put some stitches into a little DMC Roses chart as a car project.

First, BeInkSpired. I made great progress this week and was able to move the q-snap down to the bottom half of the chart. I had intended to stitch all of the outlines first and then color them in but I actually ran out of DMC 310 and had to work on some of the color in the bottom half. Luckily, DMC 310 is readily available all over! So here's where I left off this week:

It's stitched almost all in the called for DMC, except for the sailor girl, whose skin I converted to DMC 436 and 869. And the fabric is a blue linen that I picked up at the thrift store on a bolt for $2.99. That was a win! Then I hit it with a little Navy Rit. Needleminders by Delicious Threads (the lady) and SunSpotCreations (Han). 

Next, I worked on my #TorchTwins, Moe and Sue. I'm stitching Lady of the Flag twice. Let me say that again: I'm stitching Lady of the Flag TWICE. And I'm loving her both ways. When I'm working on Moe (short for Mother Of Exiles), my Statue of Liberty conversion (courtesy of Diana @itiskismet_stitches), I love her the most. And when I work on Sue (named for three symbols on the chart that were next to each other: SUE), I love her the most! I'm keeping Moe for myself and I'm stitching Sue for my Helga. 

That's Moe. She's stitched in the DMC 500 color family on the called for 32 count French Lace linen by Wichelt. Needleminder from Delicious Threads and grime guard from Geeked Out Accessories on Etsy.

And that's Sue. She's stitched on 16 count Preamble fabric that Helga sent me (origin: ??) in all of the called for colors. Needleminder by Delicious Threads. You will begin to notice a trend there. 

My car project is a little DMC Flowers Kit that was a gift from Kaitlyn at Big Apple Stitching on Flosstube. I was able to finish all of the crosses this week and I only have the backstitching left. 

This is going to end up being about 3" by 3". FFO suggestions are most welcome. 

The MOST exciting thing I've done this week is to go through all of my stash to get ready for my GIANT LIVE DESTASH SALE (in my head I was totally shouting) that I'm having on Monday, January 15 at 11am PST. That's 2pm EST and 7pm GMT. All other time zones have to do their own math. It will be on my Flosstube channel, Michelle Garrette Bendy Stitchy.

So today I went through my stash for the first time and pulled out everything I could part with. It's a LOT, but it's less than I'd like. 

I'll go through it all again this weekend. I find that I'm never able to let go of everything I want to let go of on the first time through so I'm hoping to get a lot more out this weekend. It's going to be AMAZING!! See you there? I hope!

If you made it this far, here's a pic of my kid being awesome: 

See you guys Sunday for a Stitch With Me and Monday for the GIANT LIVE DESTASH SALE (yep, still yelling in my head)

WIPocalypse 2018: It Begins!!

Okay y'all. I've been teasing it for a while and here is the first OFFICIAL post!! It's WIPocalypse and our first post centers around: 

"January 7 – Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year!"

So, here we go....

I'm a mom, a wife, a stitcher, and a hospice nurse. I started making Flosstube videos around May of 2017 and I love it! My family and I moved from Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii to Eugene, Oregon in March of 2016 and I'm still freezing. I'm a total joiner, the FOMO is real with me (right Kerry?), but not much of a completer. And I'm totally cool with that. This is probably why I have 23 WIPs in WIPocalypse.

SEGUE!!

1. Quotes to Live by SAL by Stitchrovia: my goal is to finish this completely: 

2. Whacky Witches in Stitches by Cloudsfactory: this is another one I'd like to completely finish:

3. Travel Through Europe SAL by DMC: going for another total finish here: 

4. Golden Gate Avenue, a Janlynn Kit: again, I'd like to finish this whole thing:

5. Halloween Luck by Glendon Place: this is one of the more attainable total finishes: 

6. Alice Under the Dreaming Tree from HAED: I'd like to totally... just KIDDING! Four pages would make me happy here (I have two already complete): 

7. Toasty TARDIS by Pixel Power: (this chart is no longer available) I can definitely finish this:

8. BeInkSpired by Stitchrovia: this will likely be my first WIPocalypse finish of 2018: 

9. Skeleton Crew by Cricket Collection: I very much doubt I'll finish this one, but it would be great:

10. Plague Doctor by Buzzbee Designs on Etsy: If I can finish the page I'm working currently, I can finish the entire thing:

11. Alice in Wonderland by DoNaStitch: I was going to say 4 pages here as well, but let's just go for a finish!

12. Lady of the Flag by Mirabilia, Sue: I'd like to finish Sue by next February: 

13. Lady of the Flag by Mirabilia, Moe: I'd like to finish Moe by next February too:

14. Halloween Quaker by Lila's Studio: I MUST finish this by Halloween:

15. Class Schedule SAL by Armada Designs: I may or may not kick this one off of my WIPocalypse line up. If I don't, I'm going for a total finish:

16. Skeleton Mosaic by Works by ABC: I love this and I'm finishing it completely:

17. Scary Mouse by Brenda Gervais: this is my smallest WIPocalypse project; I need to finish it:

18. Christmas SAL by TinyModernist: I want this finished and FFO'd in time for Christmas 2018: 

19. Wee Dance by Heart in Hand: oh wait, THIS is my smallest WIPocalypse project!! Total finish:

20. Brocade Boulevard by StoneStreetStitchworks on Etsy: I'd like to (are you sensing a theme here?) completely finish this one:

21. The Phantom Menace by FanGirlStitches on Etsy: This is going to take a deceptively long time to completely finish; ALL the color changes!

22. Bee Study by Kathy Barrick: I have to prioritize this one because I've promised the chart to a friend, and that needs to happen within a year:

23. Bird Study by Kathy Barrick: I've been meaning to start this for at LEAST six months, so I want a total finish this year:

And that's it!! Because that's PLENTY!! I just realized that I need to finish two of these every month!! 0_0 Weeeeelllll..... let's just have fun getting there, right? 

Thanks for scrolling through all of that and for putting up with my formatting challenges! \m/