Words cannot hope to approach my glee at finishing this piece. I’ve been working on it for easily close to 15 years and although I sure didn’t work on it consistently every night, it’s been a labour of love. It has followed me as I graduated from high school, went to University (and moved home with me and back to University with me each year), graduated from University, went to graduate school (and even crossed the border with me a few times as I went to and from school there), moved to Alberta with me, flew back to Toronto with me a few times, and now it’s finished.

Wowee, right? It looks great and it’s definitely something I’m going to be splurging on a custom framing job. It’s also the first finish that I would consider to be a BAP finish. It’s a big piece!

Well, the sorceress has finally had all her whole and half cross stitches done! This means I have to backstitch her and add the charms and then I’ll have a happy dance more than ten years in the making!

I’m definitely a slow stitcher when it comes to BAPs and I stitch sporadically for the most part, so I’m so proud of myself that I’ve managed not to lose this lovely lady, get her dirty, rip her, or otherwise injure her beyond repair!  This will be the largest project I’ll ever have completed (my next largest would be the Asian Butterfly) and I’m so grateful to my mom — she’s agreed to have it framed for me for Christmas!

Now, I just need to sit down and get the tons of backstitching all done on her before I can show off my happy dance!

I thought it was high time for another update on how Miss Alluring Sorceress is going. This girl is seriously… well, suffice to say that I’ve been working on her for over 10 years now.  Yeah.  I love working on her and she isn’t a difficult stitch, I suppose I just scream through her for a while and then get burned out and rather than work on something else, I just don’t work on anything.  She’s getting much closer to being done tough – all I have are some of the crystals on the bottom, her dress, her face and arms, and then the half cross stitch that makes up her background.

Half cross stitch always goes fast for me, so it’s just the cross stitch that will take me some time, still, but my goal is to be done her by June 2008.  I don’t know if it’s a doable goal, but I’d be so happy if I could gave her done by then.  It’s just going to take some concerted effort and stitching a bit on her every night of the week, if possible.

Once she’s done, I think I’ll look at developing a rotation to get some work done on my other pieces with the focus being the Precious Moments family possibly…

Alright, it’s my goal to update this more often. It’s not that I haven’t been stitching, just that I haven’t been posting. I’ve been working on Alluring Sorceress pretty darn hard and she’s quickly moving towards being almost finished. Her rock is done, her cape and all but the white in her dress is done. I’ve just finished her hair and am almost done her crystal ball as well.

Can I just say, though, that stitching dark blue and black on dark blue aida is possibly the most eye-straining thing I’ve ever done!?

Now, for this week’s Stitching Blogger’s Question:

After you stitch a pattern or kit, what do you do with it?

After I finish either a pattern or a kit, I file it away in a special binder. I don’t usually re-stitch things, but I hate to just throw them out. I often think I should do a pay it forward or a random act of kindness, but really? I don’t know if anyone actually wants my leftover kits or patterns. And to be completely honest, I think every design I’ve ever finished has been a kit – and those I just have a tough time giving up!

Say hello to my latest happy dance. Yes, it’s been a long, long time since I posted here or finished anything. I needed to focus on getting some RR pieces done and sent out, which have been, and I have a LONG overdue exchange piece that’s all done, but waiting back at home in Ontario to be finished. I’ll be trying to post more of my finished RR pieces as I find their photos on my hard drive!

Anyway, this happy dance is a Dimensions kit called “Live Simply.” It was fun to stitch and went pretty quickly; maybe 20 hours of work or so? In case you’re looking for it, it’s Dimensions #6975. Finished size for this one is 5×7.

Now that I’m done this piece, I’m back to working on Alluring Sorceress. Today I pretty much finished her cape, which means her cloak and her cape are done. Those are big pieces to the piece and I’ll be moving onto the rock she’s standing on to finish that. Once the rock is done, I have her dress (which is all white/creams, hence my putting it off until near the end), a little crystal ball thing, and then all the whole cross stitches are done. After that, there’s half cross stitch for a planet and shading, etc, backstitch, attaching the charms, and then she’ll be done! I’d like to have her finished by January 1, but who knows if that will happen.

Meet Newton! Newton is my block of the Round Robin I’m participating in. He’s from “my” robin that three other wonderful ladies (Bea, Kara, and Renee) and myself are involved in. The theme is “Happy” and we’re all supposed to stitch something that makes us happy and smiling. Newton was stitched on 16 count white Aida with DMC floss (though he was supposed to use Anchor… oops). The pattern was found in a recent issue of a British magazine – I can’t remember offhand what issue or magazine it was, so I’ll have to look it up and post the title later, if anyone is actually interested in it.