Heritage Stitchcraft Dragon finished!

Above is with all of the cross stitch finished, but no backstitching and below is the final version with all of the backstitches.



It was nice to work something with all of those bright colors, although I wish now I had done the backstitching as I had gone along because it took quite a while to do it all.

Now I'm on to the first of the Six Wives of Henry VIII designs - Catherine of Aragon, originally from New Stitches magazine no. 7.

Updates

I didn't mean to go so long without posting an update, but Blogger and other things were conspiring against me!

First up is the Heritage Stitchcraft Dragon progress photo from about two weeks ago, after he gained a wing and a head:


And here is a photo of the dragon from a day or two ago, with a lot more filled in:


The flash went off on the second one, so it looks a little washed out. I don't know if I'll have a large amount of stitching time this weekend, but there is a chance I'll get the cross stitching finished. There is a fair amount of backstitching on the design, so that's going to take a little bit of time.



I also did this little cottage design during the past couple of weeks. It's originally from Needlecraft Magazine (Nov. 1996) as part of a set of six. I'm thinking about doing each of them separately on different fabrics and then framing them in little 2.5 inch square frames. The fabric I stitched this on was 30 or 32 ct. and was from a grab bag I bought a few years ago. I used DMC threads for this one, but I've been toying with the idea of doing it again with Anchor threads just to compare them, out of curiosity.

Quick update

I realized that I never got around to posting the latest progress on the Heritage Stitchcraft Dragon, or the first hardanger piece, so here they are!



I haven't stitched on this one in a week or so, since I decided to take a break and work on a Halloween freebie. I'm almost done with the freebie, so I'll post a photo when the stitching is all done.



And here is the first hardanger piece I've ever attempted. The pattern and instructions were from "New Stitches" magazine (Issue 5, I think... definitely one of the very early ones). I did it with the pearl cotton that I had on hand, so that's why it's done is rust colors instead of the traditional white-on-white. It's not great, and I definitely need some better scissors for doing the cut work (the ones I have are great for some stitching stuff, just not that!), but it was fun to try. I'll be trying some more in the future, that's for sure!

Dragon update

Here, finally, is the Heritage Stitchcraft Dragon after spring break and a little during the week stitching.



Very colorful, isn't it? I've actually finished almost all of the background stuff (one little bit on the right is going to wait until I do the dragon over there) and have started to work in the dragon head. I didn't really plan to end up with a dragon silhouette, that's just the way it worked out!

I might take a break from the dragon to do another small freebie or two for something a little different. Even through we're into spring at the moment, I have a bunch of autumn and Halloween freebies, so I figure I should stitch some now so there is an outside chance that I'll have some of them framed (or finished in some way) by the time that part of the year gets here!

This week's stitching

I took spring break off of work to relax and, as it turned out, recuperate from yet another cold. The down time gave me a chance to get some stitching done, and here are some of the results:

First is the Hedwig Four Patch freebie from The Sampler Girl. I stitched it on some of my Silkweaver purple sparkly fabric and used DMC variations thread on the border and letters.



The second small that I did was another freebie, this time from Cyberstitchers.com. Since I love penguins and Italian food, I decided that my kitchen needed this:



And lastly is an update on the Heritage Stitchcraft dragon. This is actually from last week, so I'll have to post another picture with the progress that I made this week.



I also did my first hardanger piece this week, but I haven't taken a photo of it yet. It's not great, but it was a first attempt after all!

Dragons, framing and fabric

I actually did this framing over a week ago, so I'm a little behind. This piece has had the stitching finished on it for about 4 and a half years, and now it is finally in its frame. I didn't get the tension exactly right, so there is a slight bump visible, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with it. (And the bump doesn't show up as much as it does in the photo, since there was bright light to the side.) Right now it is sitting on the mantle in the living room since I haven't figured out where I want to hang it.



Next up is a progress photo of the Heritage Stitchcraft dragon, although it's a but out of date. I've actually done the top band now too, but no photo right now.



And last but not least, my first batch of Silkweaver "Fabric of the Month" fabric arrived! I'm on the rotating schedule, since I wanted a variety of counts, colors, types and sizes. I don't have anything in mind for the pink fabric, but I know just the thing for that sparkly light purple fabric! Stay tuned, since I'll probably stitch it up during Spring Break, when I'm planning on taking a lot of time of off work.