First FFOs for 2018!

Hi Stitchy Friends!

Hope this year has been good to you so far and you are getting loads of stitchy time! I decided to try and FFO my Mill Hill ornaments this morning that I stitched in honor of my Grandma and Grandpa who have both passed. My goal is to stitch an ornament in their memory every year for our tree. Last year I stitched these Jim Shore Mill Hill kits for each of them because I wanted something with a cardinal on it. These were my first time stitching Mill Hill kits and they were really a fun stitch to do.

I stitched the Festival Friends Santa for my Grandpa and the Angel With Cardinal for my Grandma. Here they are all finished:

I think they turned out pretty nice! I backed them with a thick felt and made hangers using leftover beads from the kit. I saw that idea about using the beads from one of the Schoolhouse Stitcher's flosstube videos.

I am excited to make more of these ornaments they turn out so pretty and are a fun stitch!

Have a great stitchy week and thanks for stopping by today!

Laura

Mill Hill Angel With Cardinal by Jim Shore

Good Morning Stitchy Friends -

I realized that I had not posted the Christmas Ornament that I made this year for my Grandma's remembrance ornament. I posted the one that I finished for my Grandpa a few days ago. If you missed that post you can see it here.

As I mentioned in that post I have been making a Christmas Ornament each year in honor of my Grandma and Grandpa since they have both passed. This is the second year that I have done this and this year I wanted both of their ornaments to feature a cardinal. For Grandma's ornament I chose to stitch the Angel With Cardinal Mill Hill Kit by Jim Shore.

I did make a small modification to this and changed the eye color to a hazel green like my Grandma's eyes were.

Here are a few progression pictures and then my finish:

I still need to fully finish this one as well so I will post a picture of that when I get that done. This was my very first time stitching a Mill Hill kit and I think it turned out beautifully! I will definately be stitching more of these!

Thanks for stopping by!
Laura

Design Details:
Name: Angel With Cardinal by Jim Shore - Mill Hill Kit 
Fabric: 14 count perforated paper
Stitched: As charted in the kit
STARTED: May 17th, 2017
FINISHED: June 19th, 2017
Needleminder - Gina's Unique Boutique

Start & a Finish - Mill Hill Festival Friends Santa by Jim Shore

Hi Stitchy Friends!

When I first found floss tube about two years ago I was watching one of Carolyn Mazzeo's amazing videos and she talked about how every year on her Dad's birthday she would stitch a Christmas Ornament in his memory for her tree. I had recently lost my Grandma when I saw that one and thought it was a beautiful way to honor your loved ones when they are no longer with you. So I decided that I would stitch an ornament for both my Grandma and Grandpa each year.

This year I decided to stitch a Mill Hill Kit for each of their ornaments and I wanted ones that had cardinals on them since they say that when you see a cardinal it is a loved one from heaven making a visit to you. I just finished my Grandpa's ornament a few days ago so I thought I would share that one with you. I stitched the Mill Hill Festival Friends Santa by Jim Shore for Grandpa's ornament. I started this one August 17th ad finished it on August 25th. It turned out beautiful and had about a million beads! I think there were more beads than cross stitches so it is super sparkly and pretty in person :)

The needleminder I chose for this project is from Nifty Needle Nannies on Facebook. When I saw this one I had to get it because this was Grandpa's favorite saying to us kids whenever we got impatient about something :)

Here are some progression pictures:

This was a fun stitch and turned out so pretty. I still need to fully finish it so I will post a picture of that once it is finished completely! 

I think that doing this every year is a wonderful way to let Grandma and Grandpa know that we still think of them everyday and around the holidays when we miss them even more, this is a way to still make them a part of our family get togethers.

Thanks for stopping by today and happy stitching! 

Laura

Design Details:
Name: Festival Friends Santa by Jim Shore - Mill Hill Kit 
Fabric: 14 count perforated paper
Stitched: As charted in the kit
STARTED: August 17th, 2017
FINISHED: August 25th, 2017
Needleminder - Nifty Needle Nannies

My Current Rotation

Hi Stitchy Friends -

I have been a horrible blogger! I have been absent forever! I have been stitching but have not been very good at updating my blog with postings. I most of the time pop pictures up on my Instagram, but even then I am not as consistent as I need to be. I will work on it :)

I thought today I would share how I am currently rotating my WIPS. I currently have 17 started, about half to three-quarters of these are fairly large pieces. It is what I am drawn to apparently :) I have kind of 2 rotations - I can stitch at work so I have my work rotation and then I have my at home rotation so I will share both.

Since I can stitch at work and work the overnight shift, I am usually able to stitch for at least 3 hours most of the time, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on our call volume that evening. Weekends are busier ( I am a 911 dispatcher for police, medical, and fire) so not as much on those nights. So in our downtime we are allowed to do crafts, read a book, anything you want as long as it doesn't interfere with your work. I have 4 Heaven and Earth Designs that I rotate as my work projects:

1. Heavens Little Angel by Katerina Koukiotis
2. Dreamer - Max Colors by Nadia Strelkina
3. New Girl 3 by Bec Winnel
4. Dog Double Shelf by Randall  Spangler

My work rotation is 5 nights working, 2 days off, 6 days working and then 3 days off and it cycles through that. I have started working on one of my HAEDS for a 2 work week period, so 11 days and then I switch. I was changing each week buy since the time I get to stitch on my projects at work is limited and unpredictable, some weeks I would barely get to touch a project. I wanted to see some decent progress when I worked on them so I have recently decided to try the 2 week rotation and am loving that a lot more. I almost had a page finish on my angel which was the first project I tried it on. Here are pictures of my starting spot...and my ending spot after working on the Angel for it's rotation:

So I am loving how this is working so far. This rotation is my Dreamer so watch for that update...I have 1 week left for it.

My at home rotation has been the biggest struggle for me. I don't get to stitch at home very often, maybe an hour before work if I am lucky but most of the time it is on my days off, or an hour in the mornings when I get home for work while I am letting the dogs out to potty and stretch after being in their kennel overnight. I tried setting a week rotation for a project and then switching, but sometimes in that week I would never get to work on it so that wasn't working. I then came across someone (sorry can't remember who said they did this) but they switched projects after working on it for 10 hours. It is enough to get some decent progress, and not as much that you feel you are stuck working on something too long before switching. I have tried this for not quite a month now and this is working AWESOME for me!

I have one Supersize Heaven and Earth Design chart, King Coda Story Teller Max Colors by Aimee Stewart, that I recently restarted on my preferred fabric for my HAEDs, 28 count Lugana stitching it 1 over 1. So since this is a massive project I have decided that in between each of my 10 hour wip rotations, I will work on my SS HAED . I have a large format chart so my plan is to work 2 rows across my page and then switch. On the large format charts each row across has 6 full boxes and then usually a partial 7th box that extends into the next page. So I finish the whole 7th box. So for 2 rows it is roughly 1400 stitches. After rotating to this one 4 times, I will get a page finish if I do it this way :)

For my other at home WIPS - I wrote them down and numbered them. I also wrote a number in for a "New Start". So my plan is to let random number generator choose my WIP for the 10 hour session :) If I hit the "New Start" then I will choose a new project and start it and work on it for the 10 hours. So far I am on my 3rd project since starting this rotation and it is working really well. Here are the projects and progress I was able to make:

Project #1 - Durene Jones Lakeside Needlecrafts Fantasy SAL - I need to do the never-ending border so I am making myself stitch all of the border on a page before I can do the little character. In my 10 hour rotation I am happy to say I was able to get all of page 1's border complete and some of the little flourishes and the snowflake during this round! So next time it comes up...I am free to stitch the January block :D

I forgot to take a picture of my starting spot but I only had a small corner started in the upper left to work down to the circles, and then I did all my circles and no border. Here is what I accomplished in my 10 hour rotation (basically everything but the circles)

After this project I then rotated to my Supersize Max Colors King Coda Story Teller. I completed the first two rows of page 1 - totally a little over 1400 stitches:

So I will be coming back to this one to do 2 more rows in between each 10 hour switch.

The project I am currently working on was my New Start for this 10 hour round. I have worked on it for 2 hours, so 8 more hours to go before switching. This is my 2017 Christmas Ornament I am stitching in memory of my Grandpa. It is the Mill Hill Festive Friends Santa by Jim Shore:

I will work on this later today as well.

I think this rotation will work well for me since I want to work on all my wips and not just have them sit there untouched. Plus 10 hours is a great way to get some decent progress you can see, and not be so long that you feel like you are working on the same thing for a long time. Sometimes it might take me a full week or two in order to get 10 hours on a project, other times I might stitch all 10 on a day off! It is so random, but this way all my wips will get equal working time.

Anyway...I hope this made sense to you and that you might get some ideas from it. Any questions feel free to ask :)

Happy stitching everyone!
Laura