Mermaid Azure: Week 3

Dear world, I have finished the main body of Marina (that's the name I've given her, she couldn't be anonymous anymore!):

I love the look of that tail- very realistic in my opinion!

It's been fun working on the tail this week, especially because we're visiting my parents in a whole other country that couldn't be more different from southern Spain: it is green, cool, and full of lakes and forests and castles: Belgium! So I've been enjoying a mild northern European summer for a few days, and stitching in the garden:

Wonderful stuff. This week I hope to finish up all the details and add the beads, so hopefully next time I post on here, I will have a finished product :)

Happy stitching everyone, here's a shot that took my fancy: a mermaid on the grass :)

And just a few sweet pictures of our day out kayaking, which I think capture the spirit of the place:

Curious ducks

Castle on a cliff

Mermaid Azure: Week 2

We were so incredibly busy this last week that I hardly had any time to stitch, but I've finally sat down to work on this beautiful girl and here is how she's doing:

Personally, I think she's gorgeous. I hadn't expected her to be quite so pretty and I am delighted! I think I'll work on her tail next, and then finish up all the little details: the back stitching, confetti and beads. I hope to have her done in the next couple of weeks, ready to hang up in the middle of summer :)

Mermaid Azure: Week 1

You will not believe how much progress I've made on this mermaid in only one week!

I know right?? I have never, ever worked through a project this fast! I'm impressed. The pattern is just so well designed and thought-out that it just flows. I have also had a lot of time on my hands because I've been at home a lot with another fibro flare, so it's been a lot of stitching and Gilmore Girls for me. Which is not a bad way to spend your time when you're sick, to be honest :)

Here are some WIP pictures, including Sancho posing with the project and then threatening to tear it apart when I tried to grab it from him...

Andromeda: Week 7

It's been a while since I've posted Andromeda on here, so I thought I'd share a picture of how she's doing:

It's certainly slow going, but that's ok. As always, I blame the linen and my poor eyesight. I'm very happy though because she's turning out so beautiful! I love the play of colors on the skin, it's very life-like, far more than in the picture. 

It's been very hot here and we've been trying to cool off as best we can, which means some beach time! The sea still isn't very warm, but just the sound and smell of it, and that Mediterranean blue is enough to cheer anyone up :)

Mermaid Azure

I have another confession to make: I've gone and started another pattern!

I know, I know, but I just couldn't help myself! Here's how I justified it to myself:

1. New fabric. I was just too excited to try out my brand new, hand dyed fabric!
2. 14 count aida. I wanted a project on 14-count aida because my eyes are exhausted from working on linen with Andromeda. Also so I could stitch outside in the shade, because who wants to be indoors when you can be outside?
3. Mermaids! In case it's not clear, I really really really wanted to do a mermaid!  I mean, it's summer, which means it's hot, which means we go to the beach a lot, which inevitably makes me think of mermaids.

So I went and got myself Mermaid Azure by Nora Corbett and oh, my goodness. I am in love.

It's stitching up so quickly! I've said it before and I'll say it again, patterns by Nora Corbett/Mirabilia and Joan Elliott just have a certain flow to them. It's just so easy to get in "the zone" and stitch away. 

Also, not to brag, but it's looking great on the fabric! I still can't believe I made those colors happen. Proud Crafter moment over here!

I'm also happy because by dyeing the fabric myself and by using the beads I already have lying around, I've made this project quite affordable. So I don't feel too guilty about having started it! 

(Also, if you've been reading my blog for a while and are wondering whatever happened to Wreath of All Seasons, yeah... It's much larger than I thought, has tons of confetti, and let's face it, I have mermaid fever. So it's taking a little break).

That's all for today. I hope you're all having a great day and enjoying your projects! And a big thank you to all of you who take the time to leave little comments on my posts, they always bring a smile to my face :)

I'll say goodbye with my sweet little Quijote being adorable:

Hand Dyeing: Success!

I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but summer's finally hit here and it's sweltering! My kitties have been melting all over the place and we've been having a lot of drowsy siestas.

On the upside of things, laundry has been very quick to dry, which has been so useful as I have been trying out different techniques and colors when dyeing, so I've been able to quickly know what a finished piece of fabric would look like.

And I have done a lot of pieces. Around 20 I'd say! Thank goodness for old bed sheets, am I right? It's been trial and error as I figured out what I was doing wrong, what was working and what wasn't. My cats have  been very curious and "helpful" about the whole thing!

I've been trying to get the underwater look the whole time, and it's been a brutal learning curve (if you've read my last post about hand dyeing, you'll know I had an Artistic Crisis of Monumental Proportions). But I'm happy to say that I finally, after three days of complete madness, I got the result I wanted!

Isn't it just so pretty?? (humble, I know). But honestly, it was such a relief to finally figure out what I was doing wrong and what really wasn't working. In summary, I had to learn the following:

1. How much salt to add to the dye mixture
2. Which brand was working (and which one wasn't!)
3. How to precisely mix the color green, as it washed out kind of yellowish if I didn't do it right
4. How to fold the fabric just right, so the effect I wanted would work

And I'm just delighted at how it came out!

This is definitely fit for a mermaid, and I can't wait to start stitching one!

Hand-Dyeing experience: disasters and heartache

I warned you this would happen: here comes the first post on dyeing! I tried it out for the first time this week, and let me just tell you that it was an unmitigated disaster.

In fact, it was so bad that I didn't even want to post it up on here. But then I realized that the results were so hilariously bad that I just had to share. It's definitely part of my cross stitching diary!

So. I got all my materials together, namely: baking trays, cast-off fabric aka an old bedsheet turned into rags, plastic cups and spoons, hot water and, of course, the dyes.

These dyes are powder, so I put them in plastic cups and diluted them to the saturation that I wanted. And then the games began!

Take One

One my first round, I tried using blue and green. I had two types of blue and green, one of each brand.

I was going for a subtle effect, an "under the sea" look. Something magnificent fit for a Mirabilia mermaid. Here is what I got instead:

I call them snot-gross and dirty washcloth, respectively. Epic fail. Evidently, green and blue did not go well together! So much for my underwater effect. Time for round two!

Take Two

For this round, I used only one blue on each piece of fabric, diluted to different strengths. Some was very concentrated, some very diluted. I was hoping this would give it that marble effect.

However, once they were washed and dried, this is what they looked like: 

I mean... It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. You can hardly see any change in the colors, especially in the electric blue one. I wanted it to be subtle, but not that much! So, I tried again.

Take Three

This one was an absolute heartbreak, it completely gutted me! Why? Because I tried it out on actual Aida and at first, it came out perfect! 

That's the best picture I have of it unfortunately, but look at it! There was green, dark blue, light blue... it was absolutely magical. When I opened it up I was over the moon, it was so beautiful! Way better than I had imagined. I couldn't believe I'd made something that pretty! Absolutely ideal for a mermaid. 

But then I washed it... And the only color that remained was the light blue! The green and darker blue were gone!

I wish I'd left it that way now. But I was so gutted, so utterly disappointed, that I decided to try adding green and dark blue to it. Genius that I am. And this is what happened:

Absolutely ruined! I was so extremely disappointed that it's still lying around on the terrace somewhere, on time out, thinking about what it's done.

But I'm recording it on here for future reference to myself, because it's definitely part of my cross-stitching experience, and once I cool off I (hope) I'll be able to laugh at this episode. Instead of wanting to shred the fabric to pieces. But they say frustration is part of the creative process, right? Sigh.

UPDATE: I went back to the above ruined piece and tried to fix it. 

I was able to make a dent in it, and in fact I love the way the blues came out this time, but the green splotches still make it look dirty. I don't think you can see them very well in the picture, but in real life they're a deal breaker unfortunately. If it weren't for them I'd love the final effect and use it in a heartbeat! 

Andromeda: Stitching Slow

Do you ever just like to stitch in silence? 

I do. I find it very therapeutic, after a long day of movement and noise and people, to hide myself away in a corner and spend time with my project, alone, in silence. The only sound is the thread as it slides up and down the fabric, slowly creating magic.

I also find that the slower I stitch, the more I enjoy the process. Again, I find it very therapeutic to pay attention as I slide the needle up the fabric and then down, making sure the stitches lie as evenly as possible. I find that my mind empties of any anxiety or worry, everything slows down and, as Allie put it in The Notebook, "the world goes kind of quiet."

It's in this way that I did my last portion of Andromeda, and here she is:

Sometimes when I watch too much FlossTube, I find myself comparing my pace with others'. And it's funny, because I always come to the conclusion that I'm "too slow", whatever that means, and that I "should" go faster. Which is nonsense, of course. So it's good to just slow down and enjoy the process, because otherwise, there really is no point, is there?