Raven Queen progress & Apr/May goals

Finally, an update on Raven Queen! I didn't quite finish the dress but I made some good progress and I'm happy with how she's coming along. :)

Showing off the black stitching first because it's easy to see exactly where I left off last time and how much of this dress is new since last time. 

 I wasn't able to completely fill in the top by the end of April but I made a good effort!

I also made good progress on Peacock Band Sampler but I can't find the pictures I took. Or maybe I didn't actually remember to take pictures? Not sure but I will show it next time. :)

April's goals were: 

• add one band to Peacock Band Sampler - DONE! (actually added two)
• finish Raven Queen's dress - not quite, but made good progress!
• finish Cucumbers - DONE!
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff - bought Tomatoes (Owlforest)

I thought I already had the Tomatoes pattern but alas, no. I bought it to go along with Cucumbers, and it uses the same fabric and threads so no additional expense beyond the cost of the chart. Less than $5 since I got it direct from their website - their Etsy shop is almost 2x the price!

So for May:

add one band to Peacock Band Sampler

finish Raven Queen's dress

stitch half of Tomatoes

probably no buy of any stitching stuff

Starting to feel a bit excited about nearing the end of Peacock Band Sampler! It's really beautiful in real life and everything feels like a breeze after the Jessica band, lol. Should be done soon!

Cucumbers - finish!

It took a bit longer than I expected, but Harvest Season: Cucumbers is done! It's stitched on PTP Sterling Belfast, which is a greyish green color that's almost a perfect match for the recommended solid fabric. It's a little greener in real life vs here:

Okay, now that I look at this, I see that I missed a few stitches in the cucumber slices in the bottom right. Whoops. I've already taken this off the qsnaps so I'll have to fix it in hand. Should be easy enough.

Oh, and I made one kind of major change in the top left. There was a multicolored paisley-ish pattern up there that didn't seem related to cucumbers or pickles in any way. I changed that area to some white clouds adapted from other Owlforest designs. Sort of. About halfway through I decided to just wing it and I think it turned out okay. :3

Here's what the model looks like, just for comparison: 

And now a funny story. I ended up running out of the medium green color used for the leaves/stems of the plant on the right after stitching the largest leaf at the bottom. I have a few Owlforest kits from several years ago, before the bobbins were marked with color codes, and was frantically trying to find the same color in one of them. No luck, but then I remembered that I have a few Owlforest thread packs as well, so it was off to rob one of those.

Guess who had the thread pack for this design the entire time?

Well... I still have the thread pack for this design, minus one length of the medium green. Oh well, surely I have another pattern that uses similar colors. Like the matching Harvest Season: Tomatoes...

Cucumbers start & March/April goals

It's close enough to the end of the month that I think it's fine to post this already.

So first, I got a teeny start on "Harvest Season: Cucumber" by Owlforest. I'm stitching this on PTP Sterling, which I always expect to be grey like sterling silver, but it's a light green instead. Perfect for this design as the recommended fabric is almost the same color. And I'm using old/leftover threads from previous Owlforest thread packs so they're all a perfect match.

I've been feeling kind of sick recently so this is not good progress at all, but at least I started. Also the color correction on this isn't great but I think it will be better once I have more stitching done and can zoom out a bit. Or maybe the addition of the orange-red color will help balance it. Something like that!

And as for goals, here's what I had for March: 

• finish central band on Peacock Band Sampler - I forgot I'd already finished this!
• add one flower on Pennelate di Magia - change of plans, see below!
• finish(?) Raven Queen's skirt - DONE!
• start my next "small" - DONE!
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff - DONE!

So... Pennelate di Magia. I like the design but I cannot stand the fabric I chose. A while back I bought (aka wasted money on) some SMF evenweave from another stitcher who was destashing, even though I knew I wouldn't like it because it's 28ct. Even more so because it was the cheapest 28ct fabric possible, like jazlyn or something? Super stretchy but also very thick and with tight holes. Just awful. And unlike some other dyers where the fabric shrinks a bit when dyed, this fabric is solidly 28ct and my stitches all look like visually distinct Xs instead of making a cohesive image.

But I already did two flowers on it! So I tried my best to convince myself that I liked it buuuut... no. I can't. This fabric is terrible and the dye is so pale it's basically white anyway, and I loathe stitching on white. So this project is officially cancelled and I'm going to turn the two completed flowers into a needle book. I've already added the backstitch border around the flowers, I just need to do it around a blank portion with the same measurements and assemble it.

And now, new goals!

• add one band to Peacock Band Sampler (or at least half if it's a super huge band)
• finish Raven Queen's dress
• finish Cucumbers
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff

Same as last time, I'll no buy unless I need something for a current project. Some DMC is a bit low but I don't think any colors are in the actual "omg about to run out" zone yet. I do have my eye on a couple of indie patterns on Etsy and I might pick them up if the designers run a sale, but that's all.

Raven Queen skirt!

It was a lot of work but I got Raven Queen's massive skirt done!

I think there's technically an area of black on the right side, above the dark grey edge, but I don't want to stitch it as charted. It sticks out a lot more than the top of the left side of the skirt and makes everything look unbalanced. Not sure if I want to leave it out entirely or cut it down to a thin border against the dark grey, kind of like how it is on the left side. Need to do more of the dress first to see how it looks. :)

So, one monthly goal down! Except I forgot that I'd already finished the center band on Peacock Band Sampler last month, so that's done too, but I didn't actually do it. You know what I mean. :3

I guess it's back to Pennelate di Magia for now! I think two weeks is enough time to completely stitch one of the flowers. Right?? 

Raven Queen update and Feb/Mar goals

First up, Raven Queen! I did a lot more of her skirt over the past week or so and had a nice time with it. Sometimes big blocks of color are what you need! Here's how she looks now.

I added one darker shade of blue to the skirt's edge in place of the grey that's been used in a few other smaller spots to show folds in the fabric. You can see that in the bottom right part of the blue trim. The grey area was too big and looked unnatural. It works well for the sharper folds on the left, but in this large area it didn't quite work. Luckily there was another blue in the same color family that works great. :) 

And now, goals! February went better than expected. 

• one section of Jessica stitches on Peacock Band Sampler - did the whole damn thing! :)
• one section of central band fills on Peacock Band Sampler - almost finished this too!
• add one flower on Pennelate di Magia - DONE!
• 100% no buy of any stitching stuff - DONE!

So for March...

• finish central band on Peacock Band Sampler
• add one flower on Pennelate di Magia
• finish(?) Raven Queen's skirt
• start my next "small"
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff

I say probably to the no buy because I have a few DMC colors that are running low and I'm not going to force a no buy when I need a basic supply to finish an active WIP. And Raven Queen's skirt might be a bit overly ambitious, but probably not. I'll push myself to get there and if I don't, that's okay. :)

My new start will be Harvest Season: Cucumbers by Owlforest. At 120x88 it's not really a small, but it's smaller than my usual nonsense. :3

Isn't that cute?? I just have the chart, not the kit, so I'll be grabbing fabric and threads from stash. I do have a good amount of Owlforest floss left over from previous thread packs, so I might have a few of the charted colors. If not, no worries, I definitely have something that will work!

Pennelate di Magia - 2 of 10 done!

I said I didn't have any pictures of Pennelate di Magia, but that was because I didn't scroll back far enough in my phone's gallery. My first progress picture was from June 2024... no wonder I couldn't find it! At that point, I'd finished one flower (left side in this picture) and started the border of the second.

Over the weekend, I finished the second flower panel and here's how it all looks.

Stitched as charted, except not really? There's a little color picture next to each chart showing a mockup of how it will look when stitched. The problem is... the colors as charted do not match the color mockup! The greens are all mixed up. I hadn't noticed this when stitching the orange flower (on the left) so that one is stitched as charted, with the greens placed kind of randomly. I changed the colors in the purple flower (on the right) to match the color mockup. Here's what they look like.

So now I'm stuck with the possibility of having to redo all the greens in the orange flower because it's going to look out of place. All the other color mockups have this logical color layout, with the stem being the darkest color, and the leaves getting progressively lighter as you go up on the plant. And honestly, I prefer that look so I KNOW I'm going to have to change this for my own satisfaction.

But why is it even like this???? It's not THAT much rework, but I'm getting pretty frustrated with every project having something annoying or just plain wrong with it, either charting or materials or being oversized or poor color choices or... etc etc.

I don't know. Maybe I'll start something new. Something small and cute and EASY.

endless Jessica band has an end???

It's finally over. The neverending band of Jessica stitches on Peacock Band Sampler has finally been defeated. I'm worn and bruised and my needle got bent but I WON.

So of course I had to keep working on it after finishing that band. Like a normal person. *eyeroll*

Well, I got pretty far on the central band and had a great time filling in the darkest purple. But when it was time to add the (looool) Jessica stitches around them, I got fed up...

Not because of the stitches, though! It's the thread that's driving me crazy now. I used HDF silk for the darkest purple (the kitted color was so dark it was pretty much black and looked awful) and now the lighter purple feels terrible in comparison. :( Every strand I used has ended up getting split around the eye of the needle, locking it in place (can't slide the needle toward the thread end) and then it breaks.

Several of the threads have a pink section in the middle, almost like they had gotten discolored by a drop of bleach. I've been avoiding those but used one by accident. The pink was pretty dark and blended in well, so I decided to keep using it. Of course, the thread ended up breaking at the pink part, and I wasn't putting any extra strain on it. It's almost like it crumbled instead of broke.

Luckily, the other colors in the kit have been okay so far, just a bit frizzy and prone to knotting. I've already reached the middle so I'll be reusing the previous colors in reverse order to finish the project. I just have to get past this unruly light purple first. But for now, this project will take a little break!

Oh, and I finally got a reasonably accurate picture of the fabric color.

I forgot that pulling back a little (or a lot) helps to cancel out my phone's automatic white balancing. The fabric is still more vibrant than this shows, but it's a lot closer than my other pictures!