Persephone is Finished!

Hello Everyone!!  I'm doing a huge Happy Booty Dance today as late last night I finished my Mermaid of the Pearls!  So glad to be done with her!  I feel like she's been a mini-obsession for the last four months.  She was started on December 25th, 2011 and completed on April 27th, 2012.  The color conversion is posted as a separate page on the right side of this blog. 

And of course I have some close-ups!  She has over 3400 beads, 4 Swarovski crystals, 3 Mill Hill treasures and 31 fresh-water pearls. 

First, a close up of the beading on her body:

And here is a close-up of her face:

This is a close up of the cascade of beads and pearls.  I subbed petite seed beads for all of the kreinik in the cascade and fresh-water pearls for the Mill Hill pebble beads.

I chose to substitute the Mill Hill heart treasure for a Swarovski Crystal Shell.  Here is a close up of that shell

And the last picture I want to share is of the frame I bought and plan to frame her in.  I think it suits her really well.

Thanks for all of the support and encouragement while I worked on her!

Also, I'm leaving the giveaway contest open until Saturday night at midnight CST.  If you'd like to enter, please comment on the previous post.

TTFN!

Another Giveaway!

Hello Everyone!  I cannot thank you all enough for following me in my cross stitch journey!  But I'm going to try!  I said when I reached 50 followers, I would give away a stitcher's eighth of hand-dyed fabric!  Any type, any count as long as my LNS has it. :)  Please leave a comment on this post with type and color you'd like and I'll print out the comments and pull one out of a hat.  I thought that would be the most fair way to do it.  So please let me know what color fabric you'd like and I'll have fun dyeing it for you!

I also wanted to acknowledge two special ladies and their blogs.  They gave me more Liebster Awards and I'd love to share their blogs with you.  First is Jocelyn and her blog Stitchy Minds Think Alike.  She is currently working on two Mirabilias and a Mirabilia Round Robin.  The second is Amanda and her blog A Stitch Menagerie.  She's almost done with Mirabilia's Summer Queen and she's a great person to contact to order Mirabilias, beads and other fun stitchy stuff.

Sorry this post has no updates or pictures.  My camera and I are in an argument right now and it is winning.  TTFN!

Persephone's Pearls!

Hello All!  I hope everyone who is reading this is in good health and good spirits!  I've made a lot of progress recently and I can't wait to show it off!

I finished Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea rather quickly.  It didn't have a whole lot to it but I'm betting the next 8 parts have a lot! 

I did not backstitch the oyster shells yet.  I think I want to backstitch them in long stitched with two strands and I don't think those will hold up well under the q-snap clamps.

I also finally finished all of the stitching on Persephone and started beading.  I'm thinking it will take several weeks to sew all of the beads, pearls and crystals on her.

She doesn't photograph well at all.  I tried a flash and natural light but this is still the best I could get.  Here is a close up of the fresh-water pearls in her hair.









I love the mauve pearls!  They sync so well with the colors!

I saw today I have officially 54 followers!  Now I get to offer as a prize a Stitcher's Eighth of hand-dyed fabric!  I'm still not sure how I will run the contest quite yet but I will let yal know in my next post.  TTFN!

Happy Easter!

Hello Everyone!  Happy Easter!  Or, as my brother-in-law puts it, Happy Jesus Zombie Day!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful day with family and friends.  I've spent a lot of time this weekend stitching and it has been wonderful!  In fact, I'm planning to get back to it as soon as I get off the computer. 

I actually have a lot of progress to show this week!  First, I finished the bottom of Persephone's tail.  The next step is to frog all of the blue kreinik as I plan to replace it with petite seed beads.

I'm also undecided about which color family of pink to make the bubbles.  Since I want her to look like she's in a pink ocean, I think the bubbles should be pink as well.  Once I'm finished with Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea, I'll pull the different pinks I'm considering and try to choose a family that will compliment the pinks already in her tail.  I'm really anxious to get back to her since I found the perfect frame for her on clearance at Joann's Fabrics.

I'm half-way done with Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea.  I want to finish Part 4 before I work on Persephone again and so I'm stitching as quickly as I can! 

 The designer calls for a pearl to be in the center of Deep Blue Sea and I thought that would make the center look bulky but she suggests using pearls inside of the oyster shells instead of dense rhodes stitches.  I think I'll probably do that as I think the pearls in the shells will even out the balance with the pearl in the center.  Here is a close-up of the oyster shell on the right with the pearl.  I still need to backstitch them but since a lot of the backstitching is long stitches, I'll probably wait until the end to backstitch them.

\Hopefully by next weekend I'll have Part 4 done!  TTFN!

Fabrics and Floss Tosses :)

Hello Everyone!  I'm super excited to show my progress on Persephone!  I've spent a lot of time with her this week!

I'm so close to being done I'm considering my next Mirabilia!  Floss Tosses aplenty today!  First, Merchant Mermaid.  I really want her to look like a vintage pub sign so I'm planning to stitch her on Ale by Picture this Plus.  Thanks to Amanda for recharting the words for me!

The next one I'm considering is Villa Mirabilia.  I love her dress!  I plan to stitch her on Fairy Forest Opalescent by the Crafty Kitten because I think the fabric and the very faint mottling won't detract from her very detailed dress.  It's also the only piece of fabric I have big enough for her!





The next one I'm considering is Enchanted Mermaid.  I'm stuck between Crystal Mirage and Crystal Meditation by Picture This Plus.  The colors shown are from the purple conversion I'm planning for her.  First, Crystal Meditation:

And this next one is Crystal Mirage:



I'm just not sure which one of those I want to stitch first! 

I spent some time this week dyeing fabrics!  I had a ton of fun!  Two of them are spoken for, but if you'd like to buy one of the top three, please let me know.  I'm selling them for $16 plus $2 shipping in the US.  For other countries, I'll charge shipping based on what the post office tells me.

This one is for my friend Vicki :

And this one is for my friend Cassie:

Thanks for sticking around for another long post, everyone!  TTFN!!!!



Liebster Awards!

Hello Everyone!  Until this week, I had never heard of the Liebster Awards.  Then both Kalu at Me, My Bubble and My Stitching  and Shazzump at Shuzzump's Stupid Little Corner both honored me by awarding a Liebster Award to my blog this week!  I have soooooo much  fun taking pictures and sharing all of my progress with all of you!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback and camaraderie I've experienced as a result of starting this blog. 

Liebster is a German word meaning favorite, dearest or beloved.  The Liebster Awards are awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers to spread the word and help newer bloggers gain wider recognition.

The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting.

1.  Choose 5 up and coming blogs (with less then 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.

2.  Show thanks to the blogger who awarded the Liebster to you by linking back to them.

3.  Post the award on your blog.  List the bloggers you are giving awards to with links to their sites.  Comment on their blog to let them know you gave them the award.

4.  Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know.



So the five blogs I'd like to give Liebster Awards are...

1.  Melissa at Honeybee's Hive!  Melissa is one of my favorite people and she works on some really wonderful pieces.  Her Dance Of The Graces alone is worth checking out her blog!


2. TJ at The Mirabilia Stitcher!  If you couldn't tell by some of the projects I'm working on, I LOVE Mirabilias and Tracy is very good at changing the colors around and making each project her own. 


3.  Dana at Thutmosis's Thoughts !  She has so many pretty pics AND she does bead conversions!


4.  Kate at Sunshine Stitcher!  Kate has many projects worth looking at, some of them non-cross stitch!


5.  Mel at Melanie the WIP Slayer! I love watching Mel's projects come to life!




Five Random Facts about Myself...


1.  I LOVE stitching to the John Mayer Pandora Radioor while watching random documentaries from the History Channel on Netflix.


2.  I'm a Washington Redskins fan.  Sometimes, I think I should hang my head in shame.


3.  I really love cooking.  I enjoy playing with different techniques and seasonings.


4.  I'm a beer snob and a wanna-be wine snob.  I enjoy dark brown ales and ambers the best.  The Husband loves Porters and Stouts.  If I could afford to spend the money on more expensive wines, I'd probably be a wine snob too.


5.  I really love Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel.  One of the most clever shows ever.  I even downloaded the soundtrack and made ringtones for my phone.  When my mama calls, I get to hear Squirrels in My Pants hehe.


Some Honorable Mentions:  I want to mention a couple of blogs that I enjoy reading that have more than 200 followers.


1.  Andie at StitchitAndie.
2.  Mel at Colours of the Outback.
and
3. Lesleyanne at Lesleyanne's Life in Stitches.


This ended up being a pretty long post!  I have some floss tosses and some new dyed fabrics to show everyone so tomorrow or Sunday I'll post again.  TTFN!

Part Three is Done! Yay!

As of 4:45 PM CST, I am 1/4 of the way done with Deep Blue Sea!  All four Coral Motifs from Part Three are done!  And of course, I have pics of each one!

Top Coral Motif:

Right Coral Motif:

Bottom Coral Motif:

Left Coral Motif:

Here is a pic of the whole piece as of right now:

I'm hoping to be able to give Persephone some love right now.  Maybe I can get the bottom half of her tail done!  I've gotten the fabrics in that I've chosen for Merchant Mermaid, Enchanted Mermaid, and Villia Mirabilia.  I'll post some floss tosses when I get close to finishing Persephone and maybe yal can help me pick my next Mira!  Also, I'm just 3 followers away from 50!  I will hand-dye an fat eighth of fabric for one of my followers when I reach 50!  Any color/ fabric/ count you want!  When I make it to 100, I'll do a fat quarter!  Thank you for following me in my stitching journey!  TTFN!