Page finish!

I set a goal for myself to finish page 1 of Farewell to Anger by the end of the year, and I did it! I actually finished it yesterday. For a little while, I was worried if I would get it done. Near the end of the page, I ran into confetti central and had several symbols that only had 1 square on this page. It got frustrating.
At the bottom of the page, those oranges/browns/reds. That has to easily be at least 2 dozen colors right there, if not 3.

Here is where I left off last:

Here is where I am now, with page 1 finished!

It's amazing how much I can get done when I don't have to go to work every day, LOL.
Also, my new fabric should be arriving today, so I will be able to have a new start with the new year!

Day 63-ish on 100 day challenge

I decided to keep with the 100 day challenge, even though I haven't been stitching every day. I want to keep motivated to continue with this project. I'm starting to get closer to a page finish, and that is providing quite a bit of motivation, itself. I have gotten a lot done since my last update.

Here is where I was:

Here is where I am now:

Based on where I have my Qsnaps, I won't have to move them until I get 4 pages complete. Yay! I'll move on to page 2 next, then page 10 and 11.

Stitching again.

I'm finally getting over that cold, and I'm feeling much better.
After not stitching while on vacation, followed by the ickiness, I think I temporarily lost my stitchy bug. I made myself pull out Farewell last night to put in some stitches, and it came back to me. Yay!

As I was stitching, I came to a realization. Lately, my stitchy bug has only really been popping its head up after I had gotten to stitching, already. I had to force myself to pull out the projects and get started initially. The 100 day challenge was SUPER helpful to get me to pull out the project and start working on it. Once I got a couple stitches in, I was good to go, I just need that extra kick to get started.
Have any of you guys had that issue? It's weird. If I let myself, I'll just sit in my chair and play games on my phone for a couple hours, instead. I would much rather do something productive that has a result that I can see and show off!

I have a craft fair this weekend, and I'm a little nervous. Up to now, I've had my niece with me at all my other fairs. She would always help me setup and take down everything, and would be able to watch the booth if I had to run to the restroom or go get food, etc. This weekend, she will not be with me. I'm mostly worried about getting everything setup in time. I'm tempted to go Friday night to get started a little early (since they allow this).

So, here is where I was with the 100 day challenge with the last update.

Here is where I am, now.

I am half-way through the challenge. I managed to get some more stitched in the top right corner area.

4 weeks of 100 day challenge, and my floss cone!

My cone has arrived! It's awesome! I haven't had a chance to actually use it, yet, as I am still using an older skein of black that I already had, but I am just waiting for my chance!

I also have another week done in my 100 day challenge. I am still stitching at least one stitch per day, but usually a lot more. I got quite a bit done over the weekend.

Here is where I was with my last update:

Here is where I am after the weekend:

I got a lot done in 3 days!

On Friday, my husband and I are flying to New Orleans for vacation, and will be back on Tuesday. I will probably pack this up and take it along with us, mostly so I can keep up with the challenge! I am really taking it seriously!

Another Farewell update and thread sale!

Everyone has been waiting for the JoAnn sale on floss, going on right now. I was excited about it, too, until I discovered it was only going down to $.40 per skein. This is still a great deal, just not as awesome as I was expecting. Before going off to kit up a new project, I decided to check the other store websites, and I found a coupon on Michaels' website for 30% off, which would bring the floss down to $.39. Not a huge difference, but when you are kitting up a HAED with 90 colors, it does help.

In purchasing all those colors from Michael's, I have learned some things:
First, I hate the way they have their floss organized on the website. I ended up having to search each one individually. It was a pain.
Second, their shopping cart has a limit of about 50-ish items. I kept adding more after that, not realizing that they weren't adding, since it didn't say anything. I just happened to notice that it said 51 for a while. I ended up having to place 2 orders to get all that I wanted.
Third, their exchange process for online orders is a bit of a pain. I ended up getting 2 of one color and was missing another, so I figured it was just a simple mistake and they would just swap it out, right? No! The cashier had issues with it, and ended up having to call over 2 supervisors to ultimately do a return and exchange.

Also, my new project calls for a LOT of black thread. So much, that I bit the bullet and bought a small cone of DMC 310! Woohoo, so excited!

Now, on to my progress so far on Farewell to Anger.
Here is where I was with the last update:

Here is where I am now:

3 weeks into the 100 day challenge

It has now been 21 days into the 100 day challenge. I have still kept up with my original goal of doing at least one stitch every day. In fact, there was one day this week that I did only one stitch just before bed, just so I can say that I did it.

Here is where I was last week:

Here is where I am now:

Because of this challenge, and because I want to see how far I can go if I only work on one project for 100 days, I will be only working on this project until the end of January. At that point, I may switch over to another project for another 100 days, depending on how well I do. Who knows?!

2 weeks into the 100 day challenge!

Up to now, I have been able to keep up with the 100 day challenge. Of course, there were a couple nights where I only put in one stitch, just to keep up and not miss a day, but I have been doing pretty well so far.

Here is where I left off with my last post:

Here is my progress:

I am stitching this on 28ct evenweave, 1x1, and it has been quite the experience so far. The stitches are so tiny, and starting/ending the threads on the back side is interesting, as well.
Also, the back of my project just looks so messy! This is the worst I have had a project look on the back, but I don't think there is anything I can do about it, really. The confetti with this project is killing me, and I am sure there are many other projects that are much worse than this one.


Also, in one of my stitchy groups on Facebook, someone suggested a 12 days of HAED, to start a new HAED starting Dec 26. I seriously gave this some thought. I love starting with people, but having 12 new starts, all of them HAED, would be too much. Plus, I would have to buy lots of fabric and floss, too. I decided against joining this particular challenge.

That being said, I already had assembled a list of the HAED projects that I would want to start for this, and there are 3 in particular that are still talking to me, begging for a new start. I have determined NOT to have a new start until I get at least one page on Farewell to Anger completed. In addition to that, I want to try to have another finish first (probably won't happen).
You guys reading my blog will, of course, be the first to know when I do finally cave and have a new start. It's only a matter of time, after all.
I know you guys understand.

One week down and IHSW!

Originally, I was going to be traveling this week for work, but my plans changed. My mom ended up in the hospital, so I stayed home while my husband does the traveling.
Since I have the house to myself, I'm hoping to have more stitchy time, too!

This weekend was IHSW, which is the International Hermit Stitch Weekend (that is held once a mont), and I am part of a 100 day challenge, too, to just stitch on one piece every day for 100 days. For the 100 day challenge I joined, I have my new start, which I used for both events this weekend. We are one week down so far, and here is how far I have gotten.

I'm hoping that with my extra stitchy time, I will be able to get a lot more done this week. If only I didn't have work to deal with, too...

Starting my very first HAED

I got to dig into Farewell to Anger for a couple days, and decided to give my initial thoughts.

First, I decided to do this one on 28ct Easy Count Lugana Evenweave. I am stitching this 1x1, full cross. The coverage with this configuration is great. When I was first planning on this project, I was worried about coverage and the different options that were available. I am quite pleased with the coverage that I have with 1x1 on the 28ct fabric.
But, Oh my Goodness, these crosses are so tiny! I haven't ever worked on anything quite this tiny before, and it is super small to me. I have done several hundred stitches so far, but they are all in one small area because it is so small.
Also, because it is so small, I have issues with ending the tails. I really do miss my loop starts, and ending the tails has been a bit of an ordeal. Granted, I usually have some problems with this at the beginning of any project, but since I have to secure both ends of the threads, now, it is super noticeable. Since the count is so small, it is proving difficult to run the needle underneath the stitches in the back to secure my ends. I'll stick with it for now (what choice do I have, really?). I'll post more on this, later, I'm sure.

So, here is where I started, LOL!

Of course, this being a new start, there is no previous progress to post. I did just start a 100 day challenge, to stitch on one project every day for the next 100 days, so I'm hoping that I get a good amount done in that time.

Here is where I am:

I also have gotten a little bit more done with Palace Garden.
Here is were I left off last:

Here is where I am now. I got some of the blue done as part of a SAL and since I didn't have very good lighting when I was working on it at the time.