Awards, Silk & Framing

I got two blog awards within days of each other. First is the Beautiful Blogger award given to me by Jan. Thank you, Jan.

As with each award, there are certain rules:

• Accept the award
• Thank the person who gave you the award
• Add a link to the person who gave you the award
• Put the award on your blog
• Write 10 things about yourself others might not know
• Pass the award on to 10 others

So here are 10 things about me:

1. I love both coffee and tea. And Gummi Bears.
2. I play the piano. In fact, I have a Grade 8 qualification. However, I am ashamed to say that I have not touched the piano in years.
3. I have a HUGE thing for Forever Friends bear. Cutest bear in the world!
4. I am a complete bookworm and my favorite books are romance novels. I also collect books. If I have a book from a series, I usually end up with the whole series.
5. I love watching Stargate TV series.
6. I visited Phuket, Thailand for vacation three times within the last two years. My partner loves that place!
7. I speak three languages (English, Mandarin and Malay) fluently and two dialects (Cantonese and Hokkien) not so fluently.
8. I love assembling jigsaw puzzles. The more pieces, the better. I like the challenge.
9. I met my partner online through a dating website.
10. I play World of Warcraft and my main character is a druid.

My second award is from mbroider. Thank you!

Once again, here are the rules for this award:

• Put the logo on your blog or within your post
• Pass the award to 12 bloggers
• Link the nominees within your post
• Let them know they received this award by commenting on their blog
• Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award

I'm gonna bend the rules a little. For BOTH awards, I nominate the following bloggers:

• Andie of Stitchitandie
• Chiloe of Chiloe's Corner
• Christine of Mtrl Girl's Material World
• Cindy of Stitching Corner
• Dani of Dani: Black Belt Stitching Wizard
• Dovilė of Žydinti svajonių pieva
• EeKoon of CraftyPretender Projects
• Elizabeth of Sew in Love
• Hazel of Quietly Stitching
• Helen of Stitchery Nook
• Lillie of Home of a Little Needlecrafter
• Lisa of Lisa's Blog

As to what I've been working on, I'm two thirds done with Berry Time.

Did I mention I love silk? Especially variegated ones which this project shows off to perfection? If I didn't, well, once again, I LOVE silk!

I've switched back to stitching on Love With A Capital L for now. This is the progress so far:

I would like to personally thank Christine here for bringing to my attention some discrepancies in the bottom half of the design which the stitches were not centered properly. She has recorded the errors on her blog here if you need more details.

Now that's done, look what came home from the framers last week.

This was presented to Adeline on 22 March, her birthday. I'm happy to report that she was trilled with it though I gotta admit I mentally facepalmed myself when I had to literary explained to her that the kitties represented her two cats. She unwrapped it, took one look and went "Oooooh... a black cat and a white cat! So cute!" >.< In her defense, we were in a karaoke room with dim lights but still...

And here's Esperanza again.

She is awaiting the arrival of my partner. Hence, I won't be online much for the next couple of weeks. He will be here in Malaysia as will his brother who is visiting Malaysia for the first time for the Formula One race this coming Sunday.

The Finish Line

Two post in two days. That must be some kind of record for me. Well, I changed my mind and decided to bead Esperanza after I posted yesterday. She's intended as a Christmas present for my significant other. Thus, I'll be having her framed soon either way. So here she is in all her glory :D

Design: Angel of Hope
Designer: Lavender & Lace
Fabric: 32 count Silkweaver Skye Reflections Lugana
Fibers: DMC, Kreinik #4 Braid & Hand Dyed Fibers Silk
Embellishments: Mill Hill Beads

What's a happy dance without closed up, detailed pictures? So once, again, here we go ^.^
I just love the beads forming a halo around her head. For anyone who's interested, I attached the beads with invisible thread so in real life, they look like they're suspended in mid air.

Here's her harp. Another feature I absolutely love of the design. Heck, who am I kidding? I love everything about her. The sparkling metallic thread makes it stands out so much more.

Silk ribbons close up with more beads.

The result of the metallic swirls on the frills of her gown along with the flowers is gorgeous but they sure ain't too much fun to stitch.

More flowers, more beads, more of everything. Hehe...

Can't leave out the left side of her gown, can I?

Last but never least, she's been Esperanza to me for so long I had to embroider her name along with mine :)

Thanx for staying with me for so long. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

The Final Stretch

Here's the latest WiP picture of Esperanza. Let's compare my last WiP picture with the previous one... 10 days was all it took to finish the white on her dress. Now let's see how long it took for me to stitch the flowers and the metallic thread... one whole week! Now do you understand why I said they're a real PitA? Heh!

Anyway, notice that I mention that this is still a WiP? To anyone who is unfamiliar with the design, Esperanza is, in all appearance, completed. However, I assure you that is not the case. There are still some confetti stitches around her head and sides that I have yet to stitch. The design supposedly calls for DMC gold metallic thread which in my usual style, I've substitute with Kreinik 002HL Very Fine #4 Braid. In my opinion, it sparkles more ^.^ Now, can you believe I've used up nearly a full spool of it just on the harp and the strip of gold near her hemline? I'm afraid I won't have enough for the confetti stitches. Thus, I've decided to bead those stitches instead. I think that will give the design a more interesting depth. Since I won't be doing the beading until I'm ready to have her framed up, I guess Esperanza will remain a WiP for a while yet.

No More Frills

Finally! No. More. White. Yesssssss!
Yup, as you probably can tell, I'm trilled here. Why? What's so exciting about white? This, ladies and gentlemen, is why ^.^

Her dress is done and the frills is done. True, Esperanza is still far from being finished but other than the flowers, the strip of gold near her hemline and her harp, all of which will be a world of hurt to stitch due to the constant colour changes the flowers require and the metallic thread the strip of gold and harp demands, she's nearly completed.
You can bet that the next design I stitch will not and I repeat WILL NOT consist of any white or at best minimal white. So sick of white. I didn't keep track of the exact number of skeins I used on this design but five to six skeins is a good guess.
Anyway, gonna get back to her. The sooner I start on the pain... er... I mean flowers, the sooner it will be done :)

For Mikey

Yup, as the title suggests, this update is specially for my good friend Mikey who has been asking over and over again how Esperanza is going. So here you are, Mikey, a picture finally :)

What do you think? Not a whole lot of progress but still better than no progress. I'm a little concern about the yellow silk that bled some when I rinsed it a couple of weeks ago and stained the fabric a little around the ribbon's edge. Nothing too obvious but rather visible if you know where to look. I know, I've been boasting about the colourfastness of HDF silk and I still stand by my statement. Vikki never guaranteed that her silks won't bleed. Truth is this is a first. Thus, in my opinion, as far as the colourfastness of hand dyed items is concern, hers is still at the top of my list. I just hope when I wash it again after the stitching is done, I'll be able to get rid of the stain completely. Any tips on accomplishing that more effectively? Thanx in advance!

Silk Ribbons

Or more accurately, ribbons stitched in silk. I know, it's been a while since the last update on Esperanza. Finally, here she is again with the ribbons around her waist completed.

Remember I mentioned I had some changes in mind for the ribbons? As you can see, I've changed the colours to a brighter, more cheerful yellow. I reckon it's more striking this way. The reason why this update was so long in coming was because I had to frog and restitch it as my first conversion ended up being more brown than yellow. You know how much I love Vikki's silk so it's shouldn't be a surprise to you that I've opted to stitch it using that.
As usual, the picture does not show off the silk's subtle shine but I can guarantee you the texture difference is something to behold in real life, especially when cotton and silk are stitched side by side like this.
For anyone who might be interested of using this conversion as your own, here is the list:
DMC - HDF (DMC)
829 - Cerveza 4143 (783)
831 - Cerveza 4141 (728)
833 - Koi Gold 4219 (972)
834 - Koi Gold 4217 (725)
3046 - GoldRush 4225 (744)
3047 - GoldRush 4223 (745)
3072 - Haywains 4123 (746)
Hope you like it. I had wanted to take more close-up pictures but my camera batteries kinda died on me :( Now back on to the not-so-fun part... more white. Sigh!

She Can Fly!

Her wings are done and in the process of growing them, she taught me humility. Why? Because I had begun to think that a Lavender and Lace angel is an easy stitch since I've been making pretty fast progress on her. How? By teaching me the lesson of always, always double checking your floss colour before stitching. Look closely at her right wing and then compared that with my previous progress photo.

Can you spot the difference? Notice that the light grey in this recent photo is more pronounced? Yes, you guessed right. Apparently I had stitched it with DMC762 instead of DMC3072 as called for in the chart. I have no idea how I end up with DMC762 since it's not even a colour listed in the key. This is the first time that I've made a stitching mistake of this magnitude before. Let's hope I never do it again. Frogging such a very light grey among a sea of white is NOT my idea of fun. It's worse than having to restitch it in the right colour again. Finally, that's done. Her wings are finished. Now on to the fun part - her gown.
P.S. I would like to thank you for your kind words and encouragement regarding Esperanza. I'm constantly surprised that there are still visitors to my blog since I don't exactly post on a regular basis.

One Winged Angel

Here's a quick post to give an update on Esperanza. As you can see, her right wing is now completed.

One more wing then I'll have the most complicated part (in my opinion) of the design finished. She's a rather fast stitch so far and I'm loving her. All in all, taking into account that I chose the fabric and design on a whim, the combination is working out pretty nicely, I reckon.
Well, she's vying for my attention again so I better be getting back to her. Who knows, maybe next time you see her again, she just might be able to fly.