10 Years in the Making

Finally, my first happy dance since setting foot in Australia! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... drum roll...

Design: Love with A Capital L

Designer: Pappilon Creations 

Fabric: 32 count Zweigart's Vintage Country Mocha (marbled) Belfast Linen

Fibers: Hand Dyed Fibers silk (Flag II, Examplar BlueBerry Soup and Examplar Ox Blood)

Measuring 16"W x 27"H with a stitch count of 260 x 434, this is the largest piece I've stitched to date and looking back at my blog's history, it has taken me ten years to complete. Granted, I took a long hiatus in between but I digress.

So much has changed both in the stitching world and my personal life that it was a rather poignant moment when I put in the final stitch. I remember back then, forums were popular with stitchers and Google Reader was still around. Those were my main stitchy update resources. Nowadays, it's mainly Facebook and the occasional blog.

While we're still reminiscing, I realised that there are quite a few Mirabilia WiPs that I started in 2012 and 2013 that I've yet to show. Ah, that was quite a tumultuous period in my life and haphazardly starting new projects seemed like the best way to keep myself sane.

First, there's Touching the Autumn Sky on Crafty Kitten's Lavender Mist Opalescent Belfast.

This design reminds me of the times my mum took me to the playground when I was a little girl. I love the swings best. This will be a gift to her when completed, whenever that may be.

Then, there's Red on Sparklies' Winter Skies Opalescent Belfast.

Lastly, the first Mirabilia design I fell in love with... Mermaids of the Deep Blue on Crafty Kitten's Aurora Opalescent Cashel.

I believe I started this on 8 December 2013 as a birthday pressie to myself. I have to admit that the amount over over one skin is rather intimidating.
By the way, I'm sure most of you have seen the latest Mirabilia by now? It's been a while since I've been this excited over a new release. I've already ordered her and is impatiently awaiting her arrival. In the meantime, I've been playing with my fabric stash trying to find the perfect backdrop for her. I think I've found it... Miss Cherry Blossom on Polstitches Crocus Opalescent Belfast. What do you think?

Well, this ended up being a rather long post. Till next time, Happy Stitching!

6 Years Later... Still A WiP

It’s been a while since I’ve cross stitched and even longer (six years, actually) since Capital L has seen the light of day. Finally, here is the latest (and final) WiP picture before I have a happy dance, hopefully before the end of the year.

   

Only the borders left now. Wish me luck!

Back to Love

While waiting on the next two parts of Romantique Sampler, I decided it's way past time to pick up Love With A Capital L again. I had last stitch on it in March 2010. It's been more than a year! Where has the time gone?

Anyway, I finished another section of it last Friday. There were some charting errors so I had to make some minor adjustments to centralize it.

I love this motif.

Always Protects, Trust, Hopes, Perserveres.

Another close up.

Now it's back to Romantique Sampler and the new iStitch Mystery SAL that just started.

Happy Stitching!

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.

Goodbye, 2009

Happy New Year, everyone! This would be my last post for Year 2009. I hope everyone has enjoyed their holidays. It occurred to me earlier that I probably should make some New Year Stitching Resolutions. Now, I never have done so because that would mean putting restrictions on a hobby which would in turn make it not as enjoyable but with my WiPs and stash piling up, I figured I'll make one (yes, just one :P) New Year Stitching Resolution and that is to at least finish five (can you tell I'm not ambitious? LOL!) projects, be it WiPs or a new start :)

Anyway, as usual, I've been stitching some but not a lot. Made more progress on Love With A Capital L.

The top half minus the border is now completed. Onwards to the bottom half. With only two colours to switch between, this is such a relaxing stitch.

Capital L is Back

After months, actually, make that more than a year, of hibernating under my constantly growing pile of WiPs, Love With A Capital L by Papillon Creations is finally in rotation again.

Maybe it's the season. After all, Christmas is a season of love but more than likely it's encouragement from Mikey and a suggestion from my SO who said that he would like to see me stitch something different, like letters or even a famous quote after my angel. Well, I've taken both their advise to heart. Nothing could be more famous than a chapter from the Bible, right? Either way, enough talk. I'm sure you would be waiting for a picture by now so here it is.

I know, I've only finished the flower movif from my last WiP picture but an update is still an update. Heh! I hope you're not disappointed. Anyway, I'll leave you with this close up picture. I'm loving the colours. Also, did I mention stitching with Vikki Clayton's silk is a luxury?

The Capital L

As you can probably guess from the title, yes, I finished the "L" of "Love With A Capital L". Thus, without further ado, here is a close up picture of "L", stitched with Vikki Clayton's Flag II in premium silk.

It took me about one week to finish stitching this! Surprised? Well, I wasn't joking when I said I find it complicated. I think a huge part of that is because I was trying to get the reds and blues to flow nicely against one another so that it would give the illusion that the "L" is actually made out of one length of thread, especially at the parts where it crosses, it would be either red above blue or red below blue and not just a single colour. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm making a muck out of my explanation. Anyway, that effort combined with the frogs that visited uninvited, all I can say is, I'm surprised I got it done in a week. Thankfully, I'm stitching with Vikki Clayton's silk which from what I gather from forums and other stitcher's blogs, doesn't fray so easily. That has certainly proven true to me for I was able to reuse the floss even after frogging. And here's a picture of how the whole piece looks to date:

Flag II sure does matches perfectly with my Examplar Blueberry Soup and Ox Blood, doesn't it? My only regret is that there isn't more purple in the floss to truly make it a tricolour thread. Oh well! I've put this away for now to work on Passione Ricamo's Blond Beauty Cameo. I'm so, so close to a finish I can almost feel a jiggle in my body. A happy dance is certainly on its way. Stay posted!