Gifted Gorgeousness, March Report

It will be a brief report from me this month.  I've worked on just one project, which I started on 16th February.  I would have liked to report it as finished, but I'm afraid I'm a long way from that!  I'm stitching this as a surprise gift for my niece, who actually gave me the kit.  It's a Dimensions kit (my first ever kit in over 30 years of stitching.  I won't bore you with the details, but just let me say that I have already decided kits are not for me!).  He's quite a beautiful Santa, and he is a little over half finished now. Well, I should say the design is a little over half finished - Santa is well on the way to completion, just the missing stitches in his hat (has to wait till I find matching floss - again!) and the rest of his beard to go. I hope to have finished him by the April report.

Santa's Secret - The Gold Collection Petites by Dimensions, Design by Patti Gay

I have no idea why he is on his side.  He looked perfectly upright in the pic I imported.  I also don't know how to turn him around.  Maybe I will have worked it out by April 15!

WIPocalypse Report (March)

I was astounded when I looked at my calendar and saw it was once again time for the WIPocalypse report.  This past month has just slipped by.  The topic set by Measi for this month's discussion is about what projects would be on the bucket list if money and time were not limiters.  Hard for me to answer - I'm pretty much out of wall space for hanging framed projects, so for me that is my major limiter.  Maybe a couple more Santa designs by Michele Sayetta / Dona Gelsinger  of HAED.  Perhaps a few more L&L Angels.

This month I have started Secret Santa, a Dimensions Gold Collection Petite kit.  My niece bought it to stitch, but a new baby (her first) has left her with little time for stitching, so she passed the kit on to me.  I will stitch it and return it to her.  It's actually my first ever kit, in 30 odd years of pretty obsessive cross stitching.  I can't say I'm impressed.  The fabric that came with it was Aida 18, a cut piece so neat that left no room for mounting on my lap-frame.  I didn't fancy stitching the design on Aida anyway, so I substituted 25 count evenweave.  The larger count size meant more floss used per stitch, and that combined with my wasteful floss practice of discarding any unused portion of floss each time I thread my needle with a different floss shade meant that I quickly ran out of many of the floss shades.  Fortunately I found a Dimensions to DMC conversion chart on line, and I have so far replaced 13 of the floss shades - and I'm not even half-way through the design yet..  My other major issue with this kit was the coloured chart - I found it difficult to read initially(particularly the green symbols) but I have adjusted to it over time.

Enough whining - here's a pic.  I'm almost half way through the chart (commenced on 17th February 2015), and I have done some of the backstitching as I went.

Since the last WIPocalypse report, I have also made up the ornaments I stitched for James, Alex, Chloe, and Dylan in January. And I have stitched and made up an ornament for Ruaidri & Edin.

 I also stitched a baby's First Christmas ornament for a new addition to the extended family, expected to arrive in New York this month.  I can't make this one up until baby arrives and is named.