Sew Dance

My progress on my cross-stitch. I've gotten to a point where I'm working in that cream/beige coloring and I'm thinking of switching. So, one guess that those fabric scraps from last week became a teapot cozy. Nope. Maybe this will be helpful. No? Maybe these? Still no guesses? Well, here's the finished product. A stuffed kitty cat! And this mess of parts... Became this. A love bug. And my cardigan has sleeves. Well, 1.5 sleeves. I'll go finish up the other one now.   Not the best photo. I'll get to work on the dress this week. I was worried I had lost two pattern pieces but they were stuck at the bottom of the envelope. And Dancing with the Stars starts Monday. Yay!

It's really the end of August already? Sheesh. Anyway, spent a bit more time this week on my cross stitch. Finished a shawl. It's currently being blocked. The rest of my yarn came. The patterns, the needles and the pink yarn on the left was a free gift due to a promotion when I ordered the rest of the stuff. And I started something new. Well, two new things but one ended up having mistakes in the pattern so I'm waiting on a response from the company.   This cute little kitten was hanging around the location I was filming at last Sunday. Bit skittish but I got it to bump it's nose against my finger. There was another cat, that I assume was it's mother, who was much more friendly.

First off, I reached 1000 views on my big. Not bad for just three months. Now when I was stitching on 'cats...' on Thursday, it wasn't really holding my interest. I figured it would happen eventually, the style doesn't fit with most of my projects. So up comes 'stitchers hangout' monthly theme SAL of 'blue.' First thing that came to mind was GK's 'mountain landscape with a castle'. The first route of pages are mainly blue sky. I took this picture before I started working on it again. This is 17 rows of 52 stitches on the first page. Below, is a picture of the fabric I'm stitching on. You can barely see the section I've done. I estimate the back is 1/8" thick with thread. I have to use size 5 embroidery needles and an adhesive leather thimble pad to push it through. I estimated a while ago that at the rate I can stitch on this piece even if I work on it 24/7 it will still take me over a year. I have a feeling it...

I promised pictures and I have them. Two at least. I'll eventually get action shots but for now you can imagine what happens when I spin. I do have long gauntlets/gloves that I wear with the dress but I forgot to put them on before taking the pictures. I had a long day at the competition, started at 10:30am didn't finish until probably 10:30pm. 61 dances, smooth and latin. Placed top 3 in all except one where I placed 4th. I'm not usually that tan and it still hasn't completely come off. And the white part of my french manicure is now a bit brown as well. I completely forgot to pick up the DVD I had asked to be taped and now will have to figure out how to get a hold of it. Overall I managed to win $600. Not anywhere near enough to cover the costs but more than I've won previously and should give my credit card a nice relief for next month. I had mentioned due to preparation for the competition, I wouldn't have much time for stitching. I was correct. Not...

An update on 'cats, cats, cats'. It's almost halfway completed. At least in terms of where on the chart I am. I believe the chart to be bottom heavy with the cross-stitches while the top has a bit more of just backstitching as indicated by the heart and randomly placed black squares. I did not get my dress back from my teacher so pictures are still not available. I'll have it Tuesday, I hope. I have to wear it Saturday and I still have a few things to do once he's finished stoning it. I did have it on last week and it moves really cool.

The larger stones I ordered came Monday so I spent most of the week adding them to my dress. Sparkly aren't they? 16mm square Swarovski crystals in crystal AB. I spent most of the week adding them to the dress. I have a solid row at the top and bottom of the dress and skipping every other one in the middle. I did this because I didn't know if I'd have enough to fill them in completely. Turns out I did but my teacher liked it that way. He currently has the dress and gauntlets to stone (hey, he offered) and I unfortunately didn't take a picture of the dress before I gave it to him. Well, better to surprise you when it's finished. Although he's gotten it in his head for me to make another dress, same design but different colors by mid-June. Right... First I'm doing the black velvet to go with that belt I have and I still have the sparkly blue/silver sequined dress to make. Just a little under two weeks until Tri-state. Eek! Because I finished stoning the d...