Getting Going Again

Kathy starting this SAL again was just the incentive I needed to get me working on Celtic Autumn again. Previously I was finding that I liked to work on her on Sunday but the Wimbledon Final got in the way of that this week so I picked her up again on Monday. I set myself the target of finishing off one of the braid cards I had and getting the trim on the bottom of her dress done.

As you can see I actually ended up doing a little more than that, but that was because I didn't achieve everything I wanted on Monday so I worked on it yesterday as well.

All but the metallics and the beading...

Well, I finally got a fire lit under me to finish her. So I've put in quite a bit of work and as you can see, I finished up all the DMC cotton full crosses. All that's left to do now is the metallic and the beading. She is a focus for my home stitching this month, so we'll see if I can git 'er done, (in the words of Larry the Cable Guy.)

Celtic Spring

Lavender & Lace

WIP as of 4/27

Celtic Spring

Lavender & Lace

WIP as of 7/5

I meant to post this before I went away.

I hadn't realised it was so long since I'd last posted any pictures of Celtic Autumn (in January) on this blog.

I have been working on her over the last few months, although not on a regular basis. She's now too big for my hoop and has been transferred to my scroll frame.

I shall now make an effort to stitch on her at least once a week and to post updates on here each week.

UFO Night Maybe?

Just did a long post which blogger then ate!
Anyway, in short, rotations aren't working for me at the moment and so for some time I've just been stitching on what screams, which hasn't been my Celtic Autumn...
But I've been thinking that I really do want to make progress on her somehow, and so have wondered about choosing one night a week when I work on her, call it a UFO night maybe? Not sure on a night, maybe Monday would be good for me, but don't suppose it matters as long as I can do one night a week. Even one stitch would be better than nothing right?
At the moment I'm doing a course and that doesn't finish til the UK school hols start in 3 weeks, so til then my stitching time is tiny and I don't want to commit until I really can make an effort. Would anyone be interested in joining me just to put some stitches in your Celtic each week, one stitch or one hour, or one night, anything?

Still here too

I'm still here as well and will hopefully be picking Celtic Autumn back up soon.

I had to put her away for a while because my needle paints went missing. But they've turned back up now, somewhere I looked several times too! So I've no excuse to leave her sitting in the box of UFOs.

Lets get this SAL going again

Hi Ladies

Hope you are all well, sorry for not coming on here very often. Things have been a but hairy here, but I am ok and back to my old self, and raring to go.

Right first things first, lets get this SAL back up and running. I shall be getting Celtic Summer out this Monday and really cracking on with her, and will start posting pics, would love to see updates of any that you have been working.

Hugs

xxxxxxxxxxx

Finally some progress

Sorry for the really lousy pic and the lack of ironing, but time is limited these days, lol. I'm working a rotation so I'm finally able to say that I made some progress. I managed to get a good section of her dress done on the lower right hand side. Who knew that it would take so long to stitch a skirt?

Celtic Spring...

Well, the recent posts of completed Celtic Springs were definitely inspiring...I managed only to get a few hours done on my lady this last month. However, I am almost done with the metallic swirls in the skirt and as you can see, I'm moving into the purple & dark blue of the skirt now. It's really not that far to go and after Celtic Noel, I know how fast the beading goes when you put needle and thread to work.

Hello, I'm new!

Like you all, I'm in love with these ladies! I've completed Celtic Spring and have Autumn and Winter waiting in the wings. I try to stitch one project at a time and have other projects waiting their turns as well. I've been browsing through all the status pictures and LOVE what I see! Beautiful work everyone!

I've added my picture of my completed Spring.

And a little about me: my name is Kristen, I've been stitching for years, self taught and am still learning! I have three young boys, so have only recently been able to pick up my stitching again.

Hi Everyone Kathy Here

I know Karen won't see this, but I want to say thanks to Karen for entrusting me with this blog, whilst she has no internet connection.

Any problems please let me know, hope to see you all posting again soon, I am gonna hopefully get back on track next month once I have finsihed my Dad's birthday present which is a Dimensions kit called The Guardian.

Would love to get this SAL back on track.

Change of Moderator

Hi Everyone

Just to let you know that I will be offline and without internet access for the forseeable future. Kathy has very kindly stepped in to keep this blog going.
"
Wishing you all well in your stitching endeavours and hopefully I'll "see you all again one day!

And Kathy ... THANK YOU!

Karen

Celtic Spring!!

Oops I had forgot to post here that on the 7th April I had finished Celtic Spring

So here she is!




I have Celtic Winter to do next although I am tempted to do an alternate colourway!

Celtic Winter as of 4/12/09

Greetings stitchers! I'm new to this blog. My name is also Karen, same as Little Cat. I'm from Edison, NJ and have been stitching for a year and a half. I've been obsessed with it as many of you are. I began the lovely Celtic Winter on 4/1/09 and it was my first time stitching over 2 threads. It took some time getting used to and I still have more counting mistakes than I ever had with Aida. However I do really enjoy how smoothly the floss glides through the holes! This is what I've done in 2 weeks.

I have a question about the gold braid. The chart says to use 2 strands of floss or gold braid. I tried doubling 2 braids for a couple stitches and found it to be too thick. So I've been using just 1 braid strand and the coverage looks okay to me. Have any of you been stitching with 2 braid strands? Is that what you're supposed to do? I believe there's gold braid in all of the Celtic Ladies.

I had a similar problem with the White Wisper which is only in Celtic Winter. The chart calls for 2 strands of Wisper with 1 strand floss. I had to frog the first row 4 times, first trying 2 Wisper and 1 floss (way too thick), then just 2 Wisper (still too thick), then 1 Wisper (too thin), then finally 1 Wisper and 1 floss, which seems okay. Sheesh!

I decided to put Celtic Winter on a short hiatus to complete a little 5"x7" project to hang at work called Pirate's Creed by Sue Hillis. Here's what that looks like: http://www.thestitchery.com/prodimagesZ/T19142C.jpg. I intend to post again when I'm back to stitching Winter.

Cheers,
Karen

After 16 hours of work...

Here is CC again.

You can see I've pulled all the DMC284Z since the first scans were done and I've finished all of the cotton floss DMC with the exception of some face details that I'll leave to the end. I put in 16 hours from the time I put her back on the frame until these scans were done. I decided to use the Rainbow Galleries Petite Treasure Braid. I found it a bit easier to stitch with than the Kreinik and infinitely easier than the DMC284Z. If only I'd realized the solution has been out there for years! Too bad I didn't put my heart into looking at the options in metallics before this. Oh, well. I plan to continue stitching her a little bit every day until she is complete.

Introduction...

Good morning. My name is Janice and I live in GA. I've been stitching for 30 plus years. I also crochet, knit, needlepoint (but only occasionally) and piece quilt tops. I have yet to actually quilt anything. Of all my hobbies, cross stitch is by far my favorite. Last year I ran across this blog when I went looking for inspiration to finish my Celtic Christmas that I began more than 8 years ago, maybe even more. I proclaimed 2009 to be The Year of the UFO for myself and I've finished 3 smaller projects so far. CC was next up. Here is how she looked in mid-March although she appears much darker in the scans than she is:


The main trouble I had was working with the darned DMC gold that was called for in the chart. I just could not make this work regardless of the technique I used and was very dissatisfied with the results. Ultimately, I set her down then put her away until earlier this month. I went to an LNS a couple of weeks ago and got both Kreinik and Rainbow Galleries petite treasure braid to substitute. Since these scans were done, I've pulled all the gold out and have almost completely finished the stitching other than the gold and the beads. (I plan to remove her from the frame in a couple of days and rescan her.) Unfortunately, now the real work begins, the part I've been loathing! The metallics and the beading, but mostly the metallic work. I can only hope one of the two gold substitutes will work for me.

I've enjoyed looking at all of the pics on this blog. Your work is lovely! I hope the pics of your beautiful Celtic ladies and you all will help inspire me to keep going! Thank you for letting me join this group.

Celtic Autumn

It's a bad picture, I know but at least you can make out the progress, lol. I finished up all the main stitching on the left hand border, finished up the bodice and am now working down on her dress. I am hoping to work on her a bit today and tomorrow with any luck. Heck I might even take her down to the laundry area to iron before starting back up.

Celtic Spring

Well, I think it has been a while since I have posted progress.
So here is my Celtic Spring so far!

A little to show...

Just showing you the swirls as that's all I'm working at right now. You can see the whole gal in my last post here. It's a little slow going--metallic threads is never completely easy--but at least there's not a lot of counting going on. I just have to pay attention to where the beads will go and leave those squares blank.

Sorry about the color. The photo is not so great.

Celtic Summer Update

I tried to post last week but I was having problems with the upload. So here are two progress photos, one from two weeks ago and the other from last week. I've been working on some other projects lately, but did manage to get some of the metallic stitching done during the past week.

Two Weeks Ago

One Week Ago

We've got a face...

and that's about all we have. I am hoping that February might find me a tad more inspired to work on the Autumn lady.