Before-and-after pictures

I've been stitching on both the Mini Citrine and the Female Draenei 10 hours each. I've made some before and after photos for you guys (justbecause I love before-and-after shots myself):

The Mini Citrine

Before

After

Close-up of what I've been working on

The Female Draenei (artwork from http://www.saraforlenza.com/index.php by Sara Forlenza):

Before

After

Close-up of what I've been working on

 You can begin to see the bottom of her arm now. I am looking forward to see how that develops.

I have yet to receive the fabric I need to restart Envy by Marta Dahlig. I very much hope to get it during this week. I think I will stitch just about 1 page on her, before returning to my rotation and incorporate her (Envy) in it.
Until then, I'll stitch another 10 hours on the Mini Citrine. 

Happy stitching all!
- Cat

Female Draenei after 10 hours of stitching

My new rotation is now in place. I intend to switch between the Female Draenei and the Mini Citrine and stitch 10 hours on each of them. My rotation will in all likeliness change during IHSW, where my focus piece will be the Mini Citrine (I think).

Here's some pictures of the Draenei after 10 hours of stitching (and yes, I actually time how much time I spend stitching each time - that's just how much of a control-freak I am) :-)

Total progress on the Female Draenei

Confetti stitches have now been filled in

Progress on new page

I am not a fast stitcher, so I am quite pleased with the outcome :) I also enjoy the colours very much on this piece.

As always I give full credit to Sara Forlenza at http://www.saraforlenza.com/index.php for making this beautiful picture of the Draenei, that I am now able to stitch.

On a side note, I think I have made up my mind about the HAED piece "Envy" by Marta Dahlig. Both my mother and husband agree - along with mdgtjulie from Julie's and Yes Dear's Ravings (thank you for your comment!) - that I should do the full Envy piece and not a mini. I already started the full piece last year, but the stitches were way too small for my eyes. I will therefor restart the full Envy chart just with slidely bigger stitches. She'll be huge in the end, and she'll probably take forever to stitch, but I'm up for the challenge! ;-)

I will move on to the Mini Citrine for now. See you after 10 hours of stitching!
- Cat.

Small Draenei Update

So once again it's been a very long time, since I last posted anything here. Luckily I'm done with my exams (I handed in my last written assignment last Monday). After that, it has been an extreme Diablo 3 frenzy at my home. My husband and I both play the game, and it's amazing! I have already made two characters and intend to play them both through the different levels of difficulty.

I managed to stitch a little on the Draenei picture (by Sara Forlenza). You can find the picture in one of my earlier posts :-)

Bottom row, you can see the bottom of her belly and her belly button

Close up of my progress, May 21st 2012

As you can see I'm still missing some stitches in the bottom row.

I was also thinking, that I need to get some sort of rotation sorted. I read a post by Ewa (link to her blog: http://darkandfluffy.blogspot.com/) that she has a 10 hour rotation system, which I think sounds rather cool. Once my holiday really kicks off, I think I'll try that out for a bit, since I still feel like stitching the Mini Citrine,

I'm not sure, however, about Envy by Marta Dahlig. I started it last year, but the project simply seems endless to me, and the stitches are very small for my eyes. I was thinking about ordering Envy as a Mini and stitch her up in larger stitches? But so far, nothing is planned as such.

Happy stitching!
- Cat.

Another break, another start

Yep, I'm back after another long break. I am currently finishing my education, which takes up almost all of my time. I can't wait till I'm completely finished! My last exam will be in two weeks, after that I still have a written assignment I'll need to work on. All in all, I should be done with all of this in about a month from now.

I haven't really worked on the Citrine. Whenever I had some time to spare, most of it was spend on World of Warcraft. This actually inspired my new cross stitch design, since I've been wanting to stitch a Draenei for some time, simply because of the lovely colours (if you do not know what a Draenei is, and want to know, take a look here).

I finally got the courage to do something about this, and during easter I bought a program called PCStitch. It's a very simple tool that helps turn your pictures into cross stitch charts, and so far it works beautifully.

I've been a fan of Sara Forlenza's artwork for some time, and decided to stitch one of her pictures of a female Draenei mage. Since I do not have any copyrights to this image, I am not sure if I'm allowed to post the picture on my blog, but I'll throw you guys a link to the picture I'm currently stitching:

http://www.saraforlenza.com/gallery_art_zoom.php?zoom=artworks/dettagli/1194110938.jpg

I just love those colours, and I cannot wait to see how she stitches up.

Here is my progress so far:

Female Draenei as of April 9, 2012

As usual, I am starting from the bottom, which means there'll be alot of half-pages. I do not mind that at all, on the contrary, it makes me feel that I am finishing a lot faster. In the photo I have finished just about 1½ page. It is pretty hard to see, what it actually is so far, but I can tell you that the big blue patch is the background, and the purple area is most likely her cloak.

Hopefully, I'll get to stitch during the next couple of weeks, but I highly doubt it, due to my exam and written assignment (15-20 pages on theories about learning and teaching...-.-)

- Cat.