Winter Unicorn - The Final Countdown

Tomorrow is my best mate's birthday.  Winter Unicorn was finally finish finished.  I had bought a lovely white frame from Ikea earlier in the week to frame it for her.  I totally mucked up cutting the mount and had to bin it.

What to do, what to do?

Well, upstairs I had a piece of styrofoam or something similar so decided to make a cube finish instead.  Here are a few photos of the finished item.

 This is it with the fabric I used for backing.

You can just about see the stars in this shot.  I actually stitched the moon and stars with Kreinik blending filament rather than a pale blue DMC as called for in the design.

This is the bow I managed to make at the second attempt.  I am actually really proud of it.  Not something I often say about things I have done.

Sadly, Debbie wasn't in when I went round to drop it in but she rang later to say thank you.  She was thrilled that I had remembered her birthday (don't think I have ever forgotten) and wanted to know if she was to open it now.  I made her wait until tomorrow, because I am mean like that!  I can't wait for her to ring to let me know what she thinks of it.

Edit - the pin in the middle, next to the bow was removed!

Winter Unicorn - IT'S FINISHED!!!!!

I have literally just added the last bead to Winter Unicorn.  Here it is...

Winter Unicorn

Just a quickie of this week's progress.  I should easily finish it in time I think.  I am working across the bottom before going up the side.  I had the urge to do some of the backstitch as I went as I didn't want to leave it all until the end.

Winter Unicorn - this week's progress

This is how far I have got with my unicorn this week.  Sadly, I was out for 3 evenings so there hasn't been as much progress as I had hoped.  The bottom of the leg is pretty much the bottom of the design which will give you a rough idea of how much there is left to do.

Winter Unicorn

I finally realised that it is my friend's 50th birthday at the end of the month.  I can't believe she is going to be 50, she looks so much younger than me. 
So I quickly worked out roughly how many stitches there were left to do in Winter Unicorn and divided it by 28 which would leave me 2 days for backstitch, washing, beading and framing. It came out as just under 300 a day so may just be possible.
The top photo is where I was before I started and the bottom one is the progress after 2 days.

Progress and TUSAL's

I worked on Winter Unicorn for an evening and was quite pleased with my progress.  It is certainly a lot quicker stitching with one thread than two.  I seem to be the queen of the twisted thread which really slows me down.  I love how delicate the background is going to look when it is finished.

A little bit of progress on Home of a Needlworker.  I discovered that I had used the wrong green for the border.  Never mind though, it makes it more personal!

As all that blue is from Cinderella, I thought she should make an appearance in my TUSAL photo too. I am amazed at how many orts are in my jar already.  I suppose though with having been off work for the last 2 weeks, I have had the chance to stitch more than I normally would.  Shame I have to go back!

Crazy January Challenge - Days 6 and 7

Day 6 was Witchful Thinking from Pickle Barrel Designs which I was lucky enough to win in a giveaway by the designer last year.  Over half way through I realized that I was one stitch short in the upright of the letters stitched so far.  I looked at it, thought 'shall I unpick?' Very quickly that was followed by 'nah, it's fine' and I finished the last few letters off the same.  Now the question is...do I stitch the Witchful with one less stitch too, so they are the same height or as charted?

Witchful Thinking - Pickle Barrel Designs
fabric - Crafty Kitten, Bubbling Cauldron (second)

Day 7 was Winter Unicorn by Durene Jones.  As you can see I haven't had a lot of stitching time recently as there is an assignment due in.  2000 words on the depiction of the family in Peter Pan and 2 poems from 100 Best poems for children!  Thankfully that is now submitted and life can get back to normal for 2 weeks!