A Great Summer

Hello my friends. I'm telling you, the tennis season is giving me the perfect excuse to get my needle stuck into fabric. Farmhouse is still growing, and I've been stitching so much on it, I thought I'd show a before and after.

I told you my needle has been busy! And it was grande prix weekend, so that gave me a brilliant excuse to kick back and stitch too :D

In other news, I'm going on an adventure. This weekend, I'm off for three weeks travelling around Europe :D Me and Lawrence have got Interrailing tickets and we're off to see some amazing big cities. One thing, I've got to fit everything I like to take on holiday in this . . .

For a girl that's used to straightners, mirrors and daily showers, this is a little bit of challenge :P But I know it's going to be so worth it. And don't worry, I've packed travel hair straighteners :P

I'll be sure to post just before I go. I think I'll have even more done on Farmhouse by then. 

Best wishes,

My needle has been busy

By the time I got round to taking a progress pic of my latest project, I'd finished it! Here is my finished Halloween Medley by Heart in Hand, minus the decorative buttons.

This design was a perfect break from Farmhouse. I didn't use the recommended threads, just matched the colours with what I had in my stash. A mix of DMC, WDW and CC threads went into this design, and I think it looks pretty good. I know it's completely out of season, but I'm hoping to get a few Halloween/Autumnal designs together so I can decorate my room appropriately when the time comes :) And sometimes it's nice to just stitch what you fancy.

Since finishing Halloween Medley, I have returned my attention to Farmhouse. I'm onto the chicken couple now and I'm still enjoying every stitch! I'm in it for the long haul I know, but at least I can see it growing before my eyes.

I had a lovely time last week with a visit from my mum. She was doing a bit of a tour in the area, seeing various family members. She stayed the night and we got to go out shopping and have a wonderful meal out. And then this week, I've got Lawrence visiting today and we're heading out to one of my favourite places in Winchester, Cafe Monde, for lunch. Then on Wednesday, my sister is coming over for a visit and we're having tacos! It's so lovely that everything has shifted to a slower pace so I can see people and take the time to enjoy their company :) 

I hope you've all had a brilliant start to the week,

 

What makes the world go round?

Kindness!

For my blogaversary in April, I had the chance to give back to this wonderful blogging community of ours and offered a giveaway. Two months later (gosh, I'm terrible!), the winner Karoline received her goodies. I'm pleased to say Karoline loved what I sent, which is always the aim :)

Here's what was in the giveaway parcel . . .

I stitched up CCN's The Tea Room and finished it into a pin pillow. That's what took me so long to get the parcel out, I'm rather slow at finishing things.

Appropriate backing fabric I'm sure you'll agree!

Here's what the whole parcel contained . . .

I would love to do more giveaways. But next time, I'm going to FINISH the intended prize before I offer it away :P

And kindness was returned in my direction when Sadie from Stitching Up a Storm offered to send me the chart for a design I'd been admiring on her blog. I'm such a lucky Lion! I cannot wait to stitch up LHN's Moons and Stars - thank you so much Sadie!

Extra shifts at work have been keeping me busy, but I'm finding plenty of time to stitch. I'm hoping to get a couple more finishes ticked off my list on my day off on Tuesday. 

Back with a stitching update soon!

Best wishes,

 

Despite the weather . . .

. . . I know today is going to be a good day. I'm heading over to Glastonbury to spend a couple of nights with my parents. The best thing is, my sister is going to be there too! We haven't been together the whole family since January, so as you can imagine, I'm very much looking forward to it :)

I just thought I'd drop in with some stitching updates before I set off on the trains. I finished my sister's Hippo design. Oh dear, what an adventure this project was.

If the design look uneven in the picture, that's because it is. Oh my lovely sister, she clearly didn't have the patience for stitching, and I can just hear her saying "that will do" as she attempted to finish it. I have done the best I could, but she had six stitches where there should have been only two, or three rows instead of just one. Ah me, this was tricky, but at least it's done and ready to be transformed into an ornament :)

Farmhouse on the other hand is coming along a treat! Two out of the eight surrounding animals are complete, now it's onto the chickens :) I so enjoy settling down to my stitching nest and working on this one. It's going to be wonderful when it's finally up on display.

A close up of my finished horse and foal. The stitching itself is quite simple, mostly block colour on aida, but there is just so much of it!

I hope you're all having a lovely week. Me and my suitcase may have to battle through the elements to get to Glastonbury, but I know it will be worth it when I get there :)

Best wishes,

 

Summer WIPs

Good morning everyone! It's a grey day in Winchester today, hence the slightly dark photos. But I think you can still get a good sense of where I'm up to with my latest projects :) I thought I would do a round up of the four pieces I'm working on at the moment. I hope to get them all finished finished by September.

Starting of with the biggest one of the lot, Farmhouse. This was my first cross stitch kit I bought, aged 12. This is my second attempt at stitching it, because as I naive cross stitcher, I went wrong at every turn! Now that I've got a few years of experience behind me, this piece is coming along a treat. It's very large and I'm hoping to get it professionally framed, not like my handmade ones the other day - thank you for all of your lovely comments on those by the way!

Next up is an Anchor Humphrey's Corner design, Lottie. This was an inherited project from my sister, but she has only colour ordered the threads and stitched two rows of crosses. I'm quite far along with this one, the crosses are nearly all complete. However, there is a lot of tricky backstitching on this design, so it's one to do during the day when I can actually concentrate on it!

My third project is another Anchor design, this time Solo the Cat door hanger. I've completed another Solo project before now (in fact, it's still on my to-be-finished pile) and the similar thread colours require a bit of focus. This one also has a lot of backstitching, but I know it will be worth it.

My last project at the moment is this darling hippo. The design was from one of the cross stitching magazines and another inherited project. My sister had completed most of the bottom half, went wrong somewhere and put it down. It's Super Sister to the rescue to finish this cute design! This one is very simple, so I should have it finished up within a couple of evenings.

So that's everything I'm working on at the moment. I really want to get on and finish them all as soon as possible. There are already other projects in my stash calling out to me, including my UFO :S I'll have to get a picture of that another time. As soon as these current projects are done, I want to get work on Christmas things. I want a truly handmade Christmas this year, cards, decorations, cushions, framed designs, everything festive, everything made by me :)

One more picture to share. Thanks to some student ingenuity (read: a drawing pin and a metal paperweight!), I was able to mount Mississippi Riverboat on my wall. I now have two designs decorating my once bare walls and they keep making me smile. I know there's space for more! 

I hope everyone has had a great start to the week. I've got a couple of days off from work now, so Lawrie is coming for a visit and we're off to a party tomorrow night :) Best wishes to all, 

Time Well Spent

Good afternoon every one! I hope you've all had a lovely Friday and have got a pleasant weekend ahead :)

I'm making it my mission over the summer to make more time for craft and get a few things done. I counted my stitched-finished, but not finished-finished projects this morning. The magic number was 23!

(Only a few of the finished pieces I have lurking!)

I'm sure some of you will recognise some of the pieces above, I'm sure most of them have been featured on the blog at some point. I said to myself, it's high time I get these stitched pieces out on display. They've been hiding in a box for long enough! So, as I had a day off from work today, out came the scissors and the iron and I managed to tick three designs off my to-finish list :)

First up is Mississippi Riverboat by LHN. I think this might be my favourite finish of the day. The simple frame design fits the simple life of the characters. Really pleased with how this one turned out. I'm hoping to get it up on the wall soon.

The second piece made it up on the wall straight away! I know the pattern was from an old cross stitch magazine, either CrossStitcher or The World of Cross Stitching. I stitched up this one awhile ago and I smile every time I see it. 

The final design fitted perfectly into a frame I picked up at a carboot sale last summer. Gingerbread Cottage by CCN is such a sweet little design. I've put this one away so it can be displayed at Christmas time. I hope to create more Christmas themed projects soon, so I can decorate my room accordingly :)

Coming up soon, pictures of the 5 projects I've got my needles in at the moment. Quite unusual for me to have so many on the go, but a couple were inherited from my sister and I couldn't wait to get started on them. I hope I have many more posts about finished items. My room is going to be full to the brim with my creations and I can't wait :D

Best wishes to all, 

Getting the Job Done

Picture the scene. It's a drizzly Sunday morning, no more Uni work to contend with, no work at Cath Kidston today. You've got a whole two days ahead of freedom and you decide to get a few jobs done. The type of jobs that take a little time, but are very satisfying.

This was my Sunday yesterday. I filed away the last of my Uni work, did a little cleaning and had the best time organising my thread boxes. Call me crazy, but it was so relaxing to spend time sifting through all my threads and finally getting them into some form of order.

Some of you may remember that when my sister decided she didn't have time for stitching any more (I know, it's practically blasphemy! :P), she donated her stuff to me! She gave me a whole box of various threads and I had to go through and check off the ones I didn't have on my list. Then it was bobbin winding time! It's not my favourite job, but I had the grand prix on in the background :)

Look at all those lovely colours! Going through my boxes really made me appreciate just how lucky I am to have an abundance of crafty goodies. I try not to waste anything and any odd threads that didn't have numbers have gone into a pot, ready to be used to make up some card designs.

After a couple of hours, I was delighted by my efforts. I've got DMC threads in the two larger boxes, and the small box contains Anchor threads and a few unknown colours wound onto bobbins. I think they look quite pretty in a strange way :)

I'll be back soon with a post detailing all of my projects that I've got on the go at the moment. I've got one more meeting at Uni and then I'm officially on summer! I'll have to keep up with my independent studies of course, but there will be plenty of time for craft. I'm itching to get my sewing machine out and have a good play on that :)

Best wishes to all,

 

PS I have now also officially caught up with blog reading since the start of the year! Now I'm all up to date, I'll be sure to comment a lot more :)