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,