The frogs are back in town!

This weekend I managed to finish the Frog Biscornu.


This was done as charted. The beads for the centre were raided from my Mum's stash and Mill Hill petite glass beads #42042 were used along the seam. The frog charm was also from my Mum's stash, she had a bag full!


This was the progress made on The Summer Arbor, The Drawn Thread, by the end of stitching on Friday.


I did not make as much progress as I had hoped as I did ALL of the second tree in the wrong colour, more frogs!

On Sunday I stitched on Mary Wigham. I am intending to do most of the sampler in Caron Wildflowers, Blueberry. However, I thought this might make the whole thing too dark so I decided to use Azure Skies and/or Blue Lagoon from the same range. The top motif is done in Blue Lagoon. I like the colours but the changes are not as subtle as in the Blueberry and I don't know if it's too much. So I am not going to finish this motif but do the next one or two in Blueberry. Deep down I think this motif might also get frogged but I will wait and see how it looks when I have done some more.


Here are two more re charted motifs for those who would like their motifs to be symmetrical, but remember I may have made mistakes too!

Firstly Part 1/2 motif charted in DMC 3052


Secondly Part 2 motif charted in DMC3768 (corrected 23/8/09)


(Added later) Small motif charted in DMC 225. This one can be moved two stitches over to the right from the charted version.


This week sees the return of the Pale Blue Santa, more frogging required before I can start that one, click here to see where I got up to last time.

Now I'm off to mow the lawn. A process which sends the frogs that live in my garden jumping into the pond, where they truly belong!

The Queen is in ...

...the building. More about that later.

On Thursday I finished the July calendar from Mill Hill.


This weekend was quite busy. On Friday we travelled up to London by train. It was The Other Half's birthday and we were spending the weekend with his family. On the way I managed to complete, well sort of, the backstitching on my Teepee Teddies doorhanger UFO. You can find out more about that on my 'I've started so I'll finish eventually' UFO blog here.

We started our London weekend with a celebratory glass of champagne in the champagne bar in St Pancras International Station. This picture is a cheat really as I think I did one stitch!


On Saturday six of us went to the Epsom Derby, hence the title of this post, because so did the Queen.


The Royal Standard, which is flown wherever the Queen is 'in' is the one on the left. And yes, it was a cold, wet and windy day! One of The Other Half's birthday presents from one of his sons was a bet on The Derby. After some close study of the form a horse was chosen and guess what, it won, coming in at 3:1. So a £20 birthday present became £80 ish. This, by the way was the only win of the day. The Other Half won more than he lost but for the others in the party it was the opposite, they just lost, except for me as I don't bet. The eventual winner is the one in yellow, I think!


On Sunday morning we took in a bit of 'culture'. We went to see the bollards sculpted by Antony Gormley. Whese are found in Bellenden Road, Peckham SE15 and were commissioned as part of a road renewal scheme.


It was about 11 am and these metal bollards were already warm to the touch.


Back to the stitching. I managed to make good progress on a new start. The Frog Biscornu.


This is a freebie from Casey Buonaugurio.

My linen and floss for the Mary Wigham SAL was waiting on the doorstep when I got home last night so I made a start on that. I am doing it on the 32 ct Permin lambswool, with Caron Waterflowers Blueberry.


This week on the rotation I am starting the Summer Arbor from The Drawn Thread. Watch this space. Happy stitching!