Happy dance!

So much for the New Year's resolution about trying to post every week but in my defence things have been a bit hectic here, but more about that later.

In my last post I said that I was about to start Lady Scarlet's Journey for my Just Nan week on the rotation. This is how far I got!

This is stitched on raw linen so the colours have come out a bit funny.

When I first started this blog in January 2009 the first WIP to be features was the St Nicholas Tree Skirt from Dimensions.  This was the photo.

I am pleased to announce that it's finished!

Again not the best quality photo.  I included the scissors to give an ideas of the size of this project.  Now all I have to do is decide how to finish it off. It will not be a tree skirt, possibly a table cloth or wall hanging.  When it is fully finished I will post a, hopefully better, photo.

This week is the first of the school Easter Holidays and, at last, my husband and I are living in the same house!  Our first wedding anniversary is on Sunday.  We spent part of last weekend at the railway and then it was back to his to start to pack a few essentials, the TV, the PC etc.

Here is my old TV alongside his!

This week we also adopted a rescue cat from our local animal sanctuary.  We brought her home yesterday.  Her name is Bella and she is about two years old.   She came to the sanctuary via the charity Prevent Unwanted Pets, she was being used as bait to train fighting dogs!  As you can see from these photos she is settling in well.



Whilst all this activity was going on I was able to start and finish one of the stash enhancements my mum and dad gave me for Easter.  Here she is before making up.

Here she is made up.

This is Just Nan's Honey Bunny.  It was stitched on 32ct Vintage Country Mocha Belfast linen with the recommended DMC floss.

Continuing with the bunny theme I also finished off Just Nan's Tulip Bunny.  This fits a WhimZi frame which sits nicely on a small easel I found in The Works.

I have a couple more stitchy items to share with you but that will have to wait until next week.  With everything else going on Halloween Rules, on the rotation this week, has not progressed much so I'm off to remedy that this evening.

Happy stitching !

Next up is the hardanger!

I was pleased with my progress on White Nights last week. With three late-ish evenings at work and two nights of wedding stuff sorting This was my progress after two evenings stitching.

Over the weekend I was able to do a little more on my Heirloom Wedding Sampler but I noticed, when I had completed the first row Algerian Eyelets, (the second to last row on the photograph) that I had counted wrongly and was one thread out.  Where was the mistake? On the previous row so yesterday afternoon there was a major attack of the frogs as I had to unpick most of the weekend's work. Anyway, I managed to stitch it all back up and some more last night.

The next part is the big Hardanger section.  I am still yet to decide what to do on this, my fourth and final rotation week, so for now I am carrying on with this.  Mind you stitching with white on white is hard work and quite often I have to use the magnifier so I might intersperse the sampler with White Nights.  The again I might be tempted to start this.

It's the Finery of Nature, part of the Gold Collection by Dimensions. I have had this in the stash for years and was reminded of this kit when I saw that Daffycat has started it over on her blog. Anyway I haven't decided what to do but it is here on the sofa trying to tempt me!


Happy stitching!

WIPs, SALs and finishes

This week it was the turn of White Nights on the rotation. I managed to finish house number five, only three more to go.


This weekend I also managed to complete the cross stitch on the green ornament for the Christmas Design SAL.


So that's it for the WIPs and the SALs. Here are the finishes.

Firstly, Camp Wannasew.


As you can see I decided to stick with the suggested name rather than think up one myself.

Secondly The Autumn Arbor.


Sylvia has posted her chart for the My Little Heart SAL so that will be tonight's stitching project. Tommorrow I'm starting something new!

Happy stitching.

The Green Santa, some fabric and a new SAL

This week progress on the Green Santa has been so much better than the last time he was on the rotation.


I think this one isn't going to take as long as the others as his coat is short and not the trailing on the floor variety the others are wearing.

A few weeks ago I was sent some samples of fabric by a company called Dovestitch. They specialise in hand dyed fabric, Aida, evenweave, linen in a number of different counts. You can also ask for a number of different finishes, for example, opalescent. Further enquiries revealed that these fabrics are also colourfast.

This is a picture of the sample I was sent.


If you are interested in having a look, click on the logo on the sidebar. Accessing the site via this link should entitle you to a discount of 10%.

This week I came across a new SAL. Called My Little Heart it can be found on Sylvia's blog. The link to the post with the charts is here. I have made a small start, not really enough to show. This weekend it is back to the Timeless Elegance ornaments and, as Mary Wigham Sundays are no more, it's time to get my last UFO out of the Stash Room where it has been festering for about eighteen months!

Yoyo's Christmas Design SAL

I have signed up for Yoyo's new SAL here

It is called the Christmas Design SAL. All you have to do is pick a Christmas design, sign up on Yoyo's blog by December 1st and then send her a picture every month of your progress.

I have chosen to do this design


The kit is called Timless Elegance Ornaments and is from Dimensions (The Gold Collection). As per the SAL the aim is to spend one week a month on them.

Back to the rotation. So far this week progress on White Nights has been good. No pictures today but I will post my progress next time.

Another two items for the UFO pile?

That's how I felt on Thursday afternoon!

Let's start at the very beginning...

... a very good place to start. OK I'll try not to turn into Julie Andrews.

So on Thursday we packed up our stuff and set off to The Railway for 'Steel, Steam and Stars II'. Estimated departure time 09.00, actual departure time 09.30, not too bad. We got to the top of the road and I realised that I had left my allergy pills at home. As much as I like going to The Railway I am actually allergic to the place, or something there that's not at home. So false start No 1. We set off again. We managed to get a little further this time when The Other Half said that he had left his razor behind. False start No 2. So about fifteen minutes down the road I decided to get the Pale Blue Santa out. I then had a Victor Meldrew moment,

'I don't believe it!'

I had gone and left every single floss colour, and there are many at home, bar one! I think The Other Half did contemplate doing a U turn in the middle of the road but before he could put the brakes on I said that we were not going back, impressed? Well don't be. I had the Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu in my handbag, plus the one I'm going to do for May. I also knew that at my Mum's were the Red and Purple Snowmen from Shepherds Bush and four Jim Shaw Snowmen, I have been indulging in some more stash enhancement. Anyway the one floss colour I had was pale blue and that's the majority of the Santa. It was some hours later, whilst at my Mum's that I happened to notice that I didn't seem to have enough pale blue left. A quick check on the chart and I found that everything I had done in pale blue should have been done in two strands of white and one strand of turquoise. I frogged some of it and gave up. This is what it looks like.

The pale blue on the left hand side needs to come out.

So I changed to the Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu, and guess what I made exactly the same mistake on side two as I did on side one. More frogging! This is it corrected and added to.

That was Thursday. On Friday morning I opened the curtains and this was parked ten yards in front of my window.
If you don't know much about steam locomotives this one is 6100 Royal Scot and she is COOL, even without the name plates, which were put on later.

We had a fantastic Railway Weekend. All over the country photos are probably being uploaded as I type and there will no doubt be some great videos on YouTube. I've already dropped a few names in to this post but this one is the best, I had a long conversation with Pete Waterman, described on the radio this morning as 'Britain's most famous trainspotter', but the rest of the world know him from Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the pop production team who made Kylie famous. How did this one start? I said how much I had enjoyed his TV series on railways and in particular the bit where they showed you how British Railways made a ham sandwich look like it had two slices of ham in it when actually there was only one!

One last thing, in honour of my new blog my Mum got me a blog warming present, can't wait to get started!

Backstitch and French Knots

So it's back to 'The Red Santa' this week and backstitch and French knots is what I will be doing. Even The Other Half has said that he, 'The Red Santa', that is, is looking good.

I rashly said over breakfast that I might even get him finished this week and then it is on to 'The Blue Santa'.

Marking update 50/75 and 1/68, red pen is going into melt down!

Variety is the spice of life

On rotation I have

• Spring Arbor ~ The Drawn Thread (this week)
  
• St Nicholas Tree Skirt ~ Dimensions (next week)

That brings me to the first week in February and time to start the March picture for the calendar, I have sorted the threads all ready. Then back to the rotation. With a week per project I think I have a spare week so I might start something else, mm I wonder what?

This is the progress made on the Spring Arbor.