The Heirloom Wedding Sampler is finished!

As of today there are five weeks and five days to go until our 'big day'.  I finished the wedding sampler on Wednesday evening last week.  Here is the floral heart.

The design has two part rows of stitching at the bottom of the heart but I decided to leave these out as I thought they detracted from the heart itself.  The whole thing is too big to photograph in one go. I will have another attempt when it comes back from the framers.

So, for the evenings I had left last week I did some more work on Joy to the World.

This week is a free week as rotation wise, February seems to have had five weeks in it, strange I know.  So I have chosen to do something which should be quite quick, fingers crossed.  This is Spring from Jardin Privé, another design in the Maggi Co's Village range.

Next week it's back to White Nights as I should have six full evenings stitching!

Happy stitching!

Half term and Hardanger

Last week it was half term and a busy week it was what with spending a few days in Wales, at my mum and dad's, in Yorkshire and then back to Wales for the weekend.  Despite all this I managed to get quite a lot of stitching done.

Firstly the Heirloom Wedding Sampler. I had left it with all the Kloster bock set up for the Hardanger.  So armed with 'Basics and Beyond' and  'Fundamentals Made Fancy' by Janice Love I got going on the Woven Bars, Doves Eyes and Picots followed by Divided Wrapped Bars and a Curled V in a Fan.

As you can see I went on to do some partial and full Greek Crosses.

This section is now finished apart from adding three tear drop shaped beads.  In total, this was two days of stitching.  This weekend I was able to make a start on the final section, the floral heart at the top of the design.  This week is a free week on the rotation so I intend to do more work on this, starting with the remaining bullion knot rose.

In spare moments,  and for a change, I managed to get a few more stitches in to Joy to the World.

So last week on the rotation it was Halloween week.  Whilst in Yorkshire for a few days I was able to stitch the Happy Pumpkin Scissor Fob  from Shepherd's Bush. 

I wasn't too happy with the finishing of this, mainly the ribbon edging and how it was done, and I won't be doing any more of those unless I can find a tutorial somewhere that gives better instructions.  So that's my half term round up. I hope you all had a productive stitching week.

A quick round up!

So last week in the rotation it was 'Joy to the World'.  This is over half way there now, a lot of beading to do.

Not the best photo but the flash reflects off the paper too much.  At the weekend I was able to add a few more stitches to the Heirloom Wedding Sampler.  The next part really will be the Hardanger!

This week It was back to White Nights.  A couple of good stitching sessions have really moved this one on quite a bit.

This is a close up of the boarder.

It's fright night came back from the framers last week so here is this project in its bespoke frame.



That's a quick round up of my stitching fortnight. Next week is half term here in the UK so I have a week off work. On the rotation it should be a Halloween project, I will need to start a new one, and I haven't decided which one yet!

I hope wherever you are the weather is not too bad, it's freezing here and not looking good for the weekend, snow and more snow, not fun.

Happy stitching!

A romantic theme!

Last week I managed to achieve my aim with the Heirloom Wedding Sampler.  All of the Kloster blocks and other foundation work for the Hardanger section was completed by the end of Wednesday evening.

So what was I to do? I didn't want to do any more on this because, as I've mentioned before, stitching with white on white is hard work.  I had a late evening in school on Thursday and on Friday I was off across The Pennines to stay with my fiancee for the weekend.  So, like you do, I started something new!

As you can see I also finished it. This is the Potpourri Heart from The Sweetheart Tree.  This came in kit form and is stitched with DMC floss on 32ct opalescent raw linen.  The actual design is less than 4" x 4" and is really delicate. I might splash out and get this one framed professionally.

The reason for braving what turned out to be a horrendous journey on Friday evening, there was so much snow on one stretch of the M62 that they closed it, too late for me I was already trying, with difficulty to get through that bad section, was to go to York to pick up our wedding rings from the jeweller.

No prizes for guessing which one will belong to me!  This is the photo I like.

I'm sure there's something symbolic about it.

Back to Christmas stitching this week, fingers crossed Joy to the World will be finished, if not then nearly.

Happy stitching!

Thursday's post on Sunday!

So, totally forgotten by me was that I had to attend a presentation evening at school on Thursday evening, hence, no post and no stitching.  The rest of the week was not as bad for stitching.  At Christmas I my Mum gave my sister and me a Kreinik Stitch-A-Pen kit. Mine was Silver Snowflakes. Here it is stitched up.

And here it is inside the pen.

Before Christmas I bought a copy of Cross Stitcher magazine because I liked the cover kit which was some cross stitch gift tags. I have stitched four out of six of them.

I changed the Aida in the kit for 28cout antique white linen which made doing the fractional stitches easier.  This week was Christmas week on the rotation so as well as finishing of these gift tags, which I will use as tree decorations, I managed to put a few stitches into Mill Hill's Buttons and Beads Winter Series, Joy to the World.

To be truthful the Heirloom Wedding Sampler has had quite a lot of time spent on it tis week, well I am working to a deadline.  Here are the latest progress pics.

I changed the type of letter and the colour from that suggested on the chart.

I'm really enjoying doing this project. There are only two, maybe three more rows to do before the Hardanger section at the bottom. The embellished heart is the next thing to do at the top but that will be the last thing I do as I don't want the stitching to get squashed in the scroll bars.  This week its back to White Nights.

Happy stitching!