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!



No more starts as things are getting out of hand!

So on the rotation should be the Pale Blue Santa and I fully intend to do him in the evenings, or after three o'clock in the afternoon. So that gives me the mornings to get some things finished. The plan is to finish three things this week.

Firstly,

The September Calendar from Mill Hill, started last Friday.


Secondly, the Knotted Garden Biscornu by Polstitches Designs to go in my Bowl of Biscornu for August.

Thirdly, 'The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady' poppy card (cover kit from WOXS).

And finally Boo from Just Nan. OK so that's four things!

Anyway, this is where I'm at with the last three smaller projects.


On an update front. Sunday is Mary Wigham day and this is what she looks like so far.


And finally, here is Midnight Ride finished.


Whilst on holiday the rest of my family suffered from insect bites. Now usually I'm a magnet for insects of the biting variety. But not this time. Until, that is, we arrived back in the UK. Where, within the space of about an hour, I got bitten SIX times! The worst were on the ring finger and little finger of my right hand and on my right forearm. My ring finger became so swollen I could not get the rings off. My arm well, see for yourself. The two bites on my arm caused a hot, swollen area about FIVE INCHES in diameter, I'm not kidding. They are still weeping, and itching five days latter!

As they say on the news, 'Some viewers may find the following pictures disturbing'. If anyone knows of a cure/treatment for chronic bites then please leave a comment as this is beyond a joke.


Happy sitiching!

Back home to 'Blog of the Month'

This afternoon we arrived back home after a family holiday in Belgium. 'The Other Half' has driven over 1500 miles since August 1st! The only mishap occurred when we were about five miles from home when a large stone, from a lorry, hit the windscreen of the car and caused a very large circular crack. The man from Autoglass is coming out tomorrow to replace the windscreen. We happend to notice that in Belgium/France the Autoglass company is called Carglass, strange but true.

So with that number of miles travelled it's not surprising thet I managed to get quite a bit of stitching done. Here is 'Midnight Ride' a freebie from the Kreinik website.


It turns out that the border takes more than one bobbin of the Kreinik braid so I need to order another one to finish it off, also, I've not put in the glow in the dark stars as I need to order the braid for them too. But it's as finished as far as it can be, until the stuff arrives. I really enjoyed stitching this and can't wait to see it 'glow in the dark'. The next challenge is to find a square 'off the shelf' frame to put it in.

I also stared, and finished, as far as possible, Winter from Waxing Moon Designs. Another floss shortage is to blame for this. My Mum has the floss in her stash but forgot to take it with her on holiday so I will have to wait until she gets back to finish this one, as I'm not going to buy another skein just to do 15 stitches!


I also managed to stitch on Boo, from the Just Nan Over the Top and in the Tin series, but not really enough to show, as well as part of a cover kit from 'The World of Cross Stitching'. The latest edition of this magazine was waiting for me on the doorstep when I got home and this blog appeared in their, blog of the month, feature!


So if you are reading this blog as a result of the item in WOXS I hope you like what you see and pop back from time to time.

I'm off to catch up on all the stitchy blogs I read.

Happy stitching!

Impulse purchase!

So what do we do when we have a weekend way from The Railway? Go and visit another railway and work on their trains! Yes we are mad!

With a longish journey in prospect I decided to sort out my handbag stitching. The pin cube (Stitch-Creations SAL) will probably get finished, the Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu, with a bit of luck will be finished this evening and anyway it's not suitable for doing in the car. So that means I can start my Dutch Delft biscornu, I've been looking forward to doing this for ages as it's a bit different. But horror of horrors on closer inspection it's not symmetrical! Now do biscornu have to be perfectly symmetrical , that is, all four corners the same? So I went searching for something else. Eventually I hit the Kreinik website where I found a couple of freebie charts that have biscornu potential, for example Pearl Drops by Judy Dixon.

Then I came across this, called Midnight Ride,

Well needless to say I liked her straight away. Now I'm not normally one for impulse buys but ten minutes later all the necessary braid and blending filaments, some of which glow in the dark were on order. I'm thinking this will be my project for the Spooky Stitcher's SAL, despite the fact I have other Spooky stuff already in the stash.

The Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu looks like this, some backstitching and the beading to do.

Fingers crossed that I can get some stitching done this weekend. I had play with the chart for the Dutch Delft Biscornu, colour photocopy scissors and glue later and it looks like this.

I am still not happy with certain bits but I can correct them as I go. By the way the original design came from a book called 'Blue and White Cross Stitch' by Helen Turvey, published by Hamlyn.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!