Update time!

Last Monday I switched on my trusty laptop so that I could show the world my stitchy progress and the Internet was down and remained so for most of that evening. I then got bogged down with marking, let's not go there, but it's that time of year again!

So, previously, it was the Christmas week on the rotation. At last, Joy to the World got finished.

At the end of that week we went up to Edinburgh, my second weekend there on the run. This time it was to pick up the kilt and various accessories ready for 'The Big Day'.  I was able to do some more stitching on Official Crazy Cat Lady.

Last week on the rotation was Halloween week and I made a new start.  The Spooky Greetings Bell Pull from Waxing Moon Designs.

This week it should be a free week on the rotation but instead I'm going to stitch  White Nights, as next week, it's usual slot I will be otherwise engaged with final preparations for 'The Big Day'.

Whilst in Edinburgh I was given the plate that we decorated on my Scottish Hen Do.  It came out better than expected. See what you think.

With a bit of luck, normal service will be resumed next week with the normal Monday post. Until then ...

Happy stitching!

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!

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!



The final finishes of 2011, the first of 2012 and a Wedding Sampler!

Happy New Year to everyone.  Just a quick post as this is the last day of the holidays and I want to get in as much stitching as possible.

Before Christmas I finished the Silvery Tree from the Mill Hill Festival of Trees series.

My Mum gave me a stitching project on Christmas Day. I don't usually see my family until New Year, and this Christmas Day sewing project has become a bit of a tradition. This year it was Santa's Sleigh Ride by JBW Designs.

This was stitches as charted with a mixture of the recommended Weeks Dye Works floss and DMC alternatives on the 28 count Antique White Opalescent linen provided in the kit.  I did Santa's beard in cross stitch instead of the recommended French knots.

My first finish of 2012, completed this morning, is The Pink Snowman from Shepherd's Bush.  If you remember, I left the original kit on the train, but fortunately not the stitching itself!  Anyway a replacement kit arrived from America just before Christmas so I have been able to finish it sooner that I thought.

This Year the rotation is back, and Farmville on Facebook has been blocked, as this was seriously eating into stitching time!  At the moment to rotation is looking like it is going to be White Nights, a Christmas project, a Halloween project, and something I haven't decided on yet, each for a week.

For Christmas my Mum gave me the stuff to do the Heirloom Wedding Sampler from The Victoria Sampler. Here are some photos of my progress so far.

As I am getting married on April 7 and I want to have this completed before 'the big day' the rotation may not quite work to plan as I will need to do a little on this every week.  This is what I will be working on for the rest of today. Hopefully more progress photos of this weeks stitching on Thursday.

Happy Stitching!

A different type of stitching?

Today I finished my final Christmas ornament, another Santa from The Prairie Schooler. I've stitched this one five times now!  I ran out of gold beads so two of them were finished with green ones.

My gift from 'Secret Santa '  this year was a small stitching project which I started yesterday and finished today, Appropriately most of this was stitched on a train. I made sure I left nothing behind this time!  I'm not sure how I will finish this one.  At the moment I'm thinking of buying a paperweight, I think Framecraft do them, and finishing it that way.  I changed the aida for linen but apart from that this was stitched as charted. The design is called Steam Train and it is from a company called Mouseloft.

My next piece of train stitching will be The Silvery Tree from the Mill Hill Festival of Trees series. This is the last one to stitch as I did the other five last year. As you can see I've made a small start.

The cross stitching may take a back seat over Christmas and New Year as I have a different stitching project to do.

Yes, it's Sara Lund's red jumper from the second series of the Danish thriller 'The Killing'.  Only as you can see I'm doing mine in a teal like colour, not red. 

This is likely to be my last post before Christmas and possibly until the New Year.  Next year the rotation is back!

Until then I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a happy New Year.

At last a finish!

At long last I have a finish! Halloween Night by Mill Hill was finished this week.

This looks better than it does in the photo as the flash is reflecting off the paper. We might be having a heatwave here in the UK but  the nights are still drawing in!

This weekend is a 'Railway Weekend' but despite this I'm still hoping to make some progress on Warm Water Wash. Next week it really is back to White Nights.

A little progress

Well, since my last post there's not been much progress on any of my WIPs. Why? Two reasons, OK, excuses.  Firstly, it was back to school and things have been a bit hectic but calming down now, fingers crossed.  Secondly, there is a wedding to plan.  Thanks to everyone for their congratulations and best wishes on my last post. Rest assured my posts over the next few months are not going to be all about 'the big day' which has been set for April 7 next year.

What little stitchy progress I have made has been on Mill Hill's Halloween Night.

With a bit of luck this should be finished next week then it's back to White Nights.

When I came home from 'The Railway' the other weekend I couldn't resist taking a photo of this.  Good enough for Snow White.

They taste good too!

I'll leave you with a picture of where we will be geting married. Whittington Castle in Shropshire.

Happy stitching!

Otherwise engaged!

Quite a lot has happened in the two weeks since my last post.  On Thursday 18 August the plan was to go into school for A Level results day and then travel over to my boyfriend's in the afternoon. His Mum was coming down from Scotland on the Friday for the weekend and we had planned a surprise trip on a steam hauled train from Leeds to Carlilse over the famous Settle to Carlisle Railway on the Saturday. His Mum was due to travel back on the Tuesday and I would come home as I needed to be in school for GCSE results on Thursday and Friday.  As I said, that was the plan.  Everything did go according to it apart from the fact that I did not come home on the Tuesday because on the Wednesday my boyfriend took the day off work and we went shopping in York for this:

On the Thursday evening, in one of our favourite restaurants, he proposed!

Now it so turns out on that Thursday I started a new stitching project which I managed to finish before the shopping trip. I was Just Nan's 'Tulip Bunny' WhimZi.

This was stitched on 32ct lambswool Permin linen with the recommended DMC floss. All it needs is a frame and a suitable place in the house as a memento of  a special weekend!

On finishing in school on the Friday I drove to The Railway for the Bank Holiday weekend.  We had a busy two days. I was guard on one of the trains on Saturday and on Sunday was 'promoted' to level crossing gate keeper!

As a reward for opening and closing these metal gates over forty times during the day I was given a the chance to be a bus conductor on one of the many vintage buses that were on display this weekend for The Railway's Classic Transport Weekend.

That was Sunday.  In the evening we went to my Mum and Dad's as we were taking them out for a meal as a thank you for our holiday in Belgium, well that's what we told them, and it was half true. The meal became a double celebration as my boyfriend asked my Dad for permission to marry me whilst my Mum  and I were out of the room. Well I think that's what happened as neither my boyfriend or my Dad can actually remember what was said!

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind trying to find a suitable venue fro the marriage ceremony and for the reception. Fingers crossed this is all  now in place and we are looking at a Easter wedding.

What with all this going on there has been very little stitching. These are some progress pics. Firstly Warm Water Wash.

I also started what I thought would be a quick stitch Mill Hill's Halloween Night. These projects usually take about a week but like I've said I have been otherwise engaged!