More finishes!

So today I can heave a huge sigh of relief! The last of the 75 pieces of A Level coursework marking I mentioned back in March got done today. The last candidate only gave their's in this morning! All 75 will be in the post first thing tomorrow to be at the exam board by their Friday deadline. HOORAY my office at work now has clear surfaces and there are no piles of work on the floor, on windowsills, under chairs or anywhere else I could think of to store them prior to posting.

OK, so back to the more interesting finishes of the stitching kind. Last weekend I finished the pin-cube, the latest SAL from Stitch Creations.


I also made fantastic progress on the June Calendar. This is the first time I have posted a finished item without some other WIP photos as there wasn't much progress made at the time of my last post on this one, maybe one letter and part of the boat.


So back on the rotation this week is 'When Barnabee Met Bella' by Just Nan. Last night I managed to complete all of the green.


I also took the plunge and signed up for the Papillon Creations SAL 'Castles in the Air'. I am probably going to do it on 28 count antique white linen. This is my choice of colours.

Precious Ramotswe and me ...

... what do we have in common?

On the face of it very little. I am no lady detective and I don't live in Botswana. But, she seems to spend a lot of time driving around in a white van and sitting on the veranda, watching the world go by and this is what I have done this weekend, well sort of.

White van time meant that I was able to complete part 2 of the pin cube SAL from Stitch-Creations.

Sitting on the veranda on Saturday meant that I was able make good progress on the Baby Shamrocks Biscornu. Whilst stitching outside the wind caught one of my orts and blew it away. I promptly dropped everything and ran after it so that the ort's final resting place would be my flask for the Totally Useless SAL rather than decorating some bush or birds nest, sorry birds but you've had plenty of my orts in the past! An evening on the now none existent sofa and a morning on a very hard chair (sofa hit the local recycling place at 9.00 this morning) and the biscornu was finished. This shows the front and back.

And this is the finished item.

So why is the sofa at the tip? The Other Half has, finally, let his house and we are here sorting out the last bits of stuff. As I write this I am sitting in a room furnished with a few boxes, the aforementioned chair and a TV!

At some stage over the weekend I was also able to finish the lilac side of 'When Barnabee Met Bella'.

This week it's back to the St Nicholas Tree Skirt and the 'Pale Blue Santa'. Only time will tell how much I get done as this weekend is the start of 'Steel, Steam and Stars II' . More about this in a future post, no doubt.

Biscornu, SALs and Stash

Here is the progress so far on 'When Barnabee Met Bella' from Just Nan.

The photo does not do justice to the fantastic colours, for starters the linen is lilac and not a funny grey colour! The top left hand corner is complete with embellishment.

This is the other side.

I have one day left on the rotation for this so hopefully I will get the lilac side finished.

Whilst 'blog hopping' I came across a pin cube SAL from Stitch-Creations. So I went into the Stash Room found some 14 count white Aida, and DMC 115. In the time it took The Other Half to drive from home to my Mum's, 75 miles, the first side was finished.

This week I also indulged in a bit of stash enhancement with the Over The Top and In The Tin (Boo) from Just Nan.

I am hoping to modify the needle book chart to make a biscornu, eventually. Having seen the Peachy Biscornu a couple of times on the Basket of Biscornu SAL blog, I also bought that.

This is designed by Carol Tinson of Heirloom Embroideries.

I'll leave you with some Easter Greetings from just after the First World War, scanned from my Mum's collection.

Happy Easter!