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!

A finishing weekend and the cat in the bag!

This weekend I was able to get two more WIPs finished. Firstly I was able to properly finish the Scaredy Sheep Scissor Fob from Shepherd's Bush. Here it is with it's companion piece, here we go a haunting. This is framed in the usual £3.50 ish photo frame from from Wilkinsons but this time The Other Half stained the frame with black wood stain so that it matched the box.


The Hootzi Humbug from Just Nan also got finished. This was not stitched on the suggested fabric but on something else, I've no idea what, as it came from the off cuts box at The Nimble Thimble. Here it is on the light tree. Bye the way The Other Half has not made any comment about the appearance of the second tree yet!


The next photo is one I had intended to post last time but forgot. This is Oscar, he belongs to friends we stayed with last week, and he is inside my floral travel bag!


Thanks for all your comments about Mary Wigham. Have a great stitiching week.

Mary went back to school!

On Saturday, and today, I danced the biggest Happy Dance of the year so far. Why?

Well, on Saturday we travelled over to Doncaster for a model railway exhibition at Doncaster racecourse. We had booked an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn and it was there that I put the final stitches in to Mary Wigham (Happy Dance Number 1). Now Doncaster is not that far away from Ackworth and the Ackworth School were Mary Wigham was a pupil. So, on Sunday morning we went there.


Mary was then put away until today when I finished her. As mentioned in a previous post I had made a serious error when positioning this piece on the fabric. After seeing some work finished by hemstitching on Carol R's blog I decided that I was going to finish Mary in this way. Carol kindly emailed me the instructions. She is, however, in the process of producing a tutorial on this subject. I had just enough material to sew it. This was my first ever attempt at hemstitching. It took me about an hour to set the work up, putting the threads etc and over an hour to stitch each of the sides, hence Happy Dance Number 2. Here she is finished.


For the record this was stitched on 32ct Lambswool linen using Caron Wildflowers, Blueberry. For the finishing I used Gutermann thread, colour 169, a perfect match.

I have had really mixed feeling about this piece. I'm glad that I have been a part of this worldwide SAL and that it has raised a lot of money to preserve the real Mary Wigham sampler but will I be doing another Quaker this big in future, probably not. Although I have enjoyed stitching it, I have not looked forward to the stitching day on the rotation. Don't ask me why because I cannot put my finger on it.

So what else have I done this week? From Doncaster we moved on to stay with friends for a few days. Here I was able to finish the stitching on Scaredy Sheep from Shepherd's Bush. Here is the front.


Here is the back.


I also made progress on the Hootzi Humbug.


I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Valentine's Day and the TUSAL

This year the Valentine's card I stitched for The Other Half was made from a freebie design from The Drawn Thread called Heart Throb. I stitched it, as charted, on 32ct opalescent white linen using the DMC equivalents.


So much for the staging. Here is a close up of the actual work.



Today is also TUSAL day and here is a photo of my flask. The white/yellow orts are from White Nights, the red below is from the Christmas ornament stitched last weekend.



Happy Valentine's Day!

Two houses and two trees!

This week I finished White Nights house number two. Only six more to go! I also gave myself a treat by stitching some of the corner (Part 6). The house took four and a bit evenings. The corner, so far, what was left of my final evening.


For completeness, the overall view.


Here is the full story behind having two light trees. When the first light tree came, delivered by a private delivery company, not the Royal Mail or Parcel Force, the packaging was almost in two halves. Closer inspection revealed that the tree itself had sustained slight damage and the paint on the metal stand was chipped. I phoned the supplier and they said they would send a replacement. I asked if they would collect the damaged tree and was told that the delivery man would take it away when he delivered the new tree. This would be two days later on the Thursday. When I arrived home from work on that Thursday the replacement tree had been delivered, as promised, but the original one had not been taken away. Why? because the delivery driver did not have any paperwork to tell him to collect it, so he couldn't. This was four/five weeks ago. So I have two trees. Here's the proof.


As yet I don't think The Other Half has noticed the light tree forest, OK I know two trees do not make a forest, in the living room, as I only put the second tree up this evening, whilst he was out of course. But he will later, as for now, it's right next to the TV. Oh dear, I appear to how sprouted two horns and a forked tail. Maybe I should do some Halloween stitching this evening.

Just my luck or MW almost there

This weekend I've been on a roll with Mary Wigham. I managed to stitch her on Friday evening and today, Sunday, as usual. But, just my luck, I've run out of floss with less than one medallion to go!


I also seem to have made a bit of an error with the counting, probably because I have altered so many of the medallions to make them symmetrical, and I cannot fit in the two flower motifs that go in the top to middle right hand side. Oh well, I like it as it is. Anyhow fingers crossed that this will be finished next weekend.

I've made a little more progress on Barnabee's Quest since my last post but again Parent's Evening at work took out a whole evening's stitching time.


This piece is only about 3 1/2" wide and, unlike most of the Just Nan stuff I have done previously, contains a number of speciality stitches. Despite the accident last week this has been fun to do so far.

So with Mart Wigham coming to a grinding halt what do I stitch this evening? Firstly, White Nights needs to be rolled up on it's frame in preparation for next week's stitching. Then it's a toss up between continuing with Barnabee's Quest, the Hootzi Humbug or the Shepherd's Bush scissor fob that I started at New Year. Decisions, decisions.

Simply Spring and Simply Snowdays came back from the framers. The bespoke frame for Simply Snowdays is fantastic.





Happy Stitching

Lift off!

Today, when I wrote the date on the board at school, it looked like this

3 - 2 - 10

This week has seen the lift off of two new projects! OK I had only intended one new start and that was this:


This is Barnabee's Quest from Just Nan. I am starting from the bottom of Part 3. Unfortunately last night there was a minor accident with a glass of red wine and the whole thing had to be soaked for a very long time. Not all of the stain is out but I think I will be OK as the stain was near to the edge which will be hidden when I finish this as a bell pull.

So whilst this was soaking, and to stop me going to check how well the stain removal was going every two minutes I started this.


This is Hootzi Humbug also by Just Nan and will be the first ornament on my light tree (here) I mentioned in the post about the light tree, that there might be some more of the story to follow. Well I can now reveal that, through no fault of my own and at no extra cost, I actually have two of them!

This week's round up

Earlier this week I finished Curious Cats by Just Nan. I decided to finish this piece as a pillow. There were enough beads supplied in the kit for me to add a beaded edge to it.


It was the turn of the St Nicholas tree skirt in the rotation last week. This Santa has a rather fetching green outfit. He seems to be a woodland Santa as he has a rabbit with him. I have to tell you this because all I managed to stitch of the actual Santa were his boots!


Hopefully, next time, I will make more progress as having guests for dinner and a Parent's Evening at work meant that I only spent two evenings on this.

This weekend was a 'Railway Weekend'. I had an exam on Saturday morning, consisting of a written paper followed by a one-to-one question and answer session. This was my three yearly Guard's exam. It took just over three hours to complete. The good news is that I passed, achieving 92%. I have a practical, on train, exam still to do before July when my existing 'Guard's Ticket' runs out. The ticket is basically a certificate of competence showing that the Guard is up to standard, has a good working knowledge of the rules and regulations and what to do if something out of the ordinary happens, like a passenger train dividing on a journey.

Anyway, back to the stitching. I made further progress on my second Christmas decoration for Yoyo's Christmas Design SAL.


In my last post I mentioned that I have indulged in some stash enhancement. I enjoyed doing 'A haunting we will go' by Shepherd's Bush that I bought 'Into the Night' and 'Happy Haunting'


I also made an impulse purchase having seen an item in the latest edition of 'World of Cross Stitch'. This was the limited edition Floral Travel Bag from DMC. It came with 10 skeins of DMC floss, 20 stitch-bows a packet of needles, a plastic stitch-bow holder and six floral charts to match the bag. I am really please with it. This is the best collage that Picasa could come up with.


This evening it's back to Mary Wigham, I have all ready completed my medallion for the day but I think I might be able to complete another, if I am lucky. That is after I have stitched next week's new start on to the rollers. Watch this space!

Happy stitching!

Simply Spring ~ finished

Last week I stitched on Simply Spring by Waxing Moon Designs. I thought that I would be able to finish it on Thursday evening, in time to post before the weekend. But despite stitching all evening the last little bit, which took about an hour, defeated me. I finished it on Friday in the car on the way to 'The Railway'.


Over Friday and Saturday I was able to work, on and off, on the Timeless Elegance ornaments.




The cross stitching on the blue ornament is complete. There are beads and metallic ribbon to put on but I'm going to leave that until all the ornaments are done. On Friday evening, at 'The Railway' I realised that I had made an error in the WIP stitching packing for the weekend, if that makes sense. I had left Mary Wigham at home, just the work, I had packed the floss and charts, tragic! So instead I was able to progress my handbag project a little more. This is a Filagree Fancies kit from Just Nan called Curious Cats.


There is probably an hours work left in this but when I got home I was good, I didn't finish it, very tempting though it was, I stitched on Mary instead.

This week I have indulged in some stash enhancement which I will try and show you next time. But for now it's back to Mary, with maybe a little bit more on the cats before bedtime!

More White Nights

I managed to finish the first building of eight (White Nights Part 5)on Saturday morning! So I'm still on target for a mid 2013 finish on this one. Here it is.


My Mum has come up with, as they say, a cunning plan. I am actually going to stitch Part 6, the corners, at the same time as Part 5. This should add interest between the buildings which are almost identical to each other.

Here is a close up collage of the said building.


Last week my LED Twig Tree was delivered. This has been bought to hang my Just Nan humbugs off, as I have got them on series order from The Silver Needle. It could also be used to hang Halloween stuff from in October, Christmas decorations in December, in fact it could turn into a themed tree. It also sheds quite a lot of light! What's more it was a bargain, less than half price (The Other Half thinks I'm mad). The only problem is that the stand it comes with is not very nice so the search was on to find a replacement. I tried a £4 glass vase from ASDA (Wallmart) but smashed it in the process. My Other Half's Auntie's ancient antique copper jug was OK but did not hide the transformer. In the end I found a ceramic 'Wave Vase' at Dunelm Mill which is perfect. This is what it looks like in the corner of my living room.


I made great progress on Mary Wigham yesterday, I feel that the end is in sight with this one.


This week I'm going to have a new start with Simply Spring from Waxing Moon Designs. This is the last one in their Simply Series that I have in my stash.

I'm off to make a start whilst ignoring the Other Half's comments about how hideous and in poor taste the LED tree is, I know he will make them. This, by the way, might not be the end of the LED tree story, Watch this space!