I did my frolicking during the day yesterday, working hard on finishing my April Hallowe'en and Christmas Ornaments for their respective SALs. Great success with finishing the Christmas Ornament but less so with the Hallowe'en one - although I am hopeful of a finish tonight, so that I will make the end of April deadline - fingers crossed!
I really struggled to find a design which called to me for the April theme of ghosts for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL and then I was rescued by the mailman, who brought me my order of some Just Nan patterns, including the wonderful Counting Bats. The gorgeous Jo is stitching this for the SAL and so I am going to jump on her bandwagon and start with the ghost band and move around from there. Thanks, dear Jo, for the inspiration.
32 ct Evening Sky Belfast Linen
Mixture of called-for DMC threads and over-dyed floss from my stash
(it is actually a bit more lilac than this picture shows)
I also really struggled to choose an April design for the theme of ornament, until I discovered this great Prairie Schooler booklet in my stash - wonderful designs!
I used these two gorgeous Sajou cotton flosses and stitched it on 28ct white linen (I am planning to stitch the reindeer in the top left corner for May).
this random number stitching is working great for me. For this weekend (I usually don't stitch only on Fridays on my chosen project but through the weekend) it was WIP #9, Mirabilia's Snow Days which I hadn't touched since March 2014. First I thought, oh no, not a snowman! but then pulled him out and stitched on him Friday evening and yesterday. And the weather was cooperating as it was snowing yesterday, lol.
When I picked him up:
Now:
I'm looking forward to next Friday's draw.
Brigitte
Very Merry Christmas is now finished.... I stitched this for the JCS SAL on FB. The fabric is 32ct Belfast "Camofudge" from Stitches & Spice. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good photo that shows the true colour of the fabric.... the progress photo above is a bit closer to the true colour of the fabric.
Very Merry Christmas - Medina Originals JCS Christmas 2015
Sadly I had an email from Noami the other day to say that due to ill health she is closing down Stitches & Spice.... such a shame. I love her fabrics - hopefully she has enough in stock so that I can get some more of my favourites before the doors close for the last time!
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx
I managed to put in quite a few stitches this week on my Lizzie Kate. All of the words are done and about half of the other little bits. Sorry for the hoop marks and wrinkles...
Just those bottom three rows to finish...see you all next Friday!
Just a quick one this week. I am intending to continue Frolicing over the weekend but don't want to show the full design until I do my Alphabet Club post in May.
The fourth weekend of each month is dedicated to The Stitcher's Alphabet by Brooke's Books. I am stitching one letter per month on a 28count strip of afghan fabric which I will then make into a soft book.
My plan this Friday was to do some cross stitch, but before I started with that I wanted to do a couple of rows on my crochet blanket. This is a leftover-yarn blanket, where I'm using all my white/pink/purple yarns that I've got lying around at home.
After crocheting a few rows on my blanket I realised that actually I didn't want to put it down at all, so I just continues working on it all day.
Here's how it looks now...
...and with all that crochet time today I've made really good progress:))
Hello... long time no post!! I have been stitching but just keep forgetting to take photos at the right time and post ;o(
Last Friday night I decided to dive into the WIP pile and see what took my fancy! Out came this little WIP which was one of my DUCSJC2016 and Cross Stitch Crazy January starts. When I left it on January 7 it looked like this....
... and now after stitching on it last Friday night for Friday Frolics it is finished... and framed!
"With Love" - Designer: Lesley Teare Free Gift from Cross Stitch Card Shop
With Love - Designer: Lesley Teare Cross Stitch Card Shop Freebie
The free gift included a card but I decided to paint up a small frame and use the card opening as a mount instead. (Think I went a bit overboard with the dots!! I was definitely feeling my inner dottiness when I painted this on Sunday!!)
So that was last week... I will try and remember to do a before and after picture of my stitching tonight so that I can come back and post again next week!
Til next time, happy stitching and frolicking!
Hugs xx
The Third Friday of the month heralds the start of IHSW - International Hermit & Stitch Weekend hosted by Joysze of Random Ramblings. Here are the guidelines for IHSW and here is April's sign-up page. You can also copy Hermie the crab onto your blog to show everyone you have joined in.
My IHSW piece has been The Scarlet Letter's Elizabeth Shephard for some time now. I have reached the bottom right of the design so we can see the full width and height of the piece now.
The chequerboard was nice and easy, once you made sure you had counted correctly it was a matter of repeating the rows until it was finished.
stitched on 30 count linen using the AVAS silks supplied.
I know people rave about silks but to be honest I am not that enamoured of them. They are not difficult to stitch with (aside from the usual one strand issues of the needle coming unthreaded more often as you reach the end of the length) but are they worth the extra money? I'm not sure. I also plan to never use 30 count linen again! I must actually measure it because it seems bigger than 28 somehow.
She does look wonderful as I stitch her and the chart is really easy to follow. It has the most amazing overlaps between pages which I love. So much easier than those fiddly little two row overlaps.
I worked on the stocking for FF. Tired of all the browns so I went down to the trees. Had the tops of two done and then I realized I was one stitch over to the right. Frogging again! This stocking must have a curse on it, LOL! Hope this is the last of the frogging!
I had a new idea how I could stitch on a different WIP each Friday - I was doing the random number thing. I saw that on someone's blog and thought this could work for me as well. I gave all my WIPs and UFOs a number - and this time the random number thing chose 11 for me. That was perfect - a WIP I worked on last in May 2015. So it was fun to get it out and stitch it again. It's Amish Spring by Diane Phalen and when I left it a year ago it looked like that
I have been stitching on it since Friday evening and here is my progress
I filled in the lower corner on the left hand side. And I think I am going to add some more grass and flowers during the next days. There will be more tulips to come.
I hope you all were having as much fun with your projects as I was.
This week for Friday Frolics and FNSI, I thought that I should investigate my three hatboxes - I knew that I had some crafty projects in them but what they actually were, was anyone's guess!
These hatboxes sit as a stack at the top of the spiral staircase which leads to my bedroom. I think that I have had them somewhere between 25 and 30 years - in the mid-80s these were all the rage as decorating items.
Of course, where they sit means that I pass them by several times a day but do I ever look in them? No, not really, not until yesterday, that is.
So, do you want to see what I found?
I am sure that you do, as it was a treasure trove of UFOs - to my great shame (and delight, too).
So, the top Hatbox....
contained Flying Geese quilt blocks...
Oh, my goodness - looks at these gorgeous flying geese blocks for a quilt I was making many moons ago - there are quite a few of them, I actually think I have made all of the blocks - I just need to sew the sashing, put it all together and then I would have a quilt top!
Okay, another project for my semi-retirment.
The Middle Hatbox.....
Hmm! Some patchwork fabbie but what is hiding underneath it? Oh no, another half completed quilt top!
Oh, my goodness, I can see lots of patchwork and quilting happening for me in the near future!
Bottom Hatbox......
This is the largest hatbox and had the biggest amount of bounty UFOs.
Oooh, Goodie, the patterns for the two quilts above - phew!
But below these patterns is a wealth of UFOs!
(unfortunately some of them seem to have their patterns missing - probably carefully stored hiding someplace special)
(pattern)
(no pattern)
(no pattern)
(pattern)
(no pattern)
(no pattern and I have absolutely no idea what this could be!)
(no pattern)
This is all finished - just needs to be made into a pillow.
Here it is all ironed - it is so pretty - why on earth did I not finish it at the time?
But the piece de resistance is this unfinished bell pull, which shows significant places in Denmark (now, the coincidence if this is that only the other day I recorded a movie on Foxtel to watch later, "A Royal affair", which was about the Danish royal family in the 1770s - so naturally I stitched on the bell pull whilst watching the film yesterday).
... so some progress has been made ...
I will keep stitching on it tomorrow as well and report back after IHSW.
So, that is my Tale of the Three Hatboxes or The Shame of Kaye but whichever title, lots of Friday Frolics projects for me to work on in the upcoming weeks.
Well, it's almost Friday again, but since I haven't posted in so long, I thought I would sneak in an update on my Lizzie Kate. I've only managed a couple of Fridays a month on this one, so progress is slow. I've decided to do all the lettering first, and then fill in with the fun bits. Here is where I ended up last week...
It's coming along! Hope to be stitching with you all again tomorrow!
