First Finish of 2012, Round Robin, WIPocalypse, 12 in '12 and Themelicious

Ta da!  First finish of 2012.  This is a cute little freebie from Jenn of Leftsox.

 It looks quite big hung on the tree, so here it is next to Madame Muriel and her men for scale:

 And here it is back on the tree with of the rest of the ornies so you can see how petite it is:

The ornie is stuffed with some of my ORTS so it will be my stitching souvenir for 2011.  I stitched it using the recommended DMC colours for the red side, then I used 702 on the green side as the contrast was better.  I used gold beads in the design and round the edge.  The ornie was slip stitched shut with a bead at each stitch.  This was difficult at first but I got a good technique going by the middle of one red side and the green half was much better.

This is the second kind-of-finish for 2012.  I never know whether RRs should count as a finish but I think they do!  This one belongs to is Karen (AKA Stitchy Woman) and is all bands from The Sweetheart Tree.  She provided all the threads so I changed to colour scheme on my bands to match the colours provided.  They are all lovely fresh Springlike colours so it was a little strange to be stitching it after all the red and green of Christmas.

 Here is the whole thing:

There are six of us stitching so there is only one more round and the pieces all come home to their Mamas!  Half of me can't wait and the other half doesn't want it to end!  But luckily there is another band sampler starting in May.  Hooray!

I've been working hard on compiling my WIPocalypse list and my 12 in '12.  Regular followers may remember the "11 in '11" list.  Hah!  That was an interesting idea and a steep learning curve.  Do not choose so many BAPs next time.  I started so well with Frosty Morning and Heather Holland-Daly's Heart stitching up quickly, then I started Bluebeard's Mermaid and the Art Nouveau Brunette Head.  Fine so far.  Then I stitched some Wedding Samplers and Nimue's Baby Swing for friends.  Then I started some SALs and went off at a tangent!  Even inserting Joan's Green Goddess (instead of her 12 Days of Christmas) into the list didn't mean another finish!

So here is my much-amended "12 in '12" list which forms the basis of my WIPocalypse:

  1. Dark Alphabet SAL
  2. Joan Elliott's Green Goddess
  3. Gift of Stitching My Lovely Sewing Tools SAL
  4. Home of a Needleworker (PIF from Nicola)
  5. Blackbird Designs (came with Madame Muriel from Margaret)
  6. Ed Hardy - Skull & Roses (for a friend)
  7. Wedding Sampler (for a friend)
  8. Baby Sampler (for a friend)
  9. Baby Sampler (for my cousin)
10. Nimue Fairy (for a friend's daughter)
11. Mary Wigham sampler (FB SAL)
12. Nora Corbett Trick or Treat Fairy

I also have the following vying for that 12th place:
Dragon Head freebie from Deviant Art
Drawn Thread Sanctuary
Firewing Dragons x 4
Ink Circles Masquerade
Ink Circles from Gift of Stitching
Lesa Steele Dragon Samplers
Nora Corbett Sunflower Fairy
Passione Ricamo Autumn Faerie
Prairie Moon Thine is the Trick or Treat
Yiotas Coffee Fairy

Then there is a Birthday Exchange going on at The Needlecraft Haven so there will be several cards to stitch.  I am not going to resolve to stitch all the magazine cover kits this year due to the extremely poor quality of last year's supplies so instead I am resolving to stitch every monthly freebie challenge on two of the forums I belong to.  Christine chooses the Needlecraft Haven one and has great taste, very similar to mine so no worries there!  The X-Stitch Rules' one is chosen by a great lady, excellent taste, oh yes it's me!  So I'm sure I'll be able to keep up with that one!

I also have my Just Nanathon, I'd love to stitch one a month.  Then there's the Joan Elliott Round Robin (with seven of us taking part) and the Band Sampler Round Robin (six-eight depending on who commits).

Then there is the Themelicious from Heather of It's Geek to Me.  This month we have:

Jardin January
The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.

I think Green Goddess is the perfect project for this theme so that's what I'll be working on for the majority of evenings this month.  I will be stitching on the two freebie challenge pieces and the Dark Alphabet during the day.  When my fabric for the JE RR arrives I will make a start on that as it features flowers in the centre which is my block.

Finally, it was a washing machine liquid dosing ball holding my kitchen ORTS in the previous post.  Congratulations to everyone who got it right, no prize but a nice warm feeling of domesticity in recognising common household objects!

IHSW weekend and a new letter

Last weekend was an IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend), see Random Ramblings for more details.  Since the birth of the small boy I have no social life so every weekend is a Hermitage for me!  Anyway I started my 4th project in my 11 in '11, it's very Rolf Harris* at the moment.  There's about a week's worth of evening stitching here (2 hours an evening).  Hopefully it will get more interesting soon.

The other project I'm working on during the day is the cover kit from WOCS which is a flower fairy.  A certain friend of mine who shall be nameless called Hannah was on the Reader's panel this month and described it as "a nice quick stitch".  It is not nice and it is not quick!  The threads were horrendous to sort out, so many shades of brown, beige and peach.  Luckily they had given the DMC numbers so I was able to compare them with the colours in my stash, otherwise I would have mislabelled at least 6 of them!  It's been a tricky stitch too but does look nice.  I have an idea for framing in one of my favourite box frames and look forward to posting it here.

The next part of The Dark Alphabet is out this week, D is for Devil.  A Note of Friendship have chosen a spinning monkey to represent the devil.  Apparently this was used in Dutch samplers, they say "A "spinning monkey" is an iconic representation of the Devil, standing for folly, laziness, lechery, and vanity. His punishment is that he will be turned into thread."  So there you are, educational as well!  The pinning is an in a spinning thread on a staff not spinning round in a circle getting dizzy a la small boy.  This letter features a stitch called "Detached Buttonhole Stitch" which looks suitably fiendish to stitch.  I think I will wait to see someone else's stitcher version before attempting this letter.  I have stitched A and B and they are proudly displayed on ANOF's gallery.  I've started C is for Coven but put it aside to keep my Cover Kit Resolution for April.

* Can you tell what it is yet?