M is for Mary's Merry Merengue

or Happy Dance if you don't want alliteration!

Yes, Mary is finally finished, although not fully finished and framed yet.  I started her on Friday 10th March and completed her on the 29th having stitched on her for 15 days in total.

Close-ups to show the beads and the Kreinik.

I used the recommended Crescent Colours except for:

Lettuce Leaf which is a bright green and was supposed to be the lighter colour in the M.  Instead I blended DMC 927 and 928.  

DMC Blanc for the wings instead of Cloud

DMC 954 for the skin instead of Cobbled Peach

DMC 356 for the backstitch on the skin

Kreinik 014 for the dangling sparklies

stitched on 32 count Muran in Sunlit Heath by Crafty Kitten

which is more green in person

This will be framed and given to my cousin for her baby girl.

Here are the other four letters I have stitched.

Three have gone to my cousins and one is for me.

You can see more photos of each one at the following links:

C

E

J

S

Finally, don't forget to sign up to participate in the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop!  I intend to send out the letters to each person on Sunday 9th April so you have until then to make up your mind if you are wavering!

March TUSAL

It's TUSAL time, the Totally Useless SAL where we all show our ORTS and link-up on Daffycat's blog.

Here is my TUSAL jar with two of my current projects:

That's actually a better colour likeness for the top fabric than previous photos.

I was hoping to have a Happy Dance to share with you but alas, not today.  There is only the beading to do on M is for Mary.  I was sitting down for an afternoon's beading today when the phone went.  You know what it's going to be when they say "Hello, it's Mrs M here, he's OK but...".  Yes, my son had injured himself at school.  But not the Small Boy which you would expect, it was the Large Boy.  His leg got in the way of a stone being chipped up when they were all running around and there was blood and plenty of it.  Luckily hubby was here to go and collect him because it's a three mile limp home if Mum has to go.

I did manage to bead the bottom of the skirt in between washing the trousers and administering to the wounded.  A clean plaster and a chocolate muffin were applied.  One to the leg and the other to the mouth!  Then the Small Boy came home and the beads had to go away.

I also realised that I was working away on the wrong project.  I picked up Happy Hallowe'en instead of the Stitcher's Alphabet which needs to be ready for The Alphabet Club this Saturday.  Ooops.  Never mind, I can start that tomorrow after another attempt at beading M.

Finally, it's a short post today so I will just remind people that I will be hosting an Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop on Good Friday.  If you'd like to be a participant just leave a comment.

March WIPocalypse Social Media

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings
Also linking up with 17 in '17

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  I have chosen my "17 in '17" which are the 17 projects I want to focus on this year.  You can see the full list on this page here.

I have had a good WIPocalypse month again.  I worked on a total of 7 of my 17 projects.  You will have seen photos of most of these on the Theme-tas-stitch post.

1. Just Nan Spring in the Square for the 10-a-day challenge:

Day 85 - working down the left hand border

2. Joan Elliott 12 Days of Christmas for the Christmas Ornie SAL:

regular evening stitching on the thin red line to the left

3. Brooke's Books' Stitchers Alphabet for The Alphabet Club:

4. Imaginating Happy Hallowe'en for the Hallowe'en SAL:

5. Oberlin Witches, also for the Hallowe'en SAL:

6. Nora Corbett M is for Mary which is my focus piece for the month:

Only the beads to be added so you are not seeing the full piece until then!

7. Lavender & Lace Enchanted Alphabet Spooky Conversion:

added the J this weekend

Measi always sets us a discussion topic:

March – What stitchy blogs, groups, or flosstubes do you follow and why?

I follow a large amount of blogs, you can see most of them in my sidebar.  Blogs are my preferred way of connecting with other stitchers.  You learn more about a person from their blog than from other social media and you can easily search for projects they have featured in the past.  You leave a comment, they reply and you start a dialogue together.  Of course we have our SALs, Blog Hops and Linky parties too.

I belong to a few FB groups.  I prefer the designer-specific groups where you will only see work from one particular designer and also comments from the designer themselves.  I do belong to a couple of general stitching groups which I joined for the themed SALs, something I love.

I do subscribe to some FlossTube channels too.  I love having someone chatting away while I stitch and I do feel that you really get to know a person when you watch their videos regularly.  The main difference between FlossTube and a blog is that there is more of a "them and us" feel about it.  "They" make the videos and "We" watch them.  The watchers seem to regard the vloggers as "experts" and ask them all sorts of questions about stitching regardless of whether the vlogger does that kind of stitching or has more than a year's experience!  Many vloggers seem to be either new to the craft or older stitchers who have recently taken it up again.  On the plus side, I love seeing what people's houses are like!  I also love watching FlossTube channels made by my blogging friends, when I read their blogs I can do it in their voice now!

FlossTube and FB definitely promote FOMO (Fear of missing out),  Whether it's joining every SAL released, buying every chart you see, joining every Fabric of the Month club or having 90,000 needle minders there does seem to be a more manic approach to the hobby than I've seen on blogs or forums.

There is a mood change just lately though, with the financial realities hitting people and Stitch From Stash taking off again.  Crazes go in cycles in stitching as with everything else.

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Finally, we are approaching the Easter Holidays and there is still time to sign up for the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop.  The more people we have, the longer the mystery phrase will be.  Just leave a comment if you'd like to be a participant.

Theme-tas-stitch March Madness

Theme-tas-stitch is hosted by Kerry

Each month Kerry is giving us a theme to stitch to (or shoe-horn our existing stitching into).  We link up on the 21st of each month.  The theme this month is:

March Madness - Work on as many different projects as you can - you could do one a day or have a day when you see how many you can stitch on.

I have my set rotation which means I knew I would stitch on 7 projects in March already.  I also knew I wanted (and needed) to focus on M is for Mary this month so I needed a plan!  Here are the main 7:

1. Just Nan Spring in the Square for the 10-a-day challenge:

Day 80 - 800 stitches

2. Joan Elliott 12 Days of Christmas for the Christmas Ornie SAL:

and regular evening stitching on the thin red line to the right

3. Brooke's Books' Stitchers Alphabet for The Alphabet Club:

4. Imaginating Happy Hallowe'en for the Hallowe'en SAL:

5. Oberlin Witches, also for the Hallowe'en SAL:

6. Nora Corbett M is for Mary which is my focus piece for the month:

Wings and Bling to be added

7. Lavender & Lace Enchanted Alphabet Spooky Conversion:

To reach 31 projects for the 31 days in March I needed another 24 projects.  I didn't want to start pulling out other WIPs for just a length or two so I needed something small or a part-work.  I considered an Advent Calendar (24 days) or another Alphabet (the Erica Michael's one has 24 blocks) but in the end I went for something totally different - a Just-Nan-athon.  Over the years I have collected a lot of her small free charts and have stitched a few.

Here are a few more:

Most days I did one length of thread immediately after my 10-a-Day project before I started anything else.  The one in the middle got more done because I went to work that day and stitched during my lunchbreak.

They are, in clockwise order starting top left:

Christmas Rose

Christmas Star Ornament

Christmas Hearts

Victorian Rose

Royal Blossoms

Snow Forest

Lacy Diamond

Holly Knot

Have a Heart (centre)

Holiday in Ice

Butterfly Rose

Noah's Rainbow Painted Lady

I am just picking fabrics as I go, all 32 count to keep the sizes the same but sometimes the charted colour and sometimes my own choice.  I have 11 more to start for the rest of the month, one for each day and 2 on Saturday.  When I started these I wasn't sure how I would continue with them but Linda had a great idea in her recent post called "So Many Stitches a Week" so now my plan is to pick one and work out how many stitches I need to make each day to finish it in a month.  They average 40x40 but are not full coverage so there are probably only 800-1000 stitches in each one.  Which is roughly 30 a day.

So once March is done I am going to add one of these to the daily rotation and see how many I get done by the end of the year.

🌟🌟  Blogger of the Week   🌟🌟

Finally I wanted to say a Big Thank You to everyone who has visited and commented on the new Blogger of the Week Blog.  We have featured three bloggers so far and have more lined up.  I send a few questionnaires out at the beginning of each month to keep the answers fresh and current.  If you would like to be featured in the blog please do email me.  Also, could you talk about it on your blog to reach people I don't know!  I would love to expand my circle of blogs and I am sure that you all have followers that I don't know yet.

Gifted Gorgeousness March Link-Up Post

Welcome to the March link-up for Gifted Gorgeousness.  The linky will stay open until the end of the month so you have plenty of time to join in.

This month I have gifts from people and gifts for people, also stuff stitched with gifts from people and some actual gifts!

Gardens of London by Chatelaine Designs which was my Birthday present last year, stitched with threads donated by blogging friends:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

Witches by Oberlin Samplers which was a gift from Barb:

stitched on 32 count Lime Green Murano

Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas was a gift from my MIL:

Storming progress on M is for Mary which will be a gift for my cousin's baby:

stitched on 32 count Murano in Sunlit Heath by Crafty Kitten

(which is more green in real life)

The gift I received was a giveaway prize from Sarah in Stitches to celebrate her fifth blogaversary in January:

The Sudbury leaflet has some great charts which would look good stitched over one, the fabric is a 32 count green Belfast which has been used already!  The chart I had called for Rue Green and this was close enough as I had nothing else suitable in my stash.  Perfect serendipitous timing.  I think the pendant is Rose Quartz and it's very pretty, I will probably wear that to my Toddler Group tomorrow.

Sarah offered two prizes and I had to choose this one because of the counting rhyme stitched on the pillow.  The Small Boy loves numbers and when he started Preschool you knew where he was by the sound of his keyworker reciting number rhymes!

There was also a big bag of vintage wooden cotton reels which I must find a project for!

And now it's over to you.  This is where you link up your post for this month.  Please use your name or your blog name in the field and NOT the words "March Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month.  And link to the actual post, not just your blog.  It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.  

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Finally, don't forget to sign up for the Easter Blog Treasure Hunt Hop this year!  Details in the previous post to this one.  Here's some little gifts for you all from various designers.  Hopefully you can find something suitable to stitch for the Hop!

Aliolka - Click on Translate then Easter in labels
Alita Designs - Basket of Eggs with Cross
Alita Designs - various religious and secular designs
Amintki Pattan - Various Easter and Spring

Amintki Pattan - Easter Rabbits

Anne les Petites Croix -Spring Heart
Broderie 77 - Easter Egg

Brodyzen Creations - Spring A to Z
La Contesse le Point de Croix - Easter Sheep

La Contesse le Point de Croix - Many designs

Cottage Garden Samplings - Easter

Cyberstitchers - Easter

The Drawn Thread - Spring Keeper
Eglantine Stitchery - Chicken Scratch Easter Egg

Erica Michaels via Rainbow Gallery

Hancock's House of Happy - Easter Bunny
Isabella's Blog - Easter Bunny with eggs

JardinPrive - Spring Tree

Kathrin's Blogspot - Geometric Bunny
Kincavel Krosses - Quaker Egg
Liberty Needlework - Jesus is Risen

Madame la Fee - Spring Heart and others
Make Stuff, Be Happy - Bunny and Flowers

Martine 290 - Spring

Mary Wright - I love my Garden
Maxi Stickt - Easter
Merry Cherry - Friendship Birds
My Happy Memories - Spring Angel

The Nebby Needle - Hoppy Easter

Oakhaven Designs via Cyberstitchers - Spring
The Primitive Hare - Spring Celebration Ostara

Silver Cute Dwarf - Spring

The Stitcherhood - Spring

Stitchers Anon - Bunnies and Basket

Sylvia's Kreuzlich Liebe - Spring

Tor Rhuann Designs - Easter Peepscornu

Turquoise Graphics & Design - Garden Mandalas

Of course no list is complete without mentioning-

Gazette 94

My Darling Edward,

You do think of the most original presents; whoever thought of sending anybody three French hens?  Do they really come all the way from France?  It's a pity that we have no chicken coops, but I expect we'll find some.  Thank you, anyway, they're heaven.
Your loving Emily

12 Days of Christmas (Correspondence) - John Julius Norwich

I have finished the lettering on the 3rd block of Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas:

I also stitched for another day on the top left angel:

Here is the whole piece so far:

You can see that I have started the long red outer border.  Once that is completed there is a row of metallic on either side of it.  All the way round the outside!

Once I finished all the SALs for the month I turned to my focus piece.  A new start with a deadline.  Remember the Nora Corbett Letter Fairies I stitched last year for my cousins' children?  Well, my younger cousin had another baby on New Year's Eve so we need another initial!

I took that photo to ask for advice on the Mira board.  The outline of the M is Crescent Colours Smoke and the variegated fill-in colour is Dark Fennel.  The charted colour for the rest of the fill-in is Lettuce Leaf, which you can see on the left.

You can see that looks nothing like the cover photo and doesn't go at all with the dress either.

So I used a blend of 927 and 928 DMC, which looks lovely in real life.  The colours are not coming out true at all tonight.

Honestly, the fabric looks grey there!  It is really green, Sunlit Heath from Crafty Kitten.

These stitch up so quickly, especially when you park yourself down and focus for three days!  I did do some FFO'ing this afternoon but I can't show you yet as it's a gift.  I also figured out my solution to Kerry's Theme-tas-stitch for March so you'll see that on the 21st.

We had our second interview of the Blogger of the Week blog.  Pop over there to read more about the lovely blogger featured this week and make sure you visit her personal blog too.

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Finally, we are approaching the Easter Holidays which means only one things - Chocolate Eggs!  

NO - Easter Blog Hops!  As usual I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!  If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.  On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral).  We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2016

Five Years Old Today!

It's my Fifth Blogaversary today.  The photos were taken on my Fifth Birthday at my Nana's house.  We had recently returned to England after an army posting to Singapore for several years.  Do you see those strange white things on my feet?  Socks!  We had to wear socks and shoes all the time in England.  And long sleeves.  And cardigans.  My first memory of England was standing on the railway platform wondering why it was so cold when I was wearing all these extra clothes!  It was August too.

We brought back an enormous amount of stuff, several packing crates worth but my dolls' pram had to be left behind.  So I'd been promised a new one as soon as we got back.   It was a beauty, a twin pram with a hood at each end, you can just see my two dolls sat at either end.  I still have the pram, it lives in a cupboard now waiting for my grand-daughters to arrive!  It has been played with by various visiting children but not often.

Some Blogaversary stats:

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5 years,

542 posts,

565 followers

10,690 comments

381,887 page views

WOW

To celebrate my Fifth Blogaversary we have a very special Happy Dance - Nora Corbett's J is for Joanne:

She was a gift from Justine and started on Day 30 of the DUCJC2015.  I restarted her on 17th March, 2016 and finished her on 5th April, 2016 having put in a total of 9 stitching days.  The beading took up two of those days!

She is stitched on 32 count Love-in-the-Mist Murano from Crafty Kitten.  The same fabric as her sister E.  I used most of the Crescent Colour threads but substituted Blanc for the wings (one skein of Cloud was not enough to do four sets of wings on four fairies) and some of the greens.  I blended 3362 and 3363 instead of Desert Mesquite.  I also changed the backstitch colours to 356 for the skin and green for the dress.  I did all the scrolls in Kreinik too.

Yoga Fairy!

Bling!

Flash photography to show the bling

Action shot to show the beads!

There are a lot of beads in her.  The large flower beads in her hands look great too.

Here are all four fairies together:

I don't plan on stitching any more of these at the moment.  Unless someone has another daughter unexpectedly!  The temptation to stitch all 26 is quite overwhelming at times but I will resist.

While I think of it - Happy Birthday to Calamity Jr and Susan Yellow Flower Meadow too.

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Finally I am celebrating a Big Zero Birthday in September and have planned a BIG BLOG HOP for the event.  My plan is to attempt to get one Person per year of my life and allocate each person a year.  I will give you a Fact About Me from that year and ask you to base your post on that fact.  So you might get 1971 - "I am five years old and I start school".  Your post could be about you being five, you starting school, you in 1971 (if you were born by then) or some world event which is relevant to you from 1971.

I will ask you to post a photo of something you have stitched which will appeal to me!  I think you all know my tastes in stitching by now and I'm looking forward to some eye candy and probably some stash acquisitions too!  Got to have something to spend that Birthday money on.  So if you want to be in the Hop, please leave a comment or email me.  Because we need so MANY participants for this one, please feel free to share it on your blogs and invite your friends to join in.  The more the merrier!  We can always share eventful years or skip the dull ones depending on how many people we get.

Over the weekend I am going to try get an image we can all use to advertise the Hop and maybe set up a separate page with a linky.

The Weekend's Stitching

First of all, thanks to everyone who took part in the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop and guessed the Mystery Phrase.  There were some gorgeous Spring and Easter themed photos shown on the participating blogs and some inventive ways of displaying the letter needed too.  The Hunt is open until the 6th April so you have plenty of time to hop round if you were busy over the Easter weekend.  Originally I allowed until the 8th which is my Blogaversary but then I realised it was going to be a VERY long post so I'm going to do a special post dedicated to the Treasure Hunt prior to that day.

I made some great progress on Nora Corbett's J Fairy and she is now ready for her bling!  The Kreinik will be next (the veins in the wings and some swirls) and then the beads.  Lots of beads!

stitched on 32 count Murano Love-in-the-Mist from Crafty Kitten

Close-up of the fairy: 

You can see from the gaps how much beading there is to be done!

She is taking a little break this week while I stitch the next letter for Brooke's Books' Stitcher's Alphabet ready for The Alphabet Club detention on Saturday.

I managed to stitch another motif for the Stitch for Syria project.  You may recall I stitched one in variegated red/pink on white evenweave and now I have one in yellow/orange on black evenweave.  I love this one!

28 count black Jobelan using DMC 90

28 count white Jobelan using DMC 107 on the left.

These two squares have been sent off to Concern's headquarters in London to be made into a hanging for their centre in Lebanon where many Syrian refugees and poor Lebanese women find a safe place to learn a craft and a way to make a living.  I also popped some spare threads in the envelope which should come in useful.  If you live in the UK there is probably still time to stitch one of these squares and get it to them by the end of the month.  If you are further afield I would advise emailing them to check.  Or send money, there is no time limit on money!

You can read more about the project here - Concern - Stitch for Syria

I have got a train trip later this week so I needed to plan my travel stitching.  I allocated a number to each of the designs in my list of series I want to stitch this year and chose one at random.  Just Nan's Spring Typography came up.  I've already stitched Awesome Autumn and Wonderous Winter so this must be Special or Splendid Spring, or maybe Spiffy Spring!  While I was hunting for suitable adjectives I came across this website - Adjectives starting.com with ...  Essential reading for anyone wishing to broaden their vocabulary.

JN 261 - Spring Typography

That photo is from Just Nan's website and here are my versions of Autumn and Winter:

Finally, Crafty Sasha is having a giveaway on her blog.  She doesn't have a lot of followers yet but does have some nice charts!  So pop over and say Hi and offer to take some off her hands!  You can find her here - Crafty Sasha.  She is also stitching this - Qing Ming