Theme-a-licious Looking Backward & Forward VIII Plus WIPocalypse August Number 2

Here's the round-up for the progress since the last Full Moon.

Part 1 - My 12 in '12

1. Dark Alphabet SAL - all completed this year
2. Joan Elliott's Green Goddess - not stitched for some time
3. Gift of Stitching My Lovely Sewing Tools SAL - not stitched for some time
4. Home of a Needleworker (PIF from Nicola) - started this month, great progress
5. Blackbird Designs (came with Madame Muriel from Margaret) - completed last month
6. Ed Hardy - Skull & Roses (for a friend) - not started
7. Wedding Sampler (for a friend) - completed this month
8. Baby Sampler (for a friend) - completed
9. Baby Sampler (for my cousin) - completed
10. Yiotas Coffee Fairy -  not stitched for some time
11. Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches - Parts 1 to 3 completed.  Part 4 well on its way to completion.
12. Nora Corbett Trick or Treat Fairy - not started.

So here are the photos of this month's successes:

A roof appears!

Part 3 completed, Part 4 all done except the metallic

These were delivered to the Bride today, she loved them!

Now I have an empty nail in my conservatory.

 .

Part 2 - Just Nan-a-thon

Not so good, in fact nothing again!  Although I have bought some more charts...


Part 3 - Theme-a-licious
 
The theme for this month was Altius August - Embrace the Olympic motto--Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger)--by elevating your mind. It's the perfect time to learn something new! Or maybe achieve some goals...
I thought I'd follow Heather's example and set myself some targets and award myself Bronze, Silver and Gold medals for how many I complete.  Here are the August targets, in five categories, one for each ring:

Blue Ring
Band Sampler Round Robin - Finish the current piece and also the one due to arrive next week - Finished the first, started the second -  Bronze Medal
Blue Ribbon Designs - stitch the snowman ornie and scrapbook the two together - not at all.

Yellow Ring
Joan Elliott Round Robin - Finish the current piece -  Finished -  Bronze Medal
Birthday cards - stitch two cards for lucky August ladies - 
Finished one - Silver Medal
Finished two - Gold Medal


Black Ring
Giveaways - stitch at least one of the two outstanding prizes - Finished one - Bronze Medal
Needlecraft Haven - stitch the August freebie  Finished - Silver Medal

Green Ring
Papillon Around the World - stitch at least the outlines for Parts 3 and 4, complete Parts 1 and 2 including the metallics. -
Part 1 complete - Bronze Medal
Part 2 complete - Silver Medal
Part 3 complete - Gold Medal

Red Ring
Just-Nan-a-thon - stitch at least one design - not yet
12 in '12 - keep up the good progress and either start or finish another one of my 12.  NB this does not include the BBD as it is nearly done even as I type - 
Started LHN - Home of a Needleworker - Bronze Medal
Finished Every Time Hearts - Silver Medal

So that's a total of five Bronze medals, four Silver Medals and two Gold Medals.  According to the table of medals, that means I am Kenya.  Please feel free to sing the Kenyan National Anthem and salute "our" flag.

I won't attach photos of all the "athletes" this time, they are all featured somewhere in the previous eight posts so have a look back.

Looking forward to September - September Smalls

We all love gadgets, and none better than the teensy tools and holders we make ourselves. Let's stitch some smalls--needlebooks, fobs, biscornus, scissors keeps, pincushions--or knit some teensy things--amigurumi, jewelry, sachets....

Hmmm, not so sure about all the finishing skills needed for that lot.  I think I'll stitch to stitching smalls for my scrapbook.

Finally, I will be emailing the last postcards in the Summer Postcard Blog Hop out later.  A Big Thank You to everyone who took part.  Watch out for the Hallowe'en Hop in October!

The Mystery Stitch revealed

Well done to everyone who guessed the name of the Mystery Stitch and especially well done to Chiara, Needlework Geek of the Week, who guessed it from only the two letters "ed".

Here is my progress so far, anyone who cannot guess which design it is now needs to go back to Needlework Class 1 for Beginners LOL.  It is, of course, Home of a Needleworker by LHN.  Nic the Obsessive Cross Stitcher passed the chart to me last year along with the threads.  She had a giveaway on my Birthday and I think I scared everyone else away by saying I HAD to win because it was my Birthday!!

It looks a little "saggy" because it's stitched on linen and scanned on the printer!  It is straight in real life.

Amazingly, someone else is having a Giveaway on my Birthday this year too.  It's Sarah the Crafty Moo, check it out there.  But you can't win because it's MY Birthday!

I've made some good progress on Papillon Around the World this week, I emailed pictures of Parts 1 and 2 to Yvonne for her Gallery and have now completed Part 3 plus a good bit of Part 4.  I need to stop soon to stitch on the two Round Robins in my possession then I'll either continue with ATW or be starting Thine is the Trick or Treat.  Evalina has suggested we SAL as she's started already.  It will be fun to SAL with someone else, it's a great way to keep up with a project.

Finally I've just sent another postcard out for the Summer Postcard Blog Hop. Gracie's card went to Lesley.  Check out her blog soon to see the picture and message.  There's still time to get a photo in if you want to join in, click on the sunset picture to the right for more details.

For newer followers - I like to organise Blog Hop events where we post photos of our stitching to a theme.  So far we've had:

Advent Calendar (each person was assigned a day and they posted a Christmas picture on their day)
Secret Stitching Sweetheart (each person sent me a photo and I randomly sent them to the others)
Easter Treasure Hunt (each person posted a picture plus a letter which spelled out a secret message)
Summer Postcard Blog Hop (each person sends me a picture and a message which is sent to another blogger)

The next event will be the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat, (similar to the Easter event) so watch out for sign up details in October.

Happy Birthday to Cucki!

Today is Cucki's Birthday.  If you've visited her Stitching Cove you already know her and love her.  If you've never been there before I whole-heartedly recommend it as a great way to brighten your day and make you smile with joy.

A quick request regarding blogs with Word Verifiers - I can't comment on these right now.  Blogger just won't accept what I type.  I had at least 10 attempts on one blog last night and gave up in frustration!  Please consider removing Word Verifiers if you have it or at least make sure it's visible on the first comment screen so I know not to bother typing a long comment then can't post it!  If you're concerned about Spam then remove the option for "Anonymous" to comment.  It mostly seems to be newer bloggers that still have Word Verifiers so maybe you're not aware of the difficulty!  I'd hate you to think I'm ignoring your blogs,

Holly, I especially loved your sweet peas!!  I call my boys that sometimes as a term of endearment.  An elderly lady heard me and said "What a lovely name for such a pretty little girl".  Actually he's got a normal name and he's a BOY!!  But I said it more politely than that LOL.

I've been stitching away on Around the World and if "Sweet Pea" hadn't been up until midnight last night I'd have finished Part 3.  Never mind.  That's what happens when they have a nap during the day.

May I just say, I hate Lazy Daisies!  Though they do work better in two strands than in one.  You can also really see the difference between a single strand for bs and a double.  The two shapes second and third from the left only have one strand whereas all the others have two.  I'll be going over those shapes again so they all have two strands.

I also received this anazing piece of fabric from Karen as a RAK.  Poor old dear can't see to stitch on 40count so she sent it to me!  Here's a picture of the fabric (colours as accurate as possible) and also the chart I'm planning to stitch on it.  What do you think?  I need a nice black thread a little thicker than one strand of DMC as I'll be stitching over 2 and I'm not sure if one strand will cover well enough.  Any recommendations gratefully received.  I don't mind spending a little more for this project.  Within reason.  Not £10 a skein!

There was a lovely little stitch counter in with the fabric too.  Do you think Karen's hinting I'll need one? LOL.

Finally, here's an update of the Mystery Stitch.  Any ideas?  All will be revealed next time as the words will be completed and it'll be obvious to everyone!

August TUSAL

It's TUSAL Time again!

Here is mine, posing with Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches and the lovely folder I use to keep all the ATW80 charts in.  I decided it would be easier to have each page in a separate plastic sleeve in a folder.

I was lucky enough to win this lovely kit from Linda the Keeper of the Crowes to celebrate her First Blogaversary.  The chart uses standard DMC threads but Linda has subbed the two main colours for these gorgeous Gentle Arts threads.

I have used the gold one already on an exchange I'm stitching (so you can't see it yet!) and it's very subtly variegated.  It's so hard to get these different threads without having a proper LNS so it is lovely to win some.  I received some from Ruth the Musing Badger a while back and have used her Cherry Bark on the same exchange too.

Finally, it's Jan's Birthday today.  She will be celebrating in her Thread Garden along with an e-card I sent her:

This is another one of Brooke's Books monthly cakes.  The original has a big A (for August) on top of the cake but I missed it off because Jan's name doesn't begin with an A!  The border isn't a variegated thread because I didn't have a nice pale blue, instead I did batches of about 20 stitches of 5 different blues all the way round.

I'm planning on stitching all 12 (I did June's for Joyzse already) so if you'd like an e-card of your month just let me know when your Birthday is.  E-cards are so environmentally-friendly and also save me on postage!  Half my spending money seems to go on postage these days!  And muffins.  They are three for £1 at the Post Office corner shop and it's the Large Boy's reward for walking there with me!

July WIPocalypse

Here's the round-up for the progress since the last Full Moon.

Part 1 - My 12 in '12


8. Turquoise Baby Sampler - Stitched several more letters, O, P, Q, T and U.

11. Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches.  Started Part 2, stitched the top tulip.  Added the metallics to the hearts.

Part 2 - Just Nan-a-thon


Nothing at all for Nan this month.   But I did frame Summer and got it up on the wall.  This was actually completed all except a dozen beads about 10 years ago!

Part 3 - Theme-a-licious: Jumanji June (birds and animals)

I stitched on two different Round Robins and did some guinea-pig stitching for an online friend.

Other news:
Regular readers will know I join in with the Needlecraft Haven Freebie Challenge each month.  Christine chooses a chart for us all to stitch.  June's choice was a rose in an unusual style.  The original was nice but I thought of a conversation I'd had with Karen where we'd been planning our Giant Mirabilia RR for 2013.  I wanted each person to stitch their birth month fairy but it turned out that three out of four of us were September!  So I said we should each stitch her but in different colours for an Andy Warhol effect.

Anyway, I thought this would be the perfect design for that treatment.  So here it is, for my 15 Minutes of Fame - Rose a la Warhol:

I stitched this on 16 count aida, hand-coloured with my trusty fabric pens.  I chose some vibrant colours and went for it!  That yellow is actually fluorescent.  Here's the link for the original design by Marie-Thérèse Saint-Aubin.

Finally, the obligatory Summer Postcard Blog Hop mention.  LOL.  Click the Sunset picture to the right of my blog to find out more.

TUSAL, IHSW and 11 More Things!

First things first - TUSAL:

This month my TUSAL jar is posing with the Queen and the usual calendar.  The goodies surrounding the magazine are a prize from Jenny of One Stitch Closer to Nirvana's 100 Followers' Giveaway.  Look at the sweet rabbit thread-holder and the daisy scissors!  The little bag contains "Made with Love" hearts to attach to my projects.  There are two charts - the April Word Play plus M Designs I and J which are a little extra because I sent Jenny a bird chart as a RAK a while back and she's been wanting to repay it!

For IHSW I worked on Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches, Part 2.  Which is good, because Part 3 is now out!!  I'm doing the Speciality Stitch version sans cutwork!

I'm stitching on 28count white evenweave with my choice of pinks, purples and one yellow DMC.  I've changed some of the stitches.  I couldn't get on with the lazy daisies in the Hearts, I tried one strand, I tried two, they just looked untidy so I weeded them out and did a circular ray stitch.  In the Tulip I've stitched them as a four sided parallogram.  I also passed on the Mordvinian Stitch because I did one and it looked lumpy, so I stitched some more Kloster Blocks instead.  I finally chose my metallic - DMC light effects 155 and I'm filling in the left hand heart now.

I need to decide on beads, I want two from pink, purple and silver.  The question is - which two?

1. pink and purple

2. pink and silver

3. purple and silver.

I also got tagged again for the 11 Things Thing (as Julie cleverly called it!).  This time Chiara Grey Tail tagged me.  I won't do 11 more things or tag anyone else but I will answer her 11 questions because they are good ones!

1. how long is it since you’ve last played, sat on the floor, with a kid?

About 30 seconds at any given time.  Also the same answer for "how long since a kid attached itself to your head while you try to read a blog/type an email etc".

2. your favourite school trip?

Not the one where I had an asthma attack in the middle of the night and ending up sleeping in the teacher's room so she could make sure I didn't die and freak the other kids out.  I can still "see" her multi-coloured hand knitted cardigan now!

3. when you go to sleep, do you wake up in the same position, or do you find blankets and pillows all over the place?

I find a small boy all over the place LOL.  But only when it's my turn to co-sleep with him.  The rest of the time I wake up curled in a ball regardless of how I went to sleep.

4. shades, hat or both?

Summer - Shades, with prescription lenses.  Great for "no-make-up mornings" even when it's not that sunny.

Winter - Hat, for "hair is a mess" days.

5. was there a time you thought “I wish I was born there!”, if so when/where was it?

I do love staying with friends who live in cities but it doesn't bother me that I wasn't born there as I could always move there if I really wanted.  Time-wise this is the best era for women so far (which isn't saying much!) so if I was going to be born in an earlier century I'd choose to be a wealthy man!

6. do you know how to make candy corn? could you tell me? I’ve never tried it!  (if candy corn is not traditional in your country, could you tell me how to make something you’re thinking is way better than candy corn  )

Cowpat cake - melt some cooking chocolate, take the tiny bits of cornflakes that settle in the bottom of the box and stir them in, pour into a pie dish, pop in fridge.  It looks like a cowpat but tastes better (I guess as I've never tried cowpat LOL).

7. how many years have you been stitching? did you learn by yourself or did someone help you along the way to the stitching madness it’s nowadays?

Since 1993 so nearly 20 years.  It's a special anniversary year next year!  I taught myself but did have a couple of work friends who were also keen. 

8. the perfect sandwich: what is in it?

For a hangover nothing beats a bacon butty!  I do like shop-bought sarnies best, Boots do a Chinese Duck Wrap which is lovely.  When we came back from France the CdG airport food was hideous, expensive and primarily cheese-based which I can't eat.  The wrap I bought as soon as we landed on UK soil was heaven on earth! 

9. honestly, do you think ironing our clothes is really necessary? how do you deal with the dullest house work ever?

Ironing is the only chore I actually like!  You can listen to music and it's strangely therapeutic making a nice neat pile of folded clothes.  My favourite thing to iron is the Small Boy's body vests (the ones that popper under his nappy).  

10. you reckon there’re even duller things than ironing? what is it?! ;D

Vacuum cleaning, dusting, scrubbing baths, toilets etc.

11. is there a TV commercial you like? (makes you laugh, takes you back to old times, reminds you of someone you know, ..)

I'm not a fan of commercial TV, the boys mainly watch the BBC for that reason (see I'm really Middle-Class LOL).  But we do like anything with a cat in it - Krusha milk shake mix and the Cravendale cats with opposable thumbs spring to mind.

Finally, don't forget my Summer Postcard Blog Hop!

Theme-a-licious Looking Backward and Forward IV

You do know that Theme-a-licious is a "It's Geek to Me" activity, don't you? 
Click the above pic to find out more.

April's Theme was Amazon April or your biggest projects.  I decided that BAP stands for Big Alphabet Project and worked on both Dark Alphabet and my Turquoise Baby Alphabet.  I also worked on My Lovely Sewing Tools (which actually has an alphabet in it, scattered around the piece) and had a completely unexpected start in Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches.

ATW80S is certainly an enormous piece of fabric for me and it's a full two years project so that will definitely count as a BAP.

Pictures:

Papillon Around the World

My Lovely Sewing Tools (includes an alphabet!)

Turquoise Baby Alphabet

Please come and follow The Stitching Gift blog.  There are a group of us who love the Gift of Stitching magazine and are going to be showcasing our WIPS and finishes from the magazine.  The final issue came out this weekend and it's a great finale.  Kirsten will still be involved in designing and sending out her newsletter.  She will also continue to offer the old issues to buy as bundles or individually.  There is currently a sale on, where everything is half-price!  You can get a whole year's bundle for only US$12.  Amazing.

May Memories -

Remember when you took that class? Or decided to commemorate that event? And then abandoned your poor WIP? Take a stroll down memory lane by working on it again.

Green Goddess is becoming a distant memory!  So maybe I should give her some love.  I also have an old Autumn sampler in my stash chest I could dig out.  Or I could decide to make some new memories - stitching things which relate to my blogging friends, charts they have sent me or recommended the designer.

I have signed up for a couple of small partwork SALs.  No, ATW80S is not counted as one of them.  First was a Hungarian Mini Mystery SAL from Manka's Blog which I found via Blu's SAL Directory Blog.  Manka blogs in Hungarian, English, and other languages too.  I do love multi-lingual bloggers, as Google Translate should be renamed Giggle Translate due to the weird translations it comes up with.

(edit to add - when you go to Manka's blog, the cursor turns into a little rose!  Even cuter than falling things!)

The 2nd small SAL I found via Dulcinella's blog.  It's from a French blog Voyage sur Toile.  You need to sign up for the newsletter and you will get Parts 1-3 with Part 4 due soon (Dimanche is Sunday, right?).  There is a Translate button at the top but for some reason my brain thinks it can read French although it can't.  Saying the words with a fake French accent is not the same as understanding what they say!

Finally, I have switched to Photobucket for my photo storage, my Picasa album was nearly full due to the fact I don't make my photos smaller before loading them on!  I could not be bothered to resize every photo in my blog so I've switched.  Sheila said she has trouble seeing the photos last post, so here is a link to the album.  If anyone else has difficulty seeing them on the blog, please let me know and I'll think again.

edit July2017 - switching to Photobucket was a huge mistake!  They decided to start charging for storage at no notice whatsoever and are holding our photos to ransom.  I can't even download my own photos from my folder there, so I'm having to photograph my screen to get them!

Y, Y, Y does it have to end?

Okay, it hasn't actually ended yet, but Y is the penultimate block on A Dark Alphabet

This is my favourite block of all (I know I've said that before!).  I love the design and the stitching technique, a nice geometric pattern.  The trunk and roots are as charted but the leaves are stitched in DMC 4045 a lovely variegated green.  Yggdrasil is the Celtic Tree of Life and as usual Becky has found out lots of information about it and posted on the Note of Friendship blog.  Apparently Julie is the designer for this alphabet who comes up with the pictures then sends Becky off to research and write the blog.  I think Becky deserves a huge round of applause for finding out so much about so many diverse subjects!

(edit - Yggdrasil is, of course, the Norse Tree of Life not the Celtic - thanks to everyone who reminded me of this fact!)

If you go read the post for Yggdrasil you will also find out which inspired person thought of using it - Me!  The Large Boy and I play "Guess the Next Letter" each time and we sent our suggestions for W,X,Y and Z to Julie who chose our "Y".  Fame!

I have signed up for the new Papillon SAL - Around the World in 80 Stitches.  I'm doing the speciality stitch version although I've heard the plain cross stitch one is nice too.  I'm going for a plain white fabric and I'll be choosing my colours this IHSW, probably pinks and purples.  I noticed bloggers all over showing their floss tosses and started a little list.  Then I thought it'd be nice to share this list with everyone.  So I asked Yvonne's permission and she said "of course you can".  So there is now a nice new page tab at the top of this blog which will take you to a list of Stitchers Around the World and a link to their latest SAL blog post.  There won't be photos, that's what Yvonne's Gallery is for, but it'll be a great way of finding other SALers and stalking following them.

So if you'd like to be included and I haven't asked you yet, step up and leave a comment.

Cherry Hill is steaming along.  I love this design and the Newcastle it's stitched on.  I made a slight error with one sheep, it's a line lower than charted so I had to fiddle with the word "Hill".

There are two different variegated greens in this, 92 and 4045.


Finally, while browsing T'internet (as they say in Yorkshire) I found this fascinating chart on Sprite Stitch:

Game of Thrones map

Anyone a fan of the books/TV show?  I love the opening titles.  Most programmes get them fast-forwarded but we always watch these ones in full!  I do love a book with a map in it.  When I was a child I used to spend hours copying the maps from my favourite books!