Royal Wedding Poem and my Mystery WIP

Royal Wedding Day today.  Did you watch, do you care?  I wanted to see people arrive, hubby wanted to hear Jerusalem sung and watch the flypast.  Small boy wanted to run around setting his space rocket off and large boy enjoyed an uninterrupted go on the computer!

I'm not a big Royalist but we have a Royal Family, they bring alot of money in via tourism and the alternative is that man and SamCam as President and First Lady - give me a couple of octogenarians any day!

The stitching magazines have featured a number of Royal Wedding Samplers recently and none have tempted me, although I nearly stitched the bunting from Cross Stitcher.  Then I saw this picture in the newspaper of the artwork by Stephen Raw of Carol Ann Duffy's poem.  Wouldn't this make a lovely sampler on a piece of hand-dyed fabric.  I feel quite inspired now.  Anyone recommend a fabric in these colours?

 The latest WIP is now being rested while I stitch Bluebeard's Mermaid for my decimal week of the Mira SAL.  So here it is - so much more obvious what it is with the pink and blue added, don't you think?

What do you mean - NO?  It's obviously a llama with a shawl riding on its back!

I have added a page to my blog mainly for overseas followers.  I know how long it takes for UK magazines to reach your shores, sometimes they are hard to get hold off and people don't know if it's worth paying the extra they charge (they are expensive enough here if you don't like much in an issue).  So I'll be posting the Contents Page ONLY of each mag I buy.  I will not under any circumstances post any of the patterns from the mags, this is just to help you see what is in each issue.  Hope you like the idea.

I posted a picture of my finished Flower Fairy on the WOCS facebook page along with a moan about the threads.  So many people agreed with me.  Some had abandoned the project because they couldn't distinguish between the colours.   So I feel quite pleased I managed to stitch her at all.

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?