Mermaid framed

I collected her from the framer's today.  This is not the best photo because it was taken in artificial light but I couldn't wait to post it!  I might have another go tomorrow and re-post.

We decided not to have a matted mount as I wanted all the gorgeous fabric to show.  Instead the framer used a thin silver frame around the fabric then put the glass on top of that and mounted the whole thing in the wider top frame.

This evening I finished off the September freebie challenge from the Needlecraft Haven group, a Gazette 94 design.  I will post a pic when it's be published on that forum.  I wonder if any of my French speaking followers would mind reading the final Au Revoir post and telling me if the blog will be staying visible after December 2011 or not.  I know she won't be adding to it but some people have said it will actually be disappearing.  Many Thanks.

Happy Dance, Happy Dance!

Firstly, the song titles were "Freebird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd and "Maybe Tomorrow" the theme tune to The Littlest Hobo.  Well done to anyone who recognised them both.

Now onto the Happy Dance.  My Mermaid is finished.  She is Mirabilia's Bluebeard's Mermaid stitched on 32 count Murano hand-dyed by Dawn from The Crafty Kitten, colour is Waterfall.  I used the recommended DMC and my LNS subbed the Carons for DMC and Just Threads.  I changed the mermaid's bs to turquoise and the seahorses to 500, the crown is in one strand of 3371 not 2.  I moved the border out by 5 stitches top and sides (as recommended on the Mirabilia Yuku forum!) and didn't bs it.

I started stitching her for the Mermaid SAL in January but discovered I don't like rotating, my "weeks" invariably became 10 days, so since July I've worked on her constantly.  She has her own page here on my blog so you can see the progress throughout the year.

As it's my Birthday in less than a month (have I mentioned that before?) I will be getting her framed as my present from hubby.  Unless he wins the lottery in which case we will be flying First Class to see Jill Rensel.  Even better I could pay her to come here and frame for all my UK friends!

Enough talk, here she is in all her blingy glory!

And finally, if anyone is still reading, I made a decision on what to spend my gift certificate on.  I discovered that the Victoria's Samplers are both available from SewandSo in the UK so I can easily get them for a little cheaper too, so they are now on my Christmas list.  Therefore I will be treating myself to Prairie Moon Thine is the Trick and the Treat and also Ink Circles Masquerade.  I have not seen them on any UK sites so far.  YaY!  Big thanks to Raven and to everyone for their voting help.  Next I will need you to decide which to stitch first!

This week's progress and Is it Just Me?

First of all the Travelling Pattern:

This was two steps forward, one step back this week.  I only stitched the end of the fence on Tuesday as we were busy but on Wednesday I realised I had missed out the central post in the gate and it looked all wrong as it is supposed to echo the Blessings curve.  So I unpicked and restitched the right hand side and voila, all fine.

The problem with choosing your own colours is that you do tend to try something, doesn't work, try something else and end up stitching twice.  The leaves are a good example.  Paler colours don't look good on this fabric.

Next up is my Mermaid, I've been concentrating on the boring border.  I've started to back stitch it but don't like it so will unpick it and leave it plain.  The eagle-eyed Mira obsessives may have spotted I've moved the border out.  This was advised on the Mira board and is a great idea.  I moved the top and side borders by 5 stitches each but left the bottom border and the seahorses where they were.  I've bs the seahorses in DMC500 not the 3371 recommended which I used for the crown but only in one strand.  Her skin will be bs in turquoise not 3371 (yuk).

Number 2 in the series "Doesn't Everyone Do This?  Oh OK Just Me Then"

These are my "scraps bags".  When I finish a kit I always have loads of thread left over and I just used to put it all in a large bag.  This year I spent time sorting it into colour groups and putting into individual bags.  Each length is on a piece of cut-up thread sorter.  I use spare cardboard as DIY thread sorters if the project doesn't come with one.  Even the threads which claim to be DMC colours go into this bag as I learned early on that things-are-not-always-what-they-seem-to-be.

Now when I need a thread for a small project I just go to the relevant bag and select a suitable colour.  There's usually only one length of threads from cover kits but from larger kits there is often half a skein leftover.

So do you do anything like this?  What's your "it's just me then" thing?

Charting, Mermaid and Inky Darkness

 It's funny how when you are self-taught and you find a way to do something you sort of assume that everyone does it that way too as it seems obvious.  Recently I've seen a few posts where people have referred to marking off their stitches on photocopied charts with a pen, so I thought they did it like me.  But it seems people only use one colour (opens eyes in amazement).  I have always produced a multi-coloured pattern as I go.  It just seemed logical, if you are stitching dark blue then why mark it in fluero yellow?  And you get a lovely coloured-in version of your work!  Here is my mermaid, she seems to have 4 arms because she's copied onto 2 A3 pages and I like a large overlap.

 And here's the stitched version.  I found a new setting on my camera which takes a more accurate colour picture.  I have started the metallics which I'm loving.  I can't believe I let blending filament put me off using Kreinik #4 for so long!  I was glad I saved some of the boring border because we had a two hour power cut one evening this week and I ended up sewing by the light of a 60W energy saving bulb hubby had wired to an inverter attached to the car!  He actually bought the inverter to keep the fridge-freezer going during such events but he allowed me one light too!  Large boy had a chargeable emergency light in his room, good job we're prepared!

This is the latest square on The Dark Alphabet.  Very intensely stitched and different in places to the chart.  I stitched the bottom /// in black and the top \\\ in 939 navy.  I did all the /// first and then all the \\\ as I thought it might seem quicker that way and I'd only have to count once!  I still miscounted in about 6 places and as I refuse to frog over 1 the last two branches are a little different to Julie's.  I also made one window into a door.  The large boy liked this square and used the house for inspiration for his latest drawing entitled "Bib-babs and friends in a graveyard".  Nice child.
For new followers this is a design by  A Note of Friendship in memory of Lisa Roswell.  they produce a new letter every few weeks and I'm stitching them as I go.  I seem to be the only person keeping up with the design but I have a plan....

I have managed to get Google Reader to play nicely this week.  Every time I've tried to use it, the entries are all squashed up and you can't see anything until you click on them.  But this week I'd got really far behind with my reading (the world and his wife blogged at the end of July) and tried again to use it.  One day I went into the Reader via my "history" rather than my dashboard and Hey Presto it looked great - I could see all the posts and everything!  I can now keep up with everyone's blogs and never miss a single vital post!

Finally, the Travelling Pattern arrived this afternoon.  Perfect timing as I've just finished "I" and am ready to start the next thing ("J" is nearly finished, only one day's work there).  This pattern started with Daffycat and came to me from Erin from Fairy Tales and French Knots.  I'm off now to choose some fabric and threads.

Not very seasonal finish

Blogger still playing up, still can't get into Dashboard to see who's been posting.  So apologies to all the people I follow, I'm doing my best to find your blogs using the list on the side of mine!

I have just completed this sweet little freebie from The Drawn Thread.  It's called First Snow and as soon as I saw it I wanted to stitch it so it leaped up the priority list and I completed it in only 2 days!  I stitched it on a scrap of mint green pearlescent aida I got in the closing down sale of my LNS.  I have a nice frame ready with is just a teeny bit wide so I'm planning to get some ribbon to go down the left and right sides.

As yet another from the Joan Elliot Oriental booklet.  The free gift with Cross Stitcher was the blue felt frame with a chart for an orange cartoon fox.  Why?  Apparently foxes are in vogue.  News to me.  Owls - yes, see them everywhere, but foxes?  Anyway the iris in a pot fitted perfectly like it was made for the frame and is much nicer.

I finished my decimal week of stitching Bluebeard's Mermaid tonight.  I finished the tailbody, just the tail fin to go now.  There is so much space left for metallics and beads, I hadn't realised how blingy she will be!

And E is for Eek!  Coming soon.

Realised I haven't posted D yet!  Minus the detached buttonhole which I haven't attempted yet.



History - Ancient and Modern

I had a most enjoyable day yesterday.  The large boy and I went "up the city" as we say round here.  My lovely LNS is closing soon and was having a big 40% off everything sale.  I made a list of the DMC I need for my next couple of projects and sent him to the stand to find which ones they had left (who said children aren't useful?) while I browsed the charts/fabric etc.

I tried to control myself but still ended up with more than I intended.  I'd not seen the Lesa Steele dragons before and they are lovely.  Samplers combined with dragons - what a combination!  I got three more of the Just Nan small squares, now I only have one more to collect and I have them all.  Plus a larger Just Nan.  The rest is mainly fabric, enough blue evenweave to stitch both dragon samplers and plenty of white/cream for whatever.  The mint green is pearlescent and so pretty, just right for Christmassy things.  Plus some beads, some Kreinik.  And a snowflake for no good reason.

RIP Timberhill Workbox - you will be missed.

Oh yes, and I bought the latest Cross Stitch Collection mag for the Joan Elliot Flower Fairy.

So that's the Modern History, now for the Ancient:-

After a delicious and nutritious meal in MacDs we went to a museum - Strangers' Hall.  This is a beautiful historic house in the centre of the city which dates back to the 14th Century.  It's been a museum since 1900 but was closed for a while at the end of the 20th Century.  Happily it has reopened now and I was able to relive my childhood visits with my own son.

The house is a maze of small rooms and staircases leading you round the entire house.  Each room is decorated for a different period in history from the Tudor Great Hall to the Victorian Nursery via the C17th Walnut Room and Georgian Dining Room.  Some of the textiles are original and some are reproductions.  One of the guides told me there is a sewing group who make them for the house (I must find out how to join in!).

You can read more about the history if you follow the link but here's a few of my favourites facts -

the Hall is called "Strangers' Hall" after Dutch, Walloon and Flemish refugee weavers who stayed there in the C16th.  They helped revive the ailing textile industry.

there is a painting showing 10 decades of a man's life with each decade represented by a different animal, lamb for a baby, kid for a 10 year old, lion for a soldier, fox for a wise man right through to a swan for the old man (his swan-song).

there is a wonderful toy room full of old toys including a Noah's Ark with every animal imaginable in a long line, 2 by 2.  This is displayed in EXACTLY the same way I remember it from my childhood although the toy room has been moved to the ground floor now.

I didn't have my camera but here are a couple of pages from the guide.  The bottom right picture is a detail from a sampler they have there by Hannah Hannant dated 1814.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything about her at all!



Final picture - this was my week for joining in with the Mirabilia Board Mermaid SAL.  I say my week but it was actually 10 days as I never want to put her down!

 The top picture is more true to colour.  They were both taken in daylight but the closeup was taken by the window which seems to make the fabric very turquoise blue.  This time I finished stitching the top plume, the conch shell and the tail fin.  The gaps are for metallics and beads which I leave until last.  She is stitched on a 32 count Murano from The Crafty Kitten called Waterfall.

Tonight I promise faithfully to start my Art Nouveau Brunette Head which will be Number 4 on my 11 in '11 but keeps getting shunted in favour of more pushy projects which shout "STITCH ME NOOOOOOOOOW" more loudly.  Or is it just the voices in my head?!!

First Post!

Having set up my blog I then spent ages adding all the photos onto a photo-hosting site so people would have something nice to look at when they get here.

I've been thinking alot about what I like in a blog, whose blogs do I enjoy reading and which do I just skim the photos?  I've realised the top priority is photos - works in progress, completed works, cute cats sitting on WIPS etc.  Then I like the more "interactive" blogs where people are asked to share their thoughts and opinions on a subject.  Links to fun projects are good, links to anything interesting, links which mean I can find pictures without having to google stuff and get lost looking at irrelevant but interesting sites.

So, the top priority first - here are some pictures.  The first two are my current WIPS, Mirabilia's Bluebeard's Mermaid for a SAL on the Mirabilia Board (see right for link) and The Dark Alphabet being produced one letter at a time by A Note of Friendship blog in memory of Lisa Roswell.

Actually I've done more than that but it's the most recent photo I have.  I am due to finish this month's session on Monday and will post her again.

This is great fun!  I'm stitching it on a piece of tea-dyed 28 count evenweave.  The border I've stitched over 2 because it's soooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring otherwise.  It's quite exciting not knowing what's coming next!  C is for Coven which I've started but is on hold while I work on a "protest piece".

The "protest piece" is for this group The Craftivist Collective who have organised A Railway Adventure.  They are holding "stitch-ins" in various railway stations across the country with pic-nic lunches, blankets and craft.  A nice civilised way to protest the extortionate fare increases planned.  Unfortunately I can't get to one but I'm stitching a railway carriage to send for their bunting!  I'll post a pic when it's done.

Well, that's it for my first post.  I'm off to stitch some of Blue's tail.  If anyone's reading this - please leave a comment.  Let me know how you found me and a link to your blog (if I don't already follow you).  I only realised how many people I stalk follow when I added the list to the side of this blog!