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Showing posts with label Temperature SAL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Temperature SAL. Show all posts

Monday, 30 April 2018

April Pie and Stitch from Stash

For my final post of the month I thought I'd do a look at my focus piece for April - Gardens of London by Chatelaine Designs.  I started this one February 2017 and plan to make it my focus piece for five months this year.  In an attempt to see some real progress on it!

I stitched a lot in February 2018 and here is how it looked at the end of that month:


And here is where we are now:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast from Crafty Kitten

And some close-ups:


Top Left Garden


I am using a mixture of the recommended silks and some substitutions.  Some are the plain DMC recommended on the chart and others are variegated from Jodyri Threads.  Sometimes I am blending two DMC shades to make a subtle effect too.

The gaps in the centre part are all for beads.  The gaps in the border of the small garden are mostly speciality stitches and some beads.  I plan to stitch all the xxx first and then the speciality and metallics.  The beads I will leave until the end.  Because I haven't bought them yet!

And now the part you have all been waiting for - Pie!


I managed nearly half a month on Gardens of London which is about average for this year.

Now on to to Stitch from Stash:

April
Cross Stitcher sub £8.72
JCS sub £22.94
Beads £8.00
Total £39.66

The RoEx has worked in my favour because my Just Cross Stitch subscription has gone down in price this year.  I think Cross Stitcher have made an error because their subscription was due in May not April.  I have emailed them.

The beads were a real bargain.  A local crafter had a table at our Friday Coffee Morning and was selling various scrapbooking items and multipacks of beads.


These are not Mill Hill, maybe a little bit bigger than standard Mill Hills but great for making hangers for ornies or trimming them.  And at £3 for a packet of four, that's a bargain!

Finally, here's the progress on my Temperature SAL by Hetti:


You can see the warmer days we had at the beginning of the month on the right hand side, some nice yellow there.  In the bottom left you can see the mini heatwave too.  That bright orange is 26 degrees Celsius or 79 F, phew what a scorcher!   Now down to a chilly 7 C or 45 F to finish the month.








Saturday, 17 March 2018

Marching on with the TUSAL

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 three current projects:


On the right we have Mrs Peggotty's Alice and Flamingo, mostly tree so far!  The goal to finish it in a year is 2 pages per month.  There are 7 pages in each column and I have stitched all of pages 7, 6 and 5 and most of page 4, some of page 3 and 2 and tiny bit of page 1.  I am not doing a hard page finish because I don't want lines to show.  Instead I continue a few stitches into the next page and reach a natural stopping place.

stitched over one on 25 count blue evenweave

On the left we have a new start for the 10-a-Day SAL, this is Autumn in the Square, the third in the Just Nan series.

stitched on 32 count Light Mocha linen

The final project at the back is the Discworld Mappe by Lyndisfarne Designs, this month's focus piece:

stitched on 32 count evenweave custom-dyed by Sparklies

Close-up of the section I am working on:


I stitched the pointing hand with the Turn-wise banner and started the turtle head.

My final project to show today is the Temperature SAL, some warmer days before we plunge back to purple this weekend!




Finally, I am still really far behind with email replies but I have gone through them all and noted down everyone who wants to take part in the Easter Blog Hop.  If you haven't had a confirmation that you are on the list, please let me know.  There is still plenty of space for anyone else to join in.  I don't choose the Mystery Phrase until the last minute so I can always make it longer if more people join.  Just leave a comment and let me know if you want to be in this year.




Saturday, 10 March 2018

Snow and Christmas in March

The snow part of the title refers to the Beast from the East which caused widespread travel chaos and school closures in the last days of February and first days of March. 


On the plus side I got to use some new colours in my Temperature SAL and some more snow beads!  The blue and purples represent temperatures between 2 degrees and zero degrees Celsius.  The pinkypurple represents the day when the High Temperature was only minus 2 degrees (28 degrees F).

stitched on 22 count white hardanger

The Christmas part is the ongoing progress on Just Nan's 12 Days of Christmas.  This month I stitched Block 3 - 3 French Hens:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain linen

The top four blocks so far:


After Christmas I moved backwards in time to Hallowe'en and Jardin Prive's Happy Hallowe'en Night:

stitched on 32 count Cognac Linen

The whole piece so far:


The theme for March is Black Cats.  I am moving about the piece as the themes don't always fit the next logical area to stitch.


๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡

Finally, don't forget the  Easter Blog Hop.  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!

Monday, 26 February 2018

Let's Go Round Again

AKA the new phase of the rotation starts on the 26th of each month.

Why the 26th?  Because there are 26 letters in the alphabet and I'm stitching an Enchanted Alphabet conversion.  The original design is by Lavender & Lace and features some beautiful coloured letters and the frilliest child in the entire world.

My conversion features black and lots of it!  Eventually there will be more spiders, bats, ghosts and pumpkins but for now it is mainly DMC 310.  This month I added a T:

stitched on 32 count Tiger Lily by Sparklies


The colours are a bit off, the fabric is brighter than that.  Only 6 months to go and I can start on the embellishments!

Because my February rotation has restarted I have put away my Chatelaine.  I was really pleased with the progress I made this month and have almost completed the stitching on the central garden.  The first task next time will be to complete the Dense Rhodes Stitches and then lots of grey pavement. Hopefully I will be able to move on to one of the corner gardens!

This is where I left off last time I stitched on it:


And here is where I am now:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

Some close-ups of the speciality stitches and the metallics:


All those gaps are going to be beads!



And just to give you some idea of the scale of this piece, here is the full design!



On the theme of going round, my Temperature SAL is still going round.  It appears that I have not mentioned this before!  I discovered this SAL via Katy who linked to Hetti's Blog XX Stitches in Blue XX.  I have wanted to do a Temperature SAL for a while and I just love this one!  Hetti has designed a mini sampler with each 5 x 5 block representing a different day.  Each month spirals out from the centre of the piece.

She recommends some variegated threads to go with the temperatures but I used a different chart as our daily temperatures do not vary much with the average being between 8 and 20 degrees.  I am using the maximum temperature to choose the colour for each day.

I completed a block and started the first row of the next block. 

stitched on 22 count white hardanger

A new lowest high temperature of only 2 degrees C (35.6 F) and another snow bead.

Blues are the coldest days moving through turquoise into green.  The warmest days are that olive green which will move to yellow, orange and red (if the temperature goes over 25 degrees).  If we don't get above zero on any day I can use purple!  The white beads represent a day when it snowed.

๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡ ๐Ÿ‡

Finally, 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 2017

The Easter Hop is the second peak of our Five Hops Challenge.  Everyone who joins in with all five hops this year (either as a participant or as a commenter) will be entered into the Five Hops draw at the end of the year.