Baby Happy Dance!

Not me (or Nia, despite the hints on her blog) but this little baby sampler:

Danika is my friend's new grand-daughter.  The little characters are from the Mamas and Papas Millie and Boris nursery range that the new parents have chosen for their daughter.  The frame co-ordinates with the white gloss in the room.  I charted the characters from some images I downloaded from the M&P website and found a lovely Slavic font through Google Images which I also converted to cross stitch.

The buttons are Just Buttons and probably cost more than the rest of the project put together!!  In return for stitching it I got some pennies and an Easter Egg.  Hopefully I'll get a nice picture of baby too.  I have spent the money on some new stash already!  There is a woman on FB destashing 25 years worth of stuff!  I bought some Just Nans.  If you're interest in Drawn Thread, Sweetheart Tree, LHN or Lizzie*Kate in particular then ask for an invite so you can browse (it's a closed group so you can't see until you join).

This is a very old finish I needed to photograph for my Happy Dance blog.  Stitched back in 1994 or 95 on black aida, it's a row of cute kitties that sat on my son's window sill for several years.  The first picture is how it looks and the second shows the difference between the front and the back!

Doesn't look too bad until you compare:

Here is this week's main stitching focus:

Just for a change I'm stitching the border first rather than my usual centre start.  This means I can show you a progress picture without giving it all away (unless you are a total stitching geek and can recognise it from the border alone!)

Enabling Spot coming up here:

Here's a nice new blog just launched with a week of freebies - The Snowflower Diaries.  Maja is a Hungarian participant on the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL and one of the first designs is a Hallowe'en chart.  The other one is some rather more seasonal bunnies.

Talking of Hungarians and bunny freebies - here's another link - Palko-lap.  There are lots of different freebies here as well as these Quaker Bunnies.  The Quaker Cat is a favourite of mine too.

Finally, it's Mother's Day in the UK tomorrow so hopefully you'll all be getting breakfast in bed and lots of nice treats from your children and/or furbabies.  If you don't have children or furbabies then you can have a lie-in any time without being suddenly woken up at unsociable hours by unearthly yowling so you don't need a special day!

If your country doesn't celebrate Mother's Day in March then you must claim your English roots and tell your family you need to be treated, make them do it in an English accent too, just for fun.

Stitching up a Hallowe'en Storm

Lots of finishes added to my special finishes blog this week.  If you just like to drool over lots of pics and little chat then pop over and Come Happy Dance with Me.

And for those you like alot of chat, here are the latest two plus a mystery WIP.

First up is the completed Spooky Hallowe'en from Puntini Puntini (sadly no longer available).  I love this design and you can finally see the part that made me fall in love with it - the little witchy boots!

I stitched this over 1 on 28 count Burnt Orange evenweave (jazlyn or jobelan) using Sullivans black and GAST Harvest Moon.  It took exactly a fortnight!  There are so many cute details besides the little boots - the owl eyes, the spider and it's web.  I'm going to finish it tomorrow, maybe as a flat ornie using the bat fabric Sarah sent me and adding a Hallowe'en charm.

Next up is a very quick finish from JCS Hallowe'en Special 2012, the JBW Cat:

We had a very intense and long-awaited-for 90 minute paediatrician's appointment on Thursday and I was so drained afterwards I needed to chill out so I started and finished this little cat in one afternoon flat!

Stitched on the same 28 count again over 1.  I changed the "meow" to 2012.  I know this was in the Hallowe'en issue but TBH it would be lovely for any season, in green and red for Christmas, pink for Valentine's etc.  So don't be surprised to see him again!

Here's the WIP, any ideas now?  Giovanna knows because she has it in her stash and Evalina knows because she's stitching it too!

Stitched using 2 strands of 310 over 2 on 40 count linen.  Nice dense finish!

Finally, I really need some more people for the Hallowe'en Blog Hop on the 31st or the mystery phrase will be "Boo" and not much of a hop!  If you're concerned about your ability to post on the 31st because you'll be out on your broomstick then remember you can schedule a post to be published anytime.  Just ask how!

Click on the picture below to see how to sign up and what you have to do (post a picture basically!).

Joan Elliott Round Robin and a row of cats (minus the frog)

I finished my block just in time, mailing day is Tuesday!  Karen's theme is Fairies.  I had thought of Winter Fairy or Poppy Fairy but when I saw the two designs already stitched I knew I had to choose one with more wing showing.  So I went for Butterfly Fairy from the cover of the latest Joan Elliott book Fairy Enchantment (available from Waterstones for only £9.99).

Here is my block:

And some close-ups:

And the whole piece:

I used the recommended DMC and Kreinik from the book but subbed the Kreinik french knots for beads.  C'mon - Kreinik AND french knots, who is Joan kidding?!!

The difficulty was remembering which squares to leave empty for a bead as the charted knots went inbetween stitches but I wanted beads to replace stitches.

This is such a great Round Robin so far.  My design is slowly growing, Daffodil was added this turn.  Of course I only get to see photos until the end of the year.  I've signed up for a Giant Mira RR for next year, blocks will be 5,000 stitches rather than the usual 2,500 but we'll get 12 weeks to stitch rather than the usual 6.  I'm going for the Calendar or Birth Month Fairies for my choice.

I can now show your Rachael's Birthday Card.  I stitched this as part of the Needlecraft Haven Birthday Exchange but as Diane shares Rachael's Birthday I stitched her the WOCS Flower of the Month and chose Rachael's favourite cats for her card.

The original design came from this French blog, Novalee Point de Croix.  She has lots of freebies, several featuring cats.

This card was stitched over 1 on 25 count using DMC 69.  The moon is my own addition to cover up the frog's mess!  When you frog red thread from white fabric you can see the red left behind!  So there is a nice little moon now.

Finally, a Big Thank You to everyone who commented on The Danse Macabre post about my completed Dark Alphabet.   After posting Wednesday evening I was up half the night with a Small Boy who decided 3am to 6am was Play Time.  So when I got the the computer Thursday afternoon I was feeling rather tired to say the least!  Reading all your comments really buoyed me up again.  It's so great that you all shared my excitement at finishing this project and getting the lovely gifts.  I'm also pleased that people appreciated the individual pictures as they took ages to load on!

A Plethora of Small Finishes

You may recall back in March I made several small starts as part of March Madness?  Well, I have now made several small finishes!

In no particular order here they are:

This is my own design of a Union flag in a heart shaped stitched especially for Sarah-Beth.  She won one of my Epiphany Giveaways and we decided to do a little "local" exchange.  I sent her some local-to-me things and she will do the same.  As well as the local items I sent some Jubilee goodies too and thought a card would be nice.  I didn't feel like rummaging through all my mags to find designs which weren't quite right so it was actually easier to jot this down on graph paper and stitch it up!

I only stitched the red and blue, the white is the fabric.  Purists will realise there should be white spaces between the diagonal red stripes and the horizontal/vertical stripes.

If you'd like to see what else I sent her, then pop over to Sarah-Beth's Cross Stitch Blog and see for yourselves.  I was particularly pleased to get her the woven badge she wanted.  The company that makes them went out of business some time ago and my local gift shop was selling off the old stock, this was the last one in the shop!

The next finish is the Spring Heart by Gazette 94 to go with the Autumn previously stitched:

This was a very cheap frame from QD, the hearts are printed on the glass, clever isn't it?

I've just started another Band Sampler Round Robin on the Yuku Board.  My theme is "Purple with an Accent".  I am asking each stitcher to use DMC 333 as their main colour plus one other.  They also have to stitch with a fake British accent.  Not really, but it would be fun!  Here's my band:

This is stitched on Sparklies' Purpleberry Spludge, a great name for a great colour.  Last year's band sampler was amazing and alot of the same stitchers are doing this year's so I'm really looking forward to it.

The final pictures are actually 2011 finishes but I couldn't show them until now.  Dawn from Crafty Kitten found out she was expecting a baby due in January.  As she would be on maternity leave in January I decided to order my fabric just before Christmas so she could dye it over the holiday period.  I got an email on Boxing Day from her hospital bed saying "Baby came early, don't worry about your fabric, hubby is getting it ready to send to you"  That is the sort of customer service you get from Crafty Kitten, beautiful fabrics come Hell, High Water and Newborn Babies!

Anway, Nic, Hannah and myself collaborated on a Round Robin afghan for baby Sam.  Here are my two blocks in close-up:

This cute little dragon comes from here - Free Cross Stitch Charts

And this is the Tralala cat I have stitched before, available free from Socreastitch

I changed the colour of the dragon to blue and simplified the colours used ALOT.  There were 26 different colours used originally which I reduced to about 10!

Here is the whole piece in all it's glory:

This was a lovely afghan from Sewandso,  reasonably priced and very soft.  It specified "18 count evenweave" on the website so my brain said "that mean 36count which is equivalent to 18count aida".  When it arrived it really was 18count evenweave and a very loose evenweave too.  So the choice was to stitch over 2 and get 9count equivalent or stitch over 1.  Which I did.  Moral - read and believe the website.

Dawn was thrilled to bits with the present which arrived this week.  She sent us a lovely photo of Sam with it, I forgot to ask permission to post it here, so I won't just yet.  But his expression is priceless - he's got his arms stretched out wide going "how big is my blanket?"!!

BTW, Hannah is taking a break from blogging as she has one of those job-things which takes up alot of time at the moment.  She's in touch via FB and email and is keeping well in case you were concerned!

The other 2012 finishes can't be shown yet as they are all gifts.  If Parcelforce had got a move on I could've shown Christine's but they haven't so you will have to be patient along with her!

Finally, only three more followers until my 250 Giveaway!

Stitching Finishes

Here are a few of my recent finishes that I haven't shown yet.

My 10th finish for the year was the Needlecraft Haven February Challenge.  Every month Christine discovers a freebie chart and we all stitch it and finish it however we like.  We can't show anyone until the end of the month.  February's came from  Lynn B of Happiness is Cross Stitching.  We could choose either of the two freebies and I chose the cat.  Then I decided the "LOVE" would look good stitched over 1 underneath the cat.  I changed the "O" heart slightly, it was originally a dangler!  I do have an issue with DMC 310, it doesn't cover well on 28 count.  Does anyone have a recommendation for a good black?  Not an expensive one please!  310 is great for backstitch and I really don't want to have to go for three strands everytime.

My 12th finish was another freebie, this time by Barbara Ana from Cyberstitches.

Here they both are together:

I've got another Valentine design by San Man Originals I want to add on the same fabric but now February is past I don't have the same incentive to stitch it!  It'll be done by next year, I promise.  The fabric is the fruit-tea dyed 28count I used for Mouse's Birthday card.  By careful cutting I have a small square and a long thin piece left.  I am so mean with my fabric and threads!

My 11th finish was a prize in my Epiphany Giveaway which went to Terri of Rosy Stitches.  The design is all my own, this is the second time I've stitched it for somone else, it makes a lovely giveaway.  You must visit Terri's blog to see her lovely beaded rose in her header pic and also her stitching chair which matches this pillow, how serendipitous!

Terri asked which thread I used, it's DMC 4030 one of the newer variegateds.  When I stitched Bluebeard's Mermaid last year my LNS subbed the Carons for DMC threads and this was one of the them.  It's a lovely colour and changed shades nicely as you stitch. 

The backing fabric is one of the upholstery samples I acquired last year, it's very expensive stuff, some of it is over £75 a metre!  How lucky I am to have a load of 12inch squares to play with!   Apparently the sample books themselves cost £70 for the shops so I am doubly surprised they gave so many away to us.

There are two more finishes which I can't show yet until recipients have received them so watch this space.

Finally, I let the Large Boy choose this month's "Falling Things" hence the randomness of them.  Here's the link if you too want random things falling on your blog:

add-falling-coloured-stars-snowflakes-stuff-things

(Large Boy not included, provide your own)

Round Robin and some smalls

I have some new stitching pics today!

The first is for the Round Robin I'm in on the WWRR Yuku Board.  This is Sophia's RR, she has sent it round the world once in 2008 and now it's travelling again.  The theme is the great Teresa Wentzler and I was very excited to be stitching on this piece as I love TW's designs.

I chose a floral band from The English Cottage Sampler partly because there is one other UK stitcher on this piece and she chose from The English Garden Sampler and I thought they made a nice pair.  It is a more freeform band than some of the others but happily fitted into the 80 squares wide allowed in this sampler.  I stitched it exactly as the pattern except for the top 4 rows which I mirrored the bottom four for symmetry.  I also changed the edge leaves to single stitches where they would have gone over the edge.

This is my band with the previous one:

I've been super-careful with this one.  It only comes out in the evening when the small one is in bed and I haven't been wearing my usual eye makeup.  Why on earth not? you may well ask.  Well, when it's getting late and you have "just one more row"itis and rub your eyes there is a risk that you will get black eyeshadow on the fabric!  A risk I was not prepared to take!

I had to frog the parts of the beige background crosses at least twice as they kept jumping one square over.  Then the palest leaves (504) didn't look much different to the 503 so I looked at the thread in a better light and realised I had two skeins of 504 and one is lighter than the other.  So I frogged them and redid them in the new skein.  This is the woman who never frogs but recharts instead!

This is a little piece I mailed off to Rachael to help raise money for the Cats Protection League.  Hopefully it will be added to a quilt or cushion.  The design is by Tralala from SoCreaStitch and I stitched it in DMC 4215 a lovely variegated blue/lilac and pink.

And for those who like a more artistic photo -

The two cats were bought with the money I got for serving 15 years with my old company.  I also got my stash chest and a jacket (total spend £250) plus a party at the pub shared with a fellow "lifer" for 50 people.  We were supposed to have a nice genteel buffet in the boardroom for 30 but the senior management wanted it too and as we refused to change our date they had no choice but to give us the money and send us to the pub instead!

(note from proof-reader mode - I spelt Genteel as Gentile originally, not what I meant at all!)

The final pic is a small freebie from   The Stitcherhood blog which I found via the Needlecraft Haven Forum in their February challenge.  I stitched it twice with a subtle difference.  Now all I need to do is find some black ribbon with hearts or maybe some thick lace and decide how to frame it.

That's all folks!

Dilemma!

Blogger is driving me crazy!  I can see my blog in read-only mode but can't get at the Dashboard.  I have to go into someone else's blog, leave a comment to log in to Blogger then I can edit my own blog!  And my Picasa photo album is having a tizzy fit too and won't load any photos.  I have to add them to my blog then move them into the relevant photo album then delete them from the blog.  aaaaaaaaghhhhhhhh!

Anyway I have a decision to make about thread colour.  I want to stitch this fairy for my great-niece who is due any time.  I have a piece of raspberry aida to stitch her on but can't decide on thread colour - magenta? pink? purple? a total contrast?  Any ideas?  I want to do a plain colour not a hand-dyed but other than that I'm not sure.

The fairy is a Passione Ricamo freebie, there are several different fairies on their site.  If you click on "X stitch brand line" on the left hand side of the screen it will bring up the link to the free charts.

I have finished a cute Japanese Beckoning Cat design by Joan Elliott this weekend and framed it in a bargain frame.  The bric-a-brac people left a box of bric and brac in our Toddler Group hall and while I was moving it to a safe place I couldn't help but notice three picture frames.  I was told everything was 10p so I generously gave them 50p for all 3!

The cat is known as Maneki Neko (or Beckoning Cat) and more information can be found here.
招き猫 These are the Japanese characters for Maneki Neko which I might try stitching along the bottom of the picture.  Alternatively I might find some oriental braid and fix that along the bottom.  I found a great shop in town recently which sells lovely trimmings.  The shop is at the grotty end of town and is a bit tatty on the outside.  Inside it's a jumble sale but they do have some great finds if you don't mind rummaging.

What a busy week!

What a busy week!  I had a small shared stall at a craft fair on Bank Holiday Monday.  My friend does decoupage and "shabby chic" boxes and I had my cross-stitch.   It was quiet but I sold 2 cards, a picture and took some commissions for wedding samplers and some name plates too.  The fair is held in our church hall every Bank Holiday to raise money for Hope HIV.  There are only a dozen stalls and everyone is very friendly.  I got some "Pandoro" style beads which are meant to be threaded onto a bracelet but which will look good on a stitched piece.

Aren't they sweet?  The nice man gave me "stall-holder's discount" so they were only 50p each!  There are several Just Nan squares which will be perfect for the top four.  The bottom two are more for children's birth samplers.

I spent most of last weekend stitching cards, here are some of those I finished:

These are from the Joan Elliott Oriental Booklet free with WOCS 177.  I stitched them on scraps of 14 count aida - the middle one the aida had been washed and ironed and shrunk slightly, the left hand one the aida was landscape and the right hand one was portrait.  It just shows that the squares in aida are not necessarily square!

Helen Philipp's Design adapted to fit in an oval.

Andree Langhorn

WOCS Issue 177 - Flower of the Month.

Lesley Teare.

The bears were designed just using back-stitch and having seen how effective they were and how quick to stitch I decided to try with the rose from WOCS.  The red and green shading effect is simply fabric pens coloured in after the back-stitch was completed.  The little fairy is the same.  She is part of an ABC with a different fairy for each letter.  I removed the letter, changed her hair to make it more suitable for this technique and used blackwork to fill her dress in.

Interestingly, these two were the two that sold!  I was pleased because I'd put my own artistic input into them rather than just stitching someone else's design "as is".

School has taken up most of the week, I help out with a Year 3 class and also run a Road Safety Club for Years 4 and 5.  Stitching-wise I've been slogging through "C is for Coven" from the Dark Alphabet.  It is almost solid stitching 1 over 1 and not very exciting to do!  But it does look good now I am almost finished.  For light relief I have been stitching another Joan Elliot - the waving cat from her Oriental Booklet on red aida.  The waving cat is a lucky symbol in China, this will be for the large boy.

And talking of cats - here is a gratuitous picture of a cute cat!  We have time-shares in a stray cat, we do breakfast and tea, my neighbour does lunch and supper it seems!  We were all in the garden and the cat had been getting lots of fuss and attention then had gone off for a rest.  She seemed to think this was a good place to be!  She then tried to roll over in the pot!

I'm yawning now, the paparazzi are sooooooooo boring!

Almost forgot!!!  The new Joan Elliott book-a-zine (as she calls it!) is out in the UK.  It's amazing and only £9.99, it's sold out online already but should be in overseas shops by the end of May.  So keep your eyes peeled.