Birthday Review

Thank you all so much for the Birthday wishes, some on here, some on the Scarlet Letter, some on Facebook and even some in the traditional method of putting pen to paper and sending a card!  Whatever method you chose I really appreciated the wishes.

I thought I'd show some prezzie photos to show the kindness and generosity of my fellow stitchers.

This little collection came from the Mouse House and includes some goodies from the Harrogate show  and some Hot Chocolate to consume while reading Tales of a Stitching Mouse.  The fabric is a Sparklies FOM limited edition.  Hard to decide which is more yummy, the chocolate or the fabric and threads!

This parcel is from Shirlee, The Easily Influenced Stitcher.  Back in August she displayed a lovely pillow finish for the January Word Play she had stitched earlier in the year.  The ever-gracious Shirlee said:

"I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches,

Shove an ice pick under a toenail or two.

I'd rather clean all the bathrooms

in Grand Central Station with my tongue..."

Than spend one more minute ever stitching another WTN&T Word Play design again!"

So she offered it as a giveaway to one of her masochistic followers!!  Just to prove she does actually like me she also sent a lovely Just Nan chart, hoping it was not one of the many I already had.  She chose well!

 

Another Just Nan gift, this time from Sharon Shebafudge.  She saw that I'd finished my Autumn Typography and wanted to stitch the whole set, so just to help me on the way she sent me Winter.  Plus the only GAST used in this design.  We both noticed that Nan had used many different GAST for Autumn (which I converted to DMC) but this follow-up uses only one and DMC for the rest.  Do you think she got alot of complaints about the cost?

This is stash chosen by me and bought with my Birthday money.  There is a Mirabilia lurking at the back which I won't show because it's for Rachel's Round Robin and I want you all to play "Guess the Mira" along with her as I stitch it!  The Firewing is from my son and will probably be for him too.  The JBW features the kitten I already have plus the Mummy cat.  I plan to stitch the Mummy cat as a header for my alphabet kitties then do a giveaway for the chart.  Words just cannot describe the CD.  American stitchers will probably not understand just how exciting it is to be confronted with a 250 page document containing the Contents pages of ten years worth of a magazine which is hard to obtain here! 250 pages to browse before I even opened a magazine!!  Every Christmas ornie for the last ten years!!  I was quite breathless with excitement!!

Last year I instigated the first Joan Elliott RR with a lovely group of stitchers on the Yuku Board.  It was such a success they decided to do another.  However I already had the Large Mira RR and a Band Sampler so I declined.  Karen Stitchy Woman was so upset to be only stitching with me on two RRs we decided on a Birthday card exchange on a JE theme.  Note - a Birthday card.  Apparently this is what passes as only a Birthday card for some people, an entire parcel of goodies!!

A chart, a stitched bookmark, some fabric, a hand-made card, smelly soaps.

Plus this lovely hand-made project bag:

Here is a close-up of the bookmark.  Karen wracked her brains thinking of what to stitch and remembered how much I love dragons.  This one is from the Oriental Odyssey book by Joan Elliott which I don't actually have in my collection so there's no chance I could stitch it for myself.

 And here is the chart.  I have wanted this limited edition chart ever since I first learned of its existence.  Earlier this year I learned that a shop in America had acquired a number of the chart and were selling them (like hotcakes it has to be said!).  I mentioned it to Karen and asked if she would be able to try to get one for me.

I knew it was rare and limited so I wasn't surprised to see it had a number, but just look at what is under the number (9/1000 incidentally)

Yes, it is the signature of the actual Teresa Wentzler herself!!  Stitching Royalty!!

I really hope Karen wore those silk gloves they have in museums when they are handling rare and precious artefacts...

Oh yes, there was one more present, from Nicola.  But as I'm doing the extra draw she organised for my Birthday this month I'll leave the photos of that until I post on the Scarlet Letter Blog.

Finally, there has been stitching going on.  Notably on Trick and Treat and also a Challenge piece for Anna the Stitch Bitch's bi-annual challenge.  But I'm not sure of the rules about sharing photos before the competition so I won't until I hear from Anna.