From this:
To this:
Look at all those lovely Queen Stitches forming the garden in the centre:
I'm putting this to one side to work on the Alphabet Club, Hallowe'en and Christmas SALs then my focus piece for March which will be M is for Mary (providing my fabric gets here in time!). After March I need to work on Gathering Honey and I want to start my Discworld map so it could be a couple of months before you see London again. I'd like to finish Gathering Honey for my friend's Silver Wedding this August.
I did spend some money this month. I needed to kit up M is for Mary by Nora Corbett for my cousin's new baby. I also had my Cross Stitch Collection renewal. Now that magazine has ceased to be published so my DD was transferred to Cross Stitcher which I used to get and cancelled. They only gave me two days notice so I thought I'd let the subscription run and see if the magazine has improved. It's always had good articles, and this month has designs from Emma Congdon, Shannon Wasilieff, Durene Jones and Helen Philipps. While all four design the more simple, modern style their designs do look fun to stitch and attractive to display. Unlike when I last got the magazine and everything was huge blocks of colour, boring to stitch and dull to look at.
Plus, I'm only paying £8.72 for three issues and the current subscription is £22.39 for six issues. A saving of £10.68 a year. So I'll stick with it for three months and see where we are by the end of that.
The stitching spend looks like this:
| February | ||
| M for Mary | £9.12 | Chart |
| Beads for Mary | £1.22 | Beads |
| CC for Mary | £4.06 | Threads |
| Fabric for Mary | £7.50 | Fabric |
| CSC Sub | £8.72 | Magazine |
| Total | £30.62 |
But the good news is that Mary is all from my Christmas money and magazine subs are exempt from Stitch From Stash so that's a zero spend to declare this month.
I mentioned earlier that Gardens of London was my focus piece for this month and here is the proof in pie form:
Finally, in my last post I mentioned the new Blogger of the Week Blog I am putting together. I was very pleased with the reaction to the idea so I will be working hard to get it ready to go live on Friday. I have a few people lined up already but once it goes live I will be asking for people to volunteer to be featured so don't be shy!
You were much better than I was this month! Look forward to Friday!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the zero spend this month! The gardens of london is wonderful, I am now considering doing one myself. The pie chart is certainly telling this month.
ReplyDeleteYour chatelaine is an incredible design. I wouldn't want to put it down. I quite like CS at the moment. The Shannon wasilief design is really nice. I liked the durene jones plants too and I'm not usually a fan of her designs. I think woxs and crazy have gone down hill a bit so far this year. It's all very twee and I'm sure they printed similar designs 5 years ago but then I've never been a kittens and flower fairies kind of person. I spent £2.96! Last of the big spenders me!
ReplyDeleteGreat job with your $0 spend this month. I am doing better than I thought, but not as good as I would like. Love your Pie Chart. Thank you for sharing
ReplyDeleteGorgeous queen stitches! :) Love seeing the beginning and end of month pictures together - wow, what a difference.
ReplyDeleteI love how your Chatelaine is looking.I just zoomed in for a close look at those lovely stitches:)
ReplyDeleteGood progress on Gradens of London. All your stitching is planned for next few months.
ReplyDeleteIts always a dilemma whether to spend on magazines or not.
Blogger of the week sounds interesting.
Lovely Queen Stitches???? Lovely Queen Stitches, acursed Queen Stitches more like. Well done on stitching so many of them and keeping your sanity intact
ReplyDeleteThe Chatelaine is coming up trumps!! Beautiful already :)
ReplyDeleteBlogger of the week definitely sounds like fun, I am looking forward to read about it & discover new talented stitcher.
Your Chatelaine is progressing nicely. I see you have a planned rotation for yours. Mine is more 'start and stop' but it will be finished.
ReplyDeleteWhat great progress you made. It's looking fantastic. Well done on the zero spend for February!
ReplyDeleteGarden is looking great :) I'm kind of torn between wanting to see more of it and seeing all your other gorgeous projects, so it's a good thing you're rotating!
ReplyDeleteYour Chatelaine is off to a great start! I'm looking forward to Blogger of the week too and getting to know your victims better!
ReplyDeleteLovely stitching =) The colors are very pretty =)
ReplyDeleteFantastic progress in February. Good luck with your March pie.
ReplyDeleteEven I can see on your pie chart you spent 50% of the month on the Chatelaine and beautiful it is too.
ReplyDeletewow! great progress :D
ReplyDeleteI had already thought that the Chatelaine project would use up a big part of your stitching time last month. It looks so good and your Queen stitches are very impressive. Really a fantastic progress.
ReplyDeleteOccasionally I bought a copy of Cross Stitch Collection (when I found one offered on eBay, although I'm not a big fan of eBay) and was always very pleased with it. Not so good that it ceased publication. Personally I don't like Cross Stitcher as much as CSC but lately they have some great designers working for them.
That looks so lovely already, the colours are beautiful!
ReplyDeletepretty stitching and great progress on such a lovely design.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful progress on Gardens of London! :D
ReplyDeleteWow, lots of progress.
ReplyDeleteWow those Queen stitches are amazeballs! They look so intricate and very effective. Beautiful stitching as usual stunner
ReplyDeletexo Alicia
I am always fascinated by your pie charts, I look forward to them. Do you mind sharing your creation process (how you keep track of each stitch, what program you use?). Sorry someone has already asked before and I missed it somehow!
ReplyDeleteGreat pie I love how Gardens is coming along!
ReplyDelete