January IHSW

 

IHSW or International Hermit and Stitch Weekend always starts on the third Friday of the month.  It's a chance to lock yourself away and focus on your stitching for the weekend.  You can take part on your blog or via the Facebook page - IHSW on Facebook.

I worked on three projects over the weekend which wasn't terribly productive unfortunately.

The main focus was my second WIPGO project.  This is an oldie started back in 2012 for the Samplemakers Forum challenge.  They gave us a selection of motifs and we made a small sampler from them.  I stalled on the trees and it's taken me 8 years to complete them!

stitched on 28 count Slightly Lilac evenweave from Sparklies

I have almost finished the green leaves on the left hand tree then I can get started on the smaller motifs.  There will be a rabbit, a bird, a butterfly and a peacock as well as an alphabet, my initials and the year.  Charted as 2012 it will be easier to flip those last 2 numbers!  I also need to fill in the flowers in the urn and it's finally done.

My bathtime project is the Stitchonomy Winter SAL.  I got the kit for this one so I'm stitching it exactly as charted using the kit DMC and, shockingly, the kit aida!  It was such a gorgeous blue/turquoise colour I thought "why not?" plus I didn't have any evenweave this bright.

As with all of Alyssa's SALs, this was free for a certain period of time and now you can get it by joining her Pattern Club for a small fee.  At the end of the SAL it will be available to buy in her Etsy shop.

stitched on 14 count Riviera aida

It's a lovely simple piece, perfect for bathtime stitching as we get one band every three days and they take exactly three bathtimes to stitch!  How did she do that?

The third piece is a very different band sampler, this is Just Nan's Winter Blues.  I am SALing this with several people in the Just Nan Junkies FB group.  I set a schedule of just 1 or 2 bands per week and I'm now on Band 5 for Week 3.

stitched on 28 count White Jobelan

In various emails I've been saying to people "I want to use more coloured fabrics this year" but White was the perfect choice for this sampler.  It had to be 28 count because of the over-one sections, I wanted the words to be legible!

Finally, the next IHSW will be 19th - 21st February so make sure you note the date in your diary or come and join us in the Facebook Group - IHSW on Facebook. If you don't do Facebook then you can check in here by leaving a comment on my post.