Five Years Old Today!

It's my Fifth Blogaversary today.  The photos were taken on my Fifth Birthday at my Nana's house.  We had recently returned to England after an army posting to Singapore for several years.  Do you see those strange white things on my feet?  Socks!  We had to wear socks and shoes all the time in England.  And long sleeves.  And cardigans.  My first memory of England was standing on the railway platform wondering why it was so cold when I was wearing all these extra clothes!  It was August too.

We brought back an enormous amount of stuff, several packing crates worth but my dolls' pram had to be left behind.  So I'd been promised a new one as soon as we got back.   It was a beauty, a twin pram with a hood at each end, you can just see my two dolls sat at either end.  I still have the pram, it lives in a cupboard now waiting for my grand-daughters to arrive!  It has been played with by various visiting children but not often.

Some Blogaversary stats:

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5 years,

542 posts,

565 followers

10,690 comments

381,887 page views

WOW

To celebrate my Fifth Blogaversary we have a very special Happy Dance - Nora Corbett's J is for Joanne:

She was a gift from Justine and started on Day 30 of the DUCJC2015.  I restarted her on 17th March, 2016 and finished her on 5th April, 2016 having put in a total of 9 stitching days.  The beading took up two of those days!

She is stitched on 32 count Love-in-the-Mist Murano from Crafty Kitten.  The same fabric as her sister E.  I used most of the Crescent Colour threads but substituted Blanc for the wings (one skein of Cloud was not enough to do four sets of wings on four fairies) and some of the greens.  I blended 3362 and 3363 instead of Desert Mesquite.  I also changed the backstitch colours to 356 for the skin and green for the dress.  I did all the scrolls in Kreinik too.

Yoga Fairy!

Bling!

Flash photography to show the bling

Action shot to show the beads!

There are a lot of beads in her.  The large flower beads in her hands look great too.

Here are all four fairies together:

I don't plan on stitching any more of these at the moment.  Unless someone has another daughter unexpectedly!  The temptation to stitch all 26 is quite overwhelming at times but I will resist.

While I think of it - Happy Birthday to Calamity Jr and Susan Yellow Flower Meadow too.

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Finally I am celebrating a Big Zero Birthday in September and have planned a BIG BLOG HOP for the event.  My plan is to attempt to get one Person per year of my life and allocate each person a year.  I will give you a Fact About Me from that year and ask you to base your post on that fact.  So you might get 1971 - "I am five years old and I start school".  Your post could be about you being five, you starting school, you in 1971 (if you were born by then) or some world event which is relevant to you from 1971.

I will ask you to post a photo of something you have stitched which will appeal to me!  I think you all know my tastes in stitching by now and I'm looking forward to some eye candy and probably some stash acquisitions too!  Got to have something to spend that Birthday money on.  So if you want to be in the Hop, please leave a comment or email me.  Because we need so MANY participants for this one, please feel free to share it on your blogs and invite your friends to join in.  The more the merrier!  We can always share eventful years or skip the dull ones depending on how many people we get.

Over the weekend I am going to try get an image we can all use to advertise the Hop and maybe set up a separate page with a linky.

The Weekend's Stitching

First of all, thanks to everyone who took part in the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop and guessed the Mystery Phrase.  There were some gorgeous Spring and Easter themed photos shown on the participating blogs and some inventive ways of displaying the letter needed too.  The Hunt is open until the 6th April so you have plenty of time to hop round if you were busy over the Easter weekend.  Originally I allowed until the 8th which is my Blogaversary but then I realised it was going to be a VERY long post so I'm going to do a special post dedicated to the Treasure Hunt prior to that day.

I made some great progress on Nora Corbett's J Fairy and she is now ready for her bling!  The Kreinik will be next (the veins in the wings and some swirls) and then the beads.  Lots of beads!

stitched on 32 count Murano Love-in-the-Mist from Crafty Kitten

Close-up of the fairy: 

You can see from the gaps how much beading there is to be done!

She is taking a little break this week while I stitch the next letter for Brooke's Books' Stitcher's Alphabet ready for The Alphabet Club detention on Saturday.

I managed to stitch another motif for the Stitch for Syria project.  You may recall I stitched one in variegated red/pink on white evenweave and now I have one in yellow/orange on black evenweave.  I love this one!

28 count black Jobelan using DMC 90

28 count white Jobelan using DMC 107 on the left.

These two squares have been sent off to Concern's headquarters in London to be made into a hanging for their centre in Lebanon where many Syrian refugees and poor Lebanese women find a safe place to learn a craft and a way to make a living.  I also popped some spare threads in the envelope which should come in useful.  If you live in the UK there is probably still time to stitch one of these squares and get it to them by the end of the month.  If you are further afield I would advise emailing them to check.  Or send money, there is no time limit on money!

You can read more about the project here - Concern - Stitch for Syria

I have got a train trip later this week so I needed to plan my travel stitching.  I allocated a number to each of the designs in my list of series I want to stitch this year and chose one at random.  Just Nan's Spring Typography came up.  I've already stitched Awesome Autumn and Wonderous Winter so this must be Special or Splendid Spring, or maybe Spiffy Spring!  While I was hunting for suitable adjectives I came across this website - Adjectives starting.com with ...  Essential reading for anyone wishing to broaden their vocabulary.

JN 261 - Spring Typography

That photo is from Just Nan's website and here are my versions of Autumn and Winter:

Finally, Crafty Sasha is having a giveaway on her blog.  She doesn't have a lot of followers yet but does have some nice charts!  So pop over and say Hi and offer to take some off her hands!  You can find her here - Crafty Sasha.  She is also stitching this - Qing Ming

March WIPocalypse Hoops, Stands or Hands

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.

The focus of my WIPocalypse will be my "16 in '16" which are 16 projects I particularly wanted to concentrate on in 2016.   The full list can be found on my WIPocalypse page where you can also find my secondary list "16 Series in '16".

My main goal is to keep to my rotation of one small every Friday and the rest of the month working on my focus piece until it is finished.  I also have a number of SALs I want to keep up with:

The Alphabet Club - a different letter on the first Saturday of each month

Gifted Gorgeousness - post anything gifted on the 15th

Hallowe'en Ornie Blog - a different spooky theme each month

Christmas Ornie Blog - a different festive theme each month

Smalls SAL - last Thursday of each month

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And now for the progress report:

I have worked on a mammoth 7 out of 16 projects since my last WIPocalypse, plus 4 from my series list.

7. Strawberry Sampler by The Sampler House - Finish

10. Mulberry Sampler by Shepherd's Bush - Finish

 

11. Elizabeth Shephard by The Scarlet Letter - WIP

I stitched the Token of Love motif and added some red in other places.

12. J by Nora Corbett - WIP

14. E by Nora Corbett - Finish

15. S by Nora Corbett - Finish

16. Counting Bats by Just Nan - WIP

And the series:

1. Christmas Cubes by The Primitive Hare - WIP

I am stitching these out of order to fit in with the themes on the Christmas Ornie blog

6. The Stitcher's Alphabet by Brooke's Books - WIP

11. Mini Samplers by Shepherd's Bush - see above.

15. Alphabet Fairies by Nora Corbett - see above.

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Measi always gives us a topic to discuss too:

March - Do you use hoops, stretcher bars, lap stands or Q snap frames and why? (via CathieJ)

None of the above!  I am a strict "in hand" stitcher.  When I first started stitching I tried hoops and didn't like them, they got in the way and were cumbersome.  My method is to roll the fabric with the stitched side inside so my hands are only touching the back of the fabric.  I start in the centre and work upwards then the bottom right and finally the bottom left (as you can see on Elizabeth Shephard).  That way the part that is handled the most is the last part to be stitched so I minimise the amount of handling those stitches will get.

I used to stitch on my daily commute to work and any kind of frame just isn't practical on a train.  I also worry about hoop marks and squashing the stitches.  At the moment I stitch at the kitchen table so a large frame wouldn't work there.  And of course, with multiple WIPS I don't have to have multiple frames or keep swapping them around.  With a limited budget I tend to view accessories as something to waste valuable stash money on!

Finally, the emails went out for the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop this afternoon so watch out for Bunnies Galore on Good Friday!  I will post the links in the morning my time zone but some of the Australians will be up already and some of the Americans won't post until later in their day.  The phrase is a doozy I must say!  

Official IHSW

Many years ago (2011!)  Joysze of Random Ramblings coined the phrase Hermit and Stitch Weekend where you spend as much of the weekend as possible stitching.  This became very popular and also International.  Hence IHSW.  It always commences the Third Friday of every month and there is a sign-up post on Joysze's blog.  Or there was for the first few years!  Recently she has been a tad busy with one of those job things people insist on getting.  Presumably to pay for her Chatelaine habit?

Anyway, Kaye and I kicked her out of hibernation and got her to hermit instead!  So now we can see who else is hermitting each month and not feel alone, even though hermits usually are alone, it's nice to have company while you're being alone.

Here are the guidelines for IHSW and here is March's sign-up page.  You can also copy Hermie the crab onto your blog to show everyone you have joined in.

Enough (Random) Ramblings, what did I stitch this weekend?  The focus of all my IHSWs this year has been Elizabeth Shephard by The Scarlet Letter.  This is a long term project started back on Day 14 of the DUCJC 2015 and worked on each month since then.  She is a Quaker so you get a mini Happy Dance with each complete motif.

This is the motif I focused on this weekend:

I also added quite a few of the red parts elsewhere in the sampler:

stitched on 30count linen using AVAS silks.

There is one more large motif and then five half motifs.  At the current rate of stitching she could be completed by the Autumn.

I squeezed in a little more progress on Nora Corbett's J is for Me:

Stitched on 32 count Love-in-the-Mist by Crafty Kitten

And I did some scrapbooking!  That side of the craft has been neglected while I have been working on the first three Alphabet Fairies to meet the deadline.  I finally got this piece mounted on a suitable page:

January Wordplay by With Thy Needle & Thread

Here is the post where I talked about the designer and the project

June D.E.S.I.G.N. SAL

I also took some inspiration from Anna the Stitch Bitch and attempted an Exploding Book.  This is a kind of origami "book" rather than an gunpowder plot.  I made a little dummy version first and was pleased I did because there are two ways of doing the folded-in parts and one works better than the other.  Then I made a proper version using black card.  Then I realised I did not have any scrapbook papers suitable to decorate it so I had to spend an hour on the internet searching for some!  Luckily my favourite online scrapbook company had an entire book for half price!

Scrapping the Magic

And I stitched some more of the L*K Sampling Easter and The Primitive Hare Christmas Cube which you can see over on the Christmas Ornie SAL Blog or wait until the Smalls SAL post at the end of the month!

Finally, the Easter Blog Hop is almost upon us.  I have collected a lovely long list of names this year but there is still a day or two left if you want to be a picture poster.  Drop me a line before Wednesday which is when I will be emailing further instructions to those already signed up.

DUCJC 2015 - completed!

The DUCJC is a very special challenge in memory of a very special lady.  SoCal Debbie was a prolific stitcher, blogger and commenter.  Sadly she passed away very suddenly last year.  One of her favourite challenges was the CJC:

CJC = Crazy January Challenge, one new start for the first 15 days of January

UCJC = Ultimate Crazy January Challenge, one new start for all 31 days of January

DUCJC = Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge, stitch 31 projects one per day for January

Linda Stitchin' with my Furbabies organised this all via a FB group.  Thankfully Linda is not making us all attempt the SDUCJC (Super Duper Ultimate Crazy January Challenge) or 60 starts throughout January and February which she did with Debbie in 2012.

I did it!  I stitched 31 different designs on the 31 days of January!  Here is a little collage of them all:

And details of the final four days you haven't seen before:

Day 28 - Anchor - Kingfisher (designer not credited - how rude of them!):

Stitched on 28 count blue evenweave.

I am only stitching the bird from this design and giving it to the Small Boy's teacher and TAs at the end of the year.  All the classes in his mainstream school are named after water birds and the Reception Class are Kingfishers so this will look good on their wall.

Day 29 - The Sweetheart Tree - Tudor Rose:

Stitched on 32 count Light Mocha Belfast Linen

I used DMC 223 for the border instead of the Caron Waterlilies which I don't have.

Day 30 - Nora Corbett - J is for Joanne:

Stitched on 32 count Love-in-the-Mist Murano evenweave by Crafty Kitten

Day 31 - Madame Chantilly - On the Beach:

Stitched on 32 count Kynance evenweave by Sparklies

This was a WIP I started last year to be a Birth Sampler for my cousin's baby.  Thankfully I noted the thread changes on my blog because I could not remember what they were when I picked it up again!  The colours listed are nothing like the cover picture.  Much more dull and muted so I am changing quite a bit.

A few stats -

8 WIPS

23 New Starts

5 Gifts for other people

22 Gifts from other people

Fabrics Used

25 count eveweave - 1

28 count evenweave - 10

28 count linen - 2

30 count linen - 1

32 count evenweave - 5

32 count linen - 9

35 count linen - 1

40 count linen - 2

stitched over 1 - 6

So right now I am stitching away On The Beach because it's nice to OAAT again!  I did enjoy the challenge more than I thought I would once I got over the first few days on wanting to continue with each project.  Moral - save your favourites until last.  It was a good idea to spend the time in December getting everything together in one place.  It was also a good idea to keep a list of the fabrics too.

My plan now is to stitch on the 15 which are in my WIPocalypse "15 in '15" and then fit the others in around them as we go through the year.  I also want to Giveaway a few charts as part of my Gifted Gorgeousness SAL so watch out for those posts throughout the year.

Would I do this challenge again?  I will have to see how many I manage to complete this year.  If I have several left I won't want alot more new starts in 2016 so I may just rotate the unfinished projects.  On the other hand it is a good way to actually start some much-wanted designs which have sat in my stash for too long.  We shall see....

Finally, I will be hosting the annual Valentine's Day Blog Hop this year.  See this post for more details.  Just send me a photo of your lovely stitching to be sent to another blogger on Valentine's Day,  I've added the Heart to my sidebar, please feel free to copy it onto your blog to link back here.

   

D.E.S.I.G.N. SAL

The idea of this Blog Hop is to choose a different designer each month and do a post focusing on a piece of their work you have stitched on during the month.  As you know, I have been taking part in the DUCJC 2015 this month so I have worked on several of my favourite designers.  I decided to focus on three of my all-time favourites as evidenced in my Profile.  They are Nora Corbett (AKA Mirabilia), Joan Elliott and Teresa Wentzler.

The hosts of D.E.S.I.G.N ask us to answer a few questions on our chosen designer and I have added an extra one!

1. What project are you talking about this month?

Nora - Little Snowy Gray Cottage and J for Joanne.

Joan - February Cherub and Believe

Teresa - You Were Hatched

2. Have you stitched a project by this designer before?

Nora - 13 different projects, including Round Robins - link here to see them all

Joan - 24 different projects, including Round Robins - link here to see them all

Teresa - 10 different projects, including Round Robins - link here to see them all

So you can see, Joan Jett is a Runaway winner (joke for rock fans there).  Mainly because she designs more smalls than the other two.

3. Would you buy/stitch a design by this designer again?  Why/Why not?

Yes!  Otherwise half my stash would be useless.  I have several of Joan and Teresa's books which I love just looking through and admiring the pictures.  I also have all my Mirabilia charts which I intend to keep and never sell.

4. What made you choose this particular design/designer?

Nora - I saw the Little Cottage series on Nataly's blog and she was kind enough to send me the charts and fancy supplies when she was finished (I believe I may have paid for the supplies?).  J for Joanne was a gift from Justine when I won a giveaway on her blog.

Joan - I loved the 2013 Diary which came with WOCS and featured 12 of Joan's designs.  I fully intended to stitch all 12, but the best intentions don't always work out!  February's Cherub is nearly done.  Believe is going to be a present for the Small Boy's teaching staff from last year.  I usually stitch a gift at the end of the year but hadn't realised he would be leaving that particular class until it was too late!  So there will be two gifts stitched and given this year.

Teresa - The lovely Karen acquired this chart for me because I have wanted it ever since I first heard about it.  It is OOP and rather rare, especially the signed, numbered ones like mine!  This is going to be a birth sampler for the Small Boy because he is nearly six and doesn't have one yet!

5. Did you notice anything that distinguished this designer from others?

Nora - is best known for her elegant ladies, her fairies and her mermaids, also her use of Kreinik and Mill Hill beads to accent her colours.  She uses many fractionals to create long, elegant limbs.  Recently she has branched out to create these cottages, some natural history designs and even a set of stitched chairs!  Many of Nora's designs show her fine art background and her ladies reflect her fashion drawing past.  Seriously, who has a waist like these girls?

Joan - has the widest range of designs of the three.  A classic "Joan" could be a realistic fairy or a cute cartoon creature.  They could be simple whole xxx or use metallics and beads as well.  She is known for throwing in French Knots in Kreinik when beads are not used.  I think the best way I could describe Joan's work is "a child's colouring book".  If you stitched the backstitch, scanned and printed it then it would make a great colouring book.

Teresa - Blending, blending, blending and confetti!  I think those are the key words for our Teresa!  Her designs are always intricate and usually feature a beautiful ornate border.  Fractionals abound as do blended colours.  Why use 15 shades of grey for rocks when you can create another 15 by blending?  She favours the more muted shades than Joan.  I have used so much 3041 and 3042 in Teresa's designs that I instinctively think of her when I stitch with them.

6. What is your favourite completed design?

Nora - Bluebeard's Mermaid.  My very first SAL when I first joined a stitching forum back in 2011.  I think this was my first piece of hand-dyed fabric too.  Crafty Kitten, of course!

Joan - Green Goddess, this is my biggest piece of Joan's so far.

I also love my Garden Fairies RR:

Teresa - The Castle, a Rite of Passage for many stitchers.  I actually stitched this on aida!  Insane!

 

The remaining days of the DUCJC will follow after the 31st,

Finally, I will be hosting the annual Valentine's Day Blog Hop this year.  See this post for more details.  Just send me a photo of your lovely stitching to be sent to another blogger on Valentine's Day,  I've added the Heart to my sidebar, please feel free to copy it onto your blog to link back here.