Triple Hearts, Round Robin and Papillon Progress

First up, my Triple Hearts finish:

Heart 1:

Heart 2:

Heart 3:

All three together:

These hearts came from the lovely Every Time Hearts chart Minnie sent me for being her 50th follower.  I chose 2 of the hearts and stitched them as charted but using only the pinks and purples provided.  Then I picked a 3rd heart and stitched the outline adding the names and date to the middle.  I also used silver metallic for the dots rather than gold and added a few more than charted!

All three were stitched on 40count Newcastle using 1 thread over 2 and framed in this perfect white distressed metal triple frame from QD!!  They are currently hung on my conservatory wall until I know when I'm seeing the newly-weds next.

Next up is the latest instalment in the Band Sampler Round Robin, Laura's Celtic piece.  Laura rather over-estimated the amount one can stitch in a round and made her sampler 190 stitches wide!  Angi did a sterling job and managed the entire width with some gorgeous Celtic lettering in the middle.  It was then decided that I would baste two columns of 90 stitches and the remainder of us would just stitch one half or the other.  My piece is a another Northern Expressions Needlework design, Celtic Leaves.

And here is the whole piece so far:

I changed all the colours to co-ordinate with the green theme started by Laura and Angi.  Nicole's charts are really great to stitch from, nice, large and clear.  There are good clear instructions for the speciality stitches all written in a friendly chatty style which makes you feel like a friend is teaching you to stitch!  If you look at the Designs page on her blog there is alot of background information about the design process and inspiration for each chart.  Fascinating stuff.

And finally, here is my "cheat" to feel like I'm keeping up with Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches SAL.  I'm just stitching the outlines of each part LOL.  My cunning plan is to stitch the outline as soon it is released then do the filling in as and when I get time.  That way I can avoid the annoying "two stitches in one colour and nothing else" thing which is so time consuming.  If I do all the backstitch vines in each part then I can do all of each colour across several parts in one sitting.  That's my plan anyway!

Progress at 3rd August 2012

Theme-a-licious Looking Backward & Forward VI

June was Jumanji June, birds and animals.  As I didn't have any pieces with either of those I stretched the definitions to the limit and stitched on two Round Robins and a guinea pig piece where I tested a chart out for a friend's new website.

Here is the second Round Robin I stitched during June.  This one is for the Band Sampler RR and this is Angi's piece:

The threads are all provided by Angi, it's like having a miniature needlework store in your home!  They were all different brands, not a DMC amongst them, it was great fun choosing.
The broader cross stitched bands are from the Antique Lace Band Sampler by Northern Expressions Needlework.  I won the complete back catalogue of Nicole's designs recently and was desperate to stitch one!  I changed the colours to suit Angi's palette.
The narrower speciality stitch bands are from Just Nan Summer Sampler which I just framed having stitched it about 10 years ago.
I put UK for my location as we don't have two digit county abbreviations like the States.

And here is the whole piece so far:

Here's the Just Nan Summer's Day the bands came from:

And some close-ups of the more delicate bands:

Those bead clusters weren't finished so I unpicked the first one and re-stitched it positioning the beads more neatly.

July's theme is 

Jolly July - It's a jolly holiday with your WIPs...you can concentrate on Christmas designs, ornaments, or even pick a different holiday to render in stitchy goodness.

Heather does point out it could be Hallowe'en as well as Christmas (or 4th July for Americans, which is something special about your country breaking away from the parent land like a lot of ungrateful children LOL).

In a perfectly timed fashion, through my letterbox today appeared the Christmas Ornament Preview issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine!  I love both the Second Day of Christmas designs by Praiseworthy Stitches and Plum Street Samplers.  I presume they both did Partridges last year?  I checked the actual ornament special issues (2010 and 2011) and they are not in there.  There is a random Monsterbubble 4th Day of Christmas in one of them so I'm thinking maybe I should do a mash-up of the Twelve Days with a different designer for each day.

Several people have commented on the number of finishes I have so far this year - 37!  It looks impressive but only one is actually a large project, the Dark Alphabet which took over a year to stitch.  I'm band on target to complete 75 projects the same as last year.  Stats-wise we look like this:

BAP - 1

Round Robins - 7 pieces

Small Freebies - 15 (including 5 for the Needlecraft Haven monthly challenge and 1 designed by me)

Cards - 11 (including 6 of the WOCS Flower of the month and 1 designed by me)

Small charts - 3 (2 of which were giveaway prizes I won and the other was my oldest UFO)

So my total stitching spend on charts appears to be zero this year!  My budget thanks the generosity of my fellow bloggers and the amazing range of freebies available on t'internet!

Finally the second postcard in the Summer Postcard Blog Hop is winging it's way to Mouse.  Head over to Tales of a Stitching Mouse to see what Jennifer has sent to Mouse.

There is still plenty of time to join in if you'd like to submit a stitched postcard click the picture below for more details.

Prizes galore and a Crazy Rabbit

There are always lovely Giveaways going on in Blogland and I do like to show my support for those hosting one!  Recently I was lucky enough to win two gorgeous ones and the prizes arrived this week.

First up was the entire back catalogue of Northern Expressions Needlework.  How about that for an amazing prize?  Nicole was celebrating 100 followers and her 40th Birthday last month.  She's also had the most lovely tattoo inked by her son for the celebration.  Now there's an idea, I could have a tattoo for each 100 followers LOL.

Here are the charts I won:

There is a fifth design in this series which was printed in Just Cross Stitch mag which I just so happen to have.

And close-ups of my two favourites:

This is Celtic Autumn, a lovely mixture of Cross Stitch and Speciality Stitches in beautiful silk threads.

This one is Mother's Garden II.  There is a key for silks and a DMC conversion too which is what I will use.

I had a look at Sew and So's website as they have a wide range of threads.  They stock the mouth-watering Gloriana Silk but at an eye-watering £6.50 a skein!!  That's ten times the price of their DMC!  They also don't have the Belle Soie threads.  So does anyone know of a cheaper UK stockist or would it be better to get them from the USA and pay postage?  There's no hurry as I can't get them until my Birthday later this year.

All of Nicole's designs are stitched in silks but come with a DMC conversion where she points out which ones are/aren't a good match.  There are also lovely chatty notes about how to do the speciality stitches and great clear diagrams.

The second delivery was from Kaye of Kitten Stitching:

The card is made from real flock!  I love flock, it's like my blog background!  I also love velvet devore clothes which is like flock that you can wear.  Fab wrapping paper too.

And inside was this beautiful stitched picture: 

Which is now residing on my kitchen dresser.  I love the stitching, the frame and the sentiment too.

"Believe" is such an interesting word.  It can apply to so many things; your faith in God/gods/spirits, your belief in the inherent kindness of humankind, or simply the hope that your luggage will arrive safely at your holiday destination with you and not a fortnight later!  Given that this was a prize for my travelling tip this last one is most appropriate.

And the Crazy Rabbit?  Well, the Needlecraft Haven have a great monthly challenge.  Christine chooses a different freebie chart and we all try to stitch it before the end of the month to go into the Big Reveal.  "Try" being the operative word there.  May's was this freebie from Patrick's Woods.  I've seen it all over the place and wanted to do something different.  So I was brainstorming to myself - tiny rabbit, giant scissors, Alice in Wonderland, psychedelia, clocks, cogs, machinery, steampunk etc.  So out came the fabric pens and I sketched some swirls on the fabric.  I got the cutest little clock charm from Sew and So then made a trip to the Craft Shop for the mounting card and some embellishments.  Strangely enough there was a man there also looking for clock embellishments.  How co-incidental.  Not your usual request!

And here's a close up so you can see the charm:

There was another Birthday in our Exchange on the Needlecraft Haven, so here is the June card stitched for Lynn:

As usual, I just stitched the backstitch then coloured in the rose with my pens.

I also received an email for Lelia who won one of the Easter Treasure Hunt bloghop prizes.  I stitched her this cute little design and made it into a pillow.  I discovered this design through the April freebie challenge (thanks Christine!).  I backed the stitching with some of the upholstery fabric samples I blagged last year.  They are soooo useful.

The design came from the Sub Rosa blog and I changed the wording from Happy Day to Happy Spring.  I used the same variegated DMC colours in this as in the CCN Cherry Hill Cottage which I stitched at the same time.  There was also a chocolate bunny who went out in the parcel!

Finally, I haven't forgotten the Summer Postcard Blog Hop activity I just haven't got a Round Tuit yet!