A Plethora of Small Finishes

You may recall back in March I made several small starts as part of March Madness?  Well, I have now made several small finishes!

In no particular order here they are:

This is my own design of a Union flag in a heart shaped stitched especially for Sarah-Beth.  She won one of my Epiphany Giveaways and we decided to do a little "local" exchange.  I sent her some local-to-me things and she will do the same.  As well as the local items I sent some Jubilee goodies too and thought a card would be nice.  I didn't feel like rummaging through all my mags to find designs which weren't quite right so it was actually easier to jot this down on graph paper and stitch it up!

I only stitched the red and blue, the white is the fabric.  Purists will realise there should be white spaces between the diagonal red stripes and the horizontal/vertical stripes.

If you'd like to see what else I sent her, then pop over to Sarah-Beth's Cross Stitch Blog and see for yourselves.  I was particularly pleased to get her the woven badge she wanted.  The company that makes them went out of business some time ago and my local gift shop was selling off the old stock, this was the last one in the shop!

The next finish is the Spring Heart by Gazette 94 to go with the Autumn previously stitched:

This was a very cheap frame from QD, the hearts are printed on the glass, clever isn't it?

I've just started another Band Sampler Round Robin on the Yuku Board.  My theme is "Purple with an Accent".  I am asking each stitcher to use DMC 333 as their main colour plus one other.  They also have to stitch with a fake British accent.  Not really, but it would be fun!  Here's my band:

This is stitched on Sparklies' Purpleberry Spludge, a great name for a great colour.  Last year's band sampler was amazing and alot of the same stitchers are doing this year's so I'm really looking forward to it.

The final pictures are actually 2011 finishes but I couldn't show them until now.  Dawn from Crafty Kitten found out she was expecting a baby due in January.  As she would be on maternity leave in January I decided to order my fabric just before Christmas so she could dye it over the holiday period.  I got an email on Boxing Day from her hospital bed saying "Baby came early, don't worry about your fabric, hubby is getting it ready to send to you"  That is the sort of customer service you get from Crafty Kitten, beautiful fabrics come Hell, High Water and Newborn Babies!

Anway, Nic, Hannah and myself collaborated on a Round Robin afghan for baby Sam.  Here are my two blocks in close-up:

This cute little dragon comes from here - Free Cross Stitch Charts

And this is the Tralala cat I have stitched before, available free from Socreastitch

I changed the colour of the dragon to blue and simplified the colours used ALOT.  There were 26 different colours used originally which I reduced to about 10!

Here is the whole piece in all it's glory:

This was a lovely afghan from Sewandso,  reasonably priced and very soft.  It specified "18 count evenweave" on the website so my brain said "that mean 36count which is equivalent to 18count aida".  When it arrived it really was 18count evenweave and a very loose evenweave too.  So the choice was to stitch over 2 and get 9count equivalent or stitch over 1.  Which I did.  Moral - read and believe the website.

Dawn was thrilled to bits with the present which arrived this week.  She sent us a lovely photo of Sam with it, I forgot to ask permission to post it here, so I won't just yet.  But his expression is priceless - he's got his arms stretched out wide going "how big is my blanket?"!!

BTW, Hannah is taking a break from blogging as she has one of those job-things which takes up alot of time at the moment.  She's in touch via FB and email and is keeping well in case you were concerned!

The other 2012 finishes can't be shown yet as they are all gifts.  If Parcelforce had got a move on I could've shown Christine's but they haven't so you will have to be patient along with her!

Finally, only three more followers until my 250 Giveaway!

May WIPocalypse and Manka's Hungarian SAL

Here's the round-up for the progress since the last Full Moon.

Part 1 - My 12 in '12

1. Completed all the letters on the Dark Alphabet, charted the title and signoff block, stitching an "A" for Alphabet.

I'll do a complete blog post dedicated to this design very soon.

2. No progress on Green Goddess.  Oh dear, poor old GG.

3. Stitched a couple of days on My Lovely Sewing Tools.

4. Home of a Needleworker - not started

5. Blackbird Designs - I tea-dyed a piece of fabric for this!

6. Ed Hardy Skull and Roses - not started

7. I chose the design for my friend's wedding.  This chart was a prize from Minnie of All XXs.

Isn't this lovely (and hopefully quite quick to stitch!).  I plan to put the Bride and Groom's initials and date in the centre rather than the verse.

8. Baby Sampler.  Have stitched A - N on this one.

9. Baby design for my cousin - baby due this month, gender currently unknown.  Not started

10. Yiotas Coffee Fairy - have made a start on this one (only 2 evenings but it's a start!)

11. Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches (this "bounced" Castles in the Air off the 12, one of my "rules" is that I'm only allowed to bounce a design in favour of another design by the same designer).  Have started (see separate page for progress pic).  If you're stitching this too then let me know and I'll add you to my list.

12. Nora Corbett Trick or Treat Fairy - I did look at the fabric for this when I was sorting my stash out!

Part 2 - Just Nan-a-thon

Nothing at all for Nan this month.

Part 3 - Theme-a-licious: Amazon April

I worked on my BAPs - Big Alphabet Projects.  My Lovely Sewing Tools, Dark Alphabet and Baby Alphabet.  All of which featured in the Theme-a-licious update here.

I did sign up for a Mini Mystery SAL with Manka and a few others.  This is Part 1, stitched on 28count green evenweave using the current favourite DMC 4045.  I used this on Life's a Stitch, CCN Cherry Hill and the Needlecraft Haven monthly challenge (not pictured yet).  Here it is used again:

Now I can email this to Manka and get Part 2!

Be sure to look at her album on Pinterest for all the versions of this.

 

Finally, Yiota who makes the Coffee Fairy (see above) and all these lovely cross stitch kits has offered to sponsor my 250 followers giveaway.  Only problem is - I've stalled at 243!  Hopefully I'll pick up a few people through the WIPocalypse post on Measi's blog.  So if you're just drifting past looking at the projects, consider clicking on the "follow" button!

Theme-a-licious Looking Backward and Forward IV

You do know that Theme-a-licious is a "It's Geek to Me" activity, don't you? 
Click the above pic to find out more.

April's Theme was Amazon April or your biggest projects.  I decided that BAP stands for Big Alphabet Project and worked on both Dark Alphabet and my Turquoise Baby Alphabet.  I also worked on My Lovely Sewing Tools (which actually has an alphabet in it, scattered around the piece) and had a completely unexpected start in Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches.

ATW80S is certainly an enormous piece of fabric for me and it's a full two years project so that will definitely count as a BAP.

Pictures:

Papillon Around the World

My Lovely Sewing Tools (includes an alphabet!)

Turquoise Baby Alphabet

Please come and follow The Stitching Gift blog.  There are a group of us who love the Gift of Stitching magazine and are going to be showcasing our WIPS and finishes from the magazine.  The final issue came out this weekend and it's a great finale.  Kirsten will still be involved in designing and sending out her newsletter.  She will also continue to offer the old issues to buy as bundles or individually.  There is currently a sale on, where everything is half-price!  You can get a whole year's bundle for only US$12.  Amazing.

May Memories -

Remember when you took that class? Or decided to commemorate that event? And then abandoned your poor WIP? Take a stroll down memory lane by working on it again.

Green Goddess is becoming a distant memory!  So maybe I should give her some love.  I also have an old Autumn sampler in my stash chest I could dig out.  Or I could decide to make some new memories - stitching things which relate to my blogging friends, charts they have sent me or recommended the designer.

I have signed up for a couple of small partwork SALs.  No, ATW80S is not counted as one of them.  First was a Hungarian Mini Mystery SAL from Manka's Blog which I found via Blu's SAL Directory Blog.  Manka blogs in Hungarian, English, and other languages too.  I do love multi-lingual bloggers, as Google Translate should be renamed Giggle Translate due to the weird translations it comes up with.

(edit to add - when you go to Manka's blog, the cursor turns into a little rose!  Even cuter than falling things!)

The 2nd small SAL I found via Dulcinella's blog.  It's from a French blog Voyage sur Toile.  You need to sign up for the newsletter and you will get Parts 1-3 with Part 4 due soon (Dimanche is Sunday, right?).  There is a Translate button at the top but for some reason my brain thinks it can read French although it can't.  Saying the words with a fake French accent is not the same as understanding what they say!

Finally, I have switched to Photobucket for my photo storage, my Picasa album was nearly full due to the fact I don't make my photos smaller before loading them on!  I could not be bothered to resize every photo in my blog so I've switched.  Sheila said she has trouble seeing the photos last post, so here is a link to the album.  If anyone else has difficulty seeing them on the blog, please let me know and I'll think again.

edit July2017 - switching to Photobucket was a huge mistake!  They decided to start charging for storage at no notice whatsoever and are holding our photos to ransom.  I can't even download my own photos from my folder there, so I'm having to photograph my screen to get them!

IHSW update and a forthcoming Giveaway

Last weekend was the third in the month and International Hermit and Stitch Weekend.  For more details in how to join in, just click on Hermie the Crab on the right hand side of this blog.

I decided to spend all of IHSW on My Lovely Sewing Tools from Gift of Stitching magazine and made some good progress as you can see:

I also finished the CCN design Cherry Hill Cottage which I will scrapbook.  I need to visit the craft shop and maybe buy some cherry themed trimmings.  I used the variegated DMC 107 for both the red and the pink but forced the colours by cutting the skein into red and pink sections.

The background is the scrapbook paper which I will be using.  Obviously the fabric will be trimmed to size and backed with plain white paper so the pattern doesn't show through.  But you get the idea.

I also made good progress on the Needlecraft Haven monthly challenge piece which I can't show here yet.  The progress was due to it being my handbag project this week.  The Small Boy has started Preschool this term, two days a week just for two hours a time.  I have decided to stay for the first two weeks but in a separate room while he settles in and his Key Worker gets to know him.  So far, so good.  Which means I have nearly 2 hours of uninterrupted stitching twice a week!  Although I did help with the washing-up today LOL.

(for overseas followers - in England children attend Preschool anytime from 2.5 to rising 4, then Nursery from the year in which they are 4, then proper school in the Reception class from the year in which they are 5.  Unless you work fulltime then they can attend a creche style setting confusingly also called a Nursery but it's from babyhood.  Preschool is mainly just playing with a little bit of structure at the beginning and end of each session.)

My followers are slowly increasing in number, the Easter Treasure Hunt was great for helping me and all the participants make new friends.  I was thinking of a 250 Giveaway when I received an email for Yiota, remember Yiota who sent me a lovely Cross Stitch Kit to review?  She was offering to sponsor my next giveaway!  Three winners will receive an email chart of one of Yiota's lovely designs.   So while you're waiting for my followers to reach the magic number, why not pop over to Yiota's Cross Stitch Kits site and have a look at all the gorgeous designs there and try to decide which you would like to win.  Don't tell me yet!

Anyway, "talking" with Yiota inspired me to make a start on the Coffee Fairy.  As my kit was supplied with aida I decided to use some evenweave I had.  I bought this piece from Sparklies with Nora Corbett's Trick or Treat Fairy in mind.  It's called Monarch - should be Mad Monarch!  I have never seen such an outrageously mad fabric before.  But it is perfect for Coffee Fairy.  I'm planning on just stitching the fairy, her cup and biccies not the background.  But here is the beauty of my plan - if the fabric is too overpowering then I can stitch as much of the background as I need, maybe just an oval around her.  Here is one evening's progress, it's the rim and handle of the cup:

This is a completely accurate colour match for the fabric, it really is that mad!

So now we have a rotation of sorts -

Coffee Fairy 1 day a week,
Baby ABC - 3 days a week alternate with
My Lovely Sewing Tools weekends and
2 different Round Robins weekdays as and when.
And Green Goddess must be fitted in too, and Papillon ATW, and I got the fabric for Snapdragon today...

That's just the evening stitching.  There are all the smalls for daytime too.

Finally, I got my copy of Just Cross Stitch (the American mag) through yesterday.  Gorgeous projects, there are several I want to stitch, so much better than the English mags!  I'm definitely going to cancel at least one of them later this year (when a certain series of charts finishes!) and spend the money on fabric instead.

April TUSAL

Sadly my April TUSAL photo is lacking Madame Muriel, she is currently residing in Arizona with Miss Zoe, Gracie and Mr. H.

So, just the TUSAL jar, my three-pages-a-week calendar and My Lovely Sewing Tools which is the project for IHSW.  Not so much progress, that little beige hornbook on the left took ages!

I have also nearly finished CCN Cherry Hill.  I need to know - are there any other cottages the same size in this series?  I've seen the lovely monthly cottages but would like more smaller ones.  This one is only 78 x 78 stitches.

Finally, men are bringing me luck!!  First of all Lesley's son picked my name for her blogaversary giveaway, the amazing Snapdragon chart and other goodies.  Then Shebafudge's hubby picked me for her fabric giveaway (which was a lovely piece of Silkweaver fabric).  Thirdly, Heather's hubby chose me to win some earrings, I don't even think he'd seen my earring post either!  So a big Thank You to all those lovely men!  So much nicer than the old random number generator.

Y, Y, Y does it have to end?

Okay, it hasn't actually ended yet, but Y is the penultimate block on A Dark Alphabet

This is my favourite block of all (I know I've said that before!).  I love the design and the stitching technique, a nice geometric pattern.  The trunk and roots are as charted but the leaves are stitched in DMC 4045 a lovely variegated green.  Yggdrasil is the Celtic Tree of Life and as usual Becky has found out lots of information about it and posted on the Note of Friendship blog.  Apparently Julie is the designer for this alphabet who comes up with the pictures then sends Becky off to research and write the blog.  I think Becky deserves a huge round of applause for finding out so much about so many diverse subjects!

(edit - Yggdrasil is, of course, the Norse Tree of Life not the Celtic - thanks to everyone who reminded me of this fact!)

If you go read the post for Yggdrasil you will also find out which inspired person thought of using it - Me!  The Large Boy and I play "Guess the Next Letter" each time and we sent our suggestions for W,X,Y and Z to Julie who chose our "Y".  Fame!

I have signed up for the new Papillon SAL - Around the World in 80 Stitches.  I'm doing the speciality stitch version although I've heard the plain cross stitch one is nice too.  I'm going for a plain white fabric and I'll be choosing my colours this IHSW, probably pinks and purples.  I noticed bloggers all over showing their floss tosses and started a little list.  Then I thought it'd be nice to share this list with everyone.  So I asked Yvonne's permission and she said "of course you can".  So there is now a nice new page tab at the top of this blog which will take you to a list of Stitchers Around the World and a link to their latest SAL blog post.  There won't be photos, that's what Yvonne's Gallery is for, but it'll be a great way of finding other SALers and stalking following them.

So if you'd like to be included and I haven't asked you yet, step up and leave a comment.

Cherry Hill is steaming along.  I love this design and the Newcastle it's stitched on.  I made a slight error with one sheep, it's a line lower than charted so I had to fiddle with the word "Hill".

There are two different variegated greens in this, 92 and 4045.


Finally, while browsing T'internet (as they say in Yorkshire) I found this fascinating chart on Sprite Stitch:

Game of Thrones map

Anyone a fan of the books/TV show?  I love the opening titles.  Most programmes get them fast-forwarded but we always watch these ones in full!  I do love a book with a map in it.  When I was a child I used to spend hours copying the maps from my favourite books!

Theme-a-licious April Update and my Blogaversary Easter Treasure Hunt Giveaway Winners!

Nice long title there!

April's Theme is Amazon April, stitch on your biggest BAP.  I've decided to go for A Dark Alphabet as it's a 26 parter which is pretty BA.  It'd be even bigger if I'd stitched it over 2 so I'm quite glad I didn't.  Here is the bottom half so far:


See that, I'm on the bottom row now!

 And a close-up of the Wyvern itself:

I stitched him using a DMC variegated number 4145.  I am wondering if I should have stitched a solid outline first like the Kelpie but he's done now and I'm not frogging over 1 stitching.

Here is X for Xaphan the Demon:

He's rather cute for a Demon, he fans the flames of Hell, hence the bellows.

And now onto the exciting bit, the Easter Treasure Hunt.

The Mystery Phrase was indeed Chocolate Bunny as worked out by everyone!  Well done, I hope you all enjoyed blog-hopping as much as I did and found some new blogs to follow.  I gained several new followers and a couple of stalkers who aren't officially following (yet).  Hello New People (waves).

I put all the names into two piles and selected one from the Picture Posters and one from the Treasure Hunters.  If you did both then you went into both piles.  If you remembered it was my Blogaversary then you got your name put in twice.

The winners are - Drum Roll -

Picture Posters - Christine from The Alchymyst's Study

Treasure Hunters - Lelia

(I believe Lelia came from the Mouse House to visit)

Then, because Cross Stitcher magazine gave some sweet little cards as their cover gift this month, I decided to do four bonus draws and send those people a little Thank You card.  It won't be the designs in the mag because I don't like them, it will be something else!

1. Katica

2. Mel

3. and 4. I'm not telling!

(I have your addresses already so it will be a nice surprise LOL)

So there we are, Easter all over until next year.  My next event will be an online Summer Postcard Trail which will start on 1st June and last all Summer, so be thinking about what you have/would like to stitch.  I'll tell all in mid May.

As I mentioned it was my Blogaversary on April 8th, my First Blogaversary!  Here are a few stats:

*
1 year,

111 posts,

239 followers

1,552 comments

29,503 page views

WOW

The most popular post was the Advent Calendar with 859 views, not surprising as it was updated every day for 24 days.  Then it was my First Post with 345 views.  I guess alot of people come to the blog, read the recent posts then go back to beginning to find out how I got started.  I often do that with new blogs. 

The next 8 most popular posts all have more than 100 views and are all Activities or Giveaways including Travelling Patterns and Granny.

I'm so pleased with the way this blog has grown and developed over the last year.  I've "met" so many lovely people and taken part in so many great Giveaways (Giving and Receiving) and Activities.  I have a whole new vocabulary - TUSAL, WIPocalypse, Theme-a-licious, IHSW, SABLE, PIF, RAK, SAL, ORTS, Followers.  I have a new awareness of the phases of the moon too.

Finally I'd just like to say a Big Thank You to everyone who follows, stalks, comments, joins in, pops by, reads, or just looks at the pictures.  Without you, I'd just be talking to myself, nowhere near as much fun!

Do You Do Voodoo Too?

I'd gotten a little behind with The Dark Alphabet, partly because of stitching on the Joan Elliott Round Robin and partly because Julie is banging out the letters this year!!

So I'll be putting the hours into it this month to try catch up.  V was for Voodoo and as usual The Note of Friendship blog is full of information about the letter and plenty of useful links if you want to know more.

This wasn't the most exciting block to stitch, the lettering was great but the little figure got a bit tedious!  When I stitch over 1 in rows I get a ridge between every other line, which is great for some of the pieces but for this one I stitched diagonal rows which made it a little more interesting.  I dangled the carrot of "Wyvern" to get me through it.  I'm using a variegated for Wyvern and it's so much more fun!

The green scarf is stitched in the Van Dyke Stitch, quite fiddly over 1 but a nice little effect.

The next piece is my current daytime project, Cherry Hill by CCN.  This was a giveaway from Crafty Rahenna and I'm loving it.  I'm using DMC on 40 count Newcastle linen, over 2, a mixture of 2 strands or 1 strand depending on the effect needed.  I'm using two different variegateds for the green and there'll be a variegated red coming soon.

Not a brilliant pic because I'm using my scanner.  It's quicker and easier than using the camera for WIPS.

The third project is my alphabet sampler for my friend's new baby boy.  I shifted the letters around to include his name... 

I'm so pleased with the wobbly lower case letters!  I charted them myself on a piece of graph paper and they looked a little upright and straight so I kind of free-styled them on the fabric.  I'll be adding Big Sis's name further down.  This chart was published in Cross Stitcher magazine this year.

There's also a charting project called "I Blame Karen" after Stitchy Woman.  She makes these throwaway comments on stitching forums which set my mind ticking and before I know where I am, I'm surrounded by pieces of sketch paper, graph paper, charts and being accused of being a "Manus-o-phile".  Non-Latin speakers will have to wait to see if this ever comes to anything other than an in-joke and a moment of madness on paper.

Finally, the Easter Treasure Hunt was a HUGE success, it was so much fun blog-hopping to see the letters.  There was only one Picture Poster who couldn't make it, she was away for the weekend but everyone managed to guess the missing letter!!  I'll keep the entries secret until the Friday deadline just in case anyone is behind in their blog-reading.  I used the Easter weekend to catch up on mine, I only have today's posts outstanding and have been commenting all over the place which I love to do.

Easter Treasure Hunt..is closed. Winners to be announced on Sunday 15th

appearing here soon.  It's half past midnight and I've only just finished beading my piece so I will post the full hunt in the morning.

My stitching time didn't start until 10.30 because I had to make a real egg hunt for the Large Boy complete with clues!

Watch this space...



Card made by The Large Boy, note the egg and cross graphics in the top letters


Still watching?  Here it is:

All you have to do is visit each of these blogs in order, note down the letter above the Easter / Spring themed pic and remember the short phrase they make up.  Come back here for the last letter and leave a comment saying what the phrase is.  I will select one person at random to win a small stitched prize.  I will also randomly select one of the Picture Posters to win a stitched prize too.

The trail starts here with:

Nia of Caixinha de Pirlimpimpim then onto
McKenna of Chic Crafting (or should that be "chick crafting" for Easter?)
Measi and Measi's Musings
Heather says It's Geek to Me
Mel writes The Daily Mel
C in DC of Pencil Crossings
Christine in The Alchymyst's Study
Anna the Stitch Bitch
Gracie of Needles, Pins and Dragonflies (Madame Muriel's new host, I wonder if she's there yet)
Shirlee is The Easily Influenced Stitcher
Beth of Beth's Blog
Deb is The Thread Gatherer
Mouse writes her Tales of a Stitching Mouse and then finally back to
Me! Phew!

Here's the final picture of the hunt:

Y

This is Dewdrop by Just Nan, mounted on a scrapbook page with the ribbon Jan wrapped the parcel in.

Last year Jan admired my Little Red Xmas House so I sent her the chart.  She thanked me by adding another chart to my Just-Nan-a-thon!  Perfect for this Easter Hunt.

Stitched on 28count evenweave with several substituted colours including the rabbit's browns.  I blended two browns to make his fur.  I also used variegated greens for the border.  I'm pleased with the way the beads have caught the light in this photo, makes staying up late to stitch them worth the time!

And Finally, Happy Birthday Susan in your Yellow Flower Meadow:

I've been stitching the WOCS' Flower of the Month series for the Birthday club on Needlecraft Haven but we didn't have an April Birthday so I asked for volunteers among my followers.  Susan obliged and received a Daisy for April.  This time I coloured in the background using my pens rather than the flower, making an assisi style card.  Needlecraft Haven have covered the next few months but I have a space for August so if you're an August Baby then let me know!

Happy Hunting!