January TUSAL

It's TUSAL time again, the first one of the year!  For those of you new to blogging, the TUSAL is a project run by Daffycat, click on the button on the right hand bar for more details.

Here is my ORTS tin posing with the current stitching project:

The new project is one of Nora Corbett's Alphabet Fairies.  This one is C.  I'm using a 32 count Murano called Oceanic Fantasia from Crafty Kitten.  I chose this fabric because it will work well with S and also because C features a solid stitched background which none of the rest do.  I'm not a fan of solid stitching so it makes sense to use a lovely fabric instread.

I also debated which threads to use.  The letters are all charted in Crescent Colours (now called Classic Colourworks) but you don't use much of some of the colours so I wondered whether it was worth buying them.  A friend sent me some she wasn't using when I started J so I looked at those and realised I needed a few of them for C too.  So I sat down and made a list, nearly all the colours feature in at least 3 of the designs I have (C, E, J and S) so it was definitely worth getting those.

I tried a new-to-me supplier - Patchwork Rabbit and I have to say I was very impressed.  I ordered them Friday lunchtime and they were with me less than 24 hours later.  All nicely wrapped in a waterproof envelope because it does rain here and the postman will carry the mail in his hands on the way to our door.

I had another new start and a partial finish on Friday this weekend.  My loose rotation said to start the design for the Christmas Ornie SAL blog on the second Friday of the month.  Like the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog I have a cunning plan to enable me to join in with the SAL and complete a larger piece at the same time!  Here is my finish for the theme Music:

And here is the chart cover:

I'm using an amazing fabric called Country Mocha by Willow Fabrics.  It's a 35 count linen and I love it!  The Christmas Cubes fit a 100mm x 100mm cube when they are done.  I'm using the recommended DMC except for the snow which is B5200 instead of Blanc.  It just pops better on a neutral fabric.  I also changed the words Jingle Bells to 814 instead of Black.  It's Christmas not Hallowe'en!

Now, do you remember I mentioned I was going to be reviewing something which you don't usually associate with art work?  Well, it's not artisan soap and it's not toilet roll!  It is teatowels!  Look at these:

Anglo Saxon design

Close-up: 

These are based on brooch designs and would make great stitching motifs.

I'm sure many of you recognise this design from the Bothy Threads kit?

Dictionary of Tea

And my favourite of all:

Mona Lisa teatowel

All three of these teatowels come from the lovely people at All Tea Towels.  A name which does exactly what it says!  They sell teatowels, from the comic to the fine art, there really is something for everyone on their website.  The website is nicely arranged in categories and easy to browse too.

The parcel arrived quickly and very well wrapped in waterproof plastic (remember the postman?) with the teatowels themselves wrapped in tissue paper inside.  They are nice and thick, two are 100% cotton and the Dictionary design is a cotton/linen blend.  Not sure of the count LOL.

I can't comment on what they are like for drying up the dishes because they are just too nice for that!!  I intend to make two of them into totebags and the third will be a little gift for someone I know.

The website gives some suggestions as to what you use them for (other than drying dishes) and there's even a link to a blog called My Tea Towels dedicated to tea towels!  Would you believe it?  And you thought cross stitch was a niche subject!  (Actually the blogger is really interesting, she tells some great anecdotes about where she bought her collection of teatowels.)

Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend the All Tea Towels website if you are searching for something a little out of the ordinary as a gift for that person who has everything.  I bet they haven't got a Tunnock's Teacake Wrapper teatowel!

Disclaimer - I was not paid to write this review and I am not affliated with the company.  I did, however, receive three lovely teatowels free of charge.

Back to stitching.  The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted the addition to the Mona Lisa teatowel.  A very small stitched Mona Lisa.  This one is a freebie from Mr. X-Stitch back in July and I've been stitching it off and on ever since then.  I'm stitching over one on 28 count evenweave.  That's a petite 28 needle for scale.  I've done all the interesting bits and just have to fill in with 3799 for about 20 rows!

Finally, the next Blog Hop will be the Secret Stitching Sweetheart for Valentine's Day.  Full details to follow or you can look at last year's to see how it works and sign up by leaving a comment.

First Finish of the Year!

And also the first post since November which isn't for a SAL or other event!

Actually this was for a SAL but not a "regular posting on your blog" type of SAL.  This is Plum Street Samplers 12 Days of Christmas:

I made a collage!

I first saw these designs in Just Cross Stitch magazine which published First Day and Second Day in 2011 and 2012.  I liked them but the series never continued.  Until now!  Following numerous requests for the series Paulette decided to make them the Mystery SAL for 2015.

She charted them for four colours; red, green, black and gold.  But I thought it would be fun to use just red and one accent colour for each day.  I started with pear for First Day and continued to choose a suitable colour for each day.  I also continued with the quirk of having one motif a different colour to the rest of them where possible,

I stitched them over one on some 25 count creamish linen I had.  The plan is to scrapbook them across two matching pages I have already bought.  I quite like them as circles now I've done the collage so maybe I'll figure out an easy way to make them into circles! 

Christine and I had a very interesting discussion about the song because we both learned the version where there were 9 Pipers, 10 Drummers, 11 Ladies and 12 Lords rather than this version.  Some internet research revealed that we were taught the original version from at least 1780 (and no, we are not that old!).  They remained that way until 1906 when the modern version was sent to music by Frederic Austen.  

If you look at this Wiki entry you will see some rather strange versions have been used - Wiki - 12 Days of Christmas.  I'm not sure I want to stitch Bears a Baiting or Asses Racing!

The origin of the rhyme seems to be a "forfeit" song where you had to remember all the verses or pay a forfeit.  There is an old wives tale that it was invented as a catchism for persecuted practioners of the Christian faith with the various items representing various Christian themes.  But as the symbols use the 1906 version this seems rather unlikely!

There is however a song called A New Dial which does teach numbered religious themes which is reproduced on this website - Snopes - 12 Days of Christmas so it would seem that the two have become confused over the years.

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As is traditional for New Year's Day I had a new start and a partial finish on the same day.  My project for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog will be Just Nan's Counting Bats.  As luck would have it the bands fit perfectly with our themes this year.  Well, considering I chose the themes, it's not really much of a surprise!

Here is the first band made into a collage with some of the bats cropped and rotated to look different:

stitched on 28 count lilac linen.

I've also been working away on a little Christmas Cottage called Poinsettia Place by CCN:

stitched on 32 count Twilight Blue Permin linen

I started this last year on Day 3 of the DUCJC and didn't pick it up again until December!  There's quite a bit of white snow, red in the top border, a pine branch bottom border and the two flower pots to go.  I do like the way the white pops against the blue fabric.

Finally, I've been sent something unusual to review.  It's a product in daily use but not one you might think of when it comes to artwork.  I shall let you ponder and wonder until I do my next post!

The Fabulous and Fantastic Alphabet Fanclub

It's the first Saturday of the month so it's time for detention!

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

I think most of you know the lovely enigmatic Chiara who blogs at The Grey Tail?  We were chatting via email a while back and between us came up with the idea of an A-Z language challenge.  We batted some ideas around and are calling it the The Alphabet Club.  Chiara has the full details on that link but basically she will post a link-up post on the first Saturday of each month (Saturday being detention day in the film) reminding us of the month's letter and we will all link up with themed things, from stitching to designers and local customs.

F is for Furies from A Dark Alphabet designed by Julie and Becky's Note of Friendship blog.

F is also for Fair Isle and Flowers as shown in the Brooke's Book's Stitcher's Alphabet piece I am stitching for the Alphabet Club SAL:

stitched on 28 count Afghan fabric

Fair Isle is a style of knitting originating from one of the Shetland Island called (you guessed it) Fair Isle.  Here is an article about crafts from the Fair Isle and here are some jumpers:

I'm not a big one for stitching flowers, but I did complete The Year of Flowers from World of Cross Stitching magazine a few years ago:

Each of these was backstitched on 14 count aida and then coloured in using Felt-tipped pens.  Nothing Fancy, just ordinary kids' pens.  Then they were sent to various people for their Birthday.

Another popular stitching F is Fairies.  I have to say, once again, I'm not that into fairies but I do like Joan Elliott's designs and here is the Round Robin from 2012 featuring her Garden Flower Fairies:

Of course, Frogs are to be totally avoided by stitchers, these ones seem to be quite content to live on my stitching bag (made by Lisa The Inspired Stitcher) and not infest my stitching:

F is for one of my Favourite themes - Fantasy.  For me, that means Dragons!  Which I covered in my D post two months ago.   So here's a random picture of a dragon which inexplicably got missed off that post:

Above the Clouds by Teresa Wentzler

I've got two F WIPS at the moment:

Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery - Hallowe'en Town

Faces SAL by Joan Elliott

On to the Blog Roll:

Fairy Tales and French Knots

Fantasy Cross Stitch

Feather Stitching

The Flashing Scissors

The Fairy Stitcher

A Faerie Princess Dreams and Stitches

Friday Frolics

All Fabulous and Fantastic bloggers there!  I'm sure they would appreciate new Followers too, so why not pop over and make a new Friend.  We all love to get new Followers and I do like it when my new followers leave a comment.  So if you've been silently stalking me, why not break the silence and say Hi?  In return I'll come and follow your blog and say nice things to you too.

Finally, I know you all enjoyed the Advent Calendar Blog Hop in December.  I will be continuing my Blog Hops this year with the Secret Stitching Sweetheart being the first one for Valentine's Day followed by the Easter Treasure Hunt.  I am contemplating doing a Birthday Blog Hop instead of the Summer Postcard, there's a good reason why but I'm saving that for another post!

D.E.S.I.G.N. Round-Up and Some Pie

The idea of this Blog Hop was 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.  The hosts of D.E.S.I.G.N asked us to answer a few questions on our chosen designer.  I featured a number of my favourite designers and some new to me, a nice mixture.  To read those posts, click on D.E.S.I.G.N. in the labels.

This month I thought I'd look at some of the designers I didn't feature.  I have a stitching diary where I jot down which projects I worked on that day.  At the end of the month I tranfer the data to a spreadsheet and produce a pie chart to show how I spent my time.  I don't bother counting hours because I tend to pick up pieces through the day and grab ten minutes here and there.

I stitched a total of 38 different designers in 2015!  The Top Ten were as follows:

Primitive Hare	35
Satsuma Street	31
Brooke's Books	30
Blue Ribbon Designs	26
Scarlet Letter - Elizabeth	22
Joan Elliott	21
Plum St 12 Days	20
Just Nan	19
Goode Huswif Spell Book	17
Mme Chantilly On the Beach	13

Three new designers in the top spots there - Goode Huswif who designed the Book of Spells which has been taking a break to make way for Plum Street Sampler's 12 Days of Christmas (another new-to-me designer).  The third spot goes to Madame Chantilly for Albert's Birth Sampler.

I will definitely be stitching another Madame Chantilly design in the future, I have Hallowe'en Town in my stash.  Plum Street Samplers have some nice ornies in the JCS Christmas magazines so another yes there.  The Goode Huswif charts don't seem to be readily available so a "probably not" there.

I've also been stitching a CCN design, only my second from this designer.  Another one of my DUCJC pieces, this is Poinsettia Place which was a prize from Gaynor of Stitcher Anon:

stitched on 32 count Permin Twilight Blue linen

I substituted the dark green for the side wall but I think I've gone a shade too dark.  I should have used 937 not 936 with hindsight.  I also subbed a brighter yellow for the windows.

Here is the December Pie chart, I spent a lot of time on the Brooke's Book's Alphabet because I actually stitched two blocks in December.  The E for December's Alphabet Club post and the F for January's post.  The idea is to stitch the block in advance of the post so you get to see a finished block on the first Saturday in each month.

Here is E which you haven't seen completed yet:

stitched on 28 count afghan

I also spent a lot of time on the Plum Street Sampler's 12 Days of Christmas.  I actually stitched on them every day at bathtime but only logged it if I didn't stitch anything else that day.  So mostly work days when I don't get a chance to stitch during the daytime.  Here are Tenth and Eleventh Days:

Stitched over 1 on 25 count linen.

The purple is still looking very blue and the orange is very bright!

And for lovers of Pie, here are two more charts:

This is the entire year by design!

And this one is by theme:

I only chose one category for each piece with Hallowe'en or Xmas taking preference over GG if an item fitted into both categories.  The numbers refer to the number of days spent stitching on each category.

So finally (if anyone is still reading!)  

Have a very Happy Old Year's Night 

and a very Peaceful New Year's Day

December Smalls Post and Review of the Year

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather from Stitching Lotus

This year I set myself two monthly challenges:

1. The Primitive Hare Hallowe'en Cubes SAL

2. The Hallowe'en Ornie SAL themed blog.
and then added a third one from August:
3. The Christmas Ornie SAL themed blog


I did really well with the Primitive Hare Cubes, stitching one per month and finishing in plenty of time for Hallowe'en.  But not the actual finishing-finishing into cubes!  That will come next year when I have sourced some cubes.  My question is now Foam or Polystyrene blocks?  Which are better in your opinion?

stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain linen.

I also did well with the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog.  There is somewhat more pressure on the organiser to contribute each month!  This year there was a little more shoe-horning than usual to make each month fit with what I was already stitching.

Top Row

Prairie Moon, SF Vailly, Just Nan, Primitive Hare

Middle Row

Just Nan, Blue Ribbon Designs, Knotted Tree, Just Nan

Bottom Row

Witchy Stitches, Just Nan, Blue Ribbon Designs time two

For more details, see the original blog posts on the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog

And onto the Christmas Blog, oh dear, a good start which petered out in the last months.  I managed a grand total of TWO.

Knotted Tree NeedleArt

Blue Ribbon Designs

But never fear, I have a cunning plan for next year!  Which I won't reveal until I have posted the January choice.

For next year's Smalls SAL I will obviously be continuing with the Hallowe'en and Christmas Ornies.  I also have another set of Primitive Hare Cubes in my stash.  In my previous post I listed my "16 in '16" projects which are mainly all WIPs.  But we all know how much we need a new start sometimes so I also put together a list entitled "Sixteen Series in Sixteen". 

I am slightly addicted to series of designs (come on, I know I'm not the only one from reading your blogs!).  So here is a list from which I can pick and choose a design any time I feel the need for a new start while still being part of a larger WIP, ie the full series.  Clever, eh?

1. Primitive Hare Christmas Cubes
2. Joan Elliott Diary Designs (3 stitched so far)
3. With Thy Needle Wordplay (2 stitched so far)
4. Brooke's Books Cakes (2 stitched so far)
5. Brooke's Books Witches (1 stitched so far)
6. Brooke's Books Alphabet (A-E stitched so far)
7. Satsuma Street Cities (2 stitched so far)
8. L*K Season Snippets (2 stitched so far)
9. Just Nan Seasonal Typography (2 stitched so far)
10. Drawn Thread Spot of Seasons
11. Shepherd's Bush Herbs (5 stitched so far)
12. Madame Chantilly Towns (1 stitched so far)
13. Blue Ribbon Designs Winter Forest designs (2 stitched so far)
14. Plum Street Samplers 12 Days of Christmas (10 stitched so far)
15. Nora Corbett Alphabet Fairies (1 started)
16. Teresa Wentzler Byzantine Ornaments

That last one was added when I saw Heather's post on Stitching Lotus where she said she's thinking of doing one a month for the Smalls SAL.  I thought maybe I could do half a one each month so they last the year!

A kind of rotation is emerging as I think about this:

First Friday - start Hallowe'en choice

Second Friday - start Christmas choice

Third Friday - Elizabeth Shephard for IHSW (if it's still going)

Fourth Friday - Brooke's Books' Alphabet in time for the Alphabet Club post.

Inbetween I can stitch on whichever WIP is calling my name! 

 

Evening stitching will be to complete The Plum Street 12 Days of Christmas, then finish Book of Spells and move onto Ink Circles Ghosts Mandala.  Which I have realised isn't on either list.  Good start!

Finally, Gifted Gorgeousness will be continuing into 2016 and for as long as I have gifted projects and a blog to chat about them.  Sign up on the main page and get ready for the first link-up on 15th January 2016.  There's also still time to link-up on the December post (open until the 31st).

December WIPocalypse Recap of the Year 2015

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

The focus of my WIPocalypse is my "15 in '15" which were 15 projects I particularly wanted to focus on in 2015.  Thanks to the DUCJC I did manage to stitch at least one day on every project!

Joan Elliott – Diary February - Finished



Just Nan – Winter Typography - Finished



Frosted Pumpkins – Hallowe’en Town WIP

Praire Moon – Thine is the Trick and the Treat - Finished



Joan Elliott – Faces Mystery SAL WIP

Madame Chantilly – On the Beach - Finished



Just Nan – Haunted Pumpkins Tree - Finished



Jannlynn – Gathering Honey WIP

JBW – Rocking Horse - Finished



Teresa Wenztler – You were Hatched WIP

Kingfisher for school  - Finished



Dragon of the Winter Moon from Riona WIP

Joan Elliott – Believe for school  - Finished



Primitive Hare – Hallowe’en Blocks - Finished



Nutmeg Cottage from Susan   - Finished

So the final tally is 10 finishes and 5 WIPs which is a lot better than last year when I only managed 6 completed and 3 WIPs with 5 not stitched at all.  Thanks DUCJC!  I also managed to complete 7 of the DUCJC pieces in addition to the 10 finishes above.  I was much more focused this year.

I have already made my list for "16 in '16" and here it is:

1. Jannlynn – Gathering Honey WIP
2. Teresa Wenztler – You were Hatched WIP
3. Dragon of the Winter Moon from Riona WIP
4. Nora Corbett Snowy Cottage from Nataly WIP
5. Custom Crafts Snapdragon from Lesley WIP
6. CCN Poinsettia Cottage from Stitcher Anon WIP
7. Strawberry Sampler from Lee WIP
8. Book of Spells from Carin WIP
9. Shepherds Bush She Tends from Kati WIP
10. Shepherds Bush – Mini Samplers from Laura and Heather WIP
11. Scarlet Letter - Elizabeth Shephard from Nicola WIP
12. Nora Corbett J from Justine WIP
13. Nora Corbett C
14. Nora Corbett E
15. Nora Corbett S
16. Just Nan Counting Bats

I've also been putting together another list called "16 Series in '16" just to give me some choice of new starts if I feel like one!  Like we ever need an excuse for a new start.  But I'll save that list for another post.

Finally, this is NOT a live post - the screens are all turned off for Christmas Day so I typed and scheduled this on Christmas Eve.  By the time you read this it will probably be Boxing Day or even next week.  So I will finish by saying that I hope you all had a very Merry Stitchmas and a Happy New Start for 2016.