The Colour of Magic

"In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part...
See..."

Those are two clues as to what I have been stitching this week, and here's another:

That's the whole piece along with a little bag I'm using to keep the thread in.  The bag was a Birthday present from Preeti last year.

Here's what it will look like one day:

And here's a close-up of what I have stitched so far, along with my elephant thread holders.  These were a cover gift from Cross Stitcher magazine but they came without holes so I simply used my hole punch and voila!  They came with some cheap threads and the little ear stickers, some of which I can use.

This is roughly the area I have stitched so far:

In case you haven't guessed, this is The Discworld Mappe I bought from Lyndisfarne Cross Stitch Designs last year.  The fabric is a custom dyed 32 count Murano from Sparklies and the threads are DMC.

It's a nice easy stitch as it's basically straight rows of one colour for the most part.  The pale blue is the frozen sea and that was a little bit fiddly.  The plan is to not stitch the sea or the space but use the fabric as the background.  I'm going to stitch up and make sure the edge is more-or-less in the right place!

This is definitely a long-term project at 30 pages and I may have to change my plans for next year so I can stitch it every month.  Along with my Chatelaine!

I did manage another small finish, my 30-a-day project which has been Just Nan's Victorian Rose:

really bad photo taken with the iPad

I also framed Gathering Honey:

Finally, I'm making plans for The Longest Day SAL next week.  I'll actually be stitching on Tuesday 20th and blogging about it on the 21st as I'm away from the house on Wednesday.  I've decided to have an Event on Facebook for the real time updates so if you want to follow along there, here's the link.

Longest Day SAL

(It's a private event so leave a comment if you want to see it)

(Arlene, you left a comment but you are a no-reply person so I still can't add you!)

Gifted Gorgeousness June Link-Up Post

Welcome to the June link-up for Gifted Gorgeousness.  The linky will stay open until the end of the month so you have plenty of time to link up and join in.

First priority for this month is my Big Happy Dance for Gathering Honey by Jannlynn Designs:

Memories by Just Nan, a gift from Vickie:

A tiny bit on Gathering Eggs by Nora Corbett, a gift from Carol:

Itches by Oberlin Samplers, soon to be Witches, a gift from Barb:

Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas was a gift from my MIL:

My final gifted piece is for a friend's wedding later this month.  This is Emma Congdon's design from this month's Cross Stitch Crazy magazine:

And now it's over to you.  This is where you link up your post for this month.  Please use your name or your blog name in the field and NOT the words "June Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month.  And link to the actual post, not just your blog.  It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.

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Finally, I'm making plans for The Longest Day SAL next week.  I'll actually be stitching on Tuesday 20th and blogging about it on the 21st as I'm away from the house on Wednesday.  I've decided to have an Event on Facebook for the real time updates so if you want to follow along there, here's the link.

Longest Day SAL

(It's a private event so leave a comment if you want to see it!)

Happy Dance on the Table!

I recently got a special offer to get 3 issues of Cross Stitch Crazy for just £3, you'd have to be crazy to turn that down!  This month's issue arrived last week with a lovely cover gift of a booklet of designs by Emma Congdon of Stitchrovia.  All in her familiar typography and fonts style.  Not only did I start one straight away, I finished it too!  In just three days.

Bubbly!

Petite beads for bubbles in the bubbly.

Photos taken in three different lights!  Just to show how hard it is to get the right colour

This one is probably closest.  I had to change some of the thread colours so they would show up on the pink fabric (32 count linen) and I also filled in the word Champagne with Blanc.

This is going to be a wedding card for a friend whose daughter goes to the same school as the Small Boy.  It's perfect for her and her new hubby.

I've been continuing with the SAL that keeps on entertaining Christine, the Ten-a-Day and have just passed 160 days and 1,600 stitches.  I am indeed a Woman in Control of my Life.  This is a collage of photos of Just Nan's Spring in the Square taken every 10 days.  I started on 1st January so I love how the flowers bloom as we go through Spring and into Summer:

I've also been stitching a second daily project - 30-a-day and for this one I have a series of Just Nan freebies I'm finishing as ornies.  This is the fourth one, Victorian Rose, now on Day 14:

Handy hint - the little tag of orange at the top is an ORT knotted through so I always know which way up is.  Useful when stitching a symmetrical design on square fabric.

Finally, I'm making plans for The Longest Day SAL next week.  I'll actually be stitching on Tuesday 20th and blogging about it on the 21st as I'm away from the house on Wednesday.  I've decided to have an Event on Facebook for the real time updates so if you want to follow along there, here's the link.

Longest Day SAL

(It's a private event so send me a pm on FB if you want to see it!)

Dear Edward

Whatever I expected to find when I opened the front door this morning, it certainly wasn't six socking great geese laying eggs all over the doorstep.  Frankly, I rather hoped you had stopped sending me birds - we have no room for them and they have already ruined the croquet lawn.  I know you meant well, but - let's call a halt, shall we?
Love, Emily

12 Days of Christmas (Correspondence) - John Julius Norwich

And we are back to birds!  Luckily for me, there was only one goose-a-laying to stitch this month:

I got all the goose and her nest completed and started on the lettering before I realised the entire picture was one row too low!  So I just stitched the lettering one row higher and it touches the nest but looks fine.  I have also noticed that I haven't stitched the bottom right hand corner bits.

Here is the whole piece last month:

And here it is now:

You can see I have finished all the metallic in the border and stitched some green vine, I've also added some stitches to the left hand Herald Angel.

I've also stitched my two Hallowe'en samplers this month for the theme Something Green on the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog.

Here is a green lizard and some green froggies on  Happy Hallowe'en by Imaginating:

On Witches by Oberlin Samplers I stitched an olive green letter with some green leaves and pumpkin stalks/vines:

And here is the full Itches designs!  Need that first W very soon.

Finally, I fully-finished the latest Just Nan freebie into an ornie:

Christmas Hearts

The Wonderfully Wordy Alphabet World

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.

Our first W from A Dark Alphabet is a Wyvern.  I loved the effect of the variegated thread I used for him.  A Note of Friendship explains that a Wyvern is a dragon with only two front legs and a barbed tail.

The next W is for Wool from The Stitcher's Alphabet by Brooke's Books:

I have completed another page in my Alphabet Book, here are the four most recent blocks:

stitched on 28 count afghan fabric

W is for one of my favourite themes - Witches!  Trixie Witch from Brooke's Books is in the centre but if you want to know any more about any of the others, please ask.

W is also for Wizard:

Joan Elliott - Wizard from A Year of Magical Stitching

W is for Weddings, one of the perfect occasions to stitch a sampler for.  This is one of my favourites:

W is for Winter - a wonderful time to stitch when it's cold outside and a wonderful theme to stitch with icy blues and snowy whites.

Which designers begin with W?  With Thy Needle is one and they have a series called Wordplay:

Who is in my Blog Roll to represent W?

Wicked Stitcher

Wisdom with Needle and Thread

A Work in Progress

The WIPocalypse

That last link is to Measi's Musings, the hostess of one of the longest running SALs that I take part in.  Originally set up in 2012 to ensure the End of The World saw us all with zero outstanding projects, we have successfully stopped the Apocalypse by refusing to complete all our WIPs!  The world cannot end while there is still stitching to be done.

Finally, I realised that I missed a very important link in my last Alphabet Club post for V -

The Viewer!

If you have never heard of Dana and her Viewer, do check out this link but be prepared to lose many hours.  Dana set up the Viewer primarily for Mirabilia designs, as far as I know.  You can choose a design and choose different fabrics to see which ones look best.  Since the early days she has expanded to include a wide range of fabric dyers and other designers too.  There are currently 13 different designers (plus 4 incarnations of Nora Corbett!) and 18 different fabric suppliers.

What is most incredible about the site is that Dana does this for free, voluntarily.  Although I do believe she is looking into monetising the website in some way in the future.  She's doing market research on the FB page.

Money Pie

Not really a lot of stitching to show you as I've been focusing on the Brooke's Books' Stitchers Alphabet for this Saturday's Alphabet Club.  But I do have some pie and some stash to share.

First the stitching.  I have been taking part in a Ten-a-Day challenge this year and yesterday we reached 1,500 stitches!  So here is a photo of 1,510 stitches:

Just Nan - Spring in the Square

As well as the Ten-a-Day I am doing a Thirty-a-Day using a series of Just Nan freebies which I started as part of Kerry's March Madness this year.  Yesterday I completed the beading on Christmas Hearts:

stitched on 32 count antique white evenweave

I love the Rhodes Heart in the middle and will try get a better photo of it when I fully-finish this piece at the weekend.

And because I finished one - I start another one!  This is Victorian Rose, started on 12th March and restarted 31st May.  The first photo is the first 30 stitches from March:

And this is where we are today, with a much better idea of the colour of the fabric:

stitched on 32 count green linen from Sarah in Stitches

Tomorrow it's back to Hallowe'en and some spooky stitching!

This month's pie reflects the time I spent on Gathering Honey, not quite half the month.  12 Days got a lot of attention as I worked quite a few full days and that's what I take in as my lunchtime project.

Finally, the money part of the title is my Stitch from Stash round-up.

May
Cross Stitch Crazy	£4.99
Stitchrovia	£1.99
JN Summer Typo	£13.19
JN 12 Days	£0.00
Total	£20.17

I spent a little bit more than usual this month but still within budget.  Cross Stitch Crazy had a great Emma Congdon Circus ABC, a mini version of the Emily Peacock design I stitched for my cousin ages ago.  The cover gift was two lovely Margaret Sherry hedgehog cards too.  There were also some mini mandala designs which would look good in beads.

I bought the second part of the Stitchrovia MIND SAL because I was trying to work out how to send it to the winner of my last competition.  Stitchrovia are silent in their response to my emails so far.

I also needed to buy a chart from SewandSo for another competition winner and I discovered that they were doing 3 for 2 on all charts!  So I bought one for myself and a freebie too.  Here are the two I got for myself:

The fourth one in the series.  I have stitched the other three.

Because I need another 12 Days for next year...

May's Intimidating Designers WIPocalypse

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings
Also linking up with 17 in '17

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  I have chosen my "17 in '17" which are the 17 projects I want to focus on this year.  You can see the full list on this page here.

This month I only worked on six of my projects BUT I did get a big Happy Dance for one of them so that's a bonus.

1. My spooky conversion of Lavender & Lace's Enchanted Alphabet:

stitched on 32 count Murano in Tigerlily by Sparklies

2. Oberlin Sampler's Witches:

3. Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas:

4. Just Nan's Spring in the Square:

5. Brooke's Books' Stitcher's Alphabet.  I actually stitched V last month but I'm not showing W until next Saturday so here's V:

6. Jannlynn Designs' Gathering Honey was my Happy Dance:

Measi always gives us a discussion topic.

May - Which designer's projects do you absolutely love, but are too intimidated to try?

Short answer - no-one!

Long answer.  I had a good think about this one and at the end of the day, all designs are basically putting the needle into the fabric and pulling a thread along with it.  Purely and simply.  A large or complex design may look daunting but it is still one stitch after another.  

Some charts make it harder to stitch a project (see the backstitch guide on Gathering Honey!)  but you just work your way through the instructions, one sentence at a time.    If you look back at my Happy Dance blog you'll see my 3rd project was on black aida, my 4th had metallics, my 5th was this one:

And then I moved on to Teresa Wentzler.  Who probably shares the crown for complex designs with Martina from Chatelaine.  The only reason I hadn't stitched a Chatelaine until this year was price and too much choice!

Then I thought about the bigger picture - what does intimidate me?  Not much really!  I have reached the point in life where I know what I can and can't do.  If I know I can't do something I'm not going to waste time trying and failing.  I'll find an alternative.  I can remember the last time I was really nervous about something - presenting an assembly on Road Safety to 250 Primary School children.  That gave me butterflies, children are very open if they are bored by what you are saying!  The funny thing was that the previous week I'd spoken at a meeting about cuts to public library funding to a similar amount of adults with no nerves at all.

I think there's a lot of truth in the phrase "that which does not kill us, makes us stronger" (Nietsche).  I went to a state comprehensive where people attempted to bully me for the twin sins of being poor and clever.  You were allowed to be one or the other, but not both.  Free meals kids were not supposed to be in the top set, according to certain wealthier, less intelligent students!  Note I say "attempted to bully me", they soon learned I wasn't an easy target and wandered off to pick on someone else.  There were a lot of people came out of our school with very low self esteem.  But for the lucky ones, we feel we are just as good as anyone from a better school or background and we do have that certain bolshie attitude!

NB I am not convinced this was a good thing, I would rather we had all come out feeling confident because we'd been nurtured and well taught!

Anyway, back to the stitching and Chatelaines.  Martina is celebrating her 200th design and 20th Anniversary with this beauty:

Finally, it's a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, rain is probably forecast for tomorrow so there'll be plenty of time for stitching instead!