Crafts – Needlework – Page 14

Cross Stitch, Mirabilia, Works in Progress

Halloween Fairy update

18 June, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

I may not get another chance to post this weekend with an update piccie, so here goes with a really quick drive-by post and piccie – I’m moving along slowly but surely with Mirabilia’s Halloween Fairy. Once I’ve finished the pumpkins I’ll be able to complete the green swirls on the bottom half of the design and perhaps some of the beads, then I’ll be flipping her over onto her ‘head’ to start stitching her upside down to complete her upper body … then she’ll have to sit on the shelf until her missing threads arrive, as I think it’ll be at least a month before they turn up …

Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Finishes, Mirabilia, scissor pockets, scissors, Stitching Smalls, The Cat's Whiskers, Works in Progress

Weekly Update

12 June, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Another week has gone by, and not much stitching has been completed in that time – the only thing I’ve been working on this week has been my Halloween Fairy with a few more stitches put in Mon-Thu this week. I’ve made OK progress on this one, but it’ll be a few weeks yet before she’s finished (not just stitching-wise, but I realised I’m missing two Kreinik braids which I’ve had to order and wait because they’re out of stock – I had a store credit to use up with Needle in a Haystack, so I decided to put it to good use with my braids). I have to admit I’m enjoying stitching her with her decent sized blocks of colour 🙂

The only other news is that my Scissor Pocket Exchange arrived safely at its destination during the week, and thankfully Lillie likes it, which is the important thing 🙂 It was supposed to be a no-extras exchange (love those exchanges), but I couldn’t resist adding a little pair of scissors that I’d bought at the last craft fair we went to, which I used as my basis to choose a thread from my stash to match. I didn’t think to take a photo of the inside flap, where I stitched both our initials, so I’ve borrowed one of Lillie’s photos (hope she doesn’t mind).

“Alyssum 2007 Ltd Ed Scissor Pocket” by The Cat’s Whiskers
stitched on 32ct Bo-Beep Pink Belfast linen
with Needle Necessities thread 196

Rightio, time to head off and do something – I need to kit up a Lizzie*Kate Welcome Baby sampler for a colleague’s new daughter, and find a Halloween cape in the depths of the garage for an upcoming fancy dress party for Katie, as well as head out to a shopping mall to actually find a top to wear tonight!

Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Works in Progress

Scissor Pocket exchange received

5 June, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

And oh boy, what an exquisite exchange piece it is!! I was absolutely gobsmacked when I opened my little parcel at the post office this morning – inside was the most gorgeous stitched and finished scissor pocket ever! This is a design I have lusted after for years now, and have attempted to buy a few times, but I’ve never managed to get hold of it … well now I don’t have to, as I have an awesome finished piece instead! I honestly did get a bit choked up when I opened up the box, as it was so amazingly perfect for me. Thank you Michelle from the bottom of my heart – I will truly treasure this always! 😀

My apologies for the piccies, but it’s almost midnight in a wintry Sydney and I couldn’t wait to publish them 🙂

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The only other photo I have is my latest minimal progress on Halloween Fairy – but this pales in comparison to my awesome new scissor pocket!

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Finishes, Jane Nicholas, Stumpwork, Works in Progress

Back from a mini blog break

1 June, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Thanks to those of you (including Mum) who have enquired as to my whereabouts, and wondering why I’ve been absent for an entire week – and also where the photo posts have disappeared to. To be honest I’ve just felt a bit burnt out computer-wise (and therefore blog-wise), and haven’t felt like sitting in front of the PC much over the last week or three … the Photo Hunt themes haven’t really inspired me much over the last couple of weeks, and I usually sit and post all my photo posts for the week at the same time as doing my Saturday Photo Hunt post … so therefore no other photo posts either.

Anyway, other than that life is OK – just very hectic at work, and there hasn’t been much energy left over at the end of the day to do much at all. I can’t even say there has been screeds and screeds of stitching done … although I do have two small finishes – one that I can share, and one that I can’t … and one new start.

So, first up, here’s the one I can share:

“Snow” freebie by Whispered by the Wind
(freebie is still available here)
stitched on 32ct hand-dyed opalescent lugana
with DMC B5200

Just love the sparkly blue fabric – the photo in no way does this one justice … although the opalescent fabric is a total b*tch to stitch on, and I’m not in a hurry to repeat the experience …

And here’s the one I can’t share:

Scissor Pocket Exchange
Mystery design by Mystery designer on Mystery fabric with Mystery thread … to a Mystery recipient …

Then I started a new project, trying to stitch up some of the projects that I’ve entirely kitted up with DMC, just so I can return all my skeins to my master collection … meaning I won’t be forever “losing” the colours I need to kit up a new start. Here’s my very VERY minimal start on Mirabilia’s Trick or Treat Fairy (magazine version) … currently also known as “The Blob”. I managed to add another three whole rows tonight, but didn’t think it would make much difference to the photo!

And lucky last, here is a very very VERY old UFO that hasn’t seen the light of day since, well quite frankly I can’t remember when … all of a sudden I started getting the urge to finish off one of my oldest UFOs, and choose a project to challenge myself, and this is probably the closest to an actual finish of any of my ‘big’ stumpwork pieces … so I’m thinking perhaps I should bite the bullet and finish this little baby off. It will mean, though, getting my Jane Nicholas reference books out and jogging my memory on how to do all the stitches, but that’s what challenges are for right? Here are how all the various components look at this stage … with many more little petals and insects yet to be stitched up and finished! (Unfortunately the fluffed up bee body is looking a bit worse for wear after being in storage for months and in and out of boxes … but it should hopefully all work out once it gets trimmed back into the little bee body shape … fingers crossed anyway!)

So, be warned, and don’t expect too much progress too quickly … the one thing I find with stumpwork is that for me it seems to take an absolute aeon to finish one teeny tiny little piece of stitching, so this is one project that you won’t be seeing finished any time soon!

And on that note I think it’s time to bid you farewell again for the night – no guarantees when I’ll be back online again … but at least you know I’m still alive 🙂

Boo Club, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Freebies, Lizzie Kate, Plum Pudding NeedleArt

A little touch of Love

23 May, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

I didn’t end up getting much stitching done yesterday, and still haven’t finished my little snowflake ornie … I forgot I still had my Love freebie sitting on my bedroom lapframe, so rather than removing it, I decided to put the final stitches into that one instead … and now the snowflake ornie is in its place ready for finishing off this week (in fact I may try and put a few stitches into it tonight). Apologies for the poor piccie, but I threw it on the scanner instead of trying to take a photo in grim evening light.

“Love” freebie by Plum Pudding NeedleArt
Stitched on 32ct cream Belfast linen (I think) with DMC

Yesterday I tried to take some photos of Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club all finished and in one piece … unfortunately I now notice that my “in one piece” photo is a bit blurry, so I’ve done a bit of a cut-and-paste job in three sections instead. I didn’t have many of the recommended threads, as I don’t have a great stock of WDW or GAST threads to work from, and I wanted to stitch from my stash as much as possible, so I substituted quite a large number of threads in this piece. The details are at the bottom of the photos.

“Boo Club” by Lizzie*Kate
Stitched on 32ct Pipi hand-dyed linen by Countrystitch
Using a mix of recommended and substitute threads as follows:

Recommended ~ My Choice
WDW Mascara ~ WDW Mascara (but DMC 310 in the border)
WDW Whitewash ~ WDW Whitewash (but DMC white in the border)
WDW Taffeta ~ DMC 3740
WDW Guacamole ~ Crescent Colours Eve’s Leaves
WDW Purple Majesty ~ Needle Necessities 195 Coronation
WDW Carrot ~ DMC 3853
WDW Havana ~ WDW Havana
WDW Ocean ~ DMC 3809
GAST Tomato ~ GAST Burnt Orange
GAST Butternut Squash ~ Crescent Colours Finley’s Gold
GAST Ohio Lemon Pie ~ GAST Ohio Lemon Pie
GAST Forest Glade ~ GAST Forest Glade

The rest of the weekend has been spent helping Katie to set up our new flat electronics, and putting a Beef and Red Wine casserole into the slow cooker – I love winter for ‘slow cooker season’ 😀

And now I think I’ll sign off, and jump into my PJs ready for an early night – time to catch up on a few taped Cold Case shows, and perhaps a few more stitches into that little snowflake ornie (although it’s very hard to see the holes in the fabric this time of night).

Finishes, Halloween, Just Nan, Works in Progress

Happy Dance

22 May, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Yay, I finally have a happy dance with my finish of Just Nan’s Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls. It’s taken me a while to finish this one, but it was fun stitching – and I ADORE the little coffin charm that opens up to show a little skeleton inside … too COOL 😀

“Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls” by Just Nan
stitched on 28ct Cashel linen tea-dyed by myself
with DMC threads and Just Nan coffin embellishment

Seeing as we still had the double-banger finale of Dawson’s Creek to watch last night while I’d reached the happy dance part of my stitching, I ran into my room and grabbed a kitted up ornie that was within arm’s reach, so I made a small start into this one as well. This is being stitched on a hand-dyed sparkly Lugana I got in a grab-bag from somewhere (had to be either Silkweaver or Countrystitch). I may be anti-social in my bedroom today and catch up on a bit of ‘Anne TV’ (ie that Katie doesn’t watch), and get this one finished. Then I need to finish off my scissor pocket exchange ready for posting this week.

I need to remember to try and take some decent photos of Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club this weekend so I can roll it away until I turn it into a quilted wallhanging. I don’t have any fabric that’s suitable (Halloween fabric over here is pretty impossible to find in good prints), so that might take a while. I may end up just giving in and using some complementary plain fabrics, but there’s no hurry for this one to be finished for a while yet.

The rest of the weekend will be spent taking Katie shopping to buy a TV and TiVo for her room, and just generally being lazy. Work is so exhausting during the week I almost need boring mindless weekends to keep my sanity in check!

Cross Stitch, Just Nan, Works in Progress

Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls

18 May, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Without further ado, here’s the latest WIP photo of Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls – it’s also likely to be the final work in progress photo, as the next time you see it it will hopefully be an actual finished project – I reckon just one more night, maximum two nights, in front of the gogglebox will see this finished off – there are just 3 froggies, a bunch of eyes and pumpkin backstitching, and 2 teeny ghost heads at the bottom plus 2 over-one kitty cats, and 4 yucky spiders in the corners … yeah, 2 nights should do it, easy!

Of course now I’m fantasising about which project to pick up next – while I still have a huge pile of UFO’s to work through, and some other projects I’m in the middle of, the call of the “new start” is screaming very very loudly in my ear! I’m almost tempted to start stitching Just Nan’s “Witchy Way”, yet another Halloween project, because I’ve got a lot of the threads already out from GGG, but then again it’s perhaps time for a break from Halloween designs … I’m really not entirely sure where my stitching passion will lead me this time … there are so many wonderful projects in my stash, I’m truly spoilt for choice and right now nothing is screaming any louder than anything else! 😀

I do have to finish off my scissor pocket exchange ready for mailing this weekend, so I have some time available yet before I have to make the ultimate decision on what project to pick up next … and I still have Sapphire Star to finish yet as well – I kinda came unstuck a bit ‘cos I absolutely abhor one of the threads used in the final sections, and am thinking of replacing it with a standard pearl cotton instead … maybe …

Anyway, for now it’s time to hit the hay for the night – I’m off to read another few pages of JR Ward’s Dark Lover before I officially wilt … I managed a whole 10 pages last night before my eyelids were too heavy to keep open … at this rate I should be finished with the entire series in about 2018! 😛

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Freebies, Just Nan, Lizzie Kate, Works in Progress

Where did the weekend go?

16 May, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Well, I guess I know where … I spent the entire day in my PJ’s on Saturday ‘cos I was just too tired to do anything else – I sat up in bed most of the day and watched DVDs while doing a teeny bit of stitching. After playing in my stash for a little while (dragging out all the kitted up projects in my drawers) I managed to start and finish this little project (but couldn’t face leaving the American spelling of “favorite” so I added a little “U” to Aussie-fy it):

“My Favorite Time” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on 28ct mystery Cashel linen (probably Clay or something similar)
with recommended GAST threads except Oatmeal where I subbed with DMC B5200

Then I started on a freebie by Plum Pudding Needleart – which will only take one more bedroom stitching session to totally complete it. In fact, I reckon about 2 hours of stitching will likely see it completed … but seeing as it’s now my ‘bedroom project’, and I don’t often stitch in my room, this may not see the finishing pile until next weekend again.

This morning Katie and I wandered over to the restaurant on ‘our’ beach where we had a leisurely brunch – I had the Eggs Benedict with a side of mushrooms, pineapple juice, and two skim cappuccinos … we were in heaven for a wee while. On the way home we picked up a couple of bags each of groceries from the local supermarket, then came in to vege out in front of the gogglebox for a few hours watching Flash Forward and The Amazing Race while I did a bit of stitching. After that Katie deserted me to go to her bedroom to read a book, while I cleaned up another episode of Good News Week, Fringe and Medium.

Thanks to our TV viewing session, the result is that Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls now looks like this:

I have to say I think the colour choices in particular for the two small pumpkins seem rather “odd” … but they’ll be staying as they are …

And now I’m going to open up Audible Manager and pop on an audiobook for an hour or two while I do some tidying up in my room, which is currently like a pigsty! 🙂

Boo Club, Cross Stitch, Just Nan, Lizzie Kate, Works in Progress

The end of the week…

13 May, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

“TGIF” BIG time this week – Friday hasn’t come around quick enough, even though I’ve got massive amounts of work I haven’t managed to get through yet, I’m still grateful the weekend is looming closely ahead!

After my outburst on Monday things at work have felt a lot calmer, I guess. The air has been cleared between “the guy” and myself, and even though I felt really cautious on Tuesday morning, by mid afternoon Tuesday I felt a lot perkier and even managed a joke with the man. So all-in-all I guess it’s all good as far as we’re concerned … I’m sure we’ll never see eye to eye, but we’ll be more conscious of how the other is reacting I guess. The frustrating thing on my behalf is that 9 out of 10 times I’ve been proven right in my viewpoint, but he still loves to argue for the sake of it. Oh well, time to be more tolerant and not take things personally anymore 🙂

Unfortunately our team is made up of some VERY strong personalities and large egos – and there seem to be more clashes than enough … we’ve just had a new member join the team, and she’s already put people’s backs up in the sites and within our own team … oh joy of joys. I’m regularly getting phone calls from people in the sites asking for advice on my interpretation of issues because they’ve found offence in the way a colleague has spoken to them – some days I feel like Dear Abby. I guess I should see it as a real compliment that people feel comfortable and trust me enough to open enough, but truth is it can be really draining … give me a quiet job somewhere without any internal bickering and I’ll be blissfully happy!!!

Anyway, enough of this whining about my job … this is mainly a stitching blog not a moaning blog, and I finally have a Happy Dance to share! Tonight, while watching a mini NCIS marathon, I managed to put the absolute final stitches into Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club … woohoo!!! 😀 Here are the final couple of bands on show … I’ll wait until decent daylight to take a photo of the entire finished piece, then I’ll share my fabric and thread details at that time.

Then I picked up Just Nan’s Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls and started the tree branches over on the left of the chart … I think I’ll keep going with this one now until it’s finished … although I do still have to finish Laura J Perin’s Sapphire Star yet … hmmm … 🙂

Beading, Boo Club, Cross Stitch, Lizzie Kate, scissor fobs, Works in Progress

Sick flatmate

9 May, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Alas, since lunchtime I’d ‘had’ to keep my flatmate and best pal Katie company in the lounge while she’s been suffering from a dodgy tummy from Vanuatu – it was a major hardship having to sit in my stitching chair for 8 or so hours while we watched all the TV shows that have been taping in her absence … which means there’s finally a stitchy progress photo! Only one more week and this little puppy will be finito! As you can see from the bottom piccie, I’ve now turned the corner for the bottom band of the border 😀

On Saturday morning I managed to get a couple of items into the post – my first PIF on it’s way finally … and this little gift to someone else – fingers crossed the recipients like their gifts 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll find out whether I have got the new 12 month secondment position or not … after I drop off my 90+ year old neighbour off at the airport for her next Queensland holiday … that’ll keep me in the good books for a while longer LOL. And seeing as I need to leave home an hour earlier than normal to do that, I’d better get my A into G and get into bed!!! 😀