Crafts – Needlework – Page 15

Boo Club, Cross Stitch, Lizzie Kate, Theme Thursday, Theme Thursday, Works in Progress

Theme Thursday – and a WIP

29 April, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

I haven’t been following the Theme Thursday meme very long, but I decided to finally do one of them – as the theme doesn’t get published until the Sunday beforehand, by the time we get it ‘down under’ it’s already Monday – then I’m at work and leaving when it’s dark … it basically means I have to have a photo to do with the theme in my files already, which isn’t always the case … but this time I do, so I thought I would … join in, that is! 😀

This week’s “Theme Thursday” theme is “Bicycle”. Here’s an old penny farthing bike at Timbertown.

In other news, I picked up my needle as planned last night, while Katie and I caught up on a few of our favourite shows – I got burnt out early at work and decided to skive off 1/2 hour earlier than normal and managed to leave just as the sun was going down (geez it felt good leaving in semi-daylight!). Anyway the night was spent with Supernatural, Flash Forward, Bones, Castle, Greys Anatomy … phew! What a difference it makes to the length of a program when taking all the adverts out – love love LOVE my TiVo! 😀

I opted to pick up Boo Club again, and put the wee buttons on the first 6 blocks – managed to do a bit more of the border on each side, so it won’t be long now before I’m officially at the halfway mark (after the Creepy block) – I think I’ll keep doing this one now over the next few nights to try to get it finished (assuming I don’t get too bored and need a break from the border – although I agree that it does go pretty quickly in the scheme of things, and it’s pretty mindless to do in front of the gogglebox with no ‘real’ counting as such). Alas my WIP photos will be boring for a while though 😛

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishing, Gift of Stitching, Pay It Forward, pillows, pincushions, Stitching Smalls, tin topper, Works in Progress

Final day of finishing

26 April, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Wow, what a spectacular weekend I’ve had finishing-wise – I’ve really enjoyed sitting around in my PJ’s and scruffy clothes on my own all weekend and concentrating on my finishing efforts. As the hours went on, I felt more confident again in doing finishing – and I’m thinking perhaps I should assign one weekend a month to doing the same thing …

Here are the final efforts from today’s finishing session – there is still one pincushion left to show, but I still have to stitch on the cord edging before I can claim it as being finish-finished 🙂

1 more Christmas ornament
(excuse the greenish tinge, it’s actually white fabric!)

1 tie-on Easter pillow (certainly not my best ever finishing!)

My first Pay It Forward completed (with my tea-dyed lace)
(name removed so the recipient can be surprised)

1 Tin Topper – LOVE this one –
I’ve been meaning to turn this into a tin topper for EVER!
(now I just need to find some magnet strips for the lid –
I’m sure I have some hiding away somewhere)

And I also ‘forced’ myself to sit and watch a bit of vintage TV tonight while I sat and stitched for about 2 hours … I’ve been working my way through The Professionals on DVD – from waaaaay back in the 70’s, this used to be one of my absolute favourite shows in my youth. I had the biggest crush on Bodie (Lewis Collins) at the time … and now just giggle a bit at the outlandish clothes and tight pants 😛

At least that vintage TV session gave me chance to put a few more stitches into Just Nan’s Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls – I managed to complete one side of the garden fencing, and planted a tree (well, OK, maybe HALF a tree!) 😀

And do you remember I said I’d mislaid my teeny white buttons for Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club? Hmmm, I guess I was a bit smarter than I thought – I found them hiding where they actually should be … in my embellishments box … hmmm. Anyway, I’ve now thrown in my little black buttons with them too, so during my next stitching session I’ll be tossing up between Sapphire Star, Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls and Boo Club – oh, decisions, decisions 😛

Tomorrow it’s time to back to work again – where I will be putting my hand up for another 12 month secondment (that is of course if I actually get offered it) … it’s basically doing the same job that I’m doing now, and working within the same team, but being paid for by another department and working purely on their projects for 12 months – which means additional exposure to a different side of the business and chance to become more focused (plus it’s a side of the business I’m the most knowledgeable about). It’s going to be a massive 12 months, going by what I’ve heard about so far, but at least it’ll be a subject I enjoy … I guess I can only stick my hand up and say I’m interested and then see what happens … 😀

Cross Stitch, Finishing, Flatfold, Just Nan, Prairie Schooler, Works in Progress

Flat-fold finish

26 April, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Well, if I thought my hand cramps during the hemstitching of my needlerolls was annoying, the cramps from the ladder stitching of the sides of my flat-fold were downright tortuous … it took me hours just to complete one little flat-fold, and that turned out to be my only finishing completed yesterday. Now I just need to buy some nice trim for the edges of the front piece and add a nice rich red bow or something on the top. I’ll take another piccie later when I eventually get around to going shopping.

During my finishing session I watched another couple of movies – the highlight for me was Charlie & Boots, it was a nice lighthearted Aussie movie that I could easily watch again. On the other end of the scale I watched District 9 … or should I say “started to watch” … that has got to be the biggest waste of celluloid I’ve seen for quite some time! Thankfully not long afterwards I managed to finish my flat-fold and then sat and finished watching the last half of the Taking of Pelham 123 while I stitched for a short while. I have to agree with Gina’s comment in my last post that I really enjoyed this one … not enough to stop me from stitching, but then again there isn’t much movie-wise that can manage to do that – it’s one of the reasons I can generally sit and watch movies over and over while I’m stitching 🙂

I must say, though, I was thrilled to see the little ghostie showing up nice and clearly against the slightly darker tea-dyed fabric – definitely worth doing it! I did start visualising this little piece as a little flat-fold though, so at that point I decided I was getting delirious and had to take myself off to bed … at least it won’t be ready for finishing for a while, so I’m not quite a sucker for punishment just yet 😛

Unfortunately I was woken up at 4.30am to the sound of glass smashing, so I was as nervous as heck sleeping (even though I’m on the 3rd floor of our apartment block!), and I had a very broken sleep – not entirely sure what I’ll finish off today, but it probably won’t be half as productive as Saturday as today is also housekeeping day when I have to tidy everything up as well as doing all the housework in readiness for the working week beginning.

Cross Stitch, Finishing, Needlerolls, Shepherd's Bush, Works in Progress

Needleroll mania

25 April, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent pretty much the entire day yesterday finish-finishing 4 Shepherd’s Bush needlerolls. Following are the fruits of my labour (including improved photos of my latest two needleroll finishes, as previously I could only scan them and the quality was dreadful).

Folk Heart Needleroll

Millennium Roll

Halloween Roll

Pine Needle Roll

During my needleroll ‘frenzy’ yesterday I decided to sit down in front of the TV and downloaded a couple of free TV episodes on TiVo, and watched Episode 1 of Season 1 of The Tudors and the same of The Guardian. After my finishing session I also decided to blob out in front of the gogglebox and did a teeny tiny bit of stitching on a new start … I’m thinking of starting a bit of a mini-rotation of all the projects that I currently have kitted up with DMC, as I’m constantly having to keep raiding them for new projects (although I’ve made it easier now by having all my kitted up projects with all their contents on a spreadsheet, so at least I know which project has which DMC now!). This was the result of my bit of TV viewing – while watching The Ugly Truth (a truly stupid movie I have to say!) and half of the Taking of Pelham 123. As you can see, I did a LOT! haha. (Sorry for the crappy photo!)

This will eventually be Just Nan’s Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls. I’ve been meaning to start this one for weeks, but I needed to tea-dye the fabric to give it a slightly darker look and it’s taken me this long to finally drag the tea bags out of the cupboard! The last time I stitched ghosts on Lambswool linen they disappeared into the background, so fingers crossed this time the slightly darker colouration will see them showing up more (I’ll find out soon enough, as they’re getting stitched next).

While I was tea-dyeing, I also threw in a piece of cotton lace that I needed to dye so I can complete my first PIF ready to be sent off to its new home. I’ve still dickering over what to stitch for my next two ‘victims’, but I do have some ideas brewing in my little mind and have some designs pulled out into a separate pile ready to start work. I also need to decide on which design to use for my Scissor Pocket exchange, as I need to start working on that very very soon.

As for the rest of my finishing weekend, the question I’m asking myself is “what now?” – I still have a large pile of finishing to do, I just have to decide what to concentrate on first. I have the following to choose from:

Christmas flat-fold
Tie-on pillow for (next) Easter
Bunnies in my Garden set
Chatelaine’s Stitching Leporello
3 x Scissor fobs
Hocus Pocus pinkeep
2 x picture frames – then the mats cut and projects laced
Hardanger needlebook
Numerous Christmas ornies
Lavender bag (Victoria Sampler)
2 more needlerolls
2 x bellpulls
Santa quilted wallhanging (halfway through when sewing machine broke down last time)
Canvaswork pincushion
Quilt for my best friend’s first born (who’s now at school, and she’s since had two more kids!! ahem …)
Quilting bag – pretty much stitched, but needs to be put together
and a whole heap more that I can’t remember right now!

I did want to finish off a scissor fob tutorial with one of my pieces, so perhaps I’ll throw that into the mix this weekend, plus finishing off my Christmas ornie tutorial which is almost finished. If nothing else, I’m certainly not short of finishing items to be done!! Of course the sooner I get off this PC the quicker I’ll get to make a start as well … so perhaps I’d better leave it at that and go make a start! 😉

Boo Club, Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Little House Needleworks, Lizzie Kate, pinkeeps, Prairie Schooler, Stitching Smalls, Works in Progress

A very productive start to the weekend

25 April, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

During the week I managed a little more stitching on Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club – I’m definitely much happier with the project with the border on it. I’ve now halted progression as I can’t find (so what’s new these days???) the little while buttons I bought weeks ago for it. As soon as I find the little buttons I’ll pick it up again. I’m being difficult to myself and wanting to finish-finish each section as I roll it up the scrollbars … yes, I can be quirky and pedantic when I have my heart set on something! So this has been deleted to the corner basket while I continue my search for the little white buttons 😉

This weekend is a long weekend for us in Sydney (and most of Australia) – and with Katie gone all weekend, I’ve had my heart set on doing some finishing this weekend while I’m free to make as much mess as I want and be able to concentrate on what I’m doing, and so far those plans have come to fruition.

On Friday night I managed to finally finish 10 Christmas ornies that Mum had stitched for me – these have been in various states of finishing for the last few weeks, and it’s really lovely to see them finally finished 😀

I also managed to finally finish-finish my Blueberries by LHN into a pinkeep – this has actually been finished for a couple of months now, but I was never happy with the trim I used – finally I decided to rip it apart and used a plain ribbon that matched the thread colours instead … while it’s a lot plainer than the fancy trim I originally used, I’m much happier with it now 🙂

Yesterday pretty much my entire day was spent doing this …

… doing hemstitching on 4 x Shepherd’s Bush needlerolls (and the rest of the finishing). I really hate doing hemstitching because my left hand cramps up when I’m holding onto the fabric – I enjoy doing the stitching itself, though, as you get into quite a good rhythm once you’ve done the first few stitches … I just hate having to hold it in hand and having to de-cramp my hand every 10 stitches! Anyway, at least I have another 4 items out of the finishing box. I’ll add the photos to a separate post as this one is quite picture-heavy already!

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Finishes, Lizzie Kate, Victoria Sampler, Works in Progress

A project returns as a WIP

20 April, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Last year I finished all of the stitching on Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club, but I was given the used charts on loan and had to find my own buttons – I’ve eventually narrowed the search down and found suitable substitutes, and thought I’d start stitching them on tonight instead of doing some actual stitching … I’d just finished attaching ribbon hangers onto about 10 Prairie Schooler ornies that Mum gave me to be finished, and couldn’t find my felt for the backings, but wasn’t really in the mood to ‘stitch’ …

Well, I was never entirely sure whether to stitch the border on this piece and instead thought I’d use a ribbon stitched down … tonight I decided it really would look much nicer with the border stitched in place, so back it went onto some scrollbars and I’ve decided to stitching the border at the same time as adding the buttons … what was originally going to be about an hour’s worth of ‘finishing’ to complete this piece has now turned into a week (or more) worth of stitching. I think I’ll be much happier with it now, though 😀

As you can see from the photo, I didn’t get too far with the border stitching tonight, although not too bad considering … and 2 buttons down, 22 left to go …

I managed to snap a better photo yesterday of the Pin Pillow Exchange that I received (a HUGE yay for finding my little elusive Lumix), so I could finally do justice to the beautiful stitching and finishing.

I hadn’t noticed before how perfectly DMC 927 matches my bedroom duvet cover … I’m thinking a lovely sampler in this colour (along with the beige) just might look ever so lovely in my bedroom and now my mind is starting to work overtime and think of potential candidates! I’m thinking perhaps a nice Quaker design maybe … hmmmm …

While I had the camera out I also managed to take a better close-up shot of my finished heart from the Beyond Cross Stitch series by The Victoria Sampler – here is a nicer photo of my finish, and the beautiful specialty stitches on this piece. Sorry scanner, but your scans just can’t compare to the clarity of my little Lumix, even in crappy lighting!

Thank you to everyone who has voted to date for whether or not I should continue to combine both my loves of stitching and photography in this blog – it seems the majority agree with my gut feeling, which is to leave things as they are … apologies to those of you who prefer to see stitching only, but I’ve decided to leave things “as is” for the time being. I really appreciate you all taking the time to complete the poll, though!

Have a wonderful rest of the week everyone 😀

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Freebies, scissor fobs, Stitching Smalls

Roberta’s Flowers Fob

18 April, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Here’s my latest finish – and even completed immediately into an actual scissor fob … I think I may need to lay down for a while LOL.

“Roberta’s Flowers Fob” freebie by Sharon Manspeaker
www.xstitchhappy.com
stitched on 32ct Flax Belfast linen
with DMC threads

Unfortunately the lighting is dreadful again tonight, so crappy snaps of the finished fob follow.

Books & Reading, Canvaswork, Cross Stitch, Freebies, Laura J Perin, Lizzie Kate, Sapphire Star, Works in Progress

Current state of WIPs

13 April, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Alas, my wee Lumix is still in hiding – so yet again you are stuck with crappy scans of my current WIPs. The GREAT news is that my elusive back-ordered Rainbow Gallery thread arrived on Friday, so the last two nights have been spent doing the first part of the fill-in stitches on Sapphire Star. Here’s the latest scan of where it’s up to … I’m now in the process of doing little upright cross stitches in the centres of the ‘main’ part of the design – once that is done it’s time to re-do the centre long stitches, followed by the final parts, which is all long-stitch. Every time I pick this project up the colours blow me away and I savour every minute spent on it – I think this one will be finished by the end of this weekend, if not this week! 😀

Friday nights are “Dawsons Creek” nights in our little flat – we have finally finished season 5 (which I’ve probably enjoyed more than the others to date), and this Friday I get to drool over a younger version of Jensen Ackles for the final season of Dawsons. Then I can give myself a HUGE clap on the back and a resounding cheer of “Well Done, Lass” … that I managed to survive the whole series – and once I’ve finished drooling over Jensen (I just have shut out the fact that he will look about 12, and concentrate on that dreamy voice of his – another great thing about stitching!), it means we can finally move on to a different TV series for Friday nights. It seems our next choice is either going to be series one of Fringe (my choice) or Dark Angel (which I’ve never seen before) – or the entire series of Buffy … or perhaps all three in that order! I guess that ties up Friday nights at our place for the rest of the year! LOL.

Anyway, back to stitching … next up is a little freebie I started at the start of last week, but I can’t find three whole DMC colours, and therefore can’t go any further until I find them! Perhaps they’re off having a little soiree somewhere with my Lumix camera – hopefully they’ll take photos of their little antics hmmm. Anyway, I guess this one is now on hold until I can make a run out to Spotlight to pick up some more DMC – so much for being a quick stitch to whip up in a day! 😛 (I’ll add all the chart details etc once it’s finished.)

Lucky last is a piece that I started working on on Sunday afternoon. I decided to take up a Ghost Trappers challenge (one of the two Facebook games that I’m stupidly addicted to), which pretty much meant being chained to my PC for the entire weekend … or at least all of Sunday anyway. I ended up setting up my little lapstand on my computer desk, so I could click my mouse every 4 or so minutes … yes, demented, I know … but I enjoyed having some “me” time in my room and enjoyed killing three birds with one stone – stitching, playing games, and reading an audiobook! Pretty much summed up in one word … “Heaven” 😀

Anyway, here’s the WIP from my Sunday stitching session (Lizzie*Kate’s Hocus Pocus) – this may not get touched now until Sapphire Star is finished, or it’ll remain my ‘bedroom stitching’ project until I can pick up my missing DMC skeins for the acorn freebie. Either way, it’ll probably just take one more day or two nights’ stitching and it’ll be finished.

Reading-wise, one book I managed to finish last weekend was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – I don’t know of a single person who hasn’t raved about this book after reading it, and I have to admit I really really enjoyed it. I even shed a tear or two in a couple of places, and very glad I took the time to read it. Savage and raw in places, touching and tender in others – this was a really enjoyable read!

Next up I started and finished reading Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. I’ve read all the Kay Scarpetta novels over the years, and enjoyed every single one of them, and this one was no exception. I have to say, though, I was glad that I’d read the previous book first, as Scarpetta referred often to an incident or two in the previous book – while you could have still followed the storyline easily, it was much better knowing the full background to the situation being discussed. The only books I’ve ever disliked of Ms Cornwell’s were Hornet’s Nest and Southern Cross, the Andy Brazil series – I disliked them so much I didn’t even bother getting the 3rd book in the series, Isle of Dogs, and it took me a while to get back into buying her books again. Thankfully Kay Scarpetta et al continue to provide me with good reading fodder with her forensics expertise and thrilling crime writing! Way to go, Ms Cornwell, you kept me hooked for another 13 1/4 hours! 😀

As for the next book, I decided to try a different style of writing, with a shorter story, and clicked the play button on Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood. Set in the 1920’s the awfully English accents and dandy characters are quite fun and are easily wiling away a few hours. This one has been very easy listening, and I’m only 1 1/2 hours away from the book’s ending. I have to say for stitchers audiobooks are yet another of life’s great inventions … while it takes a while to get ‘into the mood’ of an audiobook, once you are ‘in the right mind space’, it’s a wonderful way to combine two loves – a love of stitching and of reading 🙂

And I guess on that note I really should get into bed – as much as I love audiobooks when I’m stitching, my actual preference is to hold a physical book and devour its pages one by one … these days, though, my stitching has been taking a priority while I’m in the mood, and physical books have been well and truly lowest on the list. I’ve decided it’s about time I got further than the first chapter of J.R. Ward’s first book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and I’m going to put my stitching down 1/2 an hour early each evening and read a few pages before bedtime … sounds like a reasonable plan, except I know that once I get my teeth into a good book I get into true reading mode and end up propping my eyelids open with matchsticks while glancing at the clock in the wee small hours of the morning and thinking “just one more chapter …” 😉

Which is a good point … perhaps I should just switch the light off and go to actual sleep before midnight … that’d be an interesting change 😀

Christmas Ornaments, Finishes, Needlerolls, Shepherd's Bush, Works in Progress

Halloween Roll

6 April, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

I managed to complete some stitching today – here is my latest finish (my photography tonight was appalling, so I placed this one on the scanner):

“Halloween Roll” by Shepherd’s Bush
using kit fabric and threads (Tobacco linen and DMC)

Then I made a start on a Christmas ornament by The Victoria Sampler – with any luck this one won’t take too long to finish.

Stitching has been very cathartic for me today! 🙂

Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Finishes, Freebies, Piecework magazine, pincushions, Quaker

Pin Pillow Exchange part 1

29 March, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

I haven’t heard from my exchange partner directly, but I noticed on Becky’s blog today that the list shows that she’s received my pin pillow exchange for her. I hope she liked it 🙂

Anyway, I’ve decided to go ahead and show the pillow I made for her now I know it’s been received, ‘cos I’ve been champing at the bit wanting to share the piccies. My recipient was Jayne, and I read on her blog that she likes the colour purple, alphabets and quakers, so this was my choice for her (I personalised one side with both of our initials):

“Quaker Heart” freebie by Piecework magazine
Stitched on 28ct Lavender Bliss Cashel linen
with Carrie’s Threads “Lavender”
finished with a beaded edge

Now I’m considering joining up for Becky’s next exchange – a scissor pocket … I love it ‘cos it’s a “no extras” exchange again, which is really appealing to me, rather than sending extras than people may not want.