Enjoying a sense of peace one stitch at a time
Finished needlework
This project has been one of the most enjoyable stitches this year – the easy to stitch blocks of colour, along with the beautiful bright hues of the threads made it such a joy to work on. I’m kinda sad it’s finished now, but on a positive note it means I can get it framed up to go on my wall for the new year! 😀
“Cabana Beach” by Mill Hill
Started 29 January 2025 – Finished 23 December 2025
Stitched with kit threads and beads, but I substituted the perforated paper for 28ct linen
I managed to finish this fun project on 29 October after regularly doing 100 stitches here and there for various stitching challenges. It was such an enjoyable project to work on! I’ll likely turn it into a flat-fold for display next Halloween. The bottom photo is the closest to the fabric colour – it was a hard one to photograph!
“Girls’ Night Out” by Just Another Button Company
(free chart with purchase of the button pack)
Stitched on 30ct Weeks Dye Works Lilac linen, using mostly threads as charted
Started 14 February 2025 – Finished 29 October 2025
After finishing HAED’s Mini Sunflowers this week, I decided to keep momentum going, and after doing the required 100-200 stitches on this project for another challenge, I just kept plugging away at it until it was finished. This is now my second finish for the year.
This was a kit by Design Works – the black aida fabric was like cardboard and they only provided half the amount of floss needed, so I wasn’t overly impressed. Thankfully DMC white was a close enough match that you can’t tell where I used my own stash to be able to complete it (thank heavens for a monochrome design). I really do love the end result, though, and it’ll eventually get framed to hang in my kitchen area.
“All you need is love” kit by Design Works
Stitched on 14ct black Aida (kit fabric) with a mix of kit thread and DMC
Started 13 May 2020
Finished 6 February 2025
I have a significant finish today – after 31,600 small cross stitches, it’s now in the ‘to be washed and framed’ pile. I started this during Covid lockdowns, then it was put on hold for a few years while my mojo had disappeared. Thanks to a bunch of stitching challenges this year it gave me the urge to focus on this project and get it finished. It will eventually get sent to a very very dear friend in New Zealand, someone that I’ve known my entire life and is part of my family by choice. My goal this year was to get this to 80% finished, so I’m thrilled to have exceeded that.
“Mini Sunflowers” by Heaven and Earth Designs / Marianne Broome
Stitched on 16ct antique white Aida with DMC floss as charted
Started 6 June 2020
Finished 5 February 2025
Belatedly adding my update for October, although it’s the first WIP update I’ve made for quite some time. I’ve gone crazy stitching quite a bit since my return home – it’s helped me to take my mind off Dad’s passing and Mum coping on her own. So without further ado, here are my WIP updates and some other finishes.
I managed to finish all the remaining ornaments for a 12-month long ornament challenge using the 2018 Just Cross Stitch ornament issue – I used my two wild cards to change out two of the ornaments where I didn’t like one or didn’t have all the required threads and nothing to substitute with. The ornies I finished in October were:
I dragged out a few older WIPs/UFOs that were in my to-do-list for the year but that I hadn’t touched yet … I’ve failed my goals this year miserably, but at least I’ve managed some progress on a few projects for the year, even if it’s really small progress …
When I first came home I decided to start a new canvaswork project – I managed great progress until my fingers got too sore to keep yanking the threads through the canvas, so it’s been put into time out for a while, and I’ll probably pick it up again in 2020 to finish it off, if not before.
After I finished my JCS ornie SAL challenge, I decided to pick up a quick project that’s been kitted up for years – and finished it in a couple of days.
Question of the Month: Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time?
It depends on my mood at the time, to be honest – I work well with a rotation when I’m in the mood, it helps me to progress through projects quickly as long as I have them all set up together ready for me to work through the order of projects without having to hunt for items, or frames, or threads etc. I’ve been doing a screaming rotation of sorts for a while now – just stitching on what I feel like stitching on and not counting the hours at all. I’d like to get back to a formal rotation again, but I think I’ll wait until the new year for that.
Those that are friends with me on Facebook will know that I’ve just returned home after 3 1/2 months of personal leave back in New Zealand. My beloved Dad had a fall and broke his hip towards the end of June, and his recovery was far from smooth-sailing. He developed numerous infections during his time there, and was eventually sent home with an untreated infection in his system that took his body over a week later. After 3 months (minus that one week at home after 2 months) he lost his battle in the hospital and passed away on 26 September. It was probably a blessing at that point because he was suffering so much 😦 RIP Dad – I love you and miss you so much, and I’ll miss our weekly phone calls catching up with all of your news. This photo is from his first day home from hospital before he became unwell again.
Not unexpectedly, my craft mojo was pretty absent while in NZ – I tried doing crochet but lost the ability to count and after a couple of weeks of attempting different shawl patterns had to frog everything back again. I also struggled to see the fabric holes properly to be able to do cross stitch so most of the projects I took with me to work on in the evenings wasn’t of any use. I finally settled on a charity piece of stitching that was stitched on 14-count Aida cloth, and it became the piece that I could stitch on in the hospital room while Dad was sleeping or doing crosswords.
Since returning home on the weekend I’ve managed to get a lot of stitching done, and it’s actually helped to calm my mind and give me a bit of peace after such a tumultuous few months. First of all I did a bit of the canvaswork piece I was working on before I had the phone call from NZ.
Then today I finished the Christmas ornament that I was struggling to see the fabric on while in NZ.
Not sure what’s up next – I really want to finish the JCS Christmas Ornament SAL on Facebook this year, so that’ll probably be my main focus for the remainder of the year, unless I throw in a larger WIP inbetween the ornies. Time will tell …
Over the Easter weekend I had an exceptionally lazy and indulgent four days stitching my little heart out while watching old movie DVDs. The result was to finish three projects that I started in February/March during my Mum’s recent visit to Australia. The dragonfly was an earlier WIP that’ll be the subject of my April WIPocalypse post 🙂
Sadly I became quite sick in early February with some virus that has had me nauseous and wanting to be physically ill on and off for six weeks. Sadly that meant a few weeks of annual leave were spent laid up in bed or on the sofa apartment-bound. This all coincided with the final visit from my Mum, which sadly meant no fun road trips for us on this trip, and our all travel plans had to be cancelled. On the positive, though, we had plenty of girlie one-on-one time at home watching TV and movies and just generally chatting. Mum has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and these types of days will gradually become less and less, and she’s no longer able to travel on her own. It breaks my heart to see her memories disappearing, but I try to stay positive and just respond the same way for the 5th time I’ve heard the same story on any given day – I still treasure the conversations and the laughter that we always have 🙂
As for crafts, my gigantic plans for the year became scuppered very early on, and I’m very behind with blogging and crafting. I did eventually manage a bit of stitching while I was on ‘holiday’ though once the nausea started to wear off, and this has been the result so far …
This kit was a gift from a dear friend in the US, and I’ve been itching to stitch it ever since it arrived. I decided the colours were exactly what I wanted to work on and made a start on it before Mum arrived for our holiday. This was also my chosen project for “New start January” in an Aussie Facebook group called JK’s Groupies. Eventually I managed to finish it during my recuperation. I really need to take a better photo in daylight without all those ugly shadows! I also want to stitch this one more time but on a 36ct linen next time with DMC – I’d love to see the comparison, because I hated stitching on that awful cardboard-like Aida and I have more Dimensions kits to stitch up.
“Stacked Tea Cups” by Dimensions
Stitched on 18ct white Aida (hideous kit fabric)
with kit threads
Started 12 January 2019 – Finished 15 February 2019
This was a WIP from 2018, and all I had to do was to stitch on the ladybird charm … five minutes later and it was all finished! 🙂
“Ladybug” by Elizabeth’s Designs
Stitched on 32ct natural Belfast linen (I think)
with recommended threads
Started ? 2018 – Finished 15 February 2019
Next was the April Christmas ornament in a Facebook JCS Christmas Ornament SAL. I really struggled with this one initially because of my ‘fuzzy head’, but I persevered and managed to finish it eventually – but oh boy it wasn’t much fun, and it took me a fair few days to complete it!
“Santa’s Hat and Boots” by Keslyn’s
(from the 2018 JCS Christmas Ornament issue)
Stitched one-over-one on 28ct white Lugana
with recommended DMC threads
but I attached small bells instead of the ‘Bead Landing Sticky Gems’
After I finished all that over-one stitching, I started a new canvaswork project – Flying Geese by Laura J Perin. I thought the larger threads and canvas would be easier for my head to manage. It’s been a bit slow going, but hopefully this will be finished over the next couple of months.
The great thing about taking an extra week off work after Christmas is having more time to stitch and have a general overdue tidy-up at home. I came across this wee chart that has been kitted up for about 12 years as I was tidying up a pile of stitching ‘stuff’ – I figured rather than putting it back in it’s storage box where it belongs, I’d just suck it up and get it into the Qsnaps to get it stitched up. It took me two days to finish, but I really love it. And that also means another new start and another finish ticked off my 19 in 19 challenge for the year … bonus!! 😀
“Sweet Valentines” by The Sweetheart Tree
Stitched on 28ct white lugana (I think!)
Changed the red thread colours to be 309 and 816 instead of the chart colours (which were 316 and 3726)
Started 6 Jan 2019 – Finished 8 Jan 2019
Stitch count: 40H x 40W
I’ve come to realise today just how woeful my online activity has been over the last 12-18 months or so, and my online albums are missing a lot of information and projects haven’t been added at all … my blog used to be the ‘source of truth’ for all my projects and chart information etc, but not any more. After spending an entire day today doing a bit of a tidy-up (nowhere near finished yet though), and trawling through a few years of photos on my iPhone (!), it’s prompted me to add the details of my last finishes from the end of 2018, and the first finishes of the new year. So, without further ado, here are the details …
“Joy” by Rovaris
from the 2018 Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue
Stitched on 32ct Belfast linen with recommended DMC threads
Stitch count: 36 stitches high x 71 stitches wide
Started and finished 28 December 2018
“Special Delivery” by Pickle Barrel Designs
from the 2018 Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue
Stitched on 32ct Belfast linen with recommended DMC and Weeks Dye Works threads (except using DMC B5200 instead of WDW Whitewash)
Stitch count: 51H x 55W
Started 28 December 2018 – Finished 29 December 2018
“City Sidewalks” by Glendon Place
from the 2018 Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue
Stitched on 32ct Blue Sky hand-dyed Lugana by Hand Dyed Fabrics with Stephanie
Stitched with a mix of Weeks Dye Works and DMC, using my choice of beads because I didn’t have all the ones as charted
Stitch count: 78H x 68W
Started 29 December 2018 – Finished 2 January 2019
“Two Stags and a Star” by Blue Ribbon Designs
from the 2018 Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue
Stitched on 36ct evenweave from Sew-it-all
Stitched with recommended Weeks Dye Works, except using B5200
Stitch count: 57H x 37W
Started 3 January 2019 – Finished 5 January 2019
Feather Stitching 