I had some wonderful mail arrive on Friday night that I drooled over on the weekend. First up is a gorgeous and very thoughtful gift from Karen. I’ve never seen a Hinzeit design ‘up close and personal’ and this one definitely looks like a perfect design for me – I love the colours, and love all the little charms that go with it! That design is perfect for just about every stitcher, I think!! The notepad is already hanging off the fridge ready to be used, and I love the extra little touches of postcards and stickers from Canada. Thank you so much again Karen for a really awesome parcel that brightened up an otherwise very dull week for me – I love everything!! 😀
Next up was a parcel containing the JCS Christmas ornie preview magazine and the missing Kreinik braid that I need for Halloween Fairy. The other Kreiniks and Caron Collection threads are an added treat for me for Laura J Perin’s Mallard Collage (gee, I dunno why I want to stitch that one! – Duckies!!! haha). The final part of the order was some Gloriana ribbon in Cranberry to complete my ‘ingredients’ for Strawberries So Faire by With My Needle. Seeing as I have everything else kitted up ready to go, I figured I really should start thinking of stitching this one up sooner rather than later! Yeah, OK, I could say that of many projects really, but I really am trying to make a priority of those projects that I’ve spent the most money on in getting them kitted up, especially as most of the threads etc aren’t used in other projects. The only problem is there are still LOADS to choose from LOL.
And that’s it for me really – I’m still waiting for my buttons to arrive for Summer & Winter Snapperlands … while Summer is just sitting here patiently in the corner of my WIP basket waiting for the border buttons to arrive (since being ordered in January no less hmmm), Winter Snapperland isn’t started yet, and I don’t want to start until the border buttons are in my hot little hands.
My flatmate is off work at the moment with tonsillitis etc that she’s had since last week … and this morning I’ve woken up with a touch of vertigo … thankfully the longer I’m sitting up, the vertigo is wearing off, so I’m going to attempt to go to work shortly … fingers crossed it stays at bay, ‘cos I can’t afford time off work at the moment! Plus I have stitching deadlines to get my exchange into the mail next week, so vertigo is something I definitely do NOT want or need right now!!
It’s been a while since I’ve had a decent sized finish, but on Saturday night I put the final stitches into Quaker Huswif – yippee!! 😀
“Quaker Huswif” by Sampler Cove
stitched on 36ct hand-dyed Edinburgh linen –
Moon Shadows ~ Dove Grey by Stitches and Spice
with Vikki Clayton’s Hand-Dyed Fibers Premium Silk Floss in Midnight
I’m sure whether to get this one framed, or to turn it into the Huswif it was designed for … seeing as I don’t have any wall space free, that’ll probably end up being the decider 😛
The only other news is that I had some great mail arrive, but I need to send a quick email of thanks before I post the piccie 🙂
And right now I have to run, because I need to pick up my laptop from the ‘doctors’ … it’s costing me a brand new hard drive, but it’s only $130 plus labour (total of $213, which is relatively reasonable, considering they also transferred ALL my old files AND programs to the new hard drive!!) … and I now have a 500GB had drive, compared to my old 120GB one! Can’t grumble … and it means I can go back to blogging from the comfort of the lounge chair or my bed … which also means the likelihood that I can get back into the habit of regularly blogging and blog reading … add to that I have a trip back home to Auckland coming up in 3 weeks time for Mum & Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary (of which a company travel bonus of $250 pretty much pays for my ticket!) … life is kinda good right now 🙂
I just happened to follow a link this morning to a ONS here in Australia. As a matter of interest I jumped into the area for Shepherd’s Bush kits, and got a nasty surprise. In the past I’ve always tried to spend part of my stitching money each year in local stores – but when money’s tight, I just can’t justify the price difference with items such as this. I thought it would be interesting to compare … so here’s a little comparison of SB Needlerolls:
Here in Australia (only one store, mind you,
but I’ve seen them for sale for over $40 in another store!!):
Over there in SB’s home, in the USA:
Considering the exchange rate:
AU$37.90 = US$34.17
or US$30.74 sale price!!
Is it any wonder we sometimes look offshore for our supplies? Even if you throw in US$12 postage prices, you’re still ahead, especially when you bulk buy a few items at a time. I will still continue to buy some items locally, but if I had to pay these sorts of prices all the time I’d have to give up stitching pretty darn quickly!
And on that note, I’d better hurry up and get dressed so I can earn my day’s pay that allows me to continue stitching…
No housework or excitement here today – just my little size 28 tapestry needle, Vikki Clayton premium silk floss, and Season 1 of ER on DVD … can you say “happy as a pig in mud?” 😛
Not a great deal of stitching done, but it’s still one step closer to an actual finish. With any luck I’ll be finished with this one by the end of next weekend, and then soon afterwards my missing threads will have arrived so I can go back to picking up some of my older WIPs once again (although the urge to stitch a million new things is still around!) 😀
And I’ll finish with something I haven’t done regularly for a while … here is my choice for this week’s Scenic Sunday – a Parisian garden.
This week’s theme is ”Framed” – this is the view through a ‘window’ in the Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour, Sydney, providing a natural framed view.
And here are some Framed photos that are stitching-related, from my very first attempt at making my own frames and framing my own work.
I really do struggle with some of the ONS (that’s Online Needlework Stores for your benefit, Mum). I’ve had the border accessories for Summer and Winter Snapperlands on order since approx 13 January – at the same time I requested ordering some hard-to-find charts of designers that are also showing available on their site … believe it or not, I JUST received an email to advise that my Summer Snapperland border pack has arrived … nothing else, just that one … Now I’m normally very patient, but that does seem excessively long (and I’m not telling you about the numerous email sent chasing this issue)!
I have also had some other Kreinik threads on back-order from yet another ONS for my Halloween Fairy – while it was on backorder CCN brought out the Summer at the Shores chart … I quickly emailed to ask if they could ask that to the order (note, it had only just been released), along with the pre-Christmas JCS magazine. Two days ago I receive an email to advise the order is on its way (back-ordered from the first week of June), but no mention of the magazine or chart. On questioning it, they have sent the magazine but not the chart that I was so lusting after … but no mention of it being on backorder yet again, just that they had run out of the chart by the time they filled my order. I’ve just written back to cancel the chart order, and I’ll now just find it locally because I can’t justify the overseas postage just for one chart.
The last time I had a deadline to meet I ordered some graziano checked linen and advised that I had a deadline to meet – the linen had to be backordered, which took 2 months, only to find that they’d ordered the wrong linen colour (they only worked that out because I sent them a chaser email after 2 months to ask where the “pale” blue linen was at in the order process) – which meant the ordering process had to begin all over again. Of course I missed the deadline well and truly, and yet another ‘bad experience’ was added to the list.
Not to mention a local store that I placed orders with on a couple of separate occasions and they’d run out of the item – but the order was never ever filled, with no refund of the value. Because the owner had been good to me previously (and she’s just lovely as a person), I didn’t make a big fuss about it, I just don’t go back there anymore.
I used to complain about a certain ONS that always seems to have sales happening, and refused to deal with them anymore … but considering all the experiences I’ve had since with other ONS, it looks like I’m going to return to the fold once again for my once or twice-a-year orders … ‘cos the competition isn’t much better to what I can see 😦
My dream is that one day I will place an order and it will arrive in the same calendar month, all in one piece, with no hassles and chasing required – communication will be prompt and thorough and not because I have demanded a response after not hearing a solitary thing for 2 months or longer … I know, I have big lofty dreams, but I do still fantasise that it will happen one day …
And now it’s time to go write back to the original ONS to ask what is happening to Winter Snapperland border pack and the remaining charts on order … because alas dreams aren’t reality just yet … But it WILL be awesome to finally get this little beauty into a finished state before 12 months of languishing around in my WIP basket are up! I’m not starting Winter Snapperland until those border pieces arrive in my hot little hands!
Let’s just say that ‘cranky’ is currently my middle name … alas, I still have one more week of testing left to go for my project launch, and testing isn’t quite going as well as planned, which is super stressful (not to mention the fact that I lost almost an entire week of testing time last week having to write test plans for the site testers … I cracked a wobbly and refused to work over the weekend, and thumbed my nose at the whole thing). Add to that a certain time of the month arriving and PMT being today’s companions, I haven’t had much tolerance for anything today …
Anyway, this is what I decided was highly needed when we walked in the door from work … I made Katie and I super-alcoholic Frozen Mango Margaritas … took our heads off, but raised our spirits 10-fold!!!
And surprisingly enough I still managed to complete a few stitches while we sat and watched Criminal Minds and City Homicide … and even more surprisingly I didn’t have to frog everything at the end … which means Quaker Huswif is now almost 80% completed 😀
And on that note, I think it best that I call it a night, ‘cos I might get up and go walking in the morning (I did that this morning, and it felt great to get some fresh air before work).
Here are my choices for this week’s Theme Thursday, where the theme is “Palm”. First up is Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas, Queensland.
In order to keep with the ‘normal’ theme of this blog, I’ll attempt to do some photo memes with a link to stitching where I can …
Therefore this week my next choice is my first designing attempt in cross stitch – this is the song of farewell in Fijian (Isa Lei). I remember it always used to amaze the Fijian locals at the resorts that I could sing the whole song along with them in their native tongue … it was always my favourite song when I was visiting, even though it was always sad to actually say goodbye to our Fijian friends each time.
I took the top section out of a XS magazine, then designed my own borders that are Fijian in origin (the side ones are stitched over-one yikes) – I charted out the words myself (all in Fijian), then stitched the little shell on the bottom right using a commercial chart but stitched over-one, then designed my very own little kava bowl and coconut shell cups on the bottom left (also stitched over one). I was incredibly proud of this little attempt, and it was given as a gift to the resort owners of the resort we used to go to in Fiji … shame about the quality, but I’m unable to go back and take another photo as it is now missing in action (and this photo was taken way back when digital cameras weren’t ‘the norm’) 😦
Following is a tutorial that I’ve just completed for the Focus on Finishing blog … I started this before my sewing machine went bust the last time, but finally completed the finishing a few weekends ago, and now the actual tutorial is done and dusted! 😀
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The following is a very basic pillow Christmas Ornament tutorial designed, in particular, for beginners.
Supplies needed:
Stitched project (if you want to you can also iron on some light interfacing to the back of the stitching to add some strength and stability as well as giving a smoother finish
Backing fabric
Approx 6″ (15-16cm) of ribbon to coordinate with your stitching for the hanger (I normally use 7mm double-sided satin ribbon)
Stuffing
Sewing machine with coordinating thread to match your fabrics
Complimentary sewing thread and needle
1. Start off by laying your stitching piece on top of your backing fabric, with wrong sides facing, as shown below:
2. Now we need to cut the fabric so that all sides are equal. The amount of margin that you leave is up to you, here you can see that I’ve allowed 3/4″ margin on each side. I line up my ruler along the edge of my stitching, and cut the fabric with my rotary cutter (both my stitched piece and backing fabric at the same time).
3. You continue this same way until all four sides are cut away. Remember that your backing fabric is underneath, so you need to be careful when you are moving your stitching around on the cutting mat that the fabric doesn’t move out of place or your pieces won’t match at the end. Once you have finished cutting all four sides, remove the backing fabric from your stitching fabric.
4. Next I attach the piece of ribbon to my stitching – the ribbon must be attached to the right side of your stitching. Adjust the size of the loop to match your own preferences, then pin in place. I like to have a slight angle to the top of the ribbon where it is pinned in place, so that it hangs nicer when it’s finished.
5. Next place your backing fabric on top of your stitching/ribbon, with right sides facing, as shown below. Pin the pieces together around the edges.
6. Now we need the sewing machine – once again, it is up to you to choose how much fabric margin you’d like to leave around the stitched piece
It’s quite hard to see the stitching threads because they match the fabric so well, so I’ve doctored the photo and drawn a line to show you the stitching line of where I started and finished – hopefully you can see clearly now that I have left an opening of about 1 1/2″. I like to leave a long tail of the sewing thread at one end, which I don’t trim off, so that I can use it for stitching up the final seam opening.
7. The next step is to trim the fabric at the seams, so they aren’t as bulky when you turn the ornament inside-out. The first photo below is my bottom seam – some fabrics tend to fray a lot when you are trying to pull the fabric through the opening, so I’ve learnt to leave the bottom seam a tiny bit wider than the other three seams. The second photo is the usual amount that I trim back the main seams.
8. Then you should trim off each of the corners – once again, this allows you to get a crisper point on the ornament corners once you’ve turned it inside-out and improves the look of the ornament. Just be careful not to snip the stitching!
Your ornament should now look something like this:
9. The next bit can be a little bit nervewracking if you haven’t done it before! You need to reach in and pinch a little bit of the backing fabric between your thumb and forefinger, and then slowly and gently pull the stitching and the backing fabric through the opening so it’s facing the right-side out. Take your time when doing this, and just pull your fabric through little by little – it seems like it will never come through, but then all of sudden a miracle seems to happen and you have it all turned inside-out. I often enlist the aid of a chopstick to help me get the corners nice and pointy once I’ve finished turning my ornament inside out.
Your ornament should now look a little something like this. Of course it was at this point that I realised I’d forgotten to attach my little gold charm to this particular ornament so I had to add that quickly before finishing the next stages … doh! I usually give the ornament a quick run over with an iron at this point to remove most of the creases caused by turning inside out.
10. The final stage is to stuff your ornament with stuffing of your choice. I tend to just use polyester fibrefill from my local craft store. Once you’ve stuffed it to your satisfaction (my preference is to fill it to a medium level – if I fill it too much it doesn’t sit quite as well on my little tree), you need to thread your sewing needle with sewing thread (if you didn’t leave a long tail from the seam stitching). You should use a sharp needle here, not a tapestry needle, so that you can pierce the backing fabric easily.
I use a ladder stitch to sew up the opening. As you can see from the photo below, I start off by slipping my needle into the seam of the backing fabric, then coming back out about 1/4″ along the seam (about 3mm) and bring my needle out.
I then take my needle directly opposite where I just came out of the backing fabric and slip my needle into the linen and follow the seam along for about 1/4″ (3mm) and bring the needle back out again.
I’ve left the stitches nice and loose in the photo below to help illustrate how the stitches follow along opposite each other, like rungs of a ladder.
When you pull the thread tighter, the stitches almost disappear into the fabric, giving a really nice clean finish – this is definitely my favourite stitch for closing up openings for that reason!
Once you reach the end of the seam opening, you need to finish off your thread with a couple of teeny stitches – I then bury the needle into the seam and come out somewhere about an inch way and bring the needle back out again – then clip the thread close to the fabric so that my thread tail does’t appear easily.
And here’s the final seam all finished off – see now nice and tidy that ladder stitch is in the opening? 😀
Your ornament is now finished, and ready to hang on the tree 😀
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial, and found it useful. I would love to see any photos of ornaments you’ve completed using this tutorial so please do drop me a line or leave a comment with a link to your pictures 🙂
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