Heartstrings – Feather Stitching

Christmas Ornaments, Country Cottage Needleworks, Finishes, Heartstrings, Mum's stitching

Feathered Friends Santa

9 December, 20129 December, 2012 Anne S

I finally managed to get this ornie finished today – it’s only taken me pretty much an entire month to stitch this one … I was supposed to work this afternoon, after spending a few hours at a work colleague’s home for pre-Christmas festivities, but I was feeling a bit “over it” and decided to give work a wide berth for the night … I might regret that decision tomorrow, but it’s something I needed I think.

Anyway, here’s the finished product:

“Feathered Friends Santa” by HeartStrings/The Artists Collection
Stitched on 28ct Vintage Wichelt linen
with recommended GAST, DMC and Kreinik threads, except for 009HL which I subbed with 009

Last month I also finally put the finishing touches into one of Mum’s stitched ornies – I just had to add the mouths and the French knots, and it’s all done now ready to go back home to Mum once again.

“Season of Love by Country Cottage Needleworks
Stitched by my Mum
(from JCS Christmas Preview issue 2010)

And on that note I’ll call it a night … I might blog more often again soon, as Mum has got her PC up and running again, so my main audience member is back online – and perhaps doing that will keep me off of Facebook more, which is my biggest time waster these days!

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Freebies, Heartstrings, Works in Progress

Stitching update

6 March, 20116 April, 2014 Anne S

I’ve managed a tiny bit of stitching over the last few nights, including finishing all the actual stitching on Bittersweet Seasons – all I need now is to buy some little gold embellishments for it (a tiny gold star and bell) then it’s totally finished. It’s hard to pick up the little details such as the beads and metallics, but I’ve tried to capture it as well as I can in the below photos (although when I do compilations there is a lot of quality lost in the conversion).

Bittersweet-Season

Then, after a trip to Spotlight yesterday afternoon to pick up the DMC thread I have mislaid (so, what’s new??), I put the finishing stitches into the Autumn freebie that I started last year.

“Autumn” freebie by The Stitcherhood LLC
Stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch ~ colour Merino
with recommended DMC threads
(the chart is still available here)

I’m not sure what happened to the photo of this one – the fabric is a beautiful mottled creamy fabric, not the putty-like colour that is showing in the above photo!! I hope to turn this into a little pillow soon, which is timely considering we are now officially in the first week of Autumn here “down under” and it’ll be nice to have it on display (gee I’m so sorry to say farewell to Sydney’s summer … not …).

Now I guess it’s back to the Drawn Thread Joyeux Noel, although I have to admit I’m really not enjoying stitching that one in the slightest – which is disappointing, as I’ve had the urge to stitch this one for the longest time … I’m tempted, instead, to do an hour or so of one of my Crazy January Challenge projects, as unfortunately they’ve been taking a back seat just lately while I’ve been finishing up some older WIPs … I’m starting to think I have bitten off more than I can chew this year what with both the CJC and my personal challenge of two ornies per month ho-hum (not to mention some other commitment pieces that aren’t able to form part of my CJC!) 😦

Talking of which, I also need to kit up my two March Christmas ornies, and make a start on Katie’s Christmas gift from last year plus get cracking on my outstanding PIFs from last year.

In the meantime, though, it feels really good to finally get a couple of WIPs from last year into the finishing pile (even if one does still need its embellishments).

101 things in 1001 days, Cross Stitch, Food, Heartstrings, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Little House Needleworks, Works in Progress

The week that was

20 February, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

Alas, it’s been a very loooong week workwise, so not much stitching at all has been done, and not much of anything else. I had a couple of 9pm finishes at work, then got sick on Thursday and haven’t been firing on all cylinders since. My leg has been giving me a lot of pain lately, but after 2 months being on a waiting list for physio, I FINALLY have an appointment tomorrow morning so I can start discussing some appropriate exercises for my back (I have some degeneration in the discs of my lower back which is causing swelling and therefore compression of the nerves … which is leading to me walking like an old lady when I get up and horrendous pains in my left knee). Mind you, with the current heatwave back in Sydney, going to bed with an ice compress on my knee has been blissful 😉

What I did do yesterday, though, was to dust off the grime from the top of the breadmaker and threw in some flour and rolled oats into it … 4 hours later and I was able to sample the results – a very slight sweetness to it, which I’m not a huge fan of, it’s still quite a nice loaf, and it’s given me the urge to get some milk powder and other ingredients in to start sampling a few more recipes (and also therefore cleaning up another one of my 101 things in 1001 days items). Anyway, here is the result of my Oatmeal Walnut Bread, which is one more recipe book that I can tick off the list of my 101 things (“The Bread Machine Book” by Marjie Lambert):

The only stitching I managed to do during the week was to put a few touches to Bittersweet Season – it’s really hard to pick up the metallics and beads, as my macro camera battery has died and I can’t find the charger so I’ve had to use my Nikon SLR whose Macro setting is crap … oh well, I’m halfway through adding the embellishments, which means I just have the remaining half of the pumpkin’s beads and metallics to stitch, then stitching the metallic half-moon at the top and the pumpkin stalk.

Last night I sat in the lounge and caught up on some taped TV and put a couple of stitches into this month’s ornament – this will eventually be “He’s a Flake” by LHN … sorry for the blurry picture, but there isnt’ too much to see really anway so I guess it doesn’t matter 😉

And on that note, I’m going to take a break from the PC and grab another slice of that bread to make a sandwich …

Cross Stitch, Heartstrings, Just Nan, Works in Progress

As slow as a wet week …

19 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

That’s how my stitching has been going this week … very VERY slowly. Last weekend I only had a couple of hours stitching left on Scream Girls, and it STILL isn’t finished an entire working week later … pffft! Oh well, it’s the weekend, and I just cashed in some “time off work” certificates so I could leave an hour earlier than usual, so it’s time for some self-indulgent time spent in the lounge with stitching in one hand, and a glass of sparkling Shiraz in the other, and some not-necessarily-quality TV on the gogglebox 😛

The piece being worked on tonight, though, won’t be Scream Girls just yet, as I’m still working on Bittersweet Season as my lounge stitching project … by the time I finish this pumpkin my threads just may have arrived hahaha 😛 (Sorry about the fuzziness of the photo, in particular with the bottom section … and that’s even BEFORE the sparkling Shiraz!!)

Food, Heartstrings, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt, Uncategorized

Photo Hunt – Half (15 May)

15 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

The theme for 15 May was ”Half” and here are a couple of crayfish cut in half and baking in the oven. The dreadful thing is that there were only three of us for dinner, so we got an extra half to share (and mostly for the chef, me – yummo! 😀 I think this is my favourite way to cook crayfish (lobsters to you, up north), however at $50 each crayfish it’s definitely a real “treat” once in a decade! 😛

Then of course there is the Half a pumpkin that I’m still working on in the lounge … it’s almost growing at the same rate as a real pumpkin, very very slowly. Fingers crossed my threads arrive this year so I can get it finished sooner rather than later!

Heartstrings, Works in Progress

Two more pumpkin rows

9 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

I managed to get two more rows finished on my Heartstrings pumpkin last night before we shut down all the power on the PCs etc and hid in our bedrooms for the rest of the night. We had a horrendous lightning storm last night that had the room lit up for most of the night and so close you could hear the sizzle of the strikes before the main crack of the lightning and booming thunder … to say I wasn’t particularly enjoying myself last night would be an understatement! Anyway, I still managed to get some decent sleep, and the PCs etc are all working this morning so the power spikes don’t appear to have done any damage thank goodness. And on that note, here’s my latest stitching progress (our boss made us go home early yesterday afternoon due to the storm and impending hail that was about to descend – didn’t have to ask me twice, it gave me more stitching time at home haha) 🙂

Cross Stitch, Heartstrings, Just Nan, Works in Progress

Stitching update

8 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

So much for my fantastic stitching day yesterday – after pottering around and wasting most of the morning and early afternoon, I gave in to my body’s whims and ended up having a 3-hour nanna nap … which felt great at the time, as I obviously really needed it, but it wasn’t exactly conducive to sleeping when it was eventually bedtime! So, at 10pm I pulled over the stitching frame and started a new little Halloween piece. I didn’t get too far along with it, but at least it’s a start – even if it currently looks like a funky bright flower, not the four pumpkins that it will eventually be 🙂

Shelleen invited me to join her for a Halloween SAL on Sundays, and I have so many Halloween projects that I’d like to stitch, so it’s likely that most Sundays I’ll do just that. So this is my Sunday Halloween SAL progress for the first week (although I don’t know how I’m going to stop myself from not stitching on them again until next Sunday – I’m kinda getting used to being a ‘one project stitcher’ … kinda … LOL).

I’m still stitching occasionally on my Heartstrings project in the lounge, with the odd row stitched here and there during the week. I’m looking forward to getting the missing threads, though, so I can get further along with the embellishments on each row. It’s an interesting stitch, this one, and it’s nice to be able to complete one little section of rows each stitching session.

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Halloween, Heartstrings, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Wishlist, Works in Progress

Humble apologies

3 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

The humble apologies in the subject line is for Clare, who sent me an absolutely exceptional package in the mail an entire year ago, and it seems it was never acknowledged. I feel absolutely mortified about this, as I’m usually really good about sending an email of thanks and posting piccies immediately on the blog. I do remember around that time that we were having computer problems at home, and I’d been really sick, but somehow I’d managed to convince myself that I’d sent the email etc and all I had to do now was to sit back and look lovingly at my gifts for the next 12 months (the gorgeous little Loon sits pride of place in my bedroom so I can see it every day, and the exquisitely stitched and finished hedgehog ornie sits on top of my basket of smalls in the lounge). So my sincerest apologies again to Clare, and I can now share the wonderful goodies that she sent me.

Well, it appears Halloween has been and gone, and alas, even with good intentions of lots of Halloween stitching being done this year, my Halloween table display has been pitiful. Thrown together really quickly late on Saturday night, this is the sum total of my Halloween decorations this year. One whole pinkeep completed, and what is destined to become a flat-fold on display with just it’s laced section propped up {sigh} (the backing sections all have their spooky cobweb fabric coverings, I just didn’t get as far as gluing or stitching the various sections together!). Alas I’ve been too tired after work the last week and a half to do much of anything – much less stitching, and even less finishing. I think I need to take a week off work just to focus on some finishing!!

Do you see my little Halloween tree that is just all bare branches above? It lights up with teeny tiny dark purple twinkly lights, it’s really cute! Of course the plan was to have it covered with teeny tiny stitched ornies, but that also didn’t happen! But hey, there’s another 12 months before Halloween 2011 so I’ve got time to change all that 😛

Even though Halloween is now technically over, I still have the urge to stitch Halloween designs … I don’t have the urge to stitch much at all these days, so I figure I should just stitch what interests me. Of course, even when I haven’t been stitching, I have been tempted big-time with some new designs out this year, so I’ve been filling my wishlist even higher even though the needles haven’t been flying … here are the latest trifles that are taking my interest and causing a little bit of drool here and there (as you can see Halloween is definitely still high in my sights!) 😛

Blackberry Lane Designs – Rest Ye Pins-The Pinkeeper

Just Nan – Hagatha’s Purple Hat

Just Nan – Hagatha’s Orange Hat

Just Nan – Spooky Spirits of Tombstone Hill

Just Nan – Tricky Tweets

The Victoria Sampler – Bargello Biscornu

The Victoria Sampler – Winter Box Finishing

I have some more stash coming through the mail, thanks to Ann having a de-stash sale containing some to-die-for items, so I’ll be fondling some more stash soon (I know, as if I NEED any more stash!).

I was also exceptionally lucky enough to win Marnie’s prize draw for a little halloween coffin (Vampire stitching case), which should be arriving shortly. Even if I don’t manage to get any of my own stitching finished next year, this already shows that my Halloween display is already greatly improved with Marnie’s stitching and finishing, and I just adore it already without even receiving it! If you haven’t seen it yet, pop over here and check it out – while you’re there make sure you take the time to admire her wonderfully exquisite stumpwork blog header, it’s superb!

And on that note I’d better sign off and get my A into G to get ready for work, then tonight I need to force myself to watch a bit more of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo … loved the book, but I hate subtitled movies so it’s been a real drag for me focusing on it (in all honesty if I’d known it was subtitled I wouldn’t have bothered hiring it from Quickflix) – even though I don’t have any particularly big desire to stitch, the biggest drag with subtitled movies is that you can’t stitch to them!

Actually, I forgot, I do have one final thing to share … the sum total of my stitching endeavours for the last two weeks … I started stitching this only to find straightaway that yet again I’m missing two of the key threads (GAST Forest Glade and Kreinik #4 braid in 027) … pfffft 😦 Probably not helping my urge to stitch this week, as I had my heart set on finishing this one quickly … which obviously now isn’t actually going to happen – see ya stitching mojo, please come back soon!