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

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 😉

LizzieKate-Boo Club 22Apr10

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 😀

PS Santas 1

PS Santas 2

PS Santas 3

Xmas ornies 1 Xmas ornies 2

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 🙂

LHN-Blueberries pinkeep

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

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!

Victoria Sampler-Beyond Cross Stitch 3-1

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

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.

Roberta's Flowers Fob by Sharon Manspeaker

xstitchhappy-Roberta's Flowers Fob freebie (back)

Polls

New Poll for this blog

Anne S

I have always kept my various interests in this one blog, as I feel that these varied interests packaged together make up the person that I am – and it made sense to me to have “all that I am” here in the one blog.  I am starting to wonder, however, whether I should start thinking differently and having this blog dedicated to my stitching, with a separate blog for my photo memes.  Every now and then I get the urge to get back into my photography and go back out in the real world to start taking photos again regularly, so perhaps it would make sense to keep those photos separately?

In the meantime, I have started to create a new blog purely for my weekly photo memes, and I’ve copied a few posts over into it just until I decide whether I should continue down that track or not … I’d really appreciate your feedback as the ‘readers’ of this here rambling little blog, whether I should split the interests up or not …  If you could help me with this little poll I’d appreciate it 🙂

Personally I’m on the fence with this decision – I hate going to different blogs to see ‘different parts of the whole’, but then again it can get quite boring scrolling through pages and pages of stuff you’re not interested in, in order to find the things that are of interest … ah decisions, decisions …

Cricket Collection, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Halloween, Lizzie Kate

Halloween & Acorns

Anne S

My Lumix came out of hiding late last night, so after charging the battery up during the day I can finally take some decent photos of my stitching again – of course I have to take my photos in the evening in crappy light so they’re not ‘quite’ as good as they could be, but still a helluva lot better than my scanner!  In saying that, here are my latest two finishes, hot off the press:

LizzieKate-Hocus Pocus
“Hocus Pocus” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on 32ct Parkland hand-dyed linen by Silkweaver
with DMC threads (except the pumpkin “O” and purple in WDW)

The Cricket Collection-Isn't it the Truth
“Isn’t it the Truth?” freebie by The Cricket Collection
stitched on 32ct Flax Belfast linen
with DMC threads

Followed by another small WIP I started today – and as seems to be the ‘norm’ of late, I need to pick out the remaining threads from other kitted up projects before I can finish it … I’ll give the design details etc once it’s finished.

Alas today I missed a catch-up with my favourite Sydney girls, due to another commitment – I spent the morning at ‘our’ hairdressers (Katie now comes with me to my hairdressers and we have a full-on girlie session every 6 weeks now), where we both had haircuts and I had a manicure and pedicure (gotta love the bright vamp red nail polish I’m now sporting!), while Katie had a pedicure and facial – we followed that by a $10 lunch at the local pub where we sat outside with a beer and watched the world go by on a stunningly beautiful Autumn day … we finished that off by picking up a bottle of wine (for me – beer for Katie) and came home to watch the first episode of the new season’s Flash Forward while sampling our purchases. All-in-all a really really lovely way to start the weekend … now I’m about to sit in front of the gogglebox in my bedroom with some stitching (not sure what yet, but possibly another needleroll or scissor fob freebie), and watch the latest two episodes of ER (LOVE ER), Cold Case, The Mentalist and House … heaven 😀