Northern Pine Designs – Feather Stitching

I’ve had two major finishes this month for the February WIPocalypse, but you’ll have to wait until Tuesday before I show those (unless you’re friends on Facebook, in which case you’ve already seen them!). The finishes are “Red” by Mirabilia, and “Flight of the Bumblebees” by Ruth Schmuff – pictures will follow on 28 February 🙂

This last month is quite possibly the best stitching month I’ve had in ages for finishes … after I finished Flight of the Bumblebees I decided to stick with canvaswork for a while longer and picked up a new start that was going to be my canvaswork choice in my upcoming rotation. I managed to start and finish this one in a matter of days – and reminded me just how much I love doing canvaswork … the interesting stitches and all different thread textures never cease to amaze me and give me so much joy to stitch!

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“Earth Spirit” by Northern Pine Designs
Stitched 18ct Sandstone mono canvas
with recommended threads and beads
Started 17 February 2018 – Finished 18 February 2018

After Earth Spirit I decided to grab some fabric and start catching up on my monthly SALs – starting with the Hallowe’en Ornie SAL. For the month of January the theme was “winged creatures”, so I chose this design by The Prairie Schooler.

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“Eeek” (from Bump in the Night chart) by The Prairie Schooler
Stitched on 32ct Thunderstorm Belfast linen (no longer available)
with my choice of threads: basic black silk by Hand Dyed Fibers and an amber silk by Silks4U
Started 19 February 2018 – Finished 24 February 2018

The next item on my list for today is to stitch the January ornie from a JCS Christmas Ornie SAL on Facebook … then it’ll be time to catch up on the February ones for both Halloween and Christmas.

The title says it all … a few days ago I put the final stitches into Blue Bayou, and oh my goodness I am so in love with it, it’s just not funny!! I ended up substituting DMC 991 pearl cotton for the charted Anchor pearl cotton, as I just couldn’t find it quickly locally, and I was impatient to get it finished!

“Blue Bayou” by Northern Pine Designs
with recommended canvas and threads
Exception: Substituted Anchor pearl cotton with DMC 991 pearl cotton

I still had 1 1/2 hours left of my canvaswork rotation slot, so I immediately put another Northern Pine Designs project on the stretcher bars and made a start on Surf and Sand … much more subtle colours on this one, and a little too much pink for my liking so far, but I’m hoping once the light turquoise blue gets added it’ll balance the colours out a bit more … it’s very pretty so far, though, even with the pink! 😛 I’ve actually stitched half of the next bargello band as well since this photo was taken, but will show more photos later! Surf and Sand

As for the rest of the week, I’m finally starting to feel a bit more ‘normal’ after recuperating at home and being a hermit for a few days. Today has been spent in the kitchen all day, which means I have a brown rice slice/pie (technically called “Ham Cheese and Leek Pie”) for the freezer for lunches, and a Red Wine, Beef and Mushroom Stew bubbling away in the crockpot for dinners this week … I still have a Pasta, Beef and Mushrooms dish to whip up for the freezer but my feet are killing me thanks to my stupid plantar fasciitis, so I think I’ll call it a day cooking-wise and finish the rest up tomorrow 🙂

And that means for the rest of the day I’m going to settle in and catch up on some more recorded TV in the lounge (thanks to the flatmate being at work), while starting on my next rotation slot … “Finishing”. Hopefully by the end of the next 5 or 10 hour rotation (whenever I get fed up with it), I’ll have a few more finished items under my belt and out of the finishing pile, even if they’re just ornaments 😀 I also have some comments to respond too as well, which I’ll do shortly 🙂