QS Spirit Of Fire - HAED

On TS, on the 25th of every month, we do a stitchalong for Christmas, where we work on our C'mas stuff. As the SOF is for a C'mas present I decided to make a start on that and worked on it all day. That black bit is the start of the tiger's ear. Yesterday I did a bit more of it, another 2600 stitches in fact, right along the top and down the right hand side. I forgot to take a photo though before I put it away so you'll have to wait till next time for a progress pic.

I hunted out my forgotten patchwork and quilting books yesterday and I've decided I'm going to start and make some things out of them. Not just yet though, I have too much cross stitching on the go, not to mention some thread sacks to finish making up so I can put them on the web site.

Speaking of the web site, there are lots of new things on there - fobs, charts and half a dozen thread sacks. I've been keeping Kate busy making some fobs for me and she really enjoyed herself. I've already sold one and she was dead chuffed.

Alphabet Of Stitches WIP

These first two photos were taken after the first row was finished. I'd never done buttonhole stitch to make flowers before so I was well impressed with how effective they look.

This is the next three rows finished. I admit here and now that I have missed a row out, one that involved withdrawing threads. As I said in an earlier post I don't want to make a mess of this, and Sassy's Fabby seems to be more tightly woven than most other fabrics, which I think would make it more awkward to do this particular method. So I've left it out. I will still do the hardanger row though. On to something else now.

An Alphabet Of Stitches

I started this last night, it's by Heirloom Embroideries (Carol Tinson). It has lots of speciality stitches in it, some of which I've never done before. There's a bit of drawn thread work too but I might miss that out as I don't want to make a complete arse of it. LOL.

I think it's going to be a fairly quiet weekend for Easter. I'm picking Ian up this afternoon from his Dad's. He's at work today and finishes at 2.30pm, and he's working Monday too (he volunteered so he must be after the overtime!) so someone will have to take him back to Newcastle on Sunday night. I have no idea where he's going to sleep mind you, cos we chucked his bed out when Dene and Kate swapped bedrooms. It was bust and not worth keeping, but we haven't replaced it yet...he'll have to sleep on the settee.

I'll post a progress pic of AAOS either tonight or tomorrow, after I've done a bit more. Hope everyone has a good Easter.

Thinking about Christmas....already!

I'm going to be starting some more C'mas stitching soon. I got Craig to choose something from the HAED folder on the hard drive and of course he chose something that is ruddy huge, so he might not actually get it THIS C'mas. He chose this...

It's called Lunch With A Toothpick by Ed Beard Jnr. Then I found a quick stitch with a tiger on that I knew Mick would like - and I was right, as soon as he saw the picture he commented on how nice it was. So this is what I'm going to stitch for him...

This is Spirit Of Fire by Amanda Robison. Shouldn't take long to stitch this one.

Mini Mandala Finish

Chat 038 - Mini Mandalas IIb - Martina Weber

This was finished last night. It's stitched using all DMC threads, Mill Hill beads and on a pale pink 28 count evenweave. Thank you for looking.

Portrait Of Lauren In Blue

I started stitching this tonight, it's another Nora Corbett design for Marilyn. I'll hopefully finish it by Sunday night. Thanks for looking.

Happy Dancing...Again!

Nora Corbett (Mirabilia) - "Portrait Of Caroline In Pink"

I've just finished putting the glass treasures on Caroline, and here she is in all her glory. She's now winging her way back to Marilyn, and I'm about to start "Portrait Of Lauren In Blue" by the same designer.

Caroline Part II

Here's Caroline again after day 2. By the time I go to bed tonight she'll have eyes, a nose and a properly defined face as well as the lips she already has. Her hair will also be finished. Thanks for looking.

FAO Heather

Hi Heather, thanks for your comment on Another Five Small Finishes. I had to go back and look to see what you were talking about...LOL. The thread is definitely a Six Strand Sweet, but I have no idea what the name of the colour is, sorry. I suppose you could always look on the SSS site and see if there's anything that looks familiar.

Caroline

As you all know dear readers, I did the plane below for Marilyn. One of the other two things I brought back was Nora Corbett's Caroline - A Portrait In Pink (or something like that!) and I've just taken this photo to show Maz where I'm up to so far. You can see some of the beads that I've started adding to liven it up a bit, she was looking a bit dull. And besides which, I hate leaving all the beading till the end. Same as backstitching. Thanks for looking.

Adopt-A-Puppy

Mollie has a new best friend. She's called Tasha and she lives next door. I'm not sure what make or model she is but she's as mad as Mollie. The bloke next door has blocked all the bottom of the fence between the houses so she can't dig under it any more to get through, so now she jumps the fence...and she's only little. Even Mollie can't get over the fence. Tasha seems to spend more time in our house, chasing Mollie and fun-fighting her than she does in her own house and garden.

All Finished

P-40 Warhawk from Stoney Creek

I just finished this tonight, and Maz seems to be really pleased with it. I need to parcel it up and send it to her UK address, with a note on telling her hubby not to open it, cos it's for his birthday. LOL. I have another two things to stitch for Maz and I think I just volunteered to do some for Kathy too when she comes up in May. Thanks for looking and for all your comments.

Plane Progress

Let's see if this will work today. LOL.

WOOHOO! This was the fabric when I got it. I started doing the white bits inside the red but when I got almost all the way around I noticed that some of Marilyn's stitching was out in a couple of places. I told her I would start it again on hand-dyed fabric, I started it on Dragon Shades Rumbles of Thunder.

The pic above is after one day.

And this above is it so far today. If people didn't keep phoning me up and messaging me (ruddy kids) I'd have a whole lot more done, but there you are. It's not Malcolm's birthday till later in the year I think so I have plenty of time.

Happy Mothers' Day

As usual at this time of the morning, I'm the only one up, or rather, awake. It's lovely and peaceful, just me and Mollie and the birds. It's Mothering Sunday here in the UK and I've already opened my cards. Dene and Ian gave me a bunch of flowers last night and they're suitably arranged in a vase on the window sill. Kate is going to get me something when she comes home.

It's going to be a busy day today. Dene will be going round to Mam's for me in a couple of hours to take her a card, a bunch of flowers and a book that's all about dreams. Bet there's nothing in there about jet black goats called Sandy with a horn on the end of his nose instead of two on his head. We're not going to go there!

Craig is borrowing a van and is taking Dene up to Berwick this afternoon ready for his one week job training starting tomorrow. The reasoning behind the van is so that Dene can take his motorbike up with him. The A1 isn't a very good road for a motorbike learner cos all the other drivers are lunatics so it's going up in the back of the van and he can putter about Berwick with it. Much safer. He's taking up a good supply of food so he won't go hungry and his Gran and Granda have given him some stuff too. Ian is home this weekend and is going up with them to give a hand, then Craig will drop him off at his Dad's on the way back.

I got this tiny little tuck in the mail yesterday from Sharyl in the US. I took part in a Lucky Tuck Exchange on the TS board. The one I did was crap as I couldn't find anything in my stash that was even remotely St Patrick's Day-ish. I ended up doing a tiny little shamrock. Like I said, it's crap.

When I came home from Spain I brought some of Marilyn's stitching with me. She had already started doing a Warhawk plane for her husband's birthday and she asked me if I would finish it for her. Blogger won't let me add any more photos at the moment so I'll try again later. I started doing the inside of the mouth and got almost all the way round before noticing that some of the stitches were bigger than they should be. There was no way I was going to unpick all that had been done, so I contacted Maz and told her I would start it again, this time on a hand-dyed fabric that looks like sky - which saves me having to stitch the sky. Method in my madness. It's coming along quite nicely, and when Blogger will let me I'll post a couple of pics.

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!

Bobbin Along Quite Nicely

I had a brainstorm while I was in Spain, and decided I would transfer ALL my DMC threads from the plastic bags I keep them in at the moment, to plastic bobbins. I really shouldn't think at all, it just gets me into bother. I bought a storage box and some bobbins from eBay - cos I'm not going to do it all in one go obviously - and when the bobbins arrived I started winding thread. I wound 200 threads over two days! And still got 37 drawers of threads to go. What's worse of course is the fact that I don't just have ONE skein of each colour. Oh no, that would be far too easy. For example, I have 10 skeins of black, 14 skeins of blanc, 4 of B5200, 8 of 3799. Most colours have at least 2 skeins, if not more. Mostly more. I'm going to end up with a huge pile of threads boxes at this rate. I've bought another two storage boxes but I need more bobbins...LOTS MORE BOBBINS!

Fobbed Off!

Regular readers of my blog will know that I also have a web site shop. Everything has been on sale during February while I replenished my stock. Needless to say it's been a busy month, making up needlecases, pin keeps and scissor fobs, but I've done all I can for now and the site has been updated. Go knock yourselves out!