Santa's Journey and Flower of the Month SAL

Well there hasn't been much stitching going on recently so I really must get my act together over the coming weeks as I'm really falling behind schedule.  My flower of the month (sweet pea) has only got as far as this:-

I'm a bit disappointed with how the bottom flowers are looking as there doesn't seem to be much definition between the two.  This is making me a bit reluctant to finish it!

On the other hand Santa's Journey has gone from this:

 to this:

If you'd like to see the completed picture then please pop over to Laura at xstitchatoz here who stitched it for the magazine. (Thank you Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for teaching me how to do those links)

This means I only have one more complete page to do and then I can fill in the bit in the middle.  The reason I stopped doing the middle pages is the design is by Maria Diaz and featured in Cross Stitch Collection Magazine Oct - Dec 14.  I didn't have these magazines and couldn't get back issues of them except as downloads.  The problem was the chart was so small when it was printed, I couldn't read it.  When I enlarged it, I lost the clarity of the design and the symbols and I still couldn't read it so I'm stitching it from my computer.  This is fine, except when you come to the next page and I miscounted by 1 stitch.  By the time I realised my mistake I thought I was too far gone to frog it and thought I'd stitch all around and then adjust.  I'm nearly at adjustment time.  Wish me luck!

Anyway, I haven't been feeling too well lately (rotten migraines again) so to cheer myself up, I'm off to look at Sew and So's site.  Let you know what I buy...

Have a good weekend everyone x

Just a little small...

I can't believe it's the middle of April already and I haven't got much stitching to show!  Santa's Journey has had progress made to it but I haven't got around to taking a photo of it yet.  I do have one tiny small to show though.  It came as a freebie in this months The World of Cross Stitching (TWCS) Magazine.

Tatty Teddy

Isn't he cute?  While I was making him up into a card I did finish off two other cards that I'd stitched a while ago and as I haven't got much too show...

The first design is from a cross stitch book that I found at a bootfair about 12 years ago and the other is from an old issue of TWCS Magazine (I'll add the issue number when I find it!).

That's all for now.  Happy stitching! x

My first pillow ornaments!!!

I actually made my first set of pillow ornaments!!!  Here they are:-

The top two are from i) The Cricket Collection and ii) is my Flower of the month SAL;
The bottom two are from iii) a freebie from www.cosmichandmade.wordpress.com/free-charts-2008 (again must learn how to do those links) and finally iv) The World of Cross Stitching magazine.

Now all I need to do is master the 'cording', but I'll save that for the first of my Christmas ornaments!

Have a great Easter and hope you have plenty of time for stitching.
x

Flower of the Month SAL

Phew, finished it with a day to spare. Hooray!!!

Jonquil by Ellen Maurer-Stroh

I've decided to finish this one as a little pillow.  Unfortunately my LNS didn't have any interfacing in stock and (according to the blogs I've been reading as research) I need this as backing as this gives a better 'finish' to my ornaments.  So I've had to order it on-line.  Waiting patiently now (or not so) for the postman to deliver it!!  It's going to be backed with the material in the photo, so hopefully it will look lovely when it's complete.

Looking forward to Sweet Peas next.

Happy stitching

x

Santa's Journey update

Just a quick post, to prove that I have not forgotten about Santa's journey and to show that it has received a little love recently.  Okay, it's only a little bit of love but Easter stitching has got in the way and I have been busy the last few days trying to finish my daffodils for the flower of the month SAL (more on that after the weekend).  Anyway Santa's Journey has gone from this:

to this:-

(Sorry about the wrinkled aida.  I really should iron it before taking the photos!!!!!)

More sky has appeared and you can probably just make out a yellow blob appearing!  That's where I am now!   I've got bored of the sky (as I knew I would...) and have started back on the buildings.  Hopefully this will become the yellow church in time.  Until then it's back to daffodils!  Have a lovely stitchy weekend everyone!

A few Easter smalls

I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by and Easter is just around the corner! And I'm so not ready!!!!

It's a good job I had stitched those three Easter cards earlier on in the year, because that is all I've done. Nothing else prepared....  So this week, I thought I'd better get stitching and this is what I've managed so far:-

All I have to do now is make them into ornaments (which I've never done before) and at least I'll have a few gifts to give out.  I would have liked to have kept one for myself but I guess I'll have to do a restitch for that as I'll have completely run out of time to get them in the post.  Oh well, there's always next year and I'm sure they would like an Easter Egg just as much....

Happy stitching
x

Migraines stop stitching progress!

I hate suffering from migraines!!!! I've had them all my life and sometimes I can deal with them and sometimes, like recently, they just seem to take over and I can do nothing about it.  You would have thought that something calming like cross stitch would help, but unfortunately I get 'flashing lights' aura when the headache begins so I cannot concentrate on anything and have to walk around in very dark glasses as even the slightest light makes the pain worse.  I have been hardly able to do any stitching at all.  I pick things up, put in about ten stitches and then give up; it has been very frustrating.  I do have something to show though,  Look at what I found hiding away in the back of my Nana's wardrobe:-

I was looking for a Christmas picture that she used to put up (but as she's 90 now she doesn't bother), and I thought would love a chance at being displayed at my house.  Actually, I don't remember the Christmas picture but because of the one I'm stitching at the moment my Mum thought I'd like Nana's as well, so we went looking for it.  Well we found it, and my Nan casually mentioned that she'd stitched a partner for one of her Lanarte pictures that she'd never had framed and could we look for it..... We found this!!!!  She denies all knowledge of stitching it!!!!!  Now I know she must have done it about 15 to 20 years ago, but how can she forget all the work that went into this piece?  I know she's 90, but she is all there mentally - well I thought she was!!!   So I got it!!!  Which I love as the moment I saw it, it made me think about my Grandpa pottering about in the garden planting up his annual flowers in the spring time ready to plant out in the summer and that just make me smile.

After all the headaches, happy memories....