CJC – Blackwork Lady Finished

First a warning, this will be picture heavy.

This weekend I finished another of my Crazy January Challenge(CJC) pieces, Lesley Teare’s Blackwork Lady which was in WOXS last year. I used a piece of hand dyed 28-count evenweave for her, which I had received in a grab bag from Polstitches. The fabric is beautiful, I think it might be Rustic Rhubarb, it seems to be the closes match. She is of course stitched entirely in black using DMC 310, and instead of french knots I used beads, as my French knots are really sub-standard and on a piece like this they would stick out. Over-all she was a lovely stitch, but I think my habit of sitting in dark rooms stitching made it harder for me to get her done. At least she is here not and just needs a frame before she can go up on the wall.

Here she is with the stitching complete

And here she is fully beaded

Here is a close up of her face, you can see the beads better and she looks so delicate. Think this is my favorite part of the design

These butterflies are pretty adorable, and I’m really please with how the beads complement the piece.

And a final look, this time from the bottom of the chart

Which means I’ve finished 6/15 of my CJC pieces. That’s an average of two a month, but of course most of the ones left are larger designs so will take longer. But I am well on my way to completing this challenge

March Biscornu, a couple of cards and an exchange

As I said on Saturday I have a couple more finishes to show you, today i had a picture taking session and got it all done. And I got permission to use a picture taken by the recipient of my exchange item, silly me had completely forgotten to take a picture before sending it off.

My Basket of Biscornus challenge, which I set myself, is going really well. For March I decided to honour St. Patrick and stitch up Faby Reilly’s Shamrock Biscornu, it used to be a freebie on her site, but she seems to have taken most of them off the site now. So if you don’t already have the chart, tough luck I’m afraid. I decided to stitch this one on 18-count cream aida (trying to use up my aida, really did buy a shed load when we lived in Abu Dhabi), I used 2 different types of floss, the dark green is Madeira Decora 1479 (satin thread), and the variegated is DMC Colour Variations 4045. For the gold I used Madeira Silk 2210, and the beads are gold Mill Hill ones. I love the button in the middle, it was part of a charm pack my dear friend Kim gave me. Originally it should have been for a Shephard’s Bush stocking but I use them for various other things (the silver heart charm in the January biscornu is from the same charm pack). I think this might be my favourite biscornu to date, it certain is hubby’s favourite. The best part of it is the blackwork in the two larger shamrocks, it just gives it lovely texture, it also helps that the satin floss is a little ticker than the cotton so it’s more raised.

Here it is from the top.

And here, a side view

Finally a closer look

I also stitched two cards for Mother’s Day this year, I never remember when the Norwegian Mother’s day is (at least not until after the fact) so I just send cards for the British one. I’m sure that makes me an even better daughter, my mum gets celebrated twice (once by me and once by my bro). This year I decided two free cover kits would do the trick. For my mum I’ve stitched a card from the same series as the one she received last year, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. I love these designs, timeless classics!

For MIL I stitched a Fizzy Moon freebie. These WOXS free kits are driving me crazy, they keep cutting the thread length very short and some of the colours are really hard to differentiate between. It stitch up really nicely though and I changed the words on the note to ‘MUM xx’.

Last, but certainly not least, we had an Easter-themed scissor fob exchange at CrossStitchForum. I decided to stitch a Penelopis freebie on mine, and stitched it up on some 28 count handdyed Polstitches fabric. I made the cord out of some variegated Anchor floss i had, it is infact the same colour as the one I included in the package, very Easter-y/Spring-y. Didn’t manage to take a picture myself, but Alice kindly let me use the one she took of the goodies I sent.

Stitchy Saturdays – Some ATCs etc.

I’m really unorganized this month, not only did I not find my camera for most of it but once I did I forgot to take pictures. I do have a couple of things to show though.
First we have a few ATC, these first two are from the February exchanges on two facebook groups I’m a member of.
For this one we had the choice of two charts designed by Kell, a cross stitch one and a blackwork one. Below is my interpretation of the blackwork chart.

This one had a Valentine’s theme, and I used a Liz Almond chart which was in the WOXS Design Library she designed.

And as my March ATCs have been received I can show them off as well.

For the Cross Stitch ATCs group the theme was Transport. I wanted to stitch a more unusual mode of transport and settled on a Penny-farthing. It’s my favorite ATC that I’ve stitched (with the possible exception of the silhouette one), I used a DMC colour variations and stitched on 18 count aida.

In the Addicted to Cross Stitch ATCs group our theme was Luck o’ the Irish, and I stitched my atc putting together elements from a couple of Kell’s Irish designs.

One of nexts month’s themes is AOY (All Our Yesterdays) so at the moment I’m trying to decide which design to go with, I have at least 12 thanks to the Mini diary which was a magazine freebie.

I also stitched a square for LoveQuiltsUK, using the Brushstroke Butterfly chart which is a freebie over at CyberStitchers. I used some varigated Anchor (1335 methinks), as I was stitching on 11 count I uded about a skein and a half. Now I’m trying to find some more charts to stitch up. There are no specific childrens quilts at the moment, instead there are 4 stitch-a-longs, the themes being Butterflies, Purple, Green and Disney Characters. If you have some time on your stitching hands and have a chart which would be suitable to one of the themes head on over and sign up 🙂

I have also finished my March biscornu and a Crazy January Challenge piece, but need to take some nicer pictures of them before letting you see them 🙂 And then there are some mother’s day cards and other cards. Maybe I’ll have to make it stitchy Saturdays and Sundays 🙂

One More Blog Giveaway

Here is another giveaways for you to have a look at

Measi over at Measi’s Musings is having a Giveaway for her 10 year Blogoversary. That is so impressive, I started my first blog in 2002 but I didn’t keep with it and I’ve changed blogs so many times it’s ridiculous.

Hope Measi will have another 10 wonderful years in the blogosphere

Crossstitching Giveaways Galore

March seems to be the month for giveaways so here are a few more to join

Carolyn over at Just One More Stitch…,

Julie at Julie’s Creations

and Michelle from Michelle’s StitchCraft

are all generously parting with some of their stash. If you fancy entering, head on over to their sites 🙂

Good Luck to you

Giveaway over at ‘To Stitch or Not to Stitch’

Barbara over at ‘To Stitch or Not to Stitch’ has a very generous giveaway planned for her birthday month of March. Head on over there and join in 🙂

Stitchy Saturdays – Some progress and a couple of finishes

Yes the weekend has come at last and I’ve saved my stitching progress for your Saturday viewing pleasure.

First up is the one I’ve spent the most time on, one of my CJC (Crazy January Challenge) pieces, Jungle Scamp by Maria Diaz. As I’ve said before I’m stitching this for hubby, so there is no deadline, and after stitching a lot in variegated floss or doing monochrome pieces it’s actually quite nice to have color changes, and in particular seeing the design come to life as you add new colors to it 🙂

Secondly we have the Blackwork Lady, which was in WOXS a while back. Haven’t bothered doing much on her to be honest. I love the design, but I need a lot of light while doing it and as I usually don’t start stitching till the afternoon there isn’t much time for her. I am determined to finish her in March though, so you should be seeing a few more updates in the near future.

Then there is Solo Brode’s ‘En attendant l’été’. Not a lot done on this either, just a few stitches here and there. The chart doesn’t seem like the easiest to follow and I’m glad i have the whole one not doing it piece by piece as i think the small adjustment I’ve made myself will have been inconsistent if I didn’t have the full picture.

 

And then for the two finishes.

 

First we have the February biscornu, where i used another of Faby Reilly’s freebie charts. I mostly used the pinks she had charted and added a heart button and some pale pink beads to the middle spiderweb stitches. I used some of my sparkly 28 count Brittney for this one, giving it some extra bling.

And then I finished the most recent Crossstitcher freebie, a mirror pouch. I didn’t use the design in the magazine, instead I chose to stitch a design my friend Kell of Kincavel Krosses designed for this freebie. I stitched it using Tentakulum Painter’s Threads in Van Gogh. Isn’t it lovely? Thank you so much to Kell for the lovely design.

TUSAL Time

The moon is new again and that means it’s TUSAL time.
This month I added my orts from last year to this year’s, didn’t want them just lying around in a bag anymore.

So quite a few orts, from about June 2010 till now.

Come back tomorrow to see some of the projects I’m currently working on, and some finishes 🙂

February Revisited and Goals for March

It’s that time of month again, that’s right – the beginning. So it’s time to review February and sort out the March goals. I’m sorry to say February wasn’t as productive as January, so here’s hoping I get my act together in March.

Every Month:

1. Post on my blog at least once a week
2. Post picture of my TUSAL jar on each new moon
3. Stitch a biscornu for my Basket of Biscornus (need to post picture of the Feb asap)
4. Stitch a Christmas ornament
5. Plot 5 new stories/plotlines
6. Write 13,000 new words (either on existing novels or new stories)
7. Read 4 books a month, and write reviews for them (have to review 8 for Feb) – Really need to get to writing reviews, read 12 books in February,

February Only:
1. Finish wall hanging for mum
2. 2 x Mother’s day cards
3. Arrange Giveaway on blog
4. Finish one more projects started during Crazy January Challenge
5. Complete 4 more weeks of C25K
6. Complete Scissor fob for exchange
7. 2 x ATC’s for exchange

As you can see I flaked out on my book reviewing, my exercising, and some of my stitching. The stitching isn’t too bad as I still have a lot of times to meet the deadlines, everything that had a deadline got done so I’m happy 🙂 My giveaway went brilliantly, 75 submissions, but of course we could only have one winner. Again, Congratulations Agi!

Here are the March Goals. Not too many added goals this month, as I want to get on top of my reviewing, but I’m sure I’ll have enough to do.

Every Month:

1. Post on my blog at least once a week
2. Post picture of my TUSAL jar on each new moon
3. Stitch a biscornu for my Basket of Biscornus
4. Stitch a Christmas ornament
5. Plot 3 new stories/plotlines
6. Write 10,000 new words (either on existing novels or new stories)
7. Read 4 books a month, and write reviews for them (have to review 12 for March – this is getting a bit ridiculous)

March Only:

1. Finish wall hanging for mum
2. 2 x Mother’s day cards
3. Finish one more project started during Crazy January Challenge
4. Restart C25K challenge as it was completely ignored for Feb
5. Complete Scissor fob for exchange
6. 2 x ATC’s for exchange
7. Post an excerpt every week from one of my WIPs (can be new, old or discarded)
8. Stitch Giveaway for PayitForward Giveaway

Wish me better luck this month (more days in it for one)