An Extremely Overdue IHSW Update

Right, this is almost two weeks late so please forgive me. For the first time I signed up to be part of the International Hermit & Stitch weekend. IHSW occurs monthly on the 3rd weekend of the month and at the end of at weekend you post pictures of your progress from that weekend.

So here is my update showing progress on the two projects I worked on. The pictures were actually taken on the Monday after IHSW, but I’ve just been slow with the posting (as usual).

First up is my progress on my Josn Elliott Christmas Lady. Her skirt nowalas a fair bit of red in it, I’m currently much further a long on this one, but I can show you that after the weekend.

My other project which got an outing during the IHSW was Abi Gurden’s The Great Escape. My beautiful owl has a head now. I haven’t touched this since this picture was taken, but the next part has been printed off and I think I’ll pick this one up at some point this weekend.

And since I know there are people who will ask, these are the colours I’ve used on him so far.
Breast Feathers – Nina’s Threads Eggplant
Around Head – Carrie’s Creations Epiphany
Outer Beak/Inner Eye – GAST Black Crow
Inner Beak/Outer Eye – Carrie’s Creations Indigo
Above Beak – GAST Black Raspberry Jam

I have one more purple shade to use while will be on the wing feathers, but first I’ve gotta finish off the breast feathers.

I’ll be back in a few days with some more post for you, and some news. so please do pop back in for a visit

April WIPocalypse

I’ve been such a bad WIPocalypser, totally MIA since the first check-in in January. And I don’t even have a lot of work to show from my long absence, my stitchy bug went away on holiday as well.

However I do have a few WIPs to show you, I even managed a few finishes but I can’t show them yet.

My first progress picture is of my Joan Elliott design, which I first show you back in January, and then again a few days ago. I’ve managed to work on it a little bit more since then.

Joan Elliott – Victorian Christmas Lady
stitched on 32-count white linen using DMC

Back in January I started Abi Gurden’s The Great Escape, I’m still umm-ing and ahh-ing over where I will stitch the whole design. I’ll definitely finish the owl, but I’m not sure about the rest of it. I’m finding these stitches a bit harder too do than the specialty stitches for The Tree of Stitches (which reminds me, I should probably show you my finished tree), although not really because they are hard in themselves but because their placement is so important. I am enjoying it though and have recently finished Part III, which means the stitches I’ve learned so far are Montenegrin stitch, Feather stitch, Basque stitch, Sorbello stitch and Cretan Catch.

Abi Gurden – The Great Escape
stitched on 35-count Sparklies Shades of Autumn
using Nina’s Threads Eggplant

My last progress picture is a small design I picked up at a charity shop. It’s quite an old design, from 1986 by Chloe Designs, and it doesn’t have a name just a number (I think) 0-18. The kit came with aida, but I prefer evenweave and used a piece which was teadyed at the same time as the one I used for LHN’s Two Sheep.

Chloe Design – 0-18
stitched with 28-count teadyed evenweave
unknown floss

BACK…(again)… with a crossstitch finish and a WIP

I seem to be making a lot of these posts that start “Well it’s been a while” or similar, so I won’t make one again.

Instead I just wanted to pop by and show you what I’m working on at the moment and my most recently finished piece. I have a few other finishes as well but I’ll show you them later.

My current WIP is Joan Elliott’s Victorian Christmas Lady from Cross Stitch Collection issue 202.

I’m stitching her on white 32-count DMC linen.I started her at the beginning of the year, but then I lost my stitchy bug for a while and didn’t do any stitching, so I haven’t made a lot of progress.

Here is my progress from a few days back, I have a bit more done now.

My finish was just a random small project, I had ordered some samples from Kate @ Sparklies as I was looking for some fabric for a new start (more on that at a later date). One of the samples I’d ordered was Dark Goddess, and it just screamed out at me to e used for something. I had recently been looking through my The Gift of Stitching Magazine issues and added a few projects to my must stitch list. Of course the fabric was only big enough for a small design and I wanted it to be monochrome, so I decided on a beautiful rose chart by Kristin Edwards from Issue 4 of the magazine. It was designed to be done in pinks and green, but I decided to just do it in DMC Blanc as the fabric added plenty of color to the design.

I’m not 100% happy with it, in the cut work areas and the other border I should have used perle floss for better coverage, also I think I would have done the outer border stitch over more than just 2 threads of the fabric if I had realized how hard it would be to poke the ends in. All in all though I do like it and it will probably end up as a card to someone.

2009 Christmas Cards

What was that? Do I know it’s February? Of course I do, it’s not like I’m showcasing next years cards (if I do that before August you may have me commited).

The reason I’m putting these up so late is that I sent them out late and I wanted to be sure everyone had theirs before i put the pictures up.

Here we go then

This was made for MIL and FIL. They used to have the cutest westie in the world, so this is in memory of her. The design is adapted from a Joan Elliott design ‘Santa’s Helpers’ which appeared in WOXS – World of Cross Stitching ( I think), The original had several cute puppies surrounded by pressies and x-mas decorations, but I just stitched two of the pups seperately. So here is the Westie

The other pup was stitched for my mum, a Golden Lab I think it is. I was really looking for a rottweiler, but couldn’t find one. Maybe I’ll try and design one for next christmas

The third card was a freebie design from Crossstitcher issue 220, I made it for my big brother, SIL and nephew. It’s just soooo cute and perfect for kids. I changed the original text to say Merry Christmas in Norwegian instead of in English.

The next two cards are from the same design, from Crossstitch Collection if I remember correctly. I just love that cat, it’s so cheeky.
The one on the right is stitched in the colours given in the chart and was for my little brother and his girlfriend, and the one on the left is for my BIL and future SIL. The colours were changed to match their newest kitty Mogli.

This next one was from a X-mas card chart book from WOXS, and was for my dad. It looks so much nicer in real life, the purple metallic card really suits the design, but taking pics of metallic card is a b***h

I don’t have individual pic of the last three, and dad’s raindeer main it onto this card too 🙂 The two bird ones were from the same chartbook as the raindeer and were for DH’s Grandma and Nan, while the Happy Christmas one was from one of the magazines, Crossstitcher I think, and for DH’s aunt and uncle.

Well that was it, next year I’m aiming to do more cards. There were so many designs i never to around to and I’m sure the mags will have plenty of great designs this year as well.

Cross Stitching Projects: Wedding Sampler

I have finally decided on a wedding sampler to stitch for my BIL and future SIL, with a little help from my MIL of course. I can’t post it here though as I have no idea if my SIL ever looks on this page so you’ll all just have to wait till it’s done, I will tell you though that it’s from Lavender and Lace. I ordered the chart, fabric and some beads yesterday and should be able to start in the next two weeks. I’m a little worried though, the wedding is mid-October and other people who have stitched the design have taken anywhere between 9 months and 18 months to complete it. Hopefully these people also work and have other things to do with their time, I don’t really have any demands on my time apart from writing so I should have plenty of time. I couldn’t quite decided between this design and a Janlynn design called ‘From This Day Forward’, but the L&L design won out in the end because it’s very easy to peronalize (apparently). My job now is to find out the wedding colours (hope she’d decided) and match threads for haircolour to match the couple 🙂 Should be fun.
As this will be my biggest project yet, I’m really looking forward to it, I ordered some Zweigart Lurex Aida, 16 ct cream speckled with gold to stitch it on. There is some gold metallic threads used in the design so I figured it would look good together. I was thinking about buying some Polstitches hand-dyed evenweave, but I don’t think a project which is supposed to be a gift to someone else is the best time to start trying evenweave. I’ll leave that for when I do Joan Elliott’s fairies instead, they will after all be for me.
The largeness of the Wedding Sampler is sort of pushing my other projects on the back burner, I’ll have to see how I get on with it, how quick I can stitch before I continue on the other ones. So the next two weeks are going to be spent finishing mother’s day cards and birthday cards and hopefully get a little more done on the HUG cushion, which I will post an update picture on during the next week.

Wish Me Luck