February Gifted Gorgeousness

Hey folks 

Time for GG hosted by the awesome Jo of Serendipidous Stitching. 

Last month I had nothing to share! This month everything is either being gifted or stitched using gifted stuff! 

So let's launch into the projects that will be gifted...

Birth Sampler. I brought this in Aldi would you believe for £2.99. The floss is good quality and chart is very clear and even came with a hoop. I swapped out the aida for some witchelt star sapphire linen. I'm stitching this for my friend who is due in April. 

Next up is the Japan bookmark by Anchor . I started this back in 2012 and had only stitched 50 stitches. I'm stitching this for my mums birthday next month. This may have even been a gift to me. 

Love never fails is a freebie by the Primitive Hare and stitched in a 4 ply thread by 21st century yarns over one on 20ct belana  and is going to be an ATC, along with a couple of the designs on the next pic and the 4 tiny biscornu will become scissor fobs for friends. 

So on to the projects that were gifted to me...

Spring frills by Just Nan. I won this eons ago in blog giveaway from Carolyn. 

Palko Lap calendar SAL stitched with gifted fabric and a couple of gifted threads. Yup it's done!!! Happy dance. 

Have Faith by Design Works. A gift from Steph. 

City landscape by Zweigart on gifted fabric from hubby and the kids. 

Humbug by Shiny Room. Brought with a gift voucher to Sew and So from stitchy pal Shannon. 

I was gifted this chart too this week from another stitchy pal Rachel. 

I started this little embroidery I got from Paperchase at Christmas with another voucher. 

Wow! that was a lot for one month!

Thanks for stopping by and happy stitching friends.

Gifted gorgeousness October

Let's face it my blogging has been hit and miss to say the least so firstly apologies for not having kept up with my blog reading. 

I've decided to keep this one short and sweet to get me back in the habit and share some of the things I've been working on over the last few weeks as its time for Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by the marvellous Jo of Serendipitous Stitching.

September saw a new start on the cityscape from WOXS 251 which is on gifted fabric from my children for Mother's Day this year. Not a huge deal of progress as there is a lot more backstitch than you first realise. 

I also made some biscornu and used the teeny tiny ones to make scissor fobs which were gifted to my postcard pal from stitch from stash and to a flosstuber that I've become friends with along with some blackwork charts. They are stitched on gifted fabric too. 

I also had a good few days on my Just Nan humbug - spring frills. It's such a pretty pattern but is far more intensive than you think given its size. It is so pretty though. This was a giveaway win eons ago from Carolyn. 

I've been doing this next one as part of #santasundayxs on Instagram. (You can follow me there as kerry_in_stitches) I've really struggled for motivation with this one over the last year or more, so it has been so nice to really fall back in love with it and just spend one day a week working on it. I think I have about 650 stitches left to do so I am aiming for a finish next weekend. It's 12 days of Christmas by Plum Street samplers and was a free design from them in 2015. It also uses some threads left over from a gifted kit.

In other news I have been making Flosstube videos and you can find me on YouTube as Kerry in stitches. I'd love if you are a Flosstube watcher to go over and have a little look. I've done three videos now and do them fortnightly. I'd say that's the reason I'm not blogging but to be honest it's more that every spare minute is spent stitching at the moment. 

I have been fortunate to have won a couple of giveaways recently. I won two Nora Corbett charts from Tiff and I also won the Friday freebie from Crosstitch crazy which was fabric, a chart and threads. 

I've given up on trying to keep this short so I'll tell you about my final gift I've had this month and that was from three marvellous friends who took me to the Birmingham Hippodrome to see the musical Hairspray! It's my absolute favourite musical anyway so to see the stage production was just amazing so not a bad early birthday present at all.

I'll be back at the weekend with the theme to the stitch link up, until then happy stitching.

Gifted Gorgeousness August

Hey folks,

In an attempt to get back on track with the blogging and not post 3 posts in 48 hours again, I'm preparing my GG post now! Thank you to everyone who commented on those posts and I'm sorry I haven't responded to everyone.

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo and I'm sure you all know all about it by now!

August has been good to me so far with 6 finishes and big progress on 2 others, but here are my GG finishes, Apologies now, they all fit at least 2 other SAL's so expect to see them again and again!

Tea and cakes 14ct - Finished
Fabric and border floss were gifts and the chart was a free design from Lakeside Needlecraft by Durene Jones. The backstitch was a killer!

Anchor Sampler - Finished
A gift from my In laws and finished on 28th July after 3 years.

Mill Hill Squirrelly - Finished
A gift from Steph and finished this week. It just needs cutting out and a magnet adding.

So on to progress - I was really struggling with motivation for the Maia Giraffe Silhouette that my Mum brought me at least 5 years ago. I love the design, it's not hard but 550 black stitches took it's toll and I decided that I'd do 50 stitches a day so I would have a finish by the end of the year, anyhow, I picked it up yesterday to put in my 50 stitches on the black and thought might as well finish the row it's only another 32 stitches, that leaves me with 1 more row of black and odd ones on the row above that. By the end of the row, I was actually enjoying it and just carried on! I actually got 500 stitches done yesterday! So my plan is to do a week on it and then rotate it. My aim is to have all the full crosses done as about 2/3 of the piece are half stitches so that is about 1600-1800 full stitches to do this week - basically all the black and 3 shades of brown in the bottom third.

Will the 900 ish stitches on the tree be a stitch to far?
Will the quarter stitches be a fraction too much?
Will the 3 shades at the bottom brown our intrepid stitcher off?

Tune in to the next exciting episode to find out!  


Happy stitching friends, see you for Theme-Tas-Stitch next week.

Gifted Gorgeousness - June - Just about

Hello Friends,

Over a week late for GG this month hosted by the fabulous Jo at serendipidous Stitching where we show our stitching that uses gifted items or that will be gifted to others. I just don't know where the month has gone. I have managed to stitch a a fair bit of stitching in including this for my best friend's birthday. It's a long standing joke that she always buys me jelly beans and I always buy her flying saucers. It was a chart from the Emma Congdon chart book that came with Cross Stitch Crazy recently and I changed the word Chocolate to Jelly beans and the brown stitching for green as it's my favourite colour and charted pink worked well as it is Sarah's favourite.

I've been stitching on the Tea and Cakes Sal from Lakeside Needlecraft. It's a free sal designed by Durene Jones and I've stitched it on gifted fabric (14ct and 28ct over one) and with mostly gifted threads.

I've started stitching the teacher cards for DD, I though I was going to get away with just 2 as DS is now at high school, but DD has a different teacher once a week and extra phonics lessons with a 4th so 4 it is!

Lastly I was very lucky to win this lovely chart from Mii. I can't wait to stitch this! 

I hope you've all had a great stitchy month.

Gifted Gorgeousness May

Wow, how is it time for GG already?  I hope you've all had a good stitchy weekend. gifted gorgeousness is hosted by Jo of serendipitous stitching where we show what we've stitched that has been gifted to us or will be a gift.

So I've a few bits to show...

Just Nan Spring frills humbug. A gift from Carolyn. 

Gifted Gorgeousness April.

Me again!

It's time for Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo at Serendipitous stitching. Where each month we show our stitching made up from gifted items (chart, fabric, kit etc) or that will be a gift. 

So my main focus this month has been Blackwork Birdsong by DMC. This was a gift from Steph. Steph has just come back to blogging. Yay! 

 Here is where I got to at my last update - the collage shows days 1-8 work.

I've been stitching a length of thread or so a day. So this is 12 days work on it. I'm almost done with the black so just the gold after that. I think 7 days will see a finish. I hadn't meant to focus on it but with the kids getting older I don't often start stitching until getting on for 9pm.
I started writing this yesterday and I've just gone to photograph last nights work and found a hole in the middle of the fabric. I think someone aged around 6 may have been playing with it...

I'm hoping as there is a little blackwork motif in the spot I can sew a piece of fabric underneath and patch it. So here is  up to last night. 

I finished this little alphabet which will be an ornie for the travelling box when it comes. It's stitched in DMC Coloris 4507. The left picture shows where I'd gotten to during March madness and the right shows the finish! I'm not entirely sure how I'll FFO it yet but there is plenty of time. 

My final finish is the cactus embroidery kit which my daughter has decided is for her! It was loads of fun to stitch and was from Tiger. 

It's Theme-Tas-Stitch next week and I'm working on a little kit for that. April was always going to be the toughest month for me as I have nothing with water in it and the only piece with snow was done and dusted in February. Its only a small shoehorn but I'll leave that until the 21st.

Don't forget to do the Easter blog hop on Jo's blog too if you haven't already.

Kerry

Gifted Gorgeousness - February

Hello friends

Gifted Gorgeousness time again hosted by the fabulous Jo at Serendipitous Stitching where we show what we've been stitching that has been gifted to us or that we will be gifting to others - be it using a kit, fabric, threads, chart or embelishments.

So I had a very successful start of the month. I met up with my lovely craft friend Caroline who used to work in the office downstairs from mine and made her a little gift as I hadn't seen her in quite a while. I stitched the Heritage Crafts Butterfly and Buddleia needle book kit that was gifted to me by Laura when she had a clear out and I knew I'd stitch it for Caroline and was one of my 17. The finishing was a bit fiddly, it might have been due to the fact I stayed up really late to get as much stitching done then got up really early to finish it off and make it up.

Gifted Gorgeousness 2017 - January

It's the first GG post of the year and I have a finish!!

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching where we stitch on projects using a kit, threads, fabric etc that were gifted to us or that will be gifts.

Gifted Gorgeousness - July

Hello friends, 

It's time for a check in for my favourite sal - gifted gorgeousness hosted by Jo at serendipitous stitching. It's the chance to show off stitching made with gifted items - charts/threads/fabric or stitched as a gift to someone else. 

As many of you will know a group of crafting friends and I have the travelling box and it has recently visited me. I picked lots of lovely things and made 11 items in return. 

Firstly here are my picks from the box. I'm so lucky to have lots of very talented friends. Lots of lovely crochet, a tote bag, cute brooch and a very sweet little blackwork cat. 

And now my makes. I made 3 lots of jewellery, Dorset buttons that I made into magnets & embellished a purse. 

Chicken scratch hanging (using gifted fabric and beads) and a mini jam jar pincushion. (Gifted ribbon)

 

Magnet (gifted aida hand dyed by Steph), tulip sachet (gifted backing fabric & lace)and floral blackwork pincushion (gifted threads - dragon floss)

Next came Laura's birthday. Laura is a joy to stitch for as she loves dragons. I'm a big fan of Dragon Dreams and they have some very cute freebies on their Facebook page so I stitched this little one holding a cake. I adapted the design a bit and added a border. He goes well with the teacup one I stitched for Laura last year. 

I used waste canvas to make a little stitching dragon from another DD design. 

I also made a little craft room sign from an old issue of Cross Stitcher. It measures about 3" x 4". 

So that's about it for this month. Looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to. 

Happy stitching x

June GG

Hello friends, 

I've noticed a couple of new followers too so a big welcome to you too. 

Gifted gorgeousness is upon us again so time to share what I've been stitching that falls into the gifted category. Thank you Jo for being our lovely host as always. 

The travelling box is here so I've been making for that. I've made 10 things including jewellery, pincushions and other small stitchery's. I'll reveal all that next month. So back to this month and I've made 2 necklaces using the wooden pendants and been working hard on the sampler too. 

Firstly gifted to others... The necklaces. I made a button and loop closure on this one using some pretty variegated cord I had. And stitched it in Anchor perle cotton shade 1375

Next up was the one I showed you last month, stitched for my best friend's birthday yesterday. I just went with a simple silver snake chain. 

So on to the sampler... As you know gifted to me by the in laws and abandoned for a good 18 months. I picked it up 10 days ago and stitched on it for the weekend and got to this point 

5 days later I was here...

The band across the middle took 3 days. I think it was because it was so tedious. 

Then came the urn and the hedge

And a bit more hedge and what will be steps when the back stitch is added. 

So as it stands today we have a fruit tree

I love the colour it has added. We are calling it the plum tree as my daughter decided we needed to identify what it was. 

So this week I'll be stitching the final square of the ABC sal and finishing up a birthday present. 

Have a great week and happy crafting.