Theme-tas-stitch!

Hey Folks,

I must say I love my Saturday mornings sat at the dining table with the laptop, coffee and toast, watching out the window at the birds in our garden. We didn't many birds other than Sparrows, Robins and Blackbirds at the old house so I was really pleased to see a Wren and Greenfinch this morning. We get a lot of Blackbirds as they love the apple tree and having the field behind us will hopefully mean we see a lot of new visitors - especially when I put some food out.

Wipocalypse and themealicious catch up

Hi everyone, 

So once again a month has passed since my last post so I am planning to sit and write several and schedule them for the coming week too. I hope you all had a lovely Easter, we had a week in Minehead and had glorious weather and also went to a friends wedding too. I'll share some pics later in the week.

I've missed a couple of wipocalypse posts so here are are the couple of finishes. I finished the Mouseloft kit of the blue tit for my mums birthday and the Mouseloft sheep as a biscornu. It's got a sheep button in the back with some simple cross stitches in the corner.

I continued on with the cover kit challenge I set myself and stitched the typewriter heart from cross stitcher. I changed the colours to coordinate a bit more and have more of a retro feel. 

Each month Measi poses a question for us too so here is the March one...Show us your favorite places to stitch..

A lot of you have seen my corner of the lounge. I sit surrounded by my clutter. I've been known to stitch on the bus on the way home from work and outside the pre school whilst I wait to I get my daughter. 

In April Measi asked...How do you keep your stash organized?

From the photo above you can see I have a unit that I keep my boxes of special threads in like metallics and varigated ones. It also houses my button tin too. The bottom draw has my letter writing stuff in. The spotty box on top has needles scissors etc. it was one that came with some DMC threads and accessories. The blue 6 draw unit has beads, buttons, charms and the like. On top sits my fabric box. On the floor is my WIP basket, magazine rack and generally stuffed in the corner is my bag of crochet and other bits and bobs. I do have almost a full collection of DMC threads on bobbins in their boxes and my fabric is in a big box under the kitchen table. Anyone who knows me knows my craft stuff is basically scattered in boxes round the house! 

 

So on to themealicious and March Madness. I aimed for 15 pieces, most of what I stitched I'll share with you in my spring swap post. Here is the list. 

Biscornu for Steph 

CS typewriter kit

Blue tit (Mouseloft)

Sheep (Mouseloft)

4 seasons

Iris

Tulips

Book titles x 3 

Daisy biscornu

Unicorn

Granny blanket crocheted

beaded felt brooch

So not a bad attempt at madness! I thought I was barmy at sometimes during March. April's theme is April showers and Heather has set the following challenge...

What pieces can you find in your flood of WIPs that include water? Rivers, lakes, oceans, or rain (and anything that lives within). 

The only one I can think I of is a little Mouseloft kit of the beach. I might actually be able to get that one done! 

I'll be back over the weekend with my spring swap post!

Themealicious fantasy fiction February

Just a few days late...oops!
Theme-a-licious is organised by Heather at It's geek to me and is a monthly themed SAL.

So this months theme was...

Fantastical Fiction February

What kind of fantasy creatures inhabit your Works in Progress? Or perhaps some fictional characters have leaped from the pages to your needles? Let's stitch on projects inspired by imagination.

Fantasy fiction isn't really my thing but it is hubby's and one of my wips from last year was this Game of Thrones design. Hubby is a huge fan so this became his valentines present. As you can see it's not been made into any thing yet as I usually give him a choice how he wants it made up. He has asked me to frame this one so it can be hung in our bedroom. 

The chart is from x stitch my heart on etsy. 

This month is March Madness. My plan finish some of the wips from last years march madness! trust me there are a fair few. I'm aiming for 15 projects over the month.

Plenty of choice in the WIP basket! 

Happy stitching friends

Theme-a-licious January round up

Hi everyone,

 So here is my first Theme-a-licious round up of 2014. Heather sets a theme each month for us to shoehorn our stitching into. This month is...

Jardin January

The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.

 So this was an easy one for me as I started the traditional sampler on New Year's Day. I've had a couple of rotation weeks on it and I must say with mixed results. The design isn't hard or the chart hard to read, I've just been a rubbish stitcher on this one. So here is my progress up to the end of last week. As you can see there are 3 flowers that fit nicely into the theme! 

I also did the Needlecraft Haven January challenge which was this cute little sheep design. It has a tree so I'm claiming it fits in the theme!! 

I could add in the little heart and notebook cover too as they both had flowers on, but you've seen those ;-). I'm claiming this month as a definite win!! Next month the theme is fantasy fiction so I may have to eek my Game of Thrones. Stitch out one more day as I'm very, very close to a finish as I only have about 250 stitches left on it! I can't think of anything else in my WIP basket or to do pile that fits the bill. 

Next week is my smalls rotation week so lots planned for that. Sorry that the text is all over the place, blogger just feels like it and who am I to argue.

Thanks for reading my lovely crafty friends.

A very late Theme-a-licious post!

Ok so I'm 10 days late and I don't have a lot to show for the month. Heres the theme for June...

Jumanji June

Is it a jungle out there in your stash? Give some love to the projects with animals or birds.

More projects than I thought have animals in them so either of the Giraffe projects or the Sampler

Ok so not really a jungle - more a couple of doves and a pig! Apologies as you've seen both before but here they are again!

Ok so not strictly stitchinng and I didnt make the soft toy but Thomas went on camp in June and had to take a teddy in a space costume so here is Puppy in a space suit - A quick running up on the machine in very stretchy silver fabric add a sticky foil wrapped smint box and a yougurt pot...

So here is this months theme...
Jubilee July

It's time to celebrate! What are you celebrating this year? Stitch on your holiday-related projects, OR find some WIPs you know you'll never finish and set them free.

I'm not sure what I'll be stitching for this theme, I have a swap with Steph at the end of the month with the theme of Summer so I'm celebrating the arrival of summer. I'm celebrating my blogversary in a month too so I'll be making some bits for that too. Oh and what do you think about my new look blog. I'm so pleased with what hubby has done.

Thanks for reading everyone. Have a great day. x

Monochrome May wrap up

 

I've been a bit rubbish with Theme-a-licious the last couple of months, so when I was reading Heather's post on it this morning, I came up with a fab way to shoe-horn my stitching into the theme. My idea I had at the beginning of the year didn't happen. This was the theme, with my thoughts in green.

Monochrome May

Pick a color, any color, then stitch only on projects that contain that color for the month!

Maybe brown or blue so that could be the Giraffes or my HAED

Well neither of those happened but what I did achieve was to stitch 3 different projects in just one colour for each project. They may not have been one colour for the month (although I did initally want to go with black so I could do my sampler) but I did one in black, one in a very dark purple and the third (cue very, very big shoehorn) which I can share was stitched in a vari thread called Luna Park (by Dinky Dyes). By every stretch of the imagination possible this fits because the thread has one name therefore is one shade!!!! Told you it was a stretch even by Serendipidous Jo's standards (Sorry Jo!)

Right to the stitching. I can't share the black and purple ones as they are in the travelling box...well travelling, but here is the vari one. It was stitched for Lori's birthday earlier this week from a pattern by Steph.

Here is Wee Luna Faerie.

Here is June's theme...

Jumanji June

Is it a jungle out there in your stash? Give some love to the projects with animals or birds.

More projects than I thought have animals in them so either of the Giraffe projects or the Sampler

Shoehorning could be slightly harder here, I have 6 june projects in mind and only one contains an animal! One is better than none I guess!


Wish me luck!

It's me, you're not seeing things!

I can't believe it's been nearly 7 weeks since my last blog. I'll be doing a few blogs over the coming weeks to make an attempt at catching up. I'm going to write off the tusal and theme-a-licious for March and April, although I did do about 15 different projects in March if you count the craft show projects. Here are some of them. Both knitting projects were completed as was the MS chick.

So last month Laura and I did an Easter exchange and here are the fabulous goodies I received. The box had goodies for all the family.

Ok so here goes for describing it all!! There was some lovely fabric and wool tops for felting, dragon buttons, tissues and chocolates.

How cute is the stitched card! Laura made me a kilner pincushion jar for my ORTS and a cute chick stuffed with a Creme Egg and a beautiful biscornu.

If you look carefully you can see bunnies and chicks. It does have a special name but I can't remember. (sorry Laura!) The bottom has a lovely Easter Egg button that reminds me of Jasperware pottery.

Laura also sent my Hubby a very cute Binky and a cool bookmark. We were going to take the Binky's on holiday but I totally forgot so I'm afraid you don't get the story of when the Binky's went to Butlins!

So that was the fabulous Easter parcel I received from Laura, Here's what I sent...

I've had to borrow the pictures from Laura's blog as I forgot to take ones myself. There was the usual, buttons, charms, ribbon. Some Spring coloured wool and a bag of Easter treats. There are some small pieces of vintage Laura Ashley fabric too for Laura's Hexagon quilt.

Here is the Biscornu...It's made up of Margaret Sherry designs from an old cross stitcher. The chicks are rather cute!

I also had some fab goodies from Steph and I'll share those in my next post

I have been reading all your posts, but I'm sorry I've not commented, 7 weeks means an awful lot of blogs to read. I never cease to feel inspired by all your creations though.

Theme-a-licious Figural February wrap up

Figural February

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated projects some face time this month.

Not a huge amount done this month on my my Big Bang Theory chart. I did happen to be having a little look on Wee Little Stitches on Etsy and saw they had added Amy and Bernadette to the pattern and kindly offered anyone who'd brought the pattern the new characters for free. So I now have more to stitch and the great thing is my fabric is plenty big enough!!

Here is where I'm at with BBT, Penny all done and we have a headless and legless Raj too.

I did an exchange with Steph this week too and I know she is a fan - so I stitched her a Sheldon Cooper bookmark. Bazinga!

I've stitched a lot for friends this month so does that count too?!? Age old story of can't show you until they have received it though, so plenty of posts next month.

So looking forward to March... (My thoughts in green)

March Madness

Work on something different every day...it's madness...of the funnest possible kind.

Time to make a start on all those cover kits I think, although I may limit myself to just 15 projects as 31 WIP's would probably push me over the edge! It's Mothering Sunday and Mum's birthday too so there will be liitle projects for Mum too. I could easily start 31 projects though...

Theme-a-licious Figural February check in

So It's theme-a-licious time again and here's this months...urm...theme!

Figural February

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated projects some face time this month.

This has got to be my Big Bang Theory chart!

Ok, so only a teeny, tiny bit of a start on the Big Bang Theory chart. The design is from Wee Little Stitches on Etsy. I don't think this design will take a huge amount of time a it's very straight forward design. So here you can see Penny is not far off done. I'm hoping another session on it tonight, then we might see Raj appear too. I had planned on stitching on it last night but I got slightly side tracked by my new book - Is it just me by Miranda Hart. So very, very funny.

I did make this bookmark recently - I'm not sure if it was in January that it was stitched but it was certainly finished off this month. As it's a quote from CS Lewis (Author of the Chronicles of Narnia) I'm counting it as people! I did pinch this picture from Laura, it's recipient as I forgot to take a pic of it.

Hopefully I'll have a lot more to show you in the wrap up post. I've been stitching a lot this month for people so I think that counts as people populated!!!


Check out It's Geek to me for more Theme-a-licious updates and I'll be back with the wrap up on the 28th!

Have a great weekend. x

Theme-a-licious Jardin January round-up

So this was this months theme...
Jardin January

The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.

My original thoughts...
I have the perfect project for this - the poppy biscornu that I want to stitch to finish off my basket of biscornu challenge. The blackwork sampler I want to start also has flowers in it too.

I'm so glad it was an easy theme for me to get started on. As I showed you in the check in, I did the poppy biscornu and thank you for all of your lovely comments. I've tried to reply to as many of you as I can by email. Apologies to those who don't get a response, It's because you're a no-reply blogger and when I get my email notifications I don't get your email address. (You can change it in your settings if you want to to show email)

Crikey that was quite some tangent. So here is where I was when I last posted on the blackwork sampler

and here is the latest bit I've done. I've not stitched on it for a couple of days, hopefully it'll get an outing tonight as I've almost hit the half way point.

and the big picture, not the best picture, the light was almost gone when I got in from work this afternoon.

In case you were wondering the design is by Jane Greenoff and was featured in an ancient WOXS from back in 2006 (issue 114)

The optional christmas ornament SAL theme was tree or wreath so I'll claim the Christmas biscornu as that. Result!

Here is February's theme and my thoughts again...
Figural February

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated projects some face time this month.

This has got to be my Big Bang Theory chart!

I've got a couple of other February projects lined up, if I think very hard I can twist the theme to fit too!!!
To find links to the blogs of others taking part in Theme-a-licious click here
Happy stitching

Theme-a-licious - Jardin January Check-in

 

So, not a lot of stitching round here due to my M.E being a bit of a pig, but here is my first offical Theme-a-licious post. I hoped to have caught up with my biscornu so I could have made a start on my band sampler which is my main project for January's theme. Anyhoo, one of the designs I had left to do for my biscornu challenge was this one and as you can see it's almost done (big smiley face).

The design is from Kincavel Krosses called in rememberance, I decided a long time a go that I'd stitch this for the November biscornu and I have (well better late than never). It fits with the Jardin January theme quite well I think being a flower and all that!

I know you all saw this in my last post but I figured trees fitted the theme nicely too! It's one of Steph's amazing designs and you can find them on her blog here.



So my decision tonight is do I sew these two up or do I start work on the last of my biscornu???? I'm not usually one for having lots of projects on the go. I've chosen the buttons for these already so apart from the running stitch borders that need doing on the trees and on the poppy, Sewing up is all they need. I'm off to finish the back of the poppy one now before I cook tea (spaghetti and meatballs).

I'm hoping to get an hour on my quilt after tea and before the kids go to bed. I cut a load of fabric yesterday ready to make the hexagons to sew in. I've got 7 or 8 made up still to sew in, so thats my plan for later, then the big hex make begins later in the week!

To find out more about Theme-a-licious click on the page above. I did try and put the banner on but I'm a bit of a technophobe really and will wait for hubby to come home and help me. I clearly wasn't paying attention last time!
Have a good evening folks. x

updated to say Hubby home and he told me how to fix banner issue - yay!

Theme-a-licious 2013

Hi Folks,

Welcome to 2013 and my first post of the new year. Last year I read with interest a couple of blogs by people who had participated in Theme-a-Licious 2012. It was a really interesting concept and basically there are themes each month in which to base your stitching. I quite fancied giving it a go so I've signed up for the 2013 one. I've created a new page at the top of the blog so I'll keep progress in there as well as the updates on the 15th and last day of the month.

Here are the themes and written in green what I plan to stitch for that month.

Jardin January

The holidays were a little stressful...let's relax in a nice garden. Work on any piece with flowers or gardens.

I have the perfect project for this - the poppy biscornu that I want to stitch to finish off my basket of biscornu challenge. The blackwork sampler I want to start also has flowers in it too.


Figural February

Who are the people in your neighborhood...your WIP neighborhood, that is? Give your people-populated projects some face time this month.

This has got to be my Big Bang Theory chart!

March Madness

Work on something different every day...it's madness...of the funnest possible kind.

Time to make a start on all those cover kits I think, although I may limit myself to just 15 projects as 31 WIP's would probably push me over the edge!


Amazon April

Dip your needle into the vast swath of fabric dedicated to your BIGGEST projects!

There are 3 projects that fall into this one, the Anchor Sampler, My QS Iris and the Mother and Baby Giraffes.

Monochrome May

Pick a color, any color, then stitch only on projects that contain that color for the month!

Maybe brown or blue so that could be the Giraffes or my HAED

Jumanji June

Is it a jungle out there in your stash? Give some love to the projects with animals or birds.

More projects than I thought have animals in them so either of the Giraffe projects or the Sampler

Jubilee July

It's time to celebrate! What are you celebrating this year? Stitch on your holiday-related projects, OR find some WIPs you know you'll never finish and set them free.

Not sure about this one, maybe a couple of Christmas ornies and get a head start!

Airborne August

What's that soaring through the air with the greatest of ease? It's the things with wings on your WIPs!

Sampler again!!!


Sampler September

Whether you're stitching the alphabet over and over (and over), starting your own band (sampler), or marking some spots, this is your month!

...And again!

Opulent October

It's time to don your tiaras and bring the bling! Stitch on projects with sparkly fibers, beads or charms.

Another month where we see whats happening

No-Xs November

What can you make without making an X?? Blackwork, hardanger, embroidery, needlelace, and the list goes on! Don't panic...you can even backstitch for the month!

Maybe I'll get the blackwork kit I want for my birthday, But like I need an excuse to do blackwork!!

Detritus December

It's the end of the year...are there some projects you thought you'd have done by now? Let's take a walk down memory lane and start the new year with a clean plate.

Projects I'd have thought I'd have done by now...Probably all of the above!!


There is also an optional ornament/christmas decoration theme too. I've added them in just incase I decide to do one of those too.

January	tree or wreath
February	snowman (or snowlady!)
March	3D ornament
April	Santa or elves
May	any monochrome ornament
June	reindeer
July	your choice
August	angels or birds
September	verse
October	bells
November	hardanger or blackwork
December	your choice--or do some ornament finishing

Wish me luck... I'll be back tomorrow with my first finish of 2013!!