March Tusal and Mothering Sunday

Just a very quick post to show you my last months ORT's.  February was a good stitching month as it shows here, but who knows what next month will be like! It's been a bit light on the stitching so far. Stitchy bug has moved back to the 1970's and is on a 3 day week or a go slow, whichever mood suits at the time. This isn't all that convenient for me as I've got things to do, don't you know! the link to Daffycats blog is on my side bar for those of you who want to know what it's all about.

The London tin is my little pot for gathering the ORTs each month before I put them into the TUSAL jar. Here is the year so far all in the little jar.

I had a lovely Mothering Sunday with flowers and chocs from my Mum to me! I had a Formula one 2013 guide from the children and from hubby I had a Kindle Fire!!!!!! Awesome or what!!! Hubby also treated me to 4 Mouseloft kits and some wool in Hobbycraft on Saturday and brought some beautiful fabric for me to make him a cushion and kindle case...(cue stash pics!) The fabric was rather hard to photograph,but it is a chinese brocade with phoenix and dragons on.

You can see my current knitting WIP with the wool, but to reveal what it will become would be telling ;-)
It was nice to pick up the needles after the best part of 12 months and just knit infront of the TV, whilst half watching Lewis.

Ooh nearly forgot, Steph sent me another piece of her hand dyed fabric on Saturday, My new piece is on the right and you can see it with the other piece she sent me a couple of weeks ago on the left. Steph has some more beautiful pieces in her Folksy shop here

Right time to I still need to read the chapter of the book we are studying at the Mums Bible study this morning.

I'll be back on Friday with March Madness. Have a good week everyone

101 update - the 10% mark

Another quick update as it's been about 6 weeks since the last.

Days remaining: 796
Things completed: 12
Percentage: 11%
In progress: 27

So I've done two Craft swaps with Steph (biscostar below) and McKenna - the card is below. I'd not swapped with either of these beofre so that was great.

Completed my 5 crafts off of pinterest boards. (Bauble wreath, Biscostar, CS Lewis bookmark, Crayons , Snowflake feltie)

I've eaten lots of ice cream, I've tried the following Ben and Jerry's flavours - Core berry White, Winterberry brownie, Core Karamel sutra, cookie dough.

I've tried a new craft with the friendly plastic, something I''ve never done before so that was good fun.

I'm still reading lots and you can see my progress in the 50 books challenge. The movies haven't been going quite so well, but plenty of time as I only need about 18 more movies. It's my own fault as I only really like rom coms and some action films, so I do limit the field a little.

My friend Janet is doing the 101 too (I blame her for getting me into it1) you can find her blog here, she'd love some new followers and has some really interesting things for her list.

Thanks for stopping by, I'm off to stitch, after all it is March Madness!!!

How I spent my Saturday

Saturday I had a lovely lovely day meeting up with fellow blogger and friend Laura. I went down on the train and had a lovely morning seeing the sights and where Laura works (very grand indeed!) Stopping off  for a vanilla latte and doing a spot of shopping. Well if you visit somewhere new you have to check out the craft shops :-D We then wen't back to  Laura's and had lunch and spent the afternoon drinking tea and chatting.

I couldn't go empty handed so I made a few bits for Laura. First is this little hanging, backed in crown fabric. I love this pattern and it works well as a hanging and a bookmark. I love the effect of white on red.

I made another biscostar using these designs from a german blog here and there is also a link for sewing them up too.

So here are the top and bottom, stitched in a lovely vari thread from Dinky Dyes called daydream.



I also stitched Tarragon from Steph's designs to live in the little castle I brought Laura last year from the local Victorian Fayre, I didn't post it to her as it was rather fragile.

I took down with me a few bits in the form of some fabric and buttons from the Creative Craft Show and also the first Agatha Raisin for Laura to try. Here are the bits I picked up whilst I was there, the fabric looks like it has been cross stitched, so will be great in my quilt.

Laura made some yummy chocolate and strawberry cakes (pics on her blog) and made a little owl for me and gave me some fabric and buttons.

So a huge thank you to Laura and to her Hubby for a great day. I'm very much looking forward to doing it again soon. 

Malvern Creative Craft Show

Hi Everyone

I thought I'd share with you my day at the Malvern Show. It's much smaller than the ones at the NEC, but as it's closer to home and as a friend had won two tickets, who was I to refuse a free ticket :-)

One of the main reasons for going was to do the workshops.

The first one was called Magical Effects and the basic concept was to use nylon organza and cut and fuse it with a soldering iron. It was great fun, although I did get a little muddled with my seams! Here is my sampler piece...

The top right was made up using 6 strips of organza and they were cut and fused to form the patchwork. The bottom left was made up two organza squares with organza confetti sandwiched between the sheets and using a metal template the flowers were cut out with the iron. A third organza square was added to the bottom and then the flowers fused back on in the centres. Here is me working on my piece at the show.

The other workshop was with free motion embroidery. Now I'm a bit nervous of things like this, My machining skills are very limited, but my friend Vickie wanted to do this workshop so I decided to go for it. I'm so, so glad I did as it was great fun. We were using felt to make an aplique piece and here is mine.

There were die cutting machines with bird and flower templates and basically we had free reign with the colours and how we laid our piece out. I loved the teacher Jan Linnet's advice - one wobbly line looks like a mistake, two is a design feature, so each shape was sewed round at least twice! Good thing really as my lines were very wobbly. I'm planning on turning it into a cushion for my stitching corner, and will be getting a free motion foot for my machine.  Not bad for an hours work!

Although I didn't do a workshop, I did see a demonstration for friendly plastic and brought a kit.

Here are some of my first attempts. I did it as soon as I got back from the show.

So here is the stash I brough...Felting tops and Angelina

A couple of Mouseloft kits...

Fat quarters, labels, buttons and a little kit to make a quilted needle book (bottom right)

I had a fab day and best I now get saving for the next one!

Biscornu swap with Steph

Steph very kindly offered to do a swap with me to enable me to complete one of my challenges on my 101 list that was (I also did a swap with McKenna so double tick!) We decided to do a biscornu swap and here is what I sent Steph...

So to the close ups...a biscostar...top and bottom or bottom and top!

I will find the pattern and share the link with you all. It's stitched on fruit tea dyed lined in a pretty vari thread from dinky dyes called Aussie dreams.

I also sent Steph the Sheldon bookmark you saw yesterday, some Pez for her minnie mouse, a cute notebook and a bag of bits.

Steph in return sent me this most amazing, generous, and breath taking parcel. I did wonder why postie couldn't get it through the door so when hubby brought a rather large (for a biscornu) box from the sorting office, I found it full of this goodness...

So sitting on the hand dyed linen  which steph dyed for me for a blackwork project is a gorgeous charm pack of fabric in greens, some little charms and buttons, a candle, crochetted heart and an angel cookie cutter.

This fab card...

and the most amazing biscornu I've ever seen. It's a stunning 15 sided one with a matching mini one.

It is truly breathtaking. I must admit I'm in a little bit of shock about it all! I'm off for a sit down!

Happy Stitching.

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...

Needlecraft Haven - Monthly challenge

Hi everyone,

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend. I've spent a lot of mine stitching so can't be bad! I managed to get 4 things finished this weekend so I'm very pleased :-) The only down side is that I can't reveal any until  later this week.

I'm sorry if I haven't had chance to visit your blogs this week. I've read most of them on my phone but it's rather hard to comment, especially if you have the verifier on. We had a bit of a plumbing nightmare this week and unfortunatly as a consequence we are having to share thre computer. Normal service should be resumed this week hopefully.

I do have a finish to show you. I joined Needlecraft Haven after seening the lovely things Jo had stitched during the course of last year in the Monthly Stitching Challenge. So here is my first piece It's a design by Threadwork Primitives and I stitched it to be a wedding sampler for Hubby and I as we've been married 10 years this June.

Here's a close up of it - It's stitched on cream evenweave using DMC threads. I altered the colours slightly to be a little brighter and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  Hubby really likes it too - which is a bonus!!

I'm hoping to get it on the wall in the lounge later this week. My stitching is slowly taking over!!! I'll be back later in the week to show you the biscornu I made for Steph for our exchange and with a wrap up for theme-a-licious and also a 101 update.

Have a great evening. Happy crafting.