Gifted Gorgeousness - September

Hi Folks,

Better late than never with GG. Before I start I just want to say I haven't forgotten about the giveaway. I'll keep it open until the end of the month as I'm a bit behind with my blogging (ME sucks, it really does) If you missed the post you can find it here Blogversary Giveaway.

On to GG...

Jo's Big Birthday Blog Hop.

It's Jo's Big Birthday Blog Hop!!

Jo at Serendipitous Stitching is celebrating her 50th birthday with a big blog hop. Click on the title at the top to go to Jo's blog where you can read the entries in order. this is what Jo has to say about 1985...

1985 - Jo was 19.  This was a year of massive changes for Jo.  She sat her 'A' levels in the June then got a summer job working in the bar at a local holiday camp.  She lived on site with her boyfriend and learned how to cook for herself when the takeaway was shut!  In October Jo started her first proper job as a Trainee Insurance Broker with Sedgwicks Marine Department in the nearby city of Norwich.  She earned the princely sum of £286 per month.

And now for me... 1985 was the year I turned 8. It was the year I went up to Junior school being taught by Mrs Hemsley, who drove a Morris Minor. I had already learnt to sew and had completed a long stitch of a fawn in a green frame. I still have it somewhere but after the trauma of (unsuccessfully) trying to find a photograph of me at Mum's yesterday (seriously, that woman could be on hoarders) I am not venturing into my garage for it. So I had a collar length brown bob which my mum turned under with the hot brush every Sunday evening. I called it the rounded pyramid. It wasn't my favourite hairstyle. Holidays were spent at my Grandparents in Surrey, who celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary that year with a big party. I wore a red dress and asked the DJ to play Paul McCartney's the Frog Chorus. It was met with murmurs of disdain, my defence was I was 8 and didn't discover Wham! until 1986. The year ended with my parents separating. 

Blogversary giveaway.

Hi everyone.

Yesterday as I was writing my GG post I realised it was I my 5th Blogversary. (Thank you Facebook for reminding me) I must say my stitching style has changed a bit, I think mainly because I see such wonderful designs you all stitch that I must stitch too! Thank you to you all for visiting and all your lovely comments on all I do. 

So in the spirit of GG, as I've had some wonderful wins this year and to celebrate 

I've had a dig in my stash box and found 5 kits that 5 lucky followers can win. All you have to do is say which kit you would like to win and tell me what your favourite stitchy/crafty gift has been. (Mine was full set of DMC from hubby)

Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello friends

GG time again, hosted by Jo at Serendopitous Stitching where we celebrate stitchy supplies gifted to us or stitching we will gift to others. It's been a pretty rubbish stitching month I must say, I've barely made progress on anything. 

First up is Plum Street Samplers 12 Days of Christmas. Day 5 is finished except for the 5 golden rings as I don't want to crush the metallic thread so I'll do that at the end. I've started day 6 too. So I'm using gifted threads from hubby. (And the chart was gifted by the designer)

Jo's linky party

Hi Friends

So Jo at serendipitous stitching is hosting a summer linky party and this is what Jo has to say...

 The title is The Tenuous Shoe-Horn.  We all know how much I love to shoe-horn a project into a theme and there has been a degree of this with the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL too, all in good fun. All you have to do is make a post and link-up on that date, or very close to it, showing a stitched project with a tenuous link to the theme.

Just one July - final post.

Hello

Just one July has been great fun and I'm really pleased with how I've progressed. Thank you to Justine for the idea and for the encouragement. 

Here's where I was up to from my last JOJ post. 

Here's how it's grown over the month...

Smalls SAL - July

Hey friends

Me again, smalls sal time, hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus. 

Lots of small finishes since last month. I've shared most already so here's a quick recap. 

Travelling box makes

Laura's birthday makes

I still love those dragons and the love to create sign. 

So in to this month's smalls finish. Here are the butterfly cards all made up. 

They were from Crazy magazine with the green one being an extra requested by my daughter for her teacher. We gave them along with these fab little decorations made by my friend Clare who has a fab Etsy shop called Pretty Flamingo Designs.

Something that wasn't small at all but was amazing that I just had to share.  My eldest left primary school last week and one of the mum's made this rather marvellous cake. 

The figures at the front are all the teachers and they are a brilliant likeness. The pictures are all the kids that were in T's class. 

My August small will be one of my wipocalypse pieces, fingers crossed for a finish. 

Happy stitching friends

Just one July - a little bit more

Hello,

Tis me again with another update on the sampler. As you know I am focusing on one project this month - Anchor Traditional Sampler. 

This was where I was at last Sunday 

It's been a really busy week as my biggest left primary school and I've been doing planning for 4 summer craft mornings at my church in August. We had approx 40-50 kids each session last year so it's a busy one. I also have holiday club at the end of August so I'll be making cowboy themed crafts with loads of kids for that. 

So back to JOJ. Here's this weeks progress. 

This just leaves me with 410 stitches, 20 French knots and an evenings worth of 

back stitch and the top half will be done. 

Here's a little close up of the band I've worked on this week. The pretty hearts, crowns, stars and thing in the middle 

I'm going to carry on until 4th August  as that's when my wipocalypse challenge starts so I wonder how far I'll get...

Happy stitching friends 

Wipocalypse

Hey folks 

I'm a bit late with this month's wipocalypse post. It's been a crazy busy week as my eldest has left primary school today. We've had various leavers events this week so I've been dishing out drinks at the inflatables party on Wednesday, leavers disco and parents drinks in the pub last night and tonight we've had a family movie. We watched Ant Man, I did find some bits rather amusing but for the most it seemed rather predictable. 

Any hoo, back on to wipocalypse. I've not done a huge amount on the sampler this week with everything that's been going on but I did finish the butterflies. 

They were a cover kit from Crazy. I managed to squeeze a 4th butterfly on the fabric and my daughter picked greens for the final one. 

So on to next month's wipocalypse:

Olympic Stitching Challenge!

(Pinched from measi's blog) As we go into the July WIPocalypse, it’s time once again to start thinking about Olympic stitching plans. If you do want to participate in the Olympic Stitch-a-Long challenge, we’ll be running three mini “competitions,” and it’s up to you to decide how you want to approach it.  Hopefully one of these options appeals to you!

1. a rotation challenge (for those who like to work on a bunch of different pieces)
2. a distance challenge (for those one at a time stitchers, or anyone else who wants to do some serious focusing on a particular piece)
3. a color challenge (stitch only in the colors of the olympic rings on your WIP pieces, OR… your nation’s flag).

So here are my plans:

Plum street sampler 12 days - finish days 5 to 8

That blimmin' winter biscornu - finish the thing!!

Bunny card - finish 

Blackwork seasons - finish summer and any more progress I can make. 

My plan is to do 3 days on 12 days and then rotate daily through the rest and then back to the start. Theoretically this will cover points 1 and 2. I love the idea of the Olympic Rings challenge - 12 days covers red and green, biscornu is stitched on blue fabric and of course black work covers the black! I've nothing yellow so I'll shoehorn something in somewhere! 

I might even pinch Jo's medal idea and award myself gold medals if I complete any of the above, plus bonus medals for anything I make significant progress on during that period if I reach my targets. 

This challenge runs 5th - 21st August so I shall carry on with the anchor sampler until the 5th and then see how things are doing. I've a few new kits in the basket calling me rather loudly...

Have a great weekend. 

Edited as didn't publish Friday night. 

Just one July - the halfway point

Hello friends

I just wanted to say before I show you my progress that I'm so grateful to have new followers, I'm sorry if I've not followed you yet, I'm writing all my blog posts from my phone and it's really tricky to follow new blogs from that as well as insert links into the posts. 

So on to JOJ. Hosted by Justine where we focus on one piece for the month. My chosen piece is my traditional sampler by Anchor. This is where I was at last Sunday. You can't see the one row of letters I have done in this picture but they are there! 

Here is where I'm up to as of last night. 

I might actually have been a bit further along was it not for the fact I had to frog and restitch the tree and flower as I'd missed a row out on the tree and started the blue flower petals aim the wrong place. Here they are all fixed. 

I love the little dogs and I'm surprised by how much a little bit of backstitch makes a difference. 

This leaves me with about 1200 stitches for the top half along with some back stitching on the flower border at thetop and  French knots on the trellis.  I'm dreading the French knots as mine are so hit and miss.  

I've also been working on the butterflies whenever it's not practical to have the sampler out. I've a couple of stitches. To do on the yellow and red ones, a bit of the blue left and as you can see almost all of the green one. They'll be made up into cards for the children's teachers so I have until Wednesday to finish them. They are not much fun to stitch as the threads and fabric are of lets say typical cover kit quality and the blues are very hard to tell apart. I'm using my own threads for the green one so hopefully it'll be a bit easier. Not the best pics - sorry. 

Hope you're all having a great weekend. 

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

Just one July - week one

Hello lovely stitchy friends

Just one July is a little sal and the brainchild of Justine. It is basically a month where we stitch on just one project. My chosen project for the month  is my Traditional Sampler by Anchor. 

I've been stitching on the sampler for a week now and I'm really pleased with my progress. I'm completely on target to get the top half completely done. Many of you commented about how the house/church (I've decided it's a church as it has a cross on top) would make up most of it but it's actually only about a quarter. 

So being that we're a quarter of the way through the challenge, here is the church all done. 

As most of the motifs are in pairs I should be able to get a pair done each evening with a couple of exceptions. My plan for the weekend is to get the other urn and fruit tree and then the planter/trellis by the church. 

I also have my handbag project, which is 4 butterflies to make into cards for the children's teachers. I stitch around 15 mins a day on these on the bus. Well try and stitch, it can be a bit bumpy! 

I'll be back on Friday with an epic GG post with 10 stitchy makes that were all gifted in the last month. 

Have a great weekend. 

Just one July

Hi folks

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my mini stitching marathon, welcome too to my new followers - I'm inching ever closer to 100 followers. Eek. 

So I've decided to join in with Justine's "Just one July" My chosen piece is the Anchor Traditional Sampler which I recently got back out. 

So here is where I got to last time. The total design has around 13,000 stitches in and I've around 9,000 to go. I hope to get 5,100 done in July, which will see the top half done. 

Good luck if you're taking part too. I'll try and do a weekly progress update throughout July.  

Smalls Sal June

Hey everyone 

A very quick post this month to share the finished ABC sal. I had great fun stitching this one so thank you to Ele the designer for sharing her pattern. 

Last month I just had one square left to do and here it is. I added the zero too as I felt it needed one to finish the numbers. 

So here is the finished design all framed and ready to go on the wall.

I added the the final box at the bottom so it would fit the frame, using stitches from various parts of the sampler.  

In other small news I went to the hobbycrafts show at the NEC last Friday and brought a SMALL amount of stash home. The show was the first July one and was about a quarter the size of the normal ones in March and November and was a bit disappointing to say the least. I did get to see the new range of DMC coloris threads and brought 3 to try. I picked up 3 lovely cards and some book binding glue I wanted. Assorted cotton reels for various projects including a Christmas garland I want to create. The tiny frame was brought with miniature stitching in mind. We did stop off at Tortilla for lunch and had yummy burritos. 

I may have then brought stationary and craft bits in Paperchase and Tiger on Saturday too, to compensate for Friday's disappointment. 

Happy stitching friends 

Wipocalypse June

So here we are on the other side of the Monday marathon madness. I managed 3.5 hours of stitching and stitched on 6 different projects. I actually got excited when the Blackwork came out of the jar! 

So the six were...

3 of the butterflies 

Also to come out was the 12 days of Christmas. 

I managed to get a whole band done on the blackwork seasons sampler. 

Lastly was a little Dragon Dreams dragon I decided to stitch for hubby for our wedding anniversary, I did put in 2 sessions on it one when I got up and then in the evening. It was a good thing as I couldn't find the anniversary card I brought for hubby so frantically finished the dragon and made it up into a little card. 

I've decided that I'm going to do it again tonight, but take the anchor sampler out of the pot as I'm doing that for Just One July. It was actually a lot of fun. 

Lastly the monthly question:

Question of the Month

Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?

I'm not sure it really makes a difference really. My stitching bug wanders off whenever it pleases, I often have a big hiatus in January but that's about it!

Happy stitching friends 

What was I thinking!

Hello everyone, 

Serendipitous Jo is definitely an enabler. Not only does she show us some amazing stitching using stunning threads and fabric, she has these mad ideas to work on all her WIPS on the longest day (Monday 20th) and invites fellow bloggers to join in.  I must have been bonkers to agree to join and promptly dug out my 7 WIPS and then started 5 cards too (4 butterflies and a bunny) ready for next month. So tomorrow will see me work on these 12 projects for 30 minutes each and we'll see how many I get to. I'll post the results in my Wipocalypse post this week. 

Not pictured is the little dragon dreams dragon I'm working on for my wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Last minute decision to make something yesterday so I'm stitching like mad in between cooking a roast for Father's Day and the tennis  and F1. 

The projects are all written down in the jar so I can pick out which to stitch and ready in the basket so hopefully I'm all good to go. 

Wish me luck!

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. 

Long time, no see

Hello lovely stitchy buddies,

Well today is glorious and even the up hill walk to school hasn't dampened my mood. Waiting at the top were all these Ox Eyed Daisies. There were several big patches of them. They've clearly come  out en masse over half term. 

On Saturday I decided once I had finished the latest square of the ABC sal to give a very old WIP some love. So at 4am when I couldn't sleep I put my lap frame back together (as you do). My in laws brought me this kit for Christmas 2013 and I started it summer of 2014 I think. Many of my followers may not have even seen my meagre progress on this up to this point. It's that old. 

So the kit...Traditional sampler by Anchor. It's stitched on 14ct aida and measures a whopping 12" x18". If I was starting the kit now I'd probably swap the aida for some linen or evenweave. 

So this was where I had gotten to. I'm my mind I thought I'd done more but clearly not. 

I decided I'd finish off the top band yesterday which was 532 stitches and today sees it here...

It still needs a bit of back stitch on the leaves. I'm in a bit of a dilemma as the chart shows back stitch around the flowers in red, but the kit picture doesn't show them backstitched. The chart only has 5 other very small motifs with backstitch. The 2 snails and the steps to the house do and that looks fine as it it seems to create a bit of a 3D look. The butterflies have a back stitched outline in red and look a bit odd. So after that long ramble...what you you all think?

I've decided to stitch this for a week then put it aside whilst I stitch a birthday present and then pick it back up for the whole of July. Justine is continuing the success of 'faithful April' and doing 'just one July' where she focuses on one project for the month. She's invited fellow bloggers to join her. I will cheat slightly and have 2 projects on the go as I shall do the sampler for my main project as it falls into GG and wipocalypse and have a small travelling project that will go in my handbag for the bus journeys and sitting at the park at that will be for the smalls sal. I'm actually really excited about seeing how much I can get done. I'd love to get the top half done. It's a huge challenge as it's just over 7000 stitches. 

So I'll see you all for GG next week. Time for another GG - my favourite Gilmore Girls! Have a great week.