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.

My Birthday goodies

Hello me again! 

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my recent posts. I'm hoping to get round as many blogs as I can over the coming weeks. 

So I celebrated my birthday last week and received some lovely presents from friends. 

I had a boxful of wonder from Steph. 

So in the box was a set of pegs with days of the week on, some Christmas fabric and a huge bag of variegated threads. 

Steph sent me one of the finished pieces from when she stitched a travelling pattern recently. We're going to hang it in our bedroom. 

Steph made me an amazing needle book. Here you can see the front and back of it. 

Steph also made me two gorgeous brooches. I've worn the larger one already. 

Lastly Steph made me this gorgeous shall. The colours are very me and I wore it to work on Friday as it goes with my favourite jumper very well! 

So all of those wonderful goodies were from Steph. 

I also had lots of giraffe goodness from Laura who has been squirrelling away giraffe themed goodies all year! 

Laura made me a very cute little giraffe and giraffe granny squared bag stuffed full with goodies.

The gorgeous granny square bag contained giraffe print and a second piece with African animals on it. There were some gorgeous buttons and a fab wooden ruler which I absolutely love! There was a pretty embroidered giraffe too. Here's a bit of a close up. 

I had a lovely scarf from my best friend and some crochet hooks from hubby.  

I also had lots of chocolate, yellow roses and a cosy onesie. 

I'll be back later in the week with a bit of a bits and bobs kinda post. Have a good week :-)

Birthday treats

Well today is my birthday and I've been very lucky to recieve some gorgeous cards and gifts from my crafty friends. So cue alot of pictures of the lovely cards and presents made by my very talented Bubble friends.

The wonderful Laura sent me this amazing parcel of Giraffe themed presents. I do love my Giraffes and I was overwhelmed with these. As you can see there is a very cute ami that my daughter would like to claim, Fab card, earrings and phone charm and crochetted brooch made by Laura's Mum. There is also the most amazing biscornu, designed especially for me by Laura, using a Giraffe design from an old Cross Stitcher. So here are the close ups...

And the back...

The Earrings

The phone charm and crochetted brooch...

Here are the handmade cards I've recieved so far from the Bubblers in the Thread Exchange.

Well, thanks for stopping by, I'm off to town with the family, Thom wants to go to the local Muesum. Have a fab weekend everyone. xx