Lighthouses, cone of shame and a cross stitched gift

Hello Stitching Friends❗

What a crazy week this is turning out to be! I had plans to write my weekly post about Spring Into Summer New Start Binge on Monday or Tuesday the latest, but suddenly lots of things happened at once and this is the first chance I've had to sit down with my computer and show you what has happened stitching-wise since last week.

One of the things that happened this week is that my poor beagle suddenly got some kind of  nasty wart-thing on his tail, which he then managed to burst😲, which resulted in a bit of a mess... Since then I've kept his tail under close observation with lots of wound cleaning and he's had to wear the dreaded cone of shame, poor thing😟.

Thankfully the tail is looking a little bit better now, and he's feeling better himself, but he still has to wear the cone so I can make sure that he doesn't lick the wound yet. But I'm feeling hopeful that maybe I don't have to take him to the vet this time. I've had far too many expensive trips to the vet with this boy throughout the years😩.

Anyway, moving on to stitchy matters, the fact is that once again there hasn't been too much stitching going on that I can show you. I have worked on some cross stitched gifts for the future, and I have also done some knitting. However, on Sunday I started a new project as part of the Spring Into Summer New Start Binge, which is hosted by the lovely TIFF and RACHEL.

This time I picked a lovely lighthouse design by Cheryl McKinnon from Cross Stitch Crazy latest June issue. I'm planning to give it to my boat-loving father for Xmas.

My start this week is the picture on the top shelf.

 But I also have some dark blue aida fabric in my stash so I'm thinking that maybe I can stitch another one out of the four featured in the magazine with a dark background as a second gift for dad... As always I have so many plans😉. Knowing myself I think I'd better focus on finishing the first lighthouse picture😜.

Anyway, this is where I'm at. I love working on this one, but as usual I don't have all the threads required😒. I'm still hoping though that once I've added the colours I DO have, I may be able to find matching threads amongst the remaining colours in my stash. It helps that the picture is stitched in contrasting blocks of colours so hopefully I can be a bit flexible with the design🤞.
I must admit to becoming quite frustrated with my decreasing thread stash; I definitely need to order some more DMC threads as soon as I can afford it!

Finally I have a PROPER finish to show you... YAAAYYY!!!
I don't know if you remember the flower I stitched last week as part of the Spring Into Summer New Start Binge, but here it is once again...

I decided to turn it into a little keepsake for my friend's mother Anita who's past 90 and have various health issues. She's a lovely kind lady who has spoiled my dogs throughout the years. And since I wasn't able to give it to her in person, here is the picture proof that she received my little gift!

That cheeky smile goes straight into my heart💝! Hope you enjoy your little stitched gift, Anita!

That's it for now, and now I'm going to ponder which project is going to be my final start in the Spring Into Summer New Start Binge...🤔!

Happy Stitching Everyone💓.

Annie

A week of smalls - Bookmarks and Swedish Mother's Day

Hello Stitching Friends!

This Sunday past was Mother's Day here in Sweden, so I spent the whole week stitching smalls that I could turn into gifts - in this case bookmarks - and greeting cards. And since some of my family and friends read this blog I couldn't show any progress pics. I 'only' needed to finish four pieces, but since I had the appropriate magazines and patterns at hand I thought I might as well stitch a few more to keep for future events. 

I stitched one bookmark for my mum and I also made a pretty pink bookmark for myself at the same time.

Bookmark patterns from Cross Stitcher magazine issue 301.

I also stitched a couple of hearts from the magazine Enjoy Cross Stitch, Hearts & Roses from spring 2012, and I turned one of them into a greeting card for my wonderful mum.

I made a card and a bookmark for an aquaintance whose dog is a dear friend to my furbabies and who's going through a rough time. Sadly I don't have any children so personally I like to celebrate Dog mummy's day instead of Mother's Day.

The butterfly/lavender piece is from Enjoy Cross Stitching, house to home Spring 2013.

The bookmark is from the same magazine as in the above picture, although

I have made some changes in the design.

 Except for putting the finishing touches on the cards and bookmarks, I also started a couple of more smalls for future cards over the weekend.

Lovely cottage designs from Enjoy Cross Stitch, Cottage Gardens Spring 2015

I guess these would count as my starts for the Spring into Summer New Start Binge this past weekend. And don't forget to check out what gorgeous projects TIFF and RACHEL made a start on!

The past couple of days I haven't had the time nor energy to stitch, so now I'm desperate to sit down with all my lovely projects and just stitch along hour after hour. I also have a couple of new projects that I'm really look forward to stitching . For exemple I'm really looking forward to start on this lovely cottage picture by Lesley Teare, which is another gorgeous design from Enjoy Cross Stitch, Cottage Gardens Spring 1015.

Luckily I had quite a few of the threads I needed. Normally I would order DMC threads from UK or USA since it is much cheaper to buy them abroad than here in Sweden, but due to the pandemic I can't buy them abroad right now… So I'll just have to make due with the colours I have for the time being until I can order more threads abroad again.
Luckily I definitely 😂 have enough cross stitching projects to keep me busy until the world is back to some kind of normal again...🙏.

Happy Stitching,

Annie

Find me on Instagram...and on the couch crocheting:)

Hello Friends!

I'm still crocheting... as well as waiting for my stitching mojo to reappear:)

 I had a lovely birthday celebration with lots of lovely gifts and kind thoughts sent my way, and made me feel very grateful to have such lovely friends and family <3 <3. AND, I was lucky enough to receive some birthday cash, which meant that I could order some more PS charts online from the US!!! I'm sooo excited for them to arrive, and I can feel my mojo starting to come alive when I think of those gorgeous charts in my hands! Of course I still have to buy some more threads, but I'm hoping that after the sad news of the Brexit, I might be able to order some threads from England and benefit from the exchange rate. A sad state of affairs, but there it is. Since stitching stash is so expensive in Sweden you have to make the most of every opportunity that comes your way...!

You may have noticed something new on my blog...???
YES, I have joined the land of #hashtags and emojis and I now have my own Instagram account:
@handarbetsgumman (Swedish for 'the little woman who enjoy crafts'). So if you think I'm bad at updating the blog you're welcome to join me at Instagram at any time. I mostly show my crafty WIPs, which are all crochet-inspired at the moment, but when I'm back in the land of cross stitching I'm sure there will be plenty of pics of cross stitching to enjoy too.

Enough of my news. Here's some pics from the last couple of weeks:

My oldest furbaby looking for shade and escape from the heat.

My sunny seaside mandala (inspired by a crochet pattern from www.bautawitch.se.

My talented sister had wrapped my birthday gifts soo beautifully!

One of my gorgeous - if I may say so myself lol - crochet WIPs.

Homebaked birthday Pavlova and a lovely afternoon at my friend's place:)

My darling old boy is turning 11 years old in a few days time...Where did the years go?!

Celebrating Mid-summer in Sweden at my mum's allotment and my youngest
furbaby enjoyed resting under the wooden bench:) Cutie pie!

Another one of my crochet WIPs! Tulip Mandala pattern found HERE .

From my sister I got a hand-crafted notebook which I have turned
into a crafty-notes/planner book.

Annie

Birthday cards delivered!

Hello Everyone!

Over the weekend I've been stitching some birthday cards for family and friends who have birthdays around this time.

For my wonderful sister I stitched this card...

...and from a dear friend I made this card:

 

Both charts are from Enjoy cross stitch hearts & flowers (Spring 2012).

 

From Enjoy cross stitch House to home (Spring 2013) I picked this chart...

 

 

...and turned it into a card for an animal lover. I'm sure the recipient loves bees too lol.

 

I also stitched this freebie bookmark...

 

 

 ...from Cross Stitcher issue 269 as a birthday gift for the same animal lover. And I know for a fact that she had a pet bird at one time lol:)

 I often find that I'm close to running out of the provided threads when I stitch freebies, but in this case I'm pretty sure that I have enought threads left to stitch the cute bird design once again:) And since it was a fun stitch, I'm sure I will!

 

Although I have one more gift to work on, I must get back to the PS Santas. My Santa stitching buddy Gominam is speeding along with hers so I need to catch her up lol. Check out her wonderful progress while I get going on mine:)

 

Happy Stitching!

 

Annie

A bit of cross stitch and crochet and scrapbooking...

Hello Everyone!

 

Hope you're all doing well:)

Over here all my furbabies are back to good health again, thankfully!

 

As you can see I've removed all the Xmas decorations from the blogg - finally - and added a new header  (with much needed help from my sister). However, I'm still playing around with the colours etc so please bear with me for a while until I make up my mind on this very complicated matter LOL.

 

This week I picked up Festive Flurry again, and this is how far I had gotten before this week:

 

Tonight I've gotten this far!

 

I've finished almost all the colourful buildings, and now I'm left with some of the more boring areas like the snow and the bottom of the snowglobe. Still, I'm very excited about this project and I hope I can finish it soon; can't wait to put it up on my wall!

 

I've also finished the stitching part of my January Christmas ornament for the Christmas Ornie SAL ...

Designed by Lesley Teare from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 170

 

...which I feel quite proud of actually since I didn't get around to stitching the ornaments for November and December... I hope to do better this year and I'm off to a good start. However, I will save the finishing touches for later on in the year and do them all at once.

 

I've also gotten my crochet mojo back and started on a blanket inspired by the wonderful Lucie in Attic 24 . I have so many balls of different yarns laying around so I thought I'd start a leftover-yarn-blanket in order to lessen my stash. Good idea, right?!

 

Of course I had to do some form of colour coordination, and once I had started it looked so good...and I just had to buy some more balls of coordinating yarn LOL! It's supposed to be a leftover-yarn project, not a new yarn project...! I'm sure you've never done ANYTHING like this yourselves??? I know this is probably going to be a forever project, but I'm enjoying it and that's what counts, right?!

Lastly, I just HAVE to show you the beautiful handmade 'blogging' journal my sister has made for me:

 

I just can't wait to fill its beautiful pages...

 

 

...with lots of ideas for my three blogs...

 

 

 ...and all the other things that makes me treasure...

 

...being part of this wonderful blogosphere!

 

Thank you all for brightening up my life <3

 

Annie



 



Birthday gift and a cute stitching companion:)

Hello Everyone!

 

Happy New Year to you all and hope that your next year will be filled with stitches:)

I have been spending time with my Festive Flurry, but I can feel my attention starting to waver from this one, especially when I have to stitch browns and oranges - not my favorit colours. Therefore I definitely think before and after pictures might be appropriate right now and boost my inspiration:)

So this was progress before the New Year...

 

 

...and now I'm here...

 

Actually, I have done pretty well so far:) It really helps me to see a before and after shoot on my projects, especially those days when it feels like I'm getting nowhere with my projects...!

Today was my mum's birthday, so I wrapped up my gift in this gorgeous crafty wrapping paper...

...I found in my favourite craft shop. Isn't it wonderful? Perfect for homemade gifts:)
So what did I make for my mum? Well I made her a cushion with a crafty theme...

...and I love how it turned out:) Here's a close-up of the cross stitched section:

The design is from Cross Stitcher issue 287 and the designer is Lucie Heaton. I changed the thread colours quite a bit in order to be able to use some of my own stash of threads and use even more bright colours since my mum favours bright colours. The original chart was meant as a picture where you could attach real buttons and saftey pins for added texture, but since this was going to be a cushion I added those things by stitching them instead:)

Remember I told you I had TWO projects I wanted to make a start on?? Well, now I have started to prepare the aida fabric for that next project by stitching gridlines, so in a day or two I should be able to make another start:)) But I am determined to continue with the other two favorite projects too; I know that it suits me to have several fun projects on the go so I can switch between them depending on my mood:)

Finally I just have to share a super cute pic of my smallest furbaby who always keeps me company on the sofa while I stitch:)

He likes to snuggle down in the nearest cosy blanket and distract me with his cuteness lol!
In case you can't tell, he's a mix between Chihuahua, Dashound and Beagle; the devotion of a Chihuahua, the body and fierceness of a Dashound and the colouring of a Beagle!!!

Happy Stitching Everyone!

Annie

Xmas books, Xmas stitching and Xmas boxes!

Hi Everyone!

 

Right now my life seems to be in a place where I don't find time to stitch as much as I would like : (

I am part of a great Swedish community of Christmas blogs and for us the run-up to Christmas 2015 has already kicked off so running my Swedish Christmas blog takes up a lot of time . Then I also have my Swedish day-to-day blog where I write updates every day . Then I'm also trying to keep up with all my various favorite blogs , as well as finding time to start this year's Christmas planning . Luckily my lovely sister has gifted me two lovely handmade books to help keep track of everything Christmas! First I received this stunning Christmas notebook/diary . . .

 

 

. . . that she made for me ! It is absolutely gorgeous and you can see more pictures of it in THIS post : )

Then she also made a new beautiful Christmas Planner for me . . .

 

 

. . . that I cannot wait to use A LOT in the coming months : )

 

I have found time to do a few more Xmas tags (designed by Fiona Crouch) . You may remember that I did some where I stitched with red thread on white aida , but now I have done some where I used red aida and white thread . . .

 

 

. . . and I really like the look of these : ) I just love the little Xmas charts too - so easy and quick to stitch ! Absolutely perfect to stitch when time is short : )

 

My red and white Xmas picture is also coming along slowly . . .

 

 

 

. . . but I have to order some more red thread before I can finish this one .

 

Today I guess I could have sat down with some stitching , but I had an itch to do some match box decorating instead : 

 These will be perfect for small gifts around Christmas : )

The last time I did something like this was last autumn so it took me a while to find my creative juices again but I'm quite pleased with how my decorated match boxes turned out in the end : )

Although I really should be stitching as often as I can (plenty of stitched Xmas gift projects waiting for my attention), it is really nice to switch it up with another kind of craft every now and then : )

Happy stitching and crafting!

Annie

Stitchy gifts - received and made!

Hi everyone!

 

I have received a wonderful gift by Melanie (http://melaniethewipslayer.blogspot.se/ ) in the post !

It is a lovely little needle minder with a wonderful little Stitchy Bug! It is just soo sweet!

 

 

I also received a beautiful card from Melanie with a lovely Mirabilia design on the front !

 

Thank you sooo much for my lovely gifts , Melanie ! Receiving them really made my day and I'm really looking forward to using my cute little needle minder : )

 

Today I had to finish my gifts for my aunt's 60th birthday .

First up was the little stitched heart . . .

. . . that I have now finished putting together : )

Then I put together a doubled birthday card and it was all going very well . . . until I realised that I had decorated it upside down ! Oh nooo ! There was nothing left to do but to cut it off down the middle and write the greeting on the back of the single card . . . Oh well , it is the thought that counts , right ?

 

I'm not too keen on the finishing process when it comes to my stitching , but once I got going today I felt in the groove and carried on finishing a few more cards for future family birthdays : )

When I make cross stitch cards I like to decorate them in a simple way - or not at all - so the stitching can be the focus of the card .
 

 

This is a Durene Jones-design that I stitched a long time ago (I don't remember from which magazine either) . . .

 

. . .  so it felt really good to finally turn it into a actual card that I can use : )

 

Finally I finished putting together this little sweet picture . . .

I am not sure where this one will end up in the end , but for now I am VERY happy to be able to put it in my 'Finished Projects' box !

Happy Stitching Everyone!

Annie