A stitchy round-up of the week

Hello Everyone!

First I want to apologize for not having had the time to catch up with all your lovely blogs this week. I've been busy with baking sweet goodies, seeing friends and watching LOTS of sports on the telly. I'm a huge sports fan and with a cross country skiing tour in Canada and World Championship in Biathlon and many other sports on the telly right now there just haven't been time for blog reading. Especially since I also have a Swedish BLOG about my everyday life with my dogs, and I post every day on that blog... So, all in all there just hasn't been enough hours in the day lately, but I hope to catch up with you all very soon since I miss spending time with my blogging friends!!

Anyway, moving on to stichy matters...
During the week I only stitched a few SMALLs. There was this little sewing machine...

From Cross Stitch Crazy issue 150
Designer: Diane Machin

 And I stitched this wolf...

From Cross Stitch Crazy issue 214
Designer: Durene Jones

 ...which I also posted on Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics SAL .  This is a SAL where we show the projects we work on on Fridays.

Since I hadn't found much time for stitching during the week, I wanted to get some stiching done during the weekend. Thus I dug out my Leap Year start which is going to look like this...

 

...one day far, far away in the distant future lol. Luckily my sister managed to enlarge the black and white chart for me, so now I can actually read the chart without getting an headache. I still have to add the gridlines so I'm slowly getting around to that. It takes a long time to do though since it is a large piece of aida. I have made a start in the middle though, and I chose to focus on the black windows. Mainly because they stand out on the chart lol.

With them in place it feels easier to imagine the rest of the piece. But I can tell that this is going to be a very slooow process for me. The most difficult part is holding the large piece of aida since I stitch in hand. I know - I should use a hoop but I just don't like them. So I'm going to do my best and enjoy the process of flapping around with the aida, and trying to keep my place on the black and white chart. If I can do an hour here and an hour there maybe I'll have a happy dance in about...five years time?? Oh well, at least I have started lol.

Having spent some time on my Fairytale Castle, it was a HUGE relief to pick up my recent start Christmas Town by Emma Congdon! Such a small piece of aida, and a colour chart LOL! This is where I was when I picked it up this weekend:

When I was going to stitch some orange buildings I didn't enjoy the colour the chart stated. To me it just seemed too dark and not vibrant enough for the design. So I dug through my stash and found another orange shade that I was happier with.

Above you can see the darker, original orange Anchor thread above the new orange DMC shade. It doesn't look to be much difference on the picture above, but I think it made a big differerence to the design and to my enjoyment of stitching with a brighter colour:)

This is where I stopped today:

 I'm really enjoying stitching all the bright buildings:) Yet again I don't have all the thread shades yet, but hopefully by the time I have to have them I've been able to order them:) By the way, can you spot the little street light?! It's soo cute I just had to stitch it today - I just love those little quirky details in this design!

That's it from me for now!
Hope you've all had a nice weekend with lots of time for stiching:)

Annie

Stitchy Saturday with a Happy Dance!

Hello Everyone!

Today has been a perfect day in my life; lots of stitching and lots of sports on the telly!
Yesterday I started stitching on a cute little blackwork heart and I showed my progress on the Friday Frolics SAL . Today I finished it and I'm very pleased with it:)



From Cross Stitch Crazy issue 203
Designer: Lesley Teare

 I used some bright freebie threads from an old issue of Cross Stitcher and it was a really fun stitch! I enjoy doing blackwork, and I especially enjoy the speed with which a blackwork project grows lol:) And using other colours except for black is really fun; I'm thinking of doing some blackwork in bright pink och a bright orange:)

Today I also dug out an UFO that has been in my to-finish pile for a couple of years. It's from a set of four Stitchers' sayings by Rhona Norrie, and I have already stitched one of them:



Cross Stitch Crazy issue 165

The second one that became a UFO was almost finished. I just had a tiny bit of backstitch left and a bunch of french knots to do, but for some reason I didn't finish it... And then the amount of french knots I had left to do put me off...well, you can imagine what happened. Other exciting projects came along and one more project ended up on the UFO pile...
But I came across it again during the week and I realised that now that I'm becoming comfortable with beads, I could actually replace the french knots with beads and then I would have a UFO-finish! So today I looked through my beads, and whilst the original chart had french knots in a pale blue colour, I really wanted to go for beads that would pop against the fabric and the rest of the design. Therefore I picked yellow beads...

...and this is how it turned out:) Bright and colourful:) And I can do a Happy Dance! Yay!

I'm in such a cross stitching mood right now; if I can just sit and stitch with a needle in my hand everything's alright in my world:)

Hope you've all found some time for stitching this weekend!

Annie

A UFO finish!!!

Hello Everyone!

I'm doing a very happy dance over here in Sweden!!

Why??

Well, tonight I have finished my Swedish Santa UFO that I started over ten years ago!!!

I decided to stitch on it today as part of my Friday Frolicing , and it looked like this when I started stitching on it midday . . .

So I finished the sky and did some backstitched tree outlines and other missing bits of backstitch . Eventually I couldn't find any more missing stitches so here it is , AT LAST :

You may remember that I struggled with what to do about the Santas facial features . . . The original chart was not very precise , and when I tried to stitch the eyes etc following the chart it just looked horrible ! So then I thought I'd just leave out the details of the face . . . However , today I decided to try to add something to the face, so I stitched one eye and a happy mouth . I'm actually quite pleased with how his face turned out and it definitely looks better than on the original chart : )

So once again , here is another look at my FINISHED Swedish Santa picture that I started to stich over ten years ago , when I still lived in England . The chart is from a Swedish magazine dated 2003 so it is about time , wouldn't you say ? !

I feel really good about this finish : = )

Hope you all have a good weekend filled with stitching!

Annie

Too many projects and too little time...

Hi everyone !

This week I've been doing all sorts of crafts , so my stitching has had to take a bit of a backseat . . : (  Sadly there just isn't enough hours in the day for me right now to do everything I want to .
For example , I've been making crochet snowflakes . . .

 

 . . . that I am going to stiffen and hang in my Christmas tree this year .

I've painted acorns in silver and gold . . .

. . . and I have made more handmade decorations for my Xmas tree :

The one cross stitch related activity this week was that I joined the wonderful SAL Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics , which gives me motivation to get some stitching done every Friday at least ! So this Friday past I worked on my Christmas tree for the Christmas Ornie SAL 2015 . . .

. . . and it is now finished ! Yay ! In the original chart (designed by Maria Diaz from the free leaflet with The World of Cross Stitching issue 183) the tree trunk and the top of the tree are left empty . . .

 

 . . . but I thought it looked odd so I decided to repeat the pattern ALL the way to the bottom and the top . I'm very pleased with it , but of course I have to turn it into an ornament as well in the next few days . . . Wish me luck !

I also started on another letter from the Crocus ABC in The World of Cross Stitching issue 212 : )

The ABC is designed by Lucie Heaton and it is a joy to stitch : ) I'm thinking I should use it to make something for myself too . since I like it so much . Maybe when all the Xmas stitching is out of the way . . : )

I have also started to stitch on a Iphone mobile case : ) This is the one that I am using right now . . .

. . . but I want to stitch myself a Christmas-themed case too ! A Christmas Fanatic like me certainly  needs a proper Christmas case !

I don't have a chart for this cover so I'm going to try to 'design'/put together something that I like . I have started off with this Christmas Tree from an old leaflet of Xmas designs from Cross Stitch Crazy magazine and then we'll see . . : )

I must try to get some stitching done on my Christmas gift projects this week - I have really missed my stitching ! The days and the weeks are starting to go by really fast now and there is sooo much I want to stitch before Xmas !

How is your Xmas stitching going ?

Happy Stitching Everyone !

Annie