An Enlish harbour, a reindeer and Swedish summer

Hello Stitching Friends❣

My menopause hormones have really given me hell this week and therefore my stitching has been a bit sketchy. Some days I've really enjoyed my stitching and other days I haven't wanted to stitch a single stitch. 

However, today I did enjoy stitching on Tranquil Harbour by Lucie Heaton. In fact, I think it's my favorite project at the moment...at least for today, haha😊.

I love all the different details on this project. I can switch between stitching a boat and then some water, and then some reflections in the water and then some bright and colourful houses. Since I easily get bored with a project (thus having 30 on the go at the same time😉) I love that kind of variety. 

My Swedish summer project is also coming along very nicely.

I have seen some lovely Christmas stitching on your blogs lately, and it made me really keen to start one of my own Prairie Schooler Xmas designs this past weekend. Especially as I had found a lovely piece of sparkly aida fabric that would make a perfect background for the gorgeous design called Christmas Eve.

However, I didn't realize that the piece of fabric actually was too small for this project until I was going to start stitching on Saturday and the disappointment really threw me, I must say. 

Having no other suitable fabric for the Christmas Eve design I decided to start another Prairie Schooler Xmas chart instead, The Night Before Christmas, but my heart just wasn't in it.

Quite a pityful start actually...

Because I was still desperate to use that lovely sparkly aida with gold threads I decided to use it for an ornament from the Christmas Eve chart instead.

But I ran out of steam with this little cute project too...

Hope that progress on all your lovely projects have been better than mine. Right now I feel like I haven't made any cross stitching progress at all lately. I just can't seem to stick to a project for more than a few hours… but I also know that the crazy hormones and the tummy aches make me more restless and edgy than I normally am😞.

FINALLY… I'm probably the last one to join the party, but I found this amazing CROSS STITCH CALCULATOR when I was trying to work out the size of fabric I needed for my PS charts. It's simply genius! Just add the stitch count of your chosen chart and you'll get the exact size of the fabric you need for your chart. Just LOVE IT!

Take Care, 

Annie

Halloween and Christmas stitching coming along:)

Hello Friends!

My plan was to post at the beginning of the week, but before I knew it what I thought would be a quiet week turned into quite a busy week with dental issues for one of my dogs, a movie visit with a friend, dog-sitting 2 dogs for a friend - yes, I currently have FIVE dogs at home to look after - and various other things. Today I have to do laundry, household chores and some baking as well as look after all the dogs, but I wanted to share my stitching with you  before I start with all that boring housework...!

My PS Halloween chart Cats, Bats & Witches is coming along very nicely:)

I just love working on this one and as long as I don't run out of any more threads, I hope I can finish this well in time for Halloween.

I have stitched a little on the PS chart And to All a Good Night...

...but I find it extremely boring to stitch with only blacks and browns, so I don't think I'll get much more progress done before I can send for some more threads (ie reds and greens!) which hopefully can happen next week. Fingers crossed!

Since I got one more PS Santa (the knitting Santa) over the summer, I have now started to stitch him alongside the other Santas:

I would really like to get these Santas finished before Christmas, but I'm not sure there will be enough time. I have soo many crafty projects on the go right now. Many are Christmas gifts and some are just for me. We'll see how I go...

I'm also stitching this little freebie snowman from Cross Stitch Crazy magazine issue 220.

This snowman is a special project since I'm doing it together with my sister. Once I'm finished with the stitching part, she is going to take over and incorporate it on a beautiful Christmas tag using her scrapbooking techniques. I can't wait to see the result!

Lastly I have made a tiny start on Country Cottage Needleworks 'Cookies for Santa'.

 

It took me quite some time to stitch the gridlines, since I decided to use sparkling aida and it was difficult to make out the correct holes in the fabric. I hope this project will look OK together with the extra sparkle that the fabrics provide; I just really wanted to have some fun with it and I loved working on the sparkling aida last time I used it! I have a feeling this might be a slow-going project though, since it's just for fun and will therefore be far down on the list of crafty things that I REALLY want to get done before Christmas!

 

Hope you're all well and having fun with your stitching and other crafty projects! 

 

Annie

This week's stitching:)

Hello friends:)

Here's a quick update on what I've been stitching on this week.

I have been working on The Prairie Schooler's Cats, Bats & Witches and I must say that I'm really enjoying this one:)

Even though I'm not really a Halloween person, I'm having soo much fun stitching all these little quirky motifs:) And the best part is that if I can finish this one soon - which feels quite doable - I have an even bigger design like it to tackle after that, lol!

I have also started Cross Stitcher magazine's SAL that they have been running all year. I feel in love with it straight away - since the first piece featured a cute Christmas dog! - and now that I'm stitching again I had to make a start!

Designer: Susan Penny

I have already had some issues with it though; the measurements the magazine has mentioned didn't seem to work - at least not to me! - so I have had to do quite a lot of frogging :((( And of course I don't have all the right threads, and I have still not decided if I'm going to use my stash or order the correct DMC ones. And the grey aida I'm using is not perfect for the white snowy details - they tend to blend into the fabric - but I'm perservering! And loving it as I go, since the little Christmas motifs are so cute:) 

Hope you are all well!

Annie

Exciting new chart stash!!!

Dear friends!

 

Guess what has happened!

I received my new chart stash from Stitching Bits and Bobs in the US!  

I can't believe how fast I received my order; it didn't take them much more than a week to get it to me! That is faster than some companies here in Sweden!

 

I love all my new charts, and of course I want to share them with you; my stitching buddies:)

 

Above all I wanted to get my hands on some Prairie Schooler charts that I didn't have and I'm happy to say that I now have them:) First up is the charts Reindeer Roundup and And to All a Good Night:

Then I wanted Christmas Eve that I saw Gominam at Stitch Niche stitch earlier this year, and of course I had to get Happy Christmas with all those cute Santa lodgings!

Being a bit concerned about all the Christmas stitching I picked (and how will I find place to display it all??? LOL), I decided to pick a Halloween chart...

...Cats, Bats & Witches! I just love all those black witches and the bats etc:) I don't really celebrate Halloween, but I guess I have been affected by all the fun Halloween stitching I've seen on other stitching blogs. So it's your fault that I got this one, lol!!!

But of course I couldn't stay away from a Prairie Schooler Christmas for long, and I had to get a forth PS Santa for my long and overdue collection piece that I'm supposed to stitch alongside Gominam. Of course she has finished her (see HERE) whilst I lost my stitching mojo, but at least now I can make a start on my forth Santa since I have bought the knitting Santa:

Then I came across some PS charts I hadn't seen before! They were from a limited addition and of course I fell in love with Santa's house...

...Santa's reindeers and christmas trees...

 

...and Santa's chimney!

Can't wait to stitch them!

Then I picked a chart that I have seen on other websites and that I just love. I love the colours and the words and the decorations...!

Cookies for Santa
by
Country Cottage Needleworks

It is just so precious and I HAD to get it just because! I just had to have it, lol. I've never stitched their designs before, but I am really looking forward to stitching this one! (I won't bore you with all the charts I wanted to get but couldn't afford...)

Now I'm waiting for a batch of threads I have ordered from http://www.sewalong.co.uk/ and then I can hopefully make a start soon. Meanwhile I have to ponder what on earth I'm going to do with all the Christmas stitching I'm planning to do...lol!

Happy Stitching and stashing everyone!

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

PS Santas and Swedish crochet vibes:)

 Hello dear friends!

Thank you very, very much for your kind and supportive comments on my last post! It really warmed my heart, especially since I've felt so bad about not getting around to reading all your wonderful blogs. But I have begun to feel better - for the time being at least - so I hope I can catch up with you all properly in the next week or so.

One afternoon this week I made an effort to stitch on my PS Santas. So this is where I picked it up...

...and in an afternoon I managed to get this far:

 I'm afraid I have seriously fallen behind on this project, and my hope to catch up with my lovely stitching buddy Gominam is completely lost. And even more so now, since I also ran out of my red Santa colour DMC 221...:( My birthday is in June so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some birthday cash so I can order some more threads, as well as a chart for a forth PS Santa:)

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With all the sporting events this summer, including the Olympics and the UEFA EURO 2016 (football), I'm feeling very patriotic at the moment and have decided to make some Swedish crochet decorations for my home. In case you didn't know, this is the Swedish flag...

...and in my local craft store I was lucky enough to find the perfectly coloured yarn. I'm working on a crochet bunting for my balcony, using these Maybelle flowers. Since one of my furbabies like to destroy my plants I don't really have any flowers on my balcony, so I thought a Swedish-style bunting would cheer the space up:))

 I have also made this little crochet heart as a decoration for my summer bag:

I have made hearts in other colours too...

 ...since they are kind of addictive lol.

I'm doing other crochet projects too, but they are going to be Xmas gifts so I can't show them here. Last Xmas I made a promise to myself to make sure I started VERY early with my gifts so I could take some time to relax in December, and now I'm making good on my promise to myself!

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Sometimes I get a feeling that my furbabies think I spend too much time crafting lol. Especially my smallest furbaby. He's VERY devoted to me and likes to be very close so sometimes he can get quite frustrated when he has to compete with piles of aida and balls of yarn. Last night at my sister's place, he was desperate to lie next to me whilst I was crocheting, which meant that he had to lie on top of the armchair's armrest...

...and hang his head down next to it in order to lie as close to my legs as he could!

I tell you, we all laughed at him and were amazed that he could lie like that and sleep for over an hour LOL! Such devotion really makes your heart swell:))

I guess that's all for now. Hope you all have a lovely week and lots of time for some happy stitching and crafting!

Annie

Struggling with life....

Dear Friends,

Life has been a bit of a struggle lately. My computer has crashed and I've struggled with my depression and aches and pains.    

Except for some crochet not much else is getting done around here and that sadly includes blogging and reading all your lovely blogs, for which I'm very sorry. I've been given a second-hand computer that I hope I can get up and running soon, and meanwhile I'll have to use my iPhone  for everything, including writing this post.

The only project I've stitched on lately is my PS  Santas...

...but it is going very slowly.

Instead I've been doing lots of crochet since that has been the only thing that has inspired me lately. I've been doing a version of granny squares...

...for a cushion and...

... a potholder. I've also made various little pieces...

...that eventually will be turned into various things like...

....this little crochet heart. The inspiration for these projects mostly comes from the wonderful Swedish crochet blog www.bautawitch.se.

Hope you're all doing well and finding time for your crafting😊

Annie