My WIPs part 2: The Prairie Schooler

 Hello Stitching Friends!

Time for some more WIPs and this time I thought I'd stick to one well-known designer, The Prairie Schooler. It was only after I started this blog and started reading other cross stitch blogs that I found out about their work. I love the fact that they do a lot of Christmas designs, and that their charts aren't too complicated nor do they require too many different thread colours. Since The Prairie Schooler charts aren't available here in Sweden I've had to order charts from abroad and through the years I have bought a few here and there.

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This is Cats, Bats & Witches and I've had this WIP for quite a while now. Since I don't celebrate Halloween I only get around to stitching Halloween designs when I get inspired by all you fabulous bloggers working on your own Halloween projects in the autumn. And, although it is all part of the Halloween mood, I must admit that I find it a bit boring with all those black stitches...

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I LOVE the winter and lots of snow so this was an appropriate design for me. However, as usual I didn't have all the thread colours when I started this project, but I'm hoping to continue work on this one when the weather starts to inspire me again⛄❆.

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The Prairie Schooler Santas. I started this project as a SAL together with  STITCH NICHE back in the day, but then my life got really stressful and I stopped stitching, and sadly, from what I can tell, Stitch Niche hasn't blogged since 2017. Hopefully she'll get back to it again as I did🙏. 

Right now I'm thinking that these Santas have such big red coats and it looks terrible boring to do all those red crosses....😞.

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I love this Christmas Tree Farm design, but I started it a long time ago and unfortunately I didn't stitch any gridlines before I started working on the design. That means that it is MUCH harder to stitch the design and it requires more counting and concentration. I've tried to add some gridlines afterwards, but it is a bit tricky. I'm so annoyed with myself because I'd love to work on it but all that counting puts me off at this point in time..

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I really love this design, but when I got it I didn't have any 14-count aida fabric in the right colour. I did have  a little piece of goldish aida though so I decided to stitch one of the small designs in the meantime. Moving forward a few years, I now have the right fabric so maybe I'll finally get around to start stitching the large design closer to Christmas.

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The Night Before Christmas has been my favorite PS chart this year and it has received quite a bit of love. I love the different Christmas scenes in the picture and all the little details that are included. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this one will be my first finish from my Prairie Schooler WIP pile.

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There are also a couple of more Prairie Schooler WIP's added to my WIP page. AND I also have another couple of PS charts that I haven't started on yet, but maybe I'll add those to the WIP pile when/if I celebrate Christmas (stitching) in July this year❌🎅! 

Finally I just have to share my progress on the gorgeous Cheryl McKinnon 2021 calender from Cross Stitcher magazine! I worked on it all afternoon/evening yesterday and I have now progressed from this...

...to this:

Every stitch is a joy and I love seeing the little seasonal details appear. In fact, after I've posted this and taken the dogs for a rainy early evening walk i'm going to carry on working on it. It definitely looks as if the second half of 2021 needs some work😉.

Take care💝,

Annie

All My WIPs - part 1

 Hello Stitching Friends!

I'm constantly amazed and impressed with how organized some of you are when it comes to your WIPs and your stash🙌! That is far from the way things are over here in My Little X-stitch Nook 😂🙈. I have a couple of boxes overbrimming with stitching projects in varying stages of completion in no kind of order whatsoever. I have another box with mixed fabrics and yet another box with threads. Sometimes I try to organize the WIPs by removing (ie stuffing in a box or bag) those that I don't feel like working on, but it doesn't take long before various WIPs get dragged out again and the WIP piles on the sofa and on the livingroom table grows out of control and they all get shoved into the boxes again😂. Just pure wonderful and chaotic crafting chaos🙈😉.

One of those overflowing WIP-boxes...and a furbaby!

However, my family recently helped me to replace my old brokendown and scruffy sofa with a new one and now I'm feeling quite inspired to try to organize my stitching chaos which at the moment surrounds my new sofa. And I'm thinking that the first thing I want to do is to count all my WIPs; who knows, it might not be as bad as I'm thinking, haha. And of course that includes listing and recording them all here on the blog under the page named MY WIPs. At the same time I have also removed a couple of other pages that I don't use anymore. 

I tend to keep most of my WIPs in these extremly handy and large plastic zip bags...

...which I buy quite cheaply at our local IKEA store.

So today I have started this organizing process - I'm so pumped😁!!! - and I thought it might be fun to show you a few of those old and new and big and small and just started or almost finished WIPs in the next few posts, at the same time as I add them to my WIP page. You will probably recognize a few if you have followed me for a while, but who cares, right?! All the details of the charts/designers are available in the WIP page.

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This one I started a long time ago, before I got my beagle 9 years ago. The original pattern is from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 137 and designed by Gail Bussi. I wanted to do the words in Swedish which made it a lot harder and I also added the names of my (then) two furbabies. Then I decided to add a couple of flowers (using threads from my stash) but the flower on the right looks awful 🙈😂😩and needs to be frogged...and that's where I ran out of steam... It could be cute though...some day...

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This is an old one too, and from the period in my life where I loved to stitch animals. Of course this one is impossible for me to finish before I get new glasses (because of the black fabric), but I've made quite good progress and one day it'll hopefully be finished and look stunning on my wall.

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This snow globe design by Emma Congdon only needs a day or two more of stitching and I'm hoping to get around to it before next Christmas.

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And the same goes for this beautiful Swedish Christmas scene. The one little issue with this project is that I have to use three threads with the 11-count fabric, which sadly rules out the loop start😒

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So I'm pretty sure you can understand why I chose to start this project😁😍.

It reminded me of my precious furbabies, especially before they got old and their faces turned all white😍💝. I would like to get around to finishing this one too; maybe I'll sew one thread every day like some of you do...🤔?

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This one is probably my oldest WIP which I started when I still lived in London 15 years ago, and it is far away from being finished... All those fractionals and backstitches in the bouquet are really putting me off. However, it does make me smile when I see the LARGE piece of aida I chose to stitch it on😉. I earned a lot of money back then and could afford more fabrics and threads and cross stitching magazines etc. These days I'm always quite stingy with the fabric...😞.

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This Lavender Fairy by Joan Elliott still needs a lot of bling! I've started with the Kreinik braid but there are are also a lot of beads to add and other details missing. Maybe when I get new glasses I can get around to it. It's very pretty though, isn't it? 

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So these projects (and more) have been added to the WIP page for now. There isn't even a dent in my stash though, so I'll be back with many more WIPs soon. Anyone want to guess how many there are in total??? For your information I have no idea myself so I'm enjoying this process with mixed dread and delight😲😂😂😂.

Hope you have a lovely weekend with lots of relaxing stitching!

Annie

Ten (or in my case seven) Things for Jo's Tenth Blogaversary

Hello Stitching Friends!

When Jo from the blog Serendipitous Stitching recently celebrated a tenth blogaversary she listed and answered a Ten Things Tag list. I really enjoyed reading the post, so I decided to join in the fun. However, I haven't kept an extensive record of my stitching the way Jo has, so my own list is unfortunately incomplete and only contains seven of the ten tags.

The tenth blog post you made

This was a post back in April 2015 and I was really happy to finally get around to framing a summer window.

I'm still hoping to finish the autumn and winter windows from the same series...

The tenth blog in your blog list

At the moment it is A Stitcher's Story which is written by the super sweet Vickie who displays the most gorgeous seasonal stitching projects on her cabinets and shelves AND adores poodles🐩🐩🐩! She has even designed a really cute Calendar Poodle SAL which is free on her blog.

A designer you have stitched more than ten designs.

This was a little bit tricky since I like a lot of different designers. However, the more I though about it I realised that the designer I have stitched the most is probably Lesley Teare since she designed my favorite go-to design for cards.

I have definitely sitched this design more than 10 times, haha! I have a feeling that designs from Joan Elliott and Emma Congdon come in a close second and third if you check out my WIPs and finished projects...

 

 A project that took/is taking more than ten years to complete

Since I am a periodical stitcher this tends to happen every now and then, and even more so since I also love to start new projects instead of finishing my WIPs. 

This Christmas scene was a loooong time in the making, but these days I put it up on my wall every Christmas. 

The pattern is from an old Swedish weekly women's magazine.

At the moment I should think that this sweet little girl is my oldest WIP. I started stitching her when I still lived in London 16 years ago. Clearly I wasn't too worried about fractionals back then, but whenever I bring her out these days all those fractionals makes me cringe. So she goes back in the UFO pile again...

The tenth colour on your current project. Do you use it a lot?

My current WIP is a seasonal design in four parts and DMC 964 is used for the summer and winter motives .

I certainly like to stitch with bright and happy colours, and this blue shade features in at least one more of my current WIP:s. 

Your tenth finish this year (or last year if you haven't finished ten so far this year)

Well, right now I'm working on the 10th and 11th finish for the year, so I'll just show you my ninth finish instead which I gave to a good friend of mine.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've lost the design details for this project...

How has your stitching style changed in the last ten years?

My stiching style has changed A LOT in ten years, that's for sure.

When I started this blog I was into Joan Elliott's pretty but complicated fairies... 

...and life-like animal motives.

I didn't see any limitations and thought I could stitch just about anything, regardless of size, beads or metallic threads. I think about it as my delusional phase...🙈😂😳. I just don't know WHAT I was thinking...?! Most of those projects are still UFO; do I need to say more..?! Although I might pick some of them up again since they're quite close to being finished...

Somewhere along the line I discovered designers like Emma Congdon, Durene Jones and Cheryl McKinnon and projects with blocks of bright colours...

...and a lot less time-consuming backstitching.

Maybe some cheerful sayings...

...and pretty nature/seasonal designs.

The urge to stitch pretty, complicated fairies or large animals with lots of confetti stitches has completely disappeared along the years.

The one constant cross stitching love has been Christmas projects....

....but I try to stay away from too much backstitching and/or tricky charts/details in my Christmas designs too these days. 

Overall, it seems I've moved away from complicated stitching and now just want easy, cheerful and uncomplicated designs at this point in my life. But who knows what kind of cross stitching projects I will like in 5 or 10 years time...😉😳😀???

Finally, I want to leave you with a short video from our morning walk today. We are really enjoying gorgeous spring weather here in Sweden😳...

Don't you just wish you were here?!😂

Happy Stitching,

Annie

A piece of someone's cross stitching life💝

Hello Stitching Friends!

Recently I was contacted by a stranger, a lady who appearently follows my Swedish CHRISTMAS BLOG every year. She had seen some of my Xmas stitching and wondered if I would be interested in some stitching material she had inherited from her grandma. Not knowing anything about stitching herself, she wanted to see the material come to good use. She sent me some pictures and I could see that I would be able to use at least some of it. She also told me that her grandma's name was Ingrid and that Ingrid had loved doing her crafts and had stitched the most beautiful pictures. And for Xmas Ingrid always sent stitched Christmas cards to all her loved ones💝.

So the other day I received a big parcel filled with bits and pieces from grandma Ingrid's cross stitching life. It was a very emotional experience to go through someone else's leftover stitching💔. To see loved cross stitch projects halfway finished and other projects not yet started but clearly something another stitcher had fallen in love with. I could tell that Ingrid loved various motifs from nature like flowers and birds, and that she liked to stitch on evenweave.

And it made me emotional to see that she used to do exactly what I do when I stitch a readymade kit; write the symbols on the pre-sorted cardboard thread organizers.

There were some small projects that had caught her eye at one time and were waiting to be stitched.

And various pieces of white aida fabrics.

It was also obvious that she indeed loved stitching Christmas cards. There were a couple of Christmas card kits, and even though she had already stitched the actual cards, the kits still contained the charts and the leftover DMC threads. 

And luckily this Swedish cross stitching brand, SVARTA FÅRET,  always lists their threads by symbols as well as the correct DMC number, which means that I can reuse the threads.

There were also some leftover cardstock to use for new Christmas cards.

And plenty of DMC's bright red Christmas colour, DMC 666😁.

And some metallic threads...

After I had spent a few hours sorting out all the leftover DMC threads from Ingrid's projects on my cardboard bobbins, I had built up quite a stash.

It surprised me how emotional it made me feel to go through someone else's stash and unfinished projects. I felt extremely honored and humbled to take care of Ingrid's legacy and it made me feel like I got to know a part of her. Which is a strange feeling to have since I never met her...💝

Otherwise, I have managed to stitch a little bit more on my Christmas doily and made a start on the second Christmas gnome.

Informally, I'm telling myself that if I can stitch one side each autumn my doily will be finished in 4 years... Fingers crossed🤞!

Happy Stitching,

Annie