Searching for new quick and easy go-to charts... and other crafty stuff

Hello Stitching Friends!

What a crazy start to this year it has been here in my little x-stitch nook. Plenty of visits to the vet and broken down technology; just one (financial crisis) after another. And the vaccination is going REALLY slowly here in Sweden; neither my dad (who's got alzeimers😢 and is 73 years old) nor my mum has had any vaccine yet. At this rate I will still be waiting in the new year.. Unfortunately I also live in one of the areas in Sweden that has the highest rates of covid-cases so I have to be really careful. But so far everyone in my family has stayed healthy so I just continue to keep my fingers crossed🤞.

So most part of February I spent knitting and selling some wooly mittens to earn some well-needed money...

When I was finished with those, I crocheted some Easter inspired gifts and things for my home.

 

For example this cheerful doily that I displayed in my hallway. 

 

Even though me and my furbabies spent Easter on our own it was nice to spruce up my humble little home a bit💛💜💚.

I also stitched Easter cards to send to some family and friends far away, and once again I used my favorite flower charts by Lesley Teare from The World of Cross Stitching issue 230.

They are just PERFECT for cards; quick to stitch with very little backstitch and one can combine colurs and patterns any which way depending on your stash and the occation.

 

Unfortunately I have a strong feeling that almost everyone near me have received at least one version of these flowers, so it is about time I find a found a new easy, very quick and adaptable go-to card pattern. 

I have realised though that it is easier said than done as I've been going through my cross stitch magazine stash...😳. Either it's too much backstitch to make it quick, or there are too many colours used, or the patterns aren't very adaptable... Still, the search must go on!

Due to all the knitting and crocheting and cross stitch cards, I haven't had much time to spend on larger projects. Just a few more added stitches on The Prairie Schooler chart The Night Before Christmas ...

However, I have spent a lot of time thinking of what I want to stitch during the summer ahead. Which projects do I want to (try to) finish? Do I want to make some new starts? Are there any stitching challenges I can join to speed up my stitching? I'm hoping and praying that some sporting events will take place in the coming months, such as Stanley Cup playoffs, the Ice-hockey world championships, the FIFA European championships and the Olympics🙏🤞🙏...and if they all do, there will be PLENTY of time for me to do some stitching! And frankly, I can't wait!!! And I look forward to having more stitching progress and projects to show you here on the blog this summer.

In fact, I'm about to start a new exciting project very soooon (who am I kidding?! I just cannot NOT start new projects😂🙈😂) and I'm iching to get off the computer and finish gridding my fabric! 

I hope that you are all well, and I look forward to chatting with you about lots of stitchy things soon again🌷🌸🌷!

Annie

A finish (YAY!!!!), a doggy update and some reminiscing

Hello Stitching Friends!

I've been meaning to write this blog post for a couple of days now, but I've been soo tired and my brain just hasn't functioned properly. I think it's all the drama involving my dogs that has worn me out, or maybe it's a reaction to all the weird stuff that has been happening this year..?! Anyway, I'm going to try to stay awake long enough to update you on life here in my X-stitch nook😉.

So my furbaby had his dental surgery on Friday and he seems to recover nicely so far🙏.

I'm so relieved! However, he has to eat only soft things for two weeks and I think he and his 'brother' miss their daily afternoon chewy treat. Every day after their afternoon walk they both sit staring at me, wondering if I haven't forgotten anything??!!😂 Next weekend couldn't come fast enough as far as they're concerned😉!

-

A lot of sad things happened during my 3-year long break from cross stitch. For one thing, about a year ago we found out that my dad has alzheimer😢. Thankfully the disease is progressing slowly and so far he's able to live a good life at home, but we are all aware that things will only get worse😢. He's just had his 72nd birthday and even though I couldn't see him in person that day, he will visit us soon when my niece celebrates her 18th birthday at the end of the month. 

My plan was to stitch a couple of lighthouse designs for him for Xmas (he LOVES the ocean and boats), but since I've really enjoyed stitching the lighthouse pictures lately, I wanted to see if I could finish one of them early for him and give it to him as a birthday present. I don't have all the correct thread colours, but I searched my stash and tried to come up with other colour options. So here it is...

Design by Cheryl McKinnon from
Cross Stitch Crazy magazine June 2020.

...all finished! The perfectionist in me isn't entirely happy, but if one hasn't seen the original I don't think it looks too bad. I'd like to stitch it again for myself with the correct colours, and but for now I'm happy to frame this and give it to my dad as his belated birthday gift. I'm still planning to stitch another one of the four lighthouse designs for him for Xmas, but hopefully with the correct colours.

Otherwise I haven't made too much of a progress on my projects. I have spent a few hours on Christmas Town by Emma Congdon and it progressed from this...

 ...to this:

When my brain has been too tired for cross stitch, I've been knitting  THIS CARDIGAN ...

...and I'm almost ready to start knitting the sleeves.

Finally, I thought you'd enjoy a few pics of cross stitched stuff from my mum's place. She helped me with the recent vet visits and when I'm in her home I'm always struck by all the crafty things on display. As you may already know, I come from a very crafty family, which you can read more about in THIS  POST , and mum has stitched so many lovely pieces throughout the years. For example she has stitched these three animal pictures...

But she also enjoys receiving handmade things and of course I've given her plenty of hand crafted stuff. I know I stitched this cushion for exemple - even though I can't exactly remember stitching it.

But above all I gave her this cross stitched picture which is the biggest piece I've ever stitched so far.

Design from Cross Stitch Gold magazine.

My original plan at the time was to give it to her when she turned 60, but that year I got a bad case of pneumonia so I ended up finishing the picture 6 months too late and gave it to her for Mother's Day the next year instead. I must say that I'm quite proud of this project, and it's nice to know that it resides with someone who appreciates the art of cross stitch😁!

Now I'm going to watch some ice hockey and pick up the knitting again, and I wish you all a nice, crafty week ahead💝!

AND I made it through the whole post without falling asleep😂😂😂!!

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

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



 



Christmas gifts made and received...and snow!

Hello Everyone!

I'm very sad to say that this week I have not had time to stitch anything yet, since I have had to sort out my place after Christmas... Packing up all the Christmas stuff, bringing the boxes down to the cellar, removing all the left-over pine tree needles from my beautiful Xmas tree that now resides on my balcony, washing all my Xmas cushion covers etc etc...

Not much fun but VERY necessary! I'm just about finished now though, so I can't wait to pick up a needle again:) I have continued to go through cross stitching magazines though and looking for gift ideas, and I've done some sorting out of my projects to make sure I only have the very up-to-date projects close at hand and the others tucked away for now. I also plan go to through all my stitching freebies to see which ones I KNOW I'll never stitch, and therefore can use the fabric pieces etc for other things.

Since I don't have any stitching progress to show you this time, I thought I take this opportunity to show you some more homemade gifts from this past Xmas.

My sister made this wonderful picture for me:)

I also received this beautiful decoration from my sister...

...and this picture too:) Ring any bells???



My mum stitched this bookmark for me on 16-count aida...

...as well as this little cute needlebook:)

I made decorated jars for every female in my family with their stitched initial
on the lid.

For my aunts I decorated towels...

...with their first name.



I made this little cushion for my sister...

...and decorated this teatowel with a band of strawberries. 14 strawberries to
be exact...!

I made these little key fobs for my sister and BIL. The dog looks just like
one furbaby they have:)

Now, that just about wraps up a wonderful Christmas 2015. Now we're in the middle of a lot of snow and very cold temperatures over here in Sweden (minus 16 degrees Celcius), so I'll leave you all with some snowy pics...

 

 

 

 

 Happy Stitching Everyone!

Annie

Wonderful Crafts Fair and some stitching!

Hello Everyone !

Yesterday I visited a yearly Crafts Fair in Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) and I had the most WONDERFUL TIME ! I spent lots of money and bought lots of crafty goodies : )
As far as cross stitching is concerned , I bought all these small beads for a real bargain price : ) 

They aren't Mill Hill , but I tried to pick beads in nice colours that I could use instead of Mill Hill seed beads . Now that I have found out how much I love beading I have to make sure I have a little stash of beady beauties lol !

I bought more of my very favorite knitting yarn !

 

I have never come across another yarn that is sooo soft and cuddly ! And luckily they come in my favorite colours too : )

I also got some sparkly metallic threads in Christmas colours for crochet projects . . .

 

Since this was a general crafts fair I also got some scrapbooking material and some crafty magazines ! Normally craft products - including cross stitch products -are very expensive in Sweden , so it is absolutely lovely to have an opportunity to find some bargains for once in such an setting ! It was just a wonderful time and something that really fed my soul with happiness : )

 

Otherwise I've had a really busy week and I've hardly had time to sit down to stitch . . : (

Therefore I had decided that today would be ALL about stitching , so for 8 hours I stitched . . . and it was pure bliss ! It made me realise how much I had missed not being able to cross stitch , so this week I have to make an effort to find more time for my cross stitch projects .

 

I worked on my Iphone-cover and made really good progress on it ! Almost all of the white background is done :

It is difficult to see on the pictures but I have used some white Pearlescent in the background . I tried to catch the sparkle from another angle . . .

. . . but I'm not sure it worked . . . lol : ) I can't wait to see this one finished and to be able to put it on my phone !

Speaking of finish , I am FINALLY finished with my never - ending strawberry band ! ! ! I did the last backstitching today . . .

Chart from Cross Stitcher issue 239.
Designer: Lucie Heaton

. . . so now I have stitched 14 strawberries in a row ! Mentally this was a huge struggle - soo boring to repeat a pattern over and over - but I must say that in the end they look great together all in a row ! However , I can safely say that I have definitely had enough of strawberries for this year lol !

Hope you've all had a really nice weekend with lots of nice cross stitching !

Annie