Swedish summer, Mother's Day and a few more finishes!

Hello Stitching Friends!

Hope you all are ok? Over here in Sweden summer has arrived, and me and my furbabies can go for long leisurely walks in the beautiful Swedish countryside. 

On my balcony I'm growing chives and basil for all those lovely summer salads. I have also had my first covid shot, and have my second one booked for the middle of July. Thankfully my parents are fully vaccinated now which is a relief, and my family are actually gathering next week to celebrate my wonderful niece who's graduating and leaving her school years behind her and who already has a job as a security guard lined up🙌.

But apart from all that, I'm mostly spending my days cross stitching whilst watching sports on the telly😁. And my dogs use my balcony more than I do because I prefer to stitch curled up on my sofa😂. As well as being a crafting addict, I'm also a very crazy sports fan and I've been known to plan my life around World Championships etc. So with all the icehockey going on right now (Stanley Cup playoffs and the World Championships), and then the UEFA EURO 2021 and after that the Olympics, I plan for endless hours of stitching fun in front of the telly this summer.

I have already had time to stitch a few smalls. It was Mother's Day here in Sweden last weekend so I stitched a card...

Original design from The World of Cross Stitching, issue 198.
Designer: Lucie Heaton

...and a bookmark...

Petal Markers featured in Cross Stitch Collection, issue 206.
Designer: Lesley Teare

...for my lovely mum.

In fact, I owe the bookmark finish to the amazing TIFF who kindly offered to send me DMC threads (and aida fabrics) from the US so I could finish this project and few other unfinished projects💝. Her wonderful kindness still warms my heart💝🙏. Thank you again Tiff !!!

I have also managed to finish my snowglobe designed by Emma Congdon and I'm very pleased with it!

Festive Flurry from Cross Stitcher, issue 298.
Designer: Emma Congdon

My original plan was to display it in a hoop (like the original design) but hoops that size are just too expensive for me right now so I'll probably use a regular frame from IKEA in the end.

I love all the rich colours!

Finishing an old project felt soo good and really made me feel inspired to finish more projects so now I'm spending a little bit of time on this cute doggy picture every other day so I can get it finished too. I've already finished the top right corner and bit by bit I'm getting there. Lots and lots of white stitches left to do though...

It's a dog's life from Cross Stitch Collection, issue 224
Designer: Jayne Netley Mayhew

I have also finished the spring tree from the seasonal trees design by Cheryl McKinnon...

...and now I'm working on the brightly coloured autumn tree.

I haven't decided how I'm going to finish these yet...  Any ideas?

Seasonal Trees from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 260.
Designer: Cheryl McKinnon

I haven't quite finished cataloguing my WIP's/UFO's yet but I have taken some more pictures of them. Hopefully I'll finish that task next week before the EURO starts on Friday 11th. 

Now I'm going to leave you to go for a walk with the dogs before I get stuck into some more stitching. I saw these cute little dreamcatcher letters that I'd like to have a go at😁😉...

Hope you have a lovely stitchy weekend wherever you are💝🌞🌸!

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

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

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 crafty little holiday and a versatile flower for Spring Into Summer New Start Binge

Hello Stitching Friends!

This time around I haven't too much stitching to show you, but it's for a good reason! Me and the dogs were invited to spend a few days with my sister in their caravan this past week, and it was simply lovely. The caravan park...

...was situated next to a small fishing lake...

 ...and me and the dogs enjoyed leisurely walks around the lake every day.

As a child I spent a lot of time on our boat in the Swedish archepelago so it was wonderful to be back in that kind of environment again.

Since me and my sister are very crafty people, we did spent a lot of time crafting whilst in the caravan.

However, the light wasn't always good enough for the three cross stitch projects I brought along, so it's a good thing I also brought my knitting, a Swedish KAL which will be a cardigan eventually, fingers crossed. Obviously the most important thing to bring on a holiday is your craft projects, right?!😉😅

The one cross stitch project I managed to make some progress on was Christmas Town by Emma Congdon. Stitching with turqouise thread on white aida was easy on the eyes so I went from this...

 ...to this:

I'm very happy with my efforts so far on this gorgeous Xmas project, and next step is to stitch the snowflakes (and birds) in the sky so that I can fill in the rest of the turquoise sky without too much counting...

We arrived home on Saturday, so yesterday I was able to pick a project for the Spring Into Summer New Start Binge hosted by TIFF and RACHEL . 

This time I stitched my own version of one of my favorite small patterns, Patchwork Flowers by Lesley Teare from The World of Cross Stitching issue 230. 

It's such a fabulous pattern; it's got six different chart versions and it's perfect for using up your stash, and for mixing and matching your own colours. I've lost count how many various flowers I've stitched using these small patterns.

And here's the latest little flower all finished, and my plan is to turn it into a little gift for someone special.

This week I have nothing special planned so I look forward to lots of stitching and maybe some knitting. 

Happy Stitching everyone💓❗

Annie