Thursday, July 28, 2011

Keeping cool with ice-cream.


Ice-cream stitching that is! Although, if truth be told, I have consumed more than my fair share of (real) ice-cream during the last week or two. Well, it has been extra hot!
For those of you who are regular readers, you may remember this picture.

If you missed the post click here.
I had asked readers to tell me what they thought the greeting on the front was going to be. Sadly no-one came up with the correct greeting that I had stitched, which is this….

Tee hee!
I thought it would make one of those cards that you can stitch and make up, then have on hand for almost any occasion, for example -

Here’s the scoop…..we’re moving!
Here’s the scoop…..we’re having a party!
Here’s the scoop…..we’re going to have a baby!
Here’s the scoop…..we got engaged!

You get the idea! Lots and lots of possibilities. Anyway, this is one from a set of six designs that will  be for sale… details to follow soon! Hope you like it!

Until next time…happy stitching!

Rhona

Monday, July 25, 2011

Too hot to stitch!


Slow progress with the backstitching as it is, quite literally, too hot to stitch. We are in the middle of a heat wave in NY and it’s too hot to do almost anything! I have managed to get a bit of the backstitching done and also managed to add a few of the missing stitches….you know the ones where you have half a dozen or so stitches left to do but only enough thread left in the needle to do two. I don’t know about you, but I just have to move on to another colour! Which, of course, means that I have to go back and fill in the blanks!
As you can see from this picture, there were a few blank spots.

But now they are all filled in! (well, top part anyway!)

And some backstitch detail too!

I’m hoping that the heat wave will end soon so that I can get some more of my fella stitched without having to worry about sweaty hand marks and metallic threads getting stuck in the fabric!

Until next time…happy stitching!

Rhona

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The devil's in the details!

Ah! The dreaded backstitch.......it looks great when done but seems such a chore to do. I have to admit that I'm not one of those people who hates back stitching....I dislike it, but usually I'll get on with it as I know it will pull the design together and look great when completed. But, after a few nights backstitching the Mighty Samurai, I'm beginning to fall into the 'I hate backstitching' category! At first it was quite easy. I was backstitching the branches and that wasn't too bad. Then came the backstitching of the Samurai, well as if it wasn't hard enough to figure out the colours on the stitching (they are all blended with very, very subtle colour changes), but the chart is AWFUL! The backstitch lines are printed so that the line is almost half a square below where the backstitch would/should be. There are two different coloured lines in the same space but it doesn't tell you which to stitch first. And does anyone else have a problem distinguishing the  difference between the 'thick red lines' and the 'thin red lines'  on the chart? I've a feeling it's going to be slow going!

This is where I've got to so far....


This is a close up of his face....


I'm not sure about his nose....something doesn't seem quite right, but I've checked the chart and all is as it should be. Maybe I'm just focusing too much on his face and once more backstitching is done, hopefully all will look fine.

Anyway, I think he's growing into a handsome fella!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona


Monday, July 18, 2011

Wow!




A big thank you to Anne who picked me for this...


Thank you Anne...it made my day!

As with most things there are some rules, and for the Stylish Blogger Award they are as follows...

1. Thank the person who has awarded you.
2. List seven things about yourself.
3. Pass  the award to 15 other stylish bloggers.

Number one was quite easy, but two and three are more difficult! What can I tell you about me? I'm just an ordinary Mum, nothing special so please forgive me if the seven things aren't terribly exciting! Here goes...

1. I'm originally from Scotland and now live in the USA.
2. I love Zumba, (although I have no latin blood in me at all) and would love to be able to dance!
3. I'm a 4th degree black belt in Taekwon Do.
4. I teach Little Dragons classes (Taekwon Do classes for 4 - 6 year olds).
 Ummm, getting hard to think of what to write!!!
5. I have two cats - Smokie and Smirnoff.
6. I love dragonflies.
7. I cannot start the day without a cup of tea!

Few! That was hard! But now on to 15 other bloggers....just 15? There are so many wonderful blogs that it seems unfair to those that I can't mention.

So her are my 15, in random order.

1. Cath from The Stitchin Chicken
2. Mouse from Tales of a stitching mouse
3. Jenni from tapestry Moon
4. Ma Teakettle from Teakettle Corner
5. Terri from Chocolates for breakfast, stitching for lunch
6. Vonna from Twisted Stitcher
7. Sharon from It's Daffycat
8. Lynn from Kearnel's Corner
9. Marlene from Poppy Patchwork
10. Coni from the Spinster Stitcher

Ten of my favourite stitching blogs. Now other blogs that I love...

11. Jacque from Jacques joi de Vivre
12. Bev from All the things I love
13. Ali from Gimme some Oven
14. Lauren from My time, my creations, my stampendence

And this one may seem a bit corny, but I love Lizzie Kate designs and I love reading Linda's blog so I'm adding this one as number 15!

15 Linda from Lizzie Kate blog.

 Please click on the names highlighted in pink and you should (fingers crossed) be taken to these wonderful blogs.

Some of my favourite blogs have asked not to have blog awards sent to them so I am respecting their wishes and may keep their names for another post which may be along the lines of 'Blogs to check out' ! 
If you are reading this and I haven't mentioned your blog, please forgive me!

Please check out some or all of the blogs listed above....lots of inspiration there!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Bookazines

Ever heard of them? It's new term to me, but it seems to be the 'in' thing just now. It's basically a very thick magazine that looks just like a paperback book. Future publishing released a bookazine of Joan Elliot designs that went flying off the shelves in the UK and I was lucky enough to be able to get my grubby little mitts on one here in the US.



 It is 196 pages of  Joan's wonderful designs. I'm a big fan of Joan Elliott, her work is amazing. So after I bought the bookazine I spent all evening drooling over this magazine and wishing I had more time to stitch (doesn't that sound familiar?) Joan has a blog which can be found here where you can find all her latest designs and chart corrections.

And just to make matters worse, a few weeks aftre releasing the Joan Elliott bookazine, Future publishing then decides to put out another bookazine, this time of Margaret Sherry designs!


So, of course I just had to go and hunt down a copy of that darn bookazine too! Although the magazines (can't quite get comfortable calling them bookazines!) are rather pricey, they are wonderful. Margaret Sherry's characters are amazing and there is such humour in her designs. The animals have such adorable expressions on their faces and I have added several of the cat designs to my never ending to-do list! I wasn't able to find a blog for Margaret Sherry but I know she is on Facebook, so if anyone wants to friend request her you can. And...if you are friend requesting Margaret, you might as well add me too! lol


So, when I haven't been drooling over a Joan Elliott design or a Margaret Sherry design, what have I been working on? Well, I have been working on some Tangled Threads designs. This is what I have been stitching the last couple of nights.

I was hoping to get a lot more stitched last night, but ended up watching So You Think You Can Dance, and it's one of those programs where you have to watch (unlike some movies or shows where you can just listen and keep on stitching) so I only stitched during the adverts, which is why there isn't very much stitching to see! Hopefully I'll get more done tonight.

Thanks for visiting!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona 

Monday, July 11, 2011

No Stitching!

It's true! I have done absolutely no stitching since my last post! And, oh, how my fingers are itching to pick up that needle and get going, but life sometimes gets in the way.

Those of you who are regular readers will know of the tale of the thread shortages on the Mighty Samurai. I had written to Dimensions asking for some replacement thread and this arrived on Saturday....


Again, there was no charge. What great service...thank you Dimensions! So now I can get the actual cross stitch part of the design completed......if I can find the time!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona


Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Metallic Threads

Ahh, metallic threads....kinda like Marmite, you either love it or hate it! I fall into the 'hate it' category (especially for the Marmite!! lol). Don't get me wrong, I think metallic look awesome when stitched, it's just the actual stitching with them that I hate. And for now, there's no way to avoid stitching with them on The Mighty Samurai.


One of my goals for June was to have the ground stitched around the Samurai's feet. Mission accomplished! (Other than the parts that I am waiting for thread from Dimensions). This is how it looks.



 So, the goal for July is to move back to the top of the design and have the trees backstitched and also the Samurai's face backstitched. Of course, not being one to follow the rules (even though they are my own!) I decided to start stitching the metallics. As I have mentioned before, probably several times, I hate stitching with metallics. It never seems to end up very neat when I do it....other people's stitching still looks good, but mine, not so good. What makes it even harder is that it is so hot and humid here just now, and the metallics seem to just drag through the material. The chart calls for two strands of metallics and one strand of regular thread, and I always seem to have a bump of metallic thread in each stitch. I think for the sake of my sanity I will have to do very small sections of the metallic stitching! Someone suggested putting the metallic threads in the fridge as that helped.......sounds a bit weird, but I'm willing to try anything! I will let you know if it helps.

This is the small section that I managed to stitch.

The metallic part didn't show up terribly well on the photo, but it's around the collar and part of the motif on his chest. Also a few stitches on his head....


I promise to try not to grumble too much about the metallics!

Anyway, I'm off to finish off a commission I have for the magazine Cross Stitch Crazy for some Christmas designs....quite literally Christmas in July!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona