Saturday, May 31, 2014

More unpicking!

So the hope that the frogs had moved on proved to be false and I ended up unpicking....again! Still, it was worth the hassle as I'm now much happier with the colours and those cute (but faceless) kitties and mugs look so much better.


Before...


...after, including kitty number four...



I'm looking forward to the kitties faces appearing with the back stitching, but I'm not looking forward to actually doing the back stitching...if that makes sense! :)

My to-do list just got a bit bigger after I unexpectedly received a copy of Your Handmade Home magazine. One of my designs was featured in the magazine and the editor very kindly sent me a copy! Lots of lovely projects in the mag......



...... including my cushion design.....


The chart was in the bottom left corner of the page, but has been blanked out so that I can post the pic here for you to see!

Also this week the postie delivered the World Of Cross Stitching mag which had my designs for a set of Father's Day cards.....





The model stitcher did a great job on these and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.....too bad I can't stitch quickly enough to make one for my dad and  my father-in-law, they'll just have to get store bought cards instead!

Until next time...happy stitching!


Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Pics...as promised! :)

Finally, I have my camera back and can share some pictures with you!

I had been stitching on Twilight Silhouette which was slow going....dark navy fabric and stitching with four strands of threads doesn't make for speedy stitching....not that I could ever claim to be a speedy stitcher even at the best of times!

Here's the progress with the fairy....


Picture quality isn't too good, but at least you can see how she's progressing. I had decided to keep this stitching a secret and give the finished piece to my daughter for her Christmas, so had carefully hidden the stitching away at the back of my wardrobe and was trying to decide what to work on over the summer while she was at home. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had taken pics of the stitching and, of course, my daughter borrowed the camera and had a look at all the pictures on the disc! Luckily for me she loved the look of the stitching and asked if I could do something like that for her....so I had to confess that it was for her. So no Christmas surprise for her, but it means I don't have to hide it away and can keep working on it.

Here's what I had started to work on while the fairy was temporarily hidden.....



It's another design from the Margaret Sherry bookazine. This was the design that was causing me all sorts of problems with the frogs! First of all, I had to convert the listed anchor threads to the DMC equivalents which as we all know, never seem to look right! I changed them for what I thought would work, then found a conversion for this chart online....so I abandoned my thread pics in favour of the ones listed....big mistake! After stitching some of the design, I just had to unpick as the colours looked dreadful! I resorted back to my own colour choices, and although they seem much brighter/stronger than the photo in the magazine, I think they look fine. I changed the reds in the mugs as I didn't like the way they were stitching up either, and decided to change them to a mint colour which I think was a nice contrast to the blues in the other mugs. The blue colours are a bit pale and I'm tempted to do a bit more unpicking so that I can get the colours the way I want them to look, although I'm so fed-up of unpicking, but I'm a bit fussy, and I want it to look right! My ort jar is certainly filling up quickly this month!

So, hopefully the frogs will have moved on to a new home....hopefully not yours!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Sprogs and frogs!

Last week I missed posting as it was the end of the college year and both sprogs were returning home.This meant Mum's taxi service (me!) was back into operation. Of course life is never easy and uncomplicated....both sprogs finished on the same day, but one is a few hundred miles up North and the other is in the opposite direction, which therefore meant two days of driving and packing up apartments and dorm rooms....ahh, the joys of being a Mum! Anyhoo, I had meant to post last weekend, but was exhausted and kind of cranky that the contents of said apartment and dorm room were abandoned in my living room and kitchen....grrr. My 'I'll do it tomorrow' thought never actually materialized into action....sorry!

So with good intentions this weekend, I go to photograph the stitching that I had managed to get done, which was quite a bit actually, but the frogs were visiting (in fact I think they set up camp in my stitching basket) so the end result doesn't show just how much stitching was accomplished....only to find that number one son has taken my camera with him while he's away this weekend at a TaeKwon Do tournament! More grrrs! lol.

So, between sprogs ( I love them, really!) and frogs (I definitely don't love them!), this has been quite the week! Pictures WILL follow, I promise!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Friday, May 9, 2014

Another week has flown by!

Not much stitching accomplished this week....I don't know where the time has gone  - it's definitely been another one of those weeks!

Anyhoo, this months issue of Card Shop appeared in the mail box which is always a good excuse to stick the kettle on, have a cuppa and forget the housework and have a good read of the magazine. This month I had two sets of designs in the mag......




And the magazine came with a free kit which was such a cute little design that I just had to start it...


Just a few more stitches to do and then the back stitch to bring this cute little bunny to life! Yayyyy...another finish (almost!) to add to the 'I -will-eventually-get-round-to-doing-something-with-this' pile! Am I the only one who procrastinates about finishing things off?

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona


Friday, May 2, 2014

One of those weeks!


I had one of those days last week, which turned into one of those weeks...even my stitching seemed to be conspiring against me! 

Remember the trouble I had with running out of thread near the end of Simple Treasures? Well, Dimensions kits  seem to be my bete noir at the moment! (Oooh, don't I sound posh saying that?!!! I only remember it as it was in a Bryan Ferry song, and I had a huge crush on him when I was younger! Anyhoo, I digress.)  So, earlier in the year I had bought a wedding sampler kit to do for a friend, and when I opened the kit the fabric had a rather large and very obvious fault right down the middle! As you can see, the design leaves quite a bit of the fabric un-stitched, so the fault would be seen. 



I was a bit annoyed (to say the least!) as kits are not particularly cheap and I expect the contents to be, well... perfect. A quick email to Dimensions had them emailing back that I would have to send the whole kit to their office for them to see the fault in the fabric. I did wonder if it was worth the cost of posting the kit to them as it would probably be almost as cheap to go and buy a roll of aida from the local craft store. I decided to send the kit back to Dimensions so that they could see the faulty fabric and maybe this would prevent it happening again....I can  hope anyway!

Sooo, what to work on now? Well, I remembered that I had bought a kit just before Christmas that I was going to stitch as a surprise for my daughter. (It won't be a surprise if she's reading this, though!!!) After trying to remember where I had hidden it... ahem, I mean stored it safely, I was all excited about starting a new project and took everything out the packet to organize all the threads etc and, guess what.....yup, you've guessed it....fabric with such fold marks that even after washing it twice, they still show! I won't repeat what I said about Dimensions kits, but it was something along the lines of  'Oh dear, tut, tut'. (Yeah, sure!)

Luckily I had a roll of dark navy aida in my stash, so I decided to just use that instead of contacting Dimensions, yet again!

Here's the  design and my stitching so far....


It's called Twilight Silhouette. Isn't that the most gorgeous design?

I had forgotten just how hard it is to stitch on navy fabric (which is much darker than it appears on the photo!) and also how slow it is stitching, even half stitches, with four or more strands of thread! My fingers are aching! Anyway, I think it will be worth it in the end, as the design is gorgeous and I'm sure my fairytale loving daughter will appreciate all the work.

And since it's TUSAL time again....


here's my jar, but I'm wondering if I forgot to empty it last month as there seems to be sooooo many orts in the jar! Ooops!

I also want to say a quick 'welcome' to my new followers! And also a big thank you to everyone who leaves a comment, they really do mean a lot to me. I'm planning to do loads of blog visits now that my course has finished and that life has returned to normal(ish).

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona