Monday, August 31, 2015

Waiting room stitching.

Life has been rather hectic again and I've not really had much free time to stitch in the evenings. I have managed to get some stitching done though....yes, I'm spending lots of time in various doctors waiting rooms again! I picked up the free kit with this months World Of Cross Stitching magazine and slipped it into my bag for the first of what turned out to be quite a few different doctors appointments with my hubby.  Thank heavens for these free kits, they are the perfect size for popping into a bag and with the threads already pre-cut and a needle already enclosed, they really are sanity saving!

Here's what I stitched while waiting for my hubby....


...so, looking on the bright side of things, I have made a start on my Christmas stitching! Now if only my hubby had been five or ten minutes longer at his last appointment I might have actually managed to finish all the cross stitching....twelve stitches to go...how very inconsiderate of him to come out before I had finished! ;)


So a few more stitches and then the back stitching and I'll have my first Christmas card made!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Monday, August 24, 2015

Arghhhhh......

... cross stitch kits! The great thing about cross stitch kits is that you can (usually!) start stitching them right away....no searching for threads, no faffing around trying to get fabric that is the right size....even a needle is included. But, the bad thing about kits is that sometimes you run out of thread and can't find an exact match....which means contacting the manufacturer and waiting on them to (hopefully) send replacement threads.

Yup, that's where I am just now...sitting doing nothing, just twiddling my thumbs (yeah, you believe that one, don't ya?!!) hoping that Dimensions Crafts will send me some replacement thread. I've run out of, not one, but two colours! This is where I am at the moment...



Now I'm sure that I'm not a wasteful stitcher when it comes to using the threads provided, I've run out of threads before, so I'm extra careful about  stitching to the last tiny amount left in the needle.  This is how much of the black thread is left from the kit......




...and I've finished all the black stitching! There's just a little bit of back stitching to do using black, and I'm pretty sure that I will only use maybe one or two lengths at the very most to finish the back stitching. Weird how there is so much left of one colour but not enough of the other colours. I can only assume that the model stitcher for Dimensions is even more frugal with her threads (except the black) than I am!!! :)

Oh well...time to look out the old lighthouse design :)


Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Monday, August 17, 2015

If only I had remembered.....

....to mark off each colour that I had stitched on the chart, I wouldn't  waste so much time trying to decide if a certain stitch was pale blue or very light blue (with my eye sight, they both look exactly the same!!!) and then I would know exactly where I was on the chart, and what colour I should be stitching with!

Filling in those last few stitches in certain areas is driving me mad and resulting in me fudging it when I just can't decide. I do have the decency to feel guilty about it....for a second or two....then I can't realize that I can't tell which bit was fudged and then I don't feel too bad as no-one else will know ......except you, but I'm sure you'll keep my secret...won't you?!!  :)

So I've gone from this (last week's pic)....


...to this...


......almost finished with the reflections!!!  Woohoo! Feeling good....except for the fudging part!

Until next time..happy stitching!

Rhona

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Out of sight, out of mind....and a change of attitude!

In order to resist the temptation of stitching  the more colourful lighthouse project, I decided that the 'out of sight, out of mind' approach was the only one that would work for me....in reality it's more a case of it being out of reach rather than out of mind...but hey, it's working! So, the lighthouse project is packed away out of sight (but not out of mind) in another room so that I'm not tempted to pick it up and do "just one length of that lovely pink in the sky" ...which never happens, because just one length of thread then becomes two lengths, then three lengths and then...well you know how it goes!!!

Anyhoo, this is what Twilight Silhouette looked like last week.....


...and the thought of stitching hundreds and hundreds of little black x's on to navy fabric really wasn't all that exciting, as I'm sure you can imagine! I really didn't want to stitch all that boring black, but changed my attitude when I realized that since there was sooooo much black to do, it meant that for great big chunks of the design I didn't have to do any counting and didn't really have to concentrate too hard, soooo, I could really watch a move (not just listen to it) while I stitched....yayyy!! (and yes, I'm enjoying the italics today!!!)

So after a couple of movies (no popcorn though!), this is how these sweet fairies look now....



Quite a change!

Sadly for me though, since most of the black area is done, it means that now I'm back to having to count my stitches and just listen to movies again!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona

Monday, August 3, 2015

The problem with colour....

Not only am I having problems finding time to get any stitching done, (these summer nights just seem to fly by!) but when I do get my stitching out, instead of working on Twilight Silhouette, my hand just seems to gravitate to the more colourful  lighthouse design. 

I have been making a big effort to do more of the Twilight design, but progress seems to be quite slow, I think it's because stitching blue threads on blue fabric makes seeing any progress quite difficult....here's where I was last time...


...and here's my progress...


There's actually quite a bit of half stitch done in one strand that doesn't seem to show up on the photograph! Of course, the great big chunk of black to be done at the bottom seems to be so boring and tedious compared to stitching this.....


...all those yummy, scrummy colours in the sky...


Isn't this just gorgeous? You can see why I want to stitch this design with all those beautiful colours that are in the sky.

Yeah, so much for this one being my 'stuff-it-in-my-handbag-to-stitch-while-I'm-while-waiting-for-the-doctor project'! Ah well, you only live once...might as well stitch what makes you happy!

Hope whatever you're stitching is making you happy too!

Until next time...happy stitching!

Rhona