Back from the framers.

My two latest finishes, back from the framers.

New World – Papillon Creations

Lettres a mon Chat – Isabelle Vautier

SAL Update

On Saturday I had a small happy dance on Cirque des Triangles.  The chart is six pages in total and I have finished page 1!

It’s taken four weeks to finish one page so it should take roughly five more months to finish the whole design.  Not too bad, as it’s a large design.

Sunday/Monday I didn’t get too much stitching time.  I did manage a little bit more on New World and am almost at the half way stage on this one.

Tonight would normally be LHN night but as I have finished Chocolate Shoppe I decided to stitch a little on a UFO tonight – Tutankhamun.  I will have a pic of that next time.

I’ve also made a slight alteration to my rotation.  I have added Lettres a mon chat on Thursday evening and have decided to concentrate on one UFO on Friday evenings.  I narrowed it down to between Celtic Autumn, Tutankhamun, Judy O’Dells Accessory book and Too Pooped and asked Phill to choose one.   He chose Too Pooped (I think he knew this was one of my oldest UFOs!) so I will now work on that every Friday night, and also during my lunch hour at work when I have the time.

Chocolate Shoppe happy dance

Lots of photos to share today!  

Firstly my order from Sew and So arrived which included the thread I needed to finish off Chocolate Shoppe.

 

Chocolate Shoppe - LHN

Also, I got my order from Univers Broderie, which contained the long awaited threads I need to start my SAL with Claire.  I am using plain white Belfast linen for this, as the red threads will look stunning.  Here’s a floss toss.  We are starting the SAL on Thursday, so Lettres a mon Chat will replace my UFO slot in my rotation.  I’ll stitch on my UFO’s on Fridays instead.

 

Lettres floss toss

On Monday I carried on stitching on New World and it stitched up really really quickly.  I have almost finished two pages of the chart (there are six in total but two of those are quite small pages compared to the rest.

 

New World - 9th February

This picture really shows off the colour of the fabric well.

Finally, if you aren’t bored already, I treated myself to a new chart from Sew and So.  My Dad gave me some money for Christmas which I hadn’t spent yet and I saw this design from The Drawn Thread and couldn’t resist.  It’s called Moonlight Garden.  It has a LOT of speciality stitches so will be quite challenging to stitch!  I have only stitched one other Drawn Thread design, An Open Heart, which I really enjoyed and the explanations of the speciality stitches seem very clear so I should be okay.  I ordered the fabric and threads at the same time as the chart, the fabric is called Stoney Point from Wichelet and the threads are a mix of NPI/Northern Lights and Dinky Dyes.

 

Moonlight Garden floss toss

I’m putting this one away until later in the year, but just wanted to buy everything before I spent the money on something else

I did actually get some stitching done during my lunch hour today.  Inspired by a recent entry on Claire’s blog I dug out an old UFO” Too Pooped” which I think I will leave in work to occupy my lunch hours.  I’ll take it home at the weekend and take a photo of it.  I started this ages ago and it came as a kit, which included Aida.  It’s a long time since I stitched on Aida, and it felt like holding a piece of cardboard compared to the linens I’ve been using recently  

Time for me to leave the office now and make my way home!  Tonight I’m going to stitch on Cirque des Carreaux.

Have a good evening!

Snow Day!

We had some quite heavy snow last night, we don’t normally get much as we are so close to the coast but with that first fall came the promise of more during the night.  This morning we woke up to around four inches of snow.  This may not seem much but the whole city seems to grind to a halt after about an inch or so.  There were no buses running and 99% of the schools were closed.  I live in a very hilly area and even though we are on a main road which is fairly well gritted the side roads and in particular the road leading down the hill were particuarly bad.  After numerous text messages and phone calls between my work colleagues, one of my bosses texted everyone and told them not to even attempt to drive in to work.  I was so relieved, I really don’t like driving in the snow.

 

Back garden

Tomorrow we’ve been warned to expect dangerous road conditions because of ice so I’m really not looking forward to the journey to work tomorrow morning.  Also, we’re supposed to have an even heavier fall of snow on Thursday and Friday.

The good thing about the snow of course is that I had an unexpected day off and lots of stitching time!

First, here’s the progress I made on Monday on New World.

 

2nd February 2009

Today, I almost have a finish to show you.  I ran out of one colour (DMC 3865) on Chocolate Shoppe or else I would have finished it.  I will order some tomorrow and finish it off at the end of the week.

 

3rd February 2009

All it’s missing is the cake stands on the three cakes in the middle of the picture so it won’t take me long to finish this off

Rotation starts today

Well it’s Saturday, and the day that I plan to start my new rotation.  Today I will be stitching Cirque des Triangles with Jane as a SAL.  I have some housework to do this morning, then I’m going to visit my mum and dad this afternoon, so I will make a start this evening while watching TV.

YesterdayI carried on stitching on New World, which I am really enjoying.  I hope the colours are more true to life in this latest picture

 

And here’s a close up

 

Finally, here’s Ginger trying to get his 23 and half hours sleep a day!

New World

Thank you all for leaving such lovely comments on my Grand Marquoir, it’s much appreciated!

I’ve made a pretty good start today on New World.  I managed to stitch a little during my lunch hour at work and did quite a bit this evening when Phill was playing XBox 30.  The fabric is called Whipped Cocoa (Dyeing4U) and the floss is Threadworx Fantasy Island.  The colours in this photo are nowhere near the real life colours, I will try and get a photo in daylight over the weekend.

I may get a couple more hours on this tomorrow evening, but then on Saturday I’m starting the Cirque des Triangles stitch a long with Jane, which I am really looking forward to.

Fully charged.

My camera is up and running again so I can now post some photographs.

First is a picture of a biscournu I stitched for Kate last year as part of an exchange on Jayne’s Attic forum.  I used a Chatelaine freebie design called Martina’s Roses.

Next is my progress on the Marquoir alphabet

My floss and fabric choice for Papillon Creations New World, which I may start tomorrow.  The fabric is one that I have had in my stash for ages, from Dyeing4U called Whipped Cocoa and the thread is from Threadworx called Fantasy Island.

Finally, Little House Needleworks “Needlework School” which I started last year and finished up yesterday,  I used the recommended DMC threads and a Sugar Maple fabric called Muffin.  It looks slightly wonky in the picture but that says more for my photography skills than my needlework skills LOL.

The rest of the day is my own,  the weather is still not great, and Phill is enjoying a few games of Call of Duty World at War, so I’m going to get some more of the Marquoir alphabet done!

I’m back!

2009 has arrived and with it has come a renewed enthusiam for stitching.  For some reason this usually seems to happen at around this time of year, probably because of the long break off work at Christmas/New Year which gives me more time to myself and more time to browse the blogs and forums for inspiration.

In past years I have started the New Year with hopes of finishing some long outstanding WIPs, unfortuntely this never seems to happen lol!  I have so many WIPs/UFOs that I always feel incredibly guilty for not stitching on them as much as I can.  This can take the fun out of stitching for me and I end up packing everything away and turning on the XBox 360 instead.  This is exactly what happened to me earlier in the year, gaming completely took over, and I must admit that I have only stitched one thing since about May last year.  That was a Tatty Teddy Wedding Sampler for a colleage of mine, which I really disliked stitching.  The backstitching on those designs drives me mad.

This year I have put my WIP’s back into their storage boxes, although I am planning on working on a couple of them quite soon, and looked for something new to stitch.  I have completely fallen in love with a few designs which I am planning on starting soon.  They are:

Ink Circles – Cirques des Triangles.  I already have the chart for this, which was a gift from a good friend.  I have two pieces of fabric which are both possibilities and I’m just giving some thought to floss colour.

Papillon Creations – New World.  I ordered the chart yesterday, which arrived within minutes as a PDF file.  I have the perfect fabric in mind and have chosen the perfect thread to match it.  Unfortunately the thread is Needle Necessities and I only have one skein.  I have ordered a few skeins of the Threadworx version of the thread which should be identical so as soon as they arrive I am ready to start.

Grand Marquoir 2009 – This is a stitch a long over 12 months, consisting of six parts released at two month intervals.  I absolutely love this design!  I printed it off and started last night, using white Belfast linen and good old DMC 815.  It looks so pretty I can’t wait to get home from work and stitch some more.

I had a new laptop for Christmas so have spent the last few evenings sorting out my bookmarks and links to my favourite blogs/forums/shops,  and will be “showing my face” on a couple of forums and commenting on some blogs over the next few days.