Tuesday 31 May 2016

Compass Design Framed ^___^


Hi, guys! My aunt took the Alessandra Adelaine Needleworks compass design to Hobby Lobby earlier this month to have it framed for my cousin's birthday today.

She lucked out as it was ready just in time yesterday. She brought it over to me yesterday so I could wrap it up.

What do you think? I wish the photo was better, but framed pieces are hard to photograph without getting reflections, etc. when using your cellphone as your camera.

I think they did a wonderful job on the frame and mat board. It's been a while since I've seen a circular cut mat board. We can't even do that at my work because we don't have the mat cutter to cut circular shapes. Though I think those sorts of mats have gone out of style, it really works with this pattern.

I hope my cousin likes my aunt's gift to him. It isn't my gift, just my stitching. My gift is a birthday card. LOL

Until next time ^____^

Monday 30 May 2016

Serendipitous Jo's Twenty-Second Frolic of the Year

The fourth Friday is the day I start the next letter in the Brooke's Books' Stitcher's Alphabet ready to head up The Alphabet Club post on the first Saturday of the next month.

Here's my start on K:


I'm stitching this on a long thin piece of 28 count afghan fabric with the aim of making a soft book at the end of the alphabet.

It's a really weird fabric to stitch on because what appear to be little blocks in the fabric are not over two threads but three so while I could use them to stitch the design, it would be 9 stitches to the inch not 14 and the letters would not fit.  So I am ignoring the blocks and stitching over 2 threads.  Which makes counting difficult!

WIP #1 - Village Alphabet

Hello stitching friends,

this time my number generator came up with my #1, my oldest WIP. Well, now after stitching on it it has become a WIP, before it was a UFO for more than 16 years. It's a huge alphabet, the Village Alphabet by Cross My Heart, and I started with the letter F on Friday. Saturday was no stitching and yesterday I just added an hour's worth of stitching on it. This is what it looks like right now.


Tomorrow I am going to continue stitching on it until it's finished.

Brigitte




Saturday 28 May 2016

TAAT for me this Friday ...

My dear friend, Jo, from Serendipitous Stitching, introduced me to a new acronym the other day - OAAT (One At A Time) stitching, when she commented on my last FF post about my new start "Too cold to go out".

Well, this FF I actually did TAAT (Two At A Time) stitching.  During the day, when the light was better, I stitched on "Too cold to go out" and then in the evening (when I had less good light), I stitched on a new Christmas design from Rico Designs, which happened to take my fancy.

Now, enough chat, let's get to the nitty gritty - the pics!!!!!

Too cold to go out

This is where I got up to after last week's FF...


... and after some stitching during the week, I was up to here....


and then yesterday I managed only a bit of progress, as I had to frog the dark grey for Milo twice!  Aaagghh!



Christmas Design

 I had a bit more success with my Christmas stitch from the Rico Design book.



 This is what I had accomplished during the week.



... and this is my progress after FF (the fabric colour is truer in the pic above)


Now, this piece has no name.  It is rather prosaically called Design 77796.  However, I am calling it "Snowy Russian village"
 The reason for this is two fold.

One, the onion dome on the top of the tower reminds me of Russian churches.


Two, you may remember last week that I posted this pic of Furio reading my gripping thriller ...


I think that Brigitte, you asked the name of the novel, well, it was called Moskva and I found it to be a compelling thriller and can highly recommend it.



So, that is all for me for now,

hugs, Kaye


Friday 27 May 2016

Pincushions in the making

Hello!

This Friday I finally had time for some frolicing again and I chose to use my crochet hook and made a few pincushions like these...



I really enjoyed making these and playing with different colours. The inspiration comes from a wonderful Swedish crochet blog www.bautawitch.se which is one of my very favorite craft blogs.

Annie

Tuesday 24 May 2016

A two part Friday Frolics post.....

Okay, now as I forgot to post for FF last Friday night (13th May) due to the intensive freelance work I was doing - you can read about it on my Kitten Stitching blog - I have decided that this week's FF post will be a two parter. So, here goes.....

Part One: Friday 13th May:

So, first of all I had a Happy Dance at my new stitching group with MelodyHelenChristine and Julia (no blog).  I will post all of the fun of the day on my main blog, Kitten Stitching, when I get the chance.

I finished my second Nordic ornament from PS Book #191 for the Christmas Ornie SAL May theme of "Reindeer".

Isn't he a proud, handsome fellow?




He is a companion piece to the April theme of "Ornament".


So, at a loose end (I know, I know, how could that be with all of my UFOs?????), I downloaded this pretty pattern from Lynne B of Happiness is Cross Stitch.  If you don't know Lynne's blog, it is well worth checking it out - she is very generous with her freebies and if you are a cat lover, she has lots of cat designs.  "All you need is love" is her latest design, not a freebie but at $5 was a bargain, I thought, especially as it was instant download and I have now stitched two of them (you will have to check out Kitten Stitching in a few days to see them both stitched up.)

This, of course, is Milo.


... and lastly, I got up to make a cup of tea when I was reading this very gripping thriller but obviously Furio didn't find it all that gripping!


So, that was Part One, now for Part Two.



Part Two: Friday 20th May:

This past Friday, for FF and for FNSI (hosted by the wonderful Wendy), I picked up this lovely design.




Bet you can't guess why I love this piece????? Silly me, of course you can because there are my two kitty cats, Milo and Furio in the window! How could I resist?

This is a design which I bought on eBay, it is a Bayview Publication but no indication of the designer.


Anyway, that is two weeks of Friday Frolics for me and now it is Wednesday morning so I am thinking about my next FF selection.

Have a great day everyone, I am off to Aqua aerobics, then my dear friend Marie is going to teach me to make Polish pirogi this morning and then this afternoon, my next lot of freelance work should have appeared in my inbox so it will be back to the grindstone for me - lol! - and tonight is book club - so a very full, busy but enjoyable day ahead.

hugs, Kaye

Serendipitous Jo's Twenty-First Frolic of the Year

The Third Friday of the month heralds the start of IHSW hosted by Joyzse of Random Ramblings.

My current IHSW project is Elizabeth Shephard by The Scarlet Letter.  Here is the part I worked on this weekend:

stitched on 30 count linen

I stitched the borders of the two left hand motifs and started the swan inside the green one.  I also stitched part of the brown border at the bottom and the brown parts of the motif next to it.

Here's the whole piece:


You can see how little I have left to do!  According to my records I have stitched on her for 31 days spread out over 2015 and 2016.

a friday finish!


My stitching has been really slow lately due to some problems with my hands. But, I did have a finish on Friday. Lizzie Kate's The ABCs of Aging Artfully is done!

See you all next week with a new project!
lynda

Monday 16 May 2016

This weeks stitching update

Didn't get much done. But, every stitch done makes it closer to the finish, LOL! Decided to work on my American stitching piece.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Serendipitous Jo's Twentieth Frolic of the Year

Last Friday was the second Friday of the month which means Christmas!  The theme for the Christmas Ornie SAL Blog this month is reindeer.  So I stitched a little reindeer on Friday:

Jinglebell Reindeer
stitched over one on 28 count silvered white evenweave

He was so much fun, I stitched another one on Saturday:

Holly Reindeer

And a third one on Sunday!

Mistletoe Reindeer

All three of these reindeer are freebies from It's Daffycat.  She has done nine so far!

Sunday 8 May 2016

Serendipitous Jo's Nineteenth Frolic of the Year

I worked all day Friday so didn't get any stitching in at all, not even during my lunchbreak because I went shopping instead.  Nothing exciting; a new laundry basket, some paint, birdseed, a reduced price plant and some shampoo.  Good old Wilkinson's one stop shopping!

Anyway, the first time I sat down with a needle was while the Small Boy was in the bath so I continued with Thursday's new start.  This is a Sweetheart Tree design called Finger Fun 1.  I'm stitching on a random scrap of 28 count Platinum linen.  The centre of the design is stitched over one but the rest will be over two.

Here is my progress after three evenings:


I finished the Teresa Wenztler ornament I was stitching last week and you can see it on my blog post here.

Friday 6 May 2016

Knitting and Stitching on a Friday Frolics evening ....

... what more could you ask for?

Well, last night was both FNwF and Friday Frolics, so here is what I got up to ....

I knitted some more of my ombre baby blanket for my friend's son's baby to come...

Just a few rows but the blanket is growing, it went from this ...


to this...


I am now well on my way on my third colour - only two to go after I finish this lighter blue.

Stitchingwise, I randomly chose this UFO,  the gorgeous Thirteen Colonies by LHN.  Now, I last stitched on this way back in January, 2012!!!!!! You can read all about it on my Kitten Stitching blog here.


Now, when I picked it up last night, the stitching was like this....


Yay! I finished the little grey house - although you may notice that I am frogging the browny colour on the right - I realised that I had used the wrong floss colour, all those years ago - aagghh!


I am certain that Thirteen Colonies was a gift from dear Gracie from Needles, pins and dragonflies and she generous gifted me not only the pattern but the fabric and the floss as well - thank you, dear Gracie.  So sorry to have neglected it for so long but it is back in the rotation now - please look for another update post on this next week for Gifted Gorgeousness  on my Kitten Stitching blog and I am going to add it to my 'Merica Monday rotation for the Americana SAL to make sure that it does not get forgotten again.


You can see what everyone else was doing for FNwF by clicking this link and check out the Friday Frolickers here.

I hope that everyone had a frolicking fun time last night, 

hugs, Kaye

Thursday 5 May 2016

WIP #6

Hello friends,

I totally forgot to post my stitching during the last weekend.
The random number was 6, and that's Susan Singleton by The Scarlet Letter.


I added the bird and the sun and it was a lot of fun so stitch with these colours.
Now I'm already curious to see what my random number for tomorrow will be.

Brigitte

Monday 2 May 2016

Frolicking with February!

Yep... you read right.. I spent Friday night frolicking with February!  This time around I picked up the Joyful World SAL "February" by Snowflower Diaries -  as my Friday night project.

This is where I was when I started stitching on Friday:


And this is what it looked like after Friday night:


Quite pleased with my progress on this one... I did keep it out over the weekend and managed to get a lot more done.  All I need to do now is stitch the border and it will be done!  I will show an update on my blog once I get it finished.

See you next week
Hugs xx

Serendipitous Jo's Eighteenth Frolic of the Year

Last Friday was the Fifth Friday in the month and I have nominated this event to be Teresa Wentzler Friday.  Which does not alliterate at all.

Heather Silver Lotus is stitching the Byzantine Ornaments as her contribution to the Smalls SAL and I love them.  She has inspired me to start mine.

I am using a burgundy 28 count linen which I had scraps of in my stash.  Not much of a margin but just enough!

Here is my progress on Ornie 1:


You can see the thread sorter I have made because the same gold colours are used in each design.  They are so similar and yet in traditional TW style she has chosen to blend them!

Because I changed the fabric colour, I have changed the accent colour too.  The originals use green, blue or lilac but I will use red 321 for each ornament.   

I'm going to continue with this one today and see if I get a Bank Holiday Monday finish.