Just a few days late, but I have a good excuse for not posting on the night - I was out with my team from work enjoying our Christmas do. I know that sounds daft, but trying to find a date which suits the majority of 21 people split between two different cities took the organiser several months. Anyway we went out for a very nice curry at a very good price, and a good time was finally had by all.
Well, I don't have a lot of stitching to show you, because as you know, I am concentrating on getting Enchanted Garden done.
Blogger appears to be having problems uploading photos, so I'll just do the writing now and add the pictures later, hopefully tomorrow.
Enchanted Garden - well, Fairy 3 has wings and arms and is properly dressed. She still needs legs, but there are only so many hours in a day. I have now stitched from one side of the piece to the other. Once I've done Fairy 3's legs and the toadstool that she is sitting on, I shall scroll up and finish off all the clover leaves and flowers at the top of the piece, and back stitch my way down as far as I can. I shall then scroll down and do all the stitching at the bottom (including Fairy 4) before back stitching my way back up to the middle. I have about 5 weeks left for this, leaving me a couple of weeks to get it framed. Fingers crossed, folks!
Turkish Challenge - the stitching on this was finished earlier in the month, but on Wednesday this week I went round to Mum's to start putting together the final piece. It is not wonderful but we were limited as to what we could do to combine the stitching and the fabrics. What we ended up with was using two of the fabrics in a sort of braid effect to frame the stitching with a diamond and using the third fabric on the back. Mum did the braid effect on her machine and then I have slip stitched (sort of) the two braids to the linen with the stitching on. It will then need some wadding before being backed and bound. I'm quite pleased with the stitching (first time on linen) but the overall piece - does nothing for me!
On a brighter note, Mum and I went to the fabric place today. Mum was helping someone choose fabric for a baby quilt that Mum is to make for her. I didn't come away with much - a bit of aida, some needles, a couple of threads and a 4 1/2 inch square quilting ruler which will do the same job as the Blue Ribbon Designs Stitch Starter that I was thinking of buying - so that saves me ordering from the US.
Right, time is getting on and I'm yawning like mad, so photos tomorrow if all goes well and so good night!
Edited to add: Blogger is now finally letting me add pictures!
Time seems to be flying this year - how can it be time for IHSW again? At least we have had some sunshine this weekend and I did go for a nice walk yesterday afternoon because I was getting a bit of eye strain.
Anyway, let's start with the good stuff! Major Happy Dance time, folks! Major, major!
Page 3 of Carnation is finished! I put the last stitches in on the evening of 17 April 2013, which means that I was five weeks ahead of schedule for getting it done by its second anniversary (25 May 2013). I am so pleased with myself that I could sing!
Now I am concentrating solely on Enchanted Garden. Fairies 2 and 3 (top right) are now both works in progress. I'm working across the middle of the piece at the moment, and then will decide whether to work the top section or the bottom section at that point. There has been some frogging this week, but onwards and upwards as they say!
What else? I went back to Pilates after a two week hiatus, and I feel better for it. I also went to a Marie Curie meeting and discussed future fundraising events. Not only that, I attended a shoe party (like a Tupperware party, but for shoes) and bought a pair. I can't show you them yet as I'm waiting for them to be delivered, but they are purple peep-toe stilettos. I'm going to wear them to work and shock the pants off my colleagues, who rarely see the other side of me - I'm not sure that some of them even realise that it's there :-)
On Wednesday I am going to take Turkish Challenge round to Mum's, together with the horrid fabric, and try to work out how to combine the two in a way that I can bear to put my name to. And on Thursday we are finally going to have our team Christmas do. Our team is split over two offices and it makes it very hard to synchronise diaries, so we are having Christmas in April this year.
I hope that the sun is shining for you, and wish all the best to you and yours.
First of all, apologies for absence if you missed me. I was away last weekend at a family history conference and followed it up with a brief but very enjoyable visit to my cousin, so no blogging last Sunday.
However I did take some stitching with me for those odd moments when you aren't scheduled to be doing something or going somewhere. I came home on Thursday in time for Patchwork Group, following which I am overjoyed to say that Turkish Challenge is finished!
This is the washed and ironed version for you all to see. The next part of the challenge is to work out how to use the fabrics that Z brought back from Turkey with the stitching to create a finished piece. The stitching is 6 3/4 inches long, so I need to decide how long the piece is going to be (it has to be a multiple of 6 inches) and whether I am just going to top and tail the stitching, or whether I am going to frame it. I showed the fabrics on this post, so any advice would be gratefully received.
Next up is Carnation - I stitched two blocks on this before I went away and plan to finish the last two blocks on page 3 this week. You can just see the second little girl's face starting to appear at the bottom right - the orangey colour is a reflection from the Chinese lantern that she is holding. I am so close with this one - I am planning to hold a major, major Happy Dance in my next post!
Finally, Enchanted Garden, which is about to get a whole lot more attention. The black area in the middle is Fairy 2's hair. The plan now is to work across the middle of this piece, and then scroll either up or down (depending on how I feel at the time) and then back the other way, and then do the backstitch. How long have I got? Well, according to my diary, 7 weeks from today is 2 June 2013. That will leave me a fortnight to have it framed and get it wrapped. Fingers crossed, folks, fingers crossed!
The weather appears to be warming up here and my heating got turned off on Friday. I'm starting to see a lot more flowers and blossom around so maybe Spring really is on its way - fingers crossed.
