I have a little problem relating to the fabrics that I have so badly photographed here. Z, the honorary member of our Patchwork Group, came back from Turkey with a range of fabrics, including these. As a result, the group is now faced with a challenge. By Easter next year, we have to create a piece 6 inches by 24 inches (approx. 15 cm by 60cm for metric people) using our selection of fabrics. Personally I wasn't keen on any of them, so ended up with these florals. I have thought long and hard, and the only thing that I can think of is to stitching a climbing rose incorporating the colours in the fabrics and then get Mum to combine my stitching with the fabrics to create the right size piece. The problem is that I cannot find a suitable chart of a climbing rose. There are issues about width, complexity (I have limited time to do this in) etc, etc. So can anyone out there suggest something that I could use or adapt? All suggestions gratefully received.
Right, moving on - I have both a finish finish and a new start to show you. Here are my Delft pieces made up into cards to sell for Marie Curie. It isn't a brilliant photo because I forgot to leave them unbagged so that I could take a photo without glare. I think that they look just fine and am hoping that someone will take a fancy to them at our stall later on this month.
The festive season fast approaches and therefore so does the need to start work on this year's ornaments for the girls. This start will eventually be a snowman with a red scarf standing next to a blue A for my littlest niece. This is taken from an alphabet in the current copy of Cross Stitch Collection (issue 216). Eldest niece will have a green and red Christmas elf standing next to a bright orange H.
On to Train of Dreams. Just a little progress here due to this morning's expensive excursion, about which I will say more in the Stash section of this post. One more complete block and a couple of nearly completed blocks, courtesy of last night's late night waiting for the fireworks to calm down.
Carnation got its regulation three blocks but also quite a bit in the next block, which should speed things up this coming week. It's very satisfying watching this lovely painting emerging under my needle.
Now - the Stash Update. As some of you may know, HAED's Halloween Sale expanded from 35% to 50% off. I had a couple of items in my wishlist and thought why not? So I did. As a result, my chart stash now includes Golden Wood by Ruth Sanderson, which always reminds me of the fairytale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and Birthstone Sapphire by Rachel Anderson.
This morning Mum and Z and I went to a fabric warehouse in Leicester. I don't really go for the fabric but they do stock some DMC threads and other stitching bits and pieces. Today I spent £137.13 - aren't 0% purchase credit cards so useful some times? On this occasion, they had far more DMC threads than usual at 40p a skein (85p each in Hobbycraft). I just went along the rows taking one of each colour that they had in stock - 300 skeins later, I was not massively popular with the people on the checkout - it took three of them to count up how many I had. The remaining £17.13 was aida, waste canvas, thimble, needle threaders etc. But as I pointed out, I don't smoke, very rarely drink, don't go clubbing, and so on and so forth - and all those threads will keep me going for quite a while! Carpe diem, as they say!
Well, according to my diary, today is our Full Moon here in the UK and so here is my update post.
The Cat still doesn't look much like a cat, but progress has been made. It has been to work with me again this week, in addition to its normal Sunday morning slot. My current plan is to work the bottom left hand corner before going back over to the right hand side and working up to the other eye.
Carnation is also progressing nicely, with another three blocks being completed this week. The brownish section is part of one of the little girls' hair, but you will have to wait a while to see her face as it is on page 6 of the chart.
While I'm on the subject of Carnation, I have ordered my Lowery floor stand and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will arrive either some time the end of this week or the beginning of the next. Once I have got it set up and got some stitches in, then I will let you know what I think.
Now this is not the new start that I earned by finishing the Fuschias - this is an "as well as" piece. The new start, when I finally decide on it, is going to be for me. This piece is a floral Delft type design from Cross Stitch Collection Issue 181 and will be finished as a card to sell for Marie Curie. I would like to get together a little stash of cards that can be sold at one of our events as my contribution, as baking is not my forte.
On a more cheerful note than my last post, Mum is feeling quite a bit better, enough so that she has been working in the garden when the weather permits, trying to get it tidy and sorted for the Open Gardens event later this month.
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