Well, I have quite a lot to report this time. A finish, a finish finish and a new start.
"I'm Snowman A and I'm very pleased to meet you. I hope that you will soon be meeting my good friend, Elf H." So that is one 2012 Christmas ornament for my nieces off the blocks. The plan is to start Elf H during my lunch break tomorrow and then take him to Sewing Day on Thursday. The only change made to Snowman A is to backstitch the outline of the white areas to make him stand out better - he was designed to be stitched on pale blue aida rather than white.
The finish finish is Little Miss Gorgeous' Teddy stocking to go on her first Christmas tree. I'll give him a press before I send him off, but I think that he has come out nicely. Her parents love the Noah's Ark, so I think that they will appreciate this piece too.
This is not a good photo of my new start but as it is being stitched on 28 count white linen, I think that the fabric doesn't help with photos at this early stage. This is Just Nan's Serena, being the first of four angels that I am planning to stitch on one piece of linen in response to a request from my Mum. This is going to tick off a number of firsts for me - first piece on linen, first piece using special stitches, first piece using Kreinik threads - and second piece with beading. I'm using a 30 inch frame with my Lowery floor stand, so another BAP to join Carnation and Train.
Another block completed on Train and some good overlap into the block below. I lost the morning light again today due to having to make an early shopping trip to accommodate Mum's birthday tea, but still some progress made. Despite the issues of using 25 count fabric, I do like the way this looks and how close it is to the original picture.
Lovely progress on Carnation this week. In to row 3 and it was so nice and straightforward that I got four blocks done instead of my usual three. That puts me a tiny bit ahead of my deadline of finishing page 3 by the second anniversary.
So for this week coming, I have a Sewing Day with the Patchwork Group on Thursday. My plan is to take Elf H and crack on with him with the hope of getting both ornaments made up by the end of the month.
Hope all is well with you and yours, and that you are keeping snuggly warm in this wintry weather.
Golly, its gone cold round here! Hope you are keeping warm wherever you are and wishing New York and the US East Coast all the very best of luck!
Despite having very cold fingers, I have a WIPocalypse stitching finish to show you. Finished just before I turned the computer on, here is Teddy. Apologies for the dodgy photo - I had to rotate it and the definition went a bit blurry. However I will show you another hopefully better picture when it is finish finished. It now needs a wash and to be made up into a little Christmas stocking ornament to go on my cousin's baby's first Christmas tree. I hope that she will like it.
I finished another couple of blocks on Train yesterday morning and put stitches into several new blocks. However I think that progress on this is going to be hampered by the clocks going back and the increasingly dodgy weather because I really do need good light in order to work on this one. I may have to move operations into the lounge where I have a daylight lamp, instead of working in my bedroom where the morning light is usually good and I have plenty of space to spread out on the bed.
Progress on this one includes last week's regulation three blocks and the stitches put into this week's first block before work this morning. I was really pleased the other week when a friend of mine recognised which painting it was just from the corner of it that I had stitched.
In other news, I have been enabled, or why blog hopping is a bad idea. I have a number of blogs which I always visit and then some of these have nice lengthy blog lists on them, so I hop from one blog to another, admiring people's work and reading about their lives. The problem is that often the bloggers out there have some seriously enticing stash and The Crafty Princess is one of them. Thanks to her, I am now in possession of a new HAED chart, "Four Seasons" by Jacek Yerka (bought in the Halloween Sale), and a massive piece of 18 count Magic Guide aida. It is going to end up about 30 inches square so I am going to have to invest in a new 39 inch rotating frame to put this on. It is going to take forever to stitch and then I will somehow have to frame it and then find somewhere to put it - I must be mad!
My stash buying from the other week has started to materialise. Not just the fabric for Four Seasons, but also the fabric for Mum's Just Nan guardian angels, the beads and the special threads, and the card blanks for the Delft pieces. I'm still waiting on the DMC threads for the angels, but as I'm out tomorrow at Pilates and again on Wednesday for Mum's Halloween party, nothing is going to happen until the end of the week anyway. Hopefully I will have some finish finishes to show you in my next update, but until then keep warm and carry on stitching!
