There's not a lot that eats up your spare time as much as Christmas does - writing cards, shopping for presents, attending the works do (or babysitting instead in my case), racking your brains for ideas for presents for other people to buy you, going to Christmas parties and so on and so forth. And while you are doing all these things and worrying about last posting dates, you aren't stitching, or at least I'm not.
However I do have a couple of photos to show you. One finish finish and one WIP.
It was Patchwork Group on Thursday night and we exchanged our Secret Santa presents, which must not cost more than £3. My partner was C, who loves Christmas and everything Christmassy. So I bought her a Christmas needle minder and stitched together this little bag to hold it. The little tree is a Mouseloft kit that I stitched in the autumn of 2011, but never made into anything. The red felt was left over from the Christmas ornaments that I made for my nieces in 2010 and the gold cord was bought for Penguin ABC Christmas gift tags that I stitched in 2009. So it was really a case of using up ends of stash to create something pretty and useful. C liked the bag and the needle minder very much.
I received a patchwork needle book done in Cathedral Window pattern and a extendable magnetic stick with an LED light in the end for spotting and retrieving dropped needles. Very useful and much appreciated.
The only other stitching that I have managed to do was on April. I have made good progress on the left hand gate post, and hope to be able to crack on with this piece during this next week before the festive season reaches its peak.
In other news, due to Christmas festivities, I have put 2.5lb back on last week so am now back to 11 stone, 10 lb. However, what goes on will come back off, so I am not particularly concerned about this.
As it is getting late and I didn't get any sleep last night for some reason, I am going to call it a day and hope to have more to show you next time. With best wishes for whichever festive season you might be celebrating, and may the frog keep away from your stitching.
Tonight I have two finishes to report - the Robin and the Xmas Tree. Both need to be finish finished, but the final stitches are in!
I put the last stitches into the Robin yesterday after a little frogging for the ID, and then washed and pressed it today. I now have three weeks in which to find a suitable frame, lace it, frame it and wrap it. I really like it - I hope my friend does too.
The other finish was this little Xmas Tree - the last of the back stitch went in early this morning. It has also been washed and pressed, as have the two other little Mouseloft pieces that I did earlier on. Now I just need to make them up into cards if I can find suitable colours - this is on a creamy yellow aida (hasn't photographed well) and the other two are on a pale blue. Not exactly Christmassy colours despite the designs.
I also washed and pressed the Poinsettia that I finished a while ago. That is now ready to be beaded, something I've not tried before. The deadline for getting it beaded and finish finished is mid December, so watch this space.
On to work in progress. This week you can actually see what I've done on the Beetle without going back and looking at the previous post. A small frog visited this morning while I was working on this, but only about half a dozen stitches. That's what happens when you are doing the laundry and handwashing stitching pieces as well as actually stitching. There's still a long way to go on this one so I'm thinking that perhaps I need to give this an evening in the week as well as Sunday mornings. I'll let you know.
I got another two blocks done on Carnation - it's confetti time again. However I only have two more full blocks to go on this page and then it is on to the partial blocks in column 8 and row 10. The plan is to get page 1 done before Christmas.
However, the kit has arrived for my cousin's baby and I need to get cracking on that. The aida for that was washed and pressed this morning as well in order to get the creases out. I've measured it up and it looks as if it will fit on my Lapman. Once I get it all sorted out, I think that that will be my travelling piece (at least I will give it a whirl).
In addition, I think that I've found the piece for my other friend's 40th birthday - it is a Jayne Netley Mayhew cat from a very old issue of Cross Stitch Gold. I'll need to buy some fabric for it - 28 count desert sand evenweave. I had been thinking about doing some Ginger Tom bookmarks as they would be easy to send to the States, but if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well. At the moment, I'm thinking on stitching it and sending it unframed, a) for ease of postage and b) cos I don't know what their decor looks like out there.
And lastly, but definitely not least, I've applied for a new job! It is the perfect job - using all my skills and qualifications, regular foreign travel, more money and I can walk to work! They've acknowledged my application - now I just have to wait to see what happens.
Well, this is a Monday update because we had family visiting over the weekend so although I got the update photos taken, they didn't get as far as the blog.
I also climbed a cliff (actually the side of a disused railway cutting) with my sister and her two littlies so that they could see what was on the other side of the fence at the top. I was a sedentary, book reading child, as nesh then as I am now. Although I have lived in this area for over 38 years, I have never climbed the side of the railway cutting until now - maybe life really does begin at 40!
Anyway, on to stitching. Starting with the smallest piece first, the end is in sight for this little Christmas tree. A few more X's and then the backstitch. I attended another Marie Curie meeting last week and we are hoping to have a little stall at the beginning of December to get our fundraising underway. We have also planned a list of events for the next year, in draft at the moment and needing to be tightened up, but we are making progress.
The robin himself is now complete, including the backstitch. All that remains is to do the other part of the branch behind him with its attendant blackberry blossoms. I am planning to frame him myself but need to get him finished before I can go frame hunting with Mum.
Steady progress on the Beetle's bonnet assisted by the fact that Mum had visitors and so couldn't come round. Even better, Dad has now sorted out her broadband contract and her hub has arrived. They just need to get set up and then I have to go round and teach her how to blog as she has a history project on the go that she wants to write about.
I got three blocks completed on Carnation this week - the bottom two in the right hand column and the one on the left on the bottom row. I just need to finish the bottom row and then I will be working on column 8 which is partly on page 2, followed by row 10 which is partly on page 4. I am hoping to get page 1 completed before Christmas, even though the frogs appeared this morning when I had moved onto the next block. Basically I wasn't quite awake and got two similar shaped symbols confused, which was a bit of a pain to deal with before 8am.
Today I'll start with another new start and then work up from there.
This is another Mouseloft for Hobbycraft piece - this time of a Christmas tree. This one might just get stitched as per the chart, rather than bits being left out. I have another three of these small pieces to do. I took Santa and Snowman along to the Marie Curie meeting, but although it looks as though we are going to have some sort of craft stall thing, I may have to make these into cards myself as I didn't get any volunteers.
Next up is my Eva Rosenstand robin - isn't he just gorgeous? I've done the back stitch round the eye and for the beak, and he just looks so lifelike. I'm really enjoying stitching him and may well do him again at some point. If my friend doesn't like him, I shall start to think that there is something wrong with her.
Then comes Beetle mania. Despite a home invasion by my Mum using my computer, I did manage to finish the second headlight and start the sidelight (?) above the first headlight this morning. To be honest, I feel better about it when I look at the photos than when I've got it in my hands for some reason. As you can see, I am now using a hoop with this rather than the square snap-on frame and I'm finding it easier - its not so bulky in my hand.
Carnation has gone well this week, despite being out three nights in a row. I've completed three blocks in the right hand column and gone into a fourth. Mum said that it was coming on when she looked at it this morning.
Back to work tomorrow and at least my colleague will have returned from her holiday so I will have someone to share the load again this week. Sometimes the bosses seem to forget that one person doing two people's work is going to take longer to get stuff done!
