Chatelaine Springtime Roses Finish

I finished this off yesterday and took a photo this morning. It's done on Vintage Green Belfast linen and was a lot of fun to stitch. And what a fantastic freebie, I might add. Thank you, Martina. :-)

This was my "travel" project ~ mainly stitched at my nonna's house whenever I was visiting her. She's a VERY crafty person, so always loves it when I stitch at her house. :) She taught me to knit and crochet when I was a little girl; though I haven't done either in many years. I wish I had the time for more craft hobbies, but my stitching keeps me occupied more than enough. Yeah, and like I NEED the expense of more craft hobbies... ha! I'm happy that I've finished a few things this week actually, I'll enjoy starting the Quaker Garden SAL all the more next week.

I'm off to watch the rest of the tennis (Agassi). Hmmm... you probably think I'm a big sports fan, but I'm not really. I love Wimbledon, but don't follow any other tennis tournaments; and like wise, I love the World Cup (and the European Cup), but rarely watch football at any other time. They're just those sporting events that I've followed ever since I can remember, like the Olympics. And this is Andre Agassi's last Wimbledon, so I need to make a point of watching all his matches, because it may be his last. :'-( He'll be missed.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I'm still new to this whole blogging thing (though I've been following blogs for many years), so it always tickles me to get any comments. :)

HAED Silver Branch Finish!

This was done 1 over 1 on 28-Count White Quaker Cloth Linen. I can't believe how long it took for me to finally finish it, as it's tiny! To be honest, it was the last few stitches that were the most frustrating, as I had to fill in all those confetti stitches that I had missed first time around. Also, a note: stitching 1 over 1 with Kreinik or Petite Treasure Braid is no fun! Apart from that I really enjoyed it. ;-) I'll need to get my magnifier out if I do any more over-1 stitching on 28 or 32-count though, as it was hard on my eyes.

I've been buying a little bit of new stash lately, as I haven't bought anything new in a while. I placed an order with wonderful Drema at Needlecraft Corner. I got the new Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers design, Secret Garden (along with the WDW Turkish Red thread - I've not made up my mind what fabric I'll be using for this yet, but it'll be a high count); Just Nan's Summer in the Square; threads for Examplar's Love the Truth; MND's Quaker Meetinghouse & CHS Multiplication Table; a few charts; and my biggest splurge: CHS The Village of Hawk Run Hollow. Yup, I got the whole thing -- chart, fabric (40-Count Sand Dune) & NPI silks. So I'll be starting this much sooner than I thought. :-) I can't wait for it all to arrive, though I told Drema there was no rush. No more stash buying for a while now! Ahem!

I'm now off to watch the rest of the World Cup match: Brazil v Ghana (the question is, how many goals are Brazil gonna score??). With Scotland not qualifying, I'm of course supporting Italy (my father would never forgive me otherwise! LOL) They nearly gave me a heart attack yesterday! I felt very sorry for Australia though, that was an awful way to go out.

Karen: my blog hits went sky high yesterday (well, for my blog anyway!!). I was wondering why, then I caught up with your blog. ;-) You're a sweetie!

Tesori d'Italia

I happened to be reading Mia's wonderful blog today, and I immediately noticed a project she was doing. After researching her blog a little bit more, I discovered she had linked to where you can obtain the charts for free!

How happy I am. :-) The design I'm talking about is Tesori d'Italia. The reason I'm thrilled about finding it, is that I see many regions of Italy in there that are very special to me. My dad is Calabrese - he was born and raised in Catanzaro; and my mum is from Molise (which used to be part of Abruzzo until 1963 when they split into two separate regions). On my dad's side, I only have one set of cousins in Scotland, all the rest of his family are still in Calabria; and we still have a family house in the little village my mum is from in Molise. Most of the family on mum's side live in Rome (Lazio), but they almost all have homes in this little village in Molise too, where they go to when they want to get away from the city.

So thank you, Mia. I probably would never have found this otherwise. :-) I may not stitch the whole design, but I will have to do something with the regions that are special to me.

Tired!

No photos today. I was playing around with my blog template before going to bed last night, and did *something* wrong: don't know what, because I couldn't fix it! So I took the opportunity to hunt for a new template to use. I ended up going to bed at 2.30am because I had to "fix" it before I went. I haven't done anything silly like that on a "work night" for a while.. I must be getting old. ;-)

I've also been adding "hit" counters to my blog. It's so much fun to see where in the world people are coming from. I've even been adding them to my (business) website. Yep, definitely addicited.

In stitching news, I'm making progress on Silver Branch. I hadn't done any REAL over-1 stitching in over six months, and I have to say it took me a while to get back into it. I didn't enjoy the first hour at all, but it's strangely addictive after a while. Having said that, I've had a bit of eye strain over the past couple of days, and the only thing I can think of that's causing it is the over-1 stitching. I have a great lamp for stitching (it's a Daylight), but I don't use a magnifier when I probably should. So it's either going to be the magnifier or give up on the over-1 after I've finished the two projects I have started!

Future Projects

I'll be joining in on a wee SAL that Karen is organising for Blackbird Designs Quaker Garden. I absolutely adore the Loose Feather designs, and can't wait to start this... the SAL will give me a great excuse to. :) Please ignore the untidy serging on the fabric in the above photo: I have a tiny wee temperamental serger that does the job - but only just. ;-)


I've also decided that I'll definitely be stitching The Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I'm not sure when I'll start it, but I'm buying the chart and all the supplies from Drema at Needlecraft Corner. This is one I can't resist. I've been anticipating this design coming out (along with so many other stitchers) for months, and I wasn't disappointed.

I should have some Happy Dances to share soon... And I have a few other projects I'd like to start too. When I finish a few that I'm working on at the moment, I'll be able to do that guilt free!

Works In Progress

Some progress on Springtime Roses. Time to put it away for a little while now, though. I was thinking of trying to complete one of my over-1 WIPs (H&ED Silver Branch QS or The Silver Lining's Gloria), as I haven't worked on them in over six months. I also have a graduation piece to do for a good friend of mine who's just finished uni this month. I chose The Sweetheart Tree's Graduation Announcement for him. I'm not a huge fan of TST usually. There are a few of their designs that I really like - e.g. B is for Bunny; C is for Cat; D is for Dog; and I also have Busy Bee Sampler and Celtic Cross in my stash, but most of the designs use too much backstitching for me to even contemplate attempting them. They're beautiful designs, but I know they'd become UFO's because of the backstitching.

This is how far I am on Silver Branch QS:


and Gloria:



Both are on 28-Count Quaker Cloth linen (the nicest fabric I've come across for over-1 stitching).

Some Happy Dances for May

I had a few HDs in May, as I mentioned in my previous post. First was Nancy, Plain & Fancy by Something in Common. I had so much fun stitching Nancy! ;-) I don't think the hair is quite right, but what the heck. She was stitched on Antique Ivory Belfast with DMC and WDW.

My second HD was Diminutive Dutch Sampler by Barrick Samplers:


This was stitched with NPI silks (1 over 2) on 40-Count R&R Abecedarian Blend linen. I really love stitching on 40-Count linen now. I don't know why it took me so long to try it!

And one more photo to share. I started a Chatelaine freebie:

Springtime Roses. I'm using all the recommended threads (mainly DMC along with Waterlilies Mountain Meadow; TGS Honeyed Turquoise and some Rainbow Gallery PTB) - Wouldn't be a Chatelaine without some specialty threads and stitches! I'm stitching it on Vintage Green Belfast linen, which I think goes pretty well with the colours - I was really happy to discover a piece of it in my stash left over from another project.

Where did May go?

I hadn't realised it had been almost a month since I blogged. I keep saying I'm not very good at this whole blogging thing! I do have some finishes to share; but I'll need to take some photos of them before I can blog about them.

May was a busy month. My job is incredibly hectic April/May through to September/October. Though I do always find time to do hobbies (inc. stitching), and I'm fortunate in that it's easy for me to fit it in during my working day, so don't feel sorry for me. ;-)