Orts and Ends: November 2012

Friday, 30 November 2012

The agony of choice

Have I told you already that it’s a delight to be back? I don’t think I have, so let me just say that it’s a delight to be back. Writing blog posts, but most importantly, visiting your blogs has brought me inspiration that had been sorely lacking for a bit. Inspiration to stitch, that is. Real, honest cross stitching. So in the last couple of days, I put a little work into this wee darling

It’s the first Loose Feathers chart by Blackbird Designs, and it’s still my favourite of the lot. Just… not finished yet. No surprise there :o)

Do you know that there is a new blog out there that encourages us stitchers (I think I may still call myself a stitcher, yes?) to pick up a Scarlet Letter design and finish it before February 2014? Now, the rational part of me (which is quite tiny and insignificant and mostly neglected, but it’s there nonetheless) tells me not to join this challenge. It may seem like a good idea to join up right now, but once I click that ‘join’ button, all the joy and determination and inspiration to work on one of these incredible beauties will have disappeared into thin air. I know this. I know, I know, I know.

But then I opened my poor, long-neglected WIP/UFO drawer, and I saw this…

Susan Dunn

and this…

Mary Hart

And then I went through all my cross stitch charts and found these…

…and my heart, my sentimental, foolish heart started telling my boring brain to shut up and live a little and to go ahead and click that ‘join’ button.

Honeybuns, stop me before it’s too late.

Yours agonizingly,

Annemarie.

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Of birthdays and beasts

Well, I did promise I’d be back :o)

You see, I have about 120 pictures left to share with you, and now is as good a time as any to do so. Well, not on one go, obviously, because I think Mr. Blogger wouldn’t appreciate that, but you know, an update every once in a while should do the trick of making up for lost time.

Righty-oh then, let’s start with the most important day of the year in this wee little yellow house, i.e. Pelle’s birthday. That took place -- gulp -- 4 months ago.

As any crafty Mum will affirm, it is simply impossible to let such a day go by without inflicting her craftiness on her young, and so here’s what I did

I made a snake. I found the free pattern here. Well, I did the head and then made the rest up as I went along. The snakes’s name is Sniek Sneek, which, as it so happens, is pronounced in exactly the same way as Sneak Snake. For Pelle’s birthday, I also wrote Sniek Sneek’s life story (as it is quite a story), but I fear it would be lost in translation, so I won’t inflict it on you.

Even after 4 months, Pelle and Sniek are still the best of friends, I’m happy to say. That fabulous crown that Pelle is wearing in these pics was inspired by this one. The pattern is in Dutch, but the pictures are so clear that any non-Dutch-speaking idiot could follow them. And as you know, I’m not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, so if I can do this, so can you. Try it. Your little ones will love you for it. Well, mine did, but he’s pretty chuffed with just about anything I make for him. I ~~indoctrinated~~ raised him well.

Yours craftily,

Annemarie.

Monday, 26 November 2012

...

Hello! Thought I’d left you, did you? Honestly, I don’t know what’s keeping me from blogging. It’s not as if I’m not being crafty anymore, because I am. I knit, I crochet, I even STITCH sometimes, for crying out loud, but blogging… not so much. Perhaps because it’s escapism I’m looking for and not real life, which is what usually features in my blog posts. Or something like that. Anyway, here’s a tiny post about some of the things that have been keeping me busy, and since it’s Monday, I’ll start with a Happy Bench Monday pic of sorts, in which Aunt Gertrude is modeling one of my most successful finishes of the past few months: a giant Noro Baktus

I LOVE it. I would LOVE it even more if it were’t so darned scratchy.

A giant hooky patchwork blanket-to-be

229 squares and I’m not even halfway there.

Aaaaand, you can probably guess some of the other things that are keeping me on my toes. One of them mysteriously managed to make his way into both of the pictures above (methinks this is a cry for attention) and the other one…

Awwwww, poor thing. He’s having a hard time of it with his teeth. He’s dreadfully late, of course, but then, he’s dreadfully late with everything. It doesn’t worry me. He always gets there in the end :o))

It is my intention to make a more regular appearance from now on. I know I’ve said this before and I don’t owe you an explanation or anything (since I am still a Blogger Without Obligation, and proudly so) but If I’m not back by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, feel free to hound me with nasty comments, e-mails or even lawyers if need be. Really. I mean it. I need a good kick up the arse every now and then, so go ahead and kick me :o)

Yours absently no longer,

Annemarie.