Stitching and Other Pleasures

It's New Year's Eve here in Sydney and time for the list of my finished pieces for 2007. I've had a pretty good year stitch-wise and once again the journal I keep has helped tremendously in keeping track of finished items. So...without further ado, here is the list.


2006 Fob - Shepherd's Bush

Swirly Sampler - Bent Creek

Winter's Eve - Country Cottage Needleworks - JCS 2006

Treasure Box - Drawn Thread

Noel 2006 - Glory Bee - JCS 2006

Stocking - Trail Creek Farm - JCS 2006

Happy Holidays - Lizzie*Kate - JCS 2006

Her Necessaire - Merry Cox

Willow Angel Ornament - Mill Hill

Let It Snow - Thistle Threads - JCS 2006

Home for the Holidays - Shepherd's Bush

Heart Treat Bag - Shepherd's Bush

2007 Fob - Shepherd's Bush

To Thee Hope - Brightneedle - JCS 2006

Red Velvet Snowflake - Mill Hill

Shared Stitches 2004 - Shepherd's Bush - 2004 SB Retreat exclusive

Wool Gatherer - Shepherd's Bush

Icy Snowflake - Mill Hill

Be Merry - Shepherd's Bush

Keeping the Bees - Shepherd's Bush

Come Tarry - Shepherd's Bush

Joy - Julia Lucas Designs - JCS 2006

Amaranth - Shepherd's Bush - made into needleroll

Heart Necklace - Shepherd's Bush - made into fob

Be Jolly - Shepherd's Bush - freebie

Holiday Holly - Mill Hill

Winter Moon - Shepherd's Bush

Christmas Basket Ornament - Theron Traditions - JCS 1999

Yuletide Sampler - Shepherd's Bush

Noel - Bent Creek - JCS 2003

Star Topiary Ornament - Hillside Samplings - JCS 2000

Alyssum Scissor Pocket - The Cats Whiskers

Ho Ho Ho - Shepherd's Bush

Holly Days Stocking - Mill Hill



So, my goals for 2007 were:

Start and finish SB Wool Gatherer

Finish Bent Creek Swirly Sampler

Finish SB Come Tarry

Start SB My Earth


As you can see, I've done all of these except the last one. But, there's still 11 hours in 2007 to go so maybe I should get My Earth out!


Goals for 2008

Start Earth Gatherers

Finish My Earth (that is, assuming I start it now!)

Finish An Open Heart

Find & stitch on Renoir Lady Sewing (find being the operative word)

Get a good start on the SB 2008 retreat piece whatever it is, in Sept

Start as many projects as I desire!

The postie has come & gone & left me a lovely little parcel from my friend Cathy. She sent me LHN's Thread Gathering (with Crescent Colour threads & gorgeous MOP thread keeper) & Curly Q Ewe! Ooh they're so pretty...now I think I need to start one of them. Thanks Cathy, you're such a doll! :)

I have been thinking about my 2008 goals & to that end, went looking in my stash for a project that I haven't touched for a year or two. It's Lady Sewing from Cross Stitch Collectibles. Can you believe that I can find the chart & threads but no WIP?? Granted I haven't stitched much on it but I remember rolling it up & now it's missing. I'm sure I'll find it eventually.



However, here's the thing. I want to re-start it! I'm considering doing it over 1 a la HAED. I think it will look nicer but do I really want to go there??? I just hope it turns out as nice as my Luncheon of the Boating Party which was my first ever attempt on linen back in 1990. Ack..talk about pick the biggest thing to try first! Here's what it looks like. It's not a very good photo cos it's old...taken on real film & scanned many moon ago!

I finished this scissor pocket a week or so ago but haven't had the chance to post a pic what with all the ornament exchanging that's been going on! I never considered this design until I saw it on Adana's blog stitched in pink. So that was my plan. However, when I pulled out the perfect piece of pink hand-dyed fabric that I had, it was too small. So my search for an alternative made it purple.






And the inside

Now that my partners have both received their ornaments, I can share pics of the Christmas ornament exchanges I participated in.

The first ornament was stitched for Dani for the exchange at the Needle & Thread BB. It's by Hillside Samplings from the 2000 JCS ornament edition. I like it so much, I'm going to stitch it for myself!






The next ornament was for Yuko in Japan and was my first exchange on the SBEBB. I decided to stitch her Bent Creek's Noel from the 2000 JCS ornament edition.

I received my first SBEBB exchange today. I was so lucky to have Carol as my partner and she sent me a wonderful parcel. It contained a beautifully finished ornament, Rejoice by Lizzie Kate, an American cross-stitch mag, some Christmas coasters, Christmas pot holders (DH said "what are they for?" LOL), 2 gorgeous Christmas post-it note pads (love 'em) and a melt for my oil burner, fragrance - Fresh Snow Fall. It's burning as I type.

I just got these back from the framer & I'm very happy with the job he did. Now I just have to find a spot for them on the walls. :) I can never get DH to put them up for me but if I walk through the house with hammer in hand, he soon gets the message & quickly relieves me of it.

The first one is an SB shop exclusive, Santa's Fill.






This is Come Tarry which was the SB piece from the 2004 retreat. It's very big & I love it to bits.





Another SB....Bee Garden. It was quite hard to get a decent pic of these pieces that are framed with glass so please excuse the reflection.






Next up, Bent Creek's Swirly Sampler which I adore. Love the colours (a conversion) and the sparkles. So, of course, the frame had to sparkle too.






Last but not least in the framing stakes is Bent Creek's Snapperville. I adore this one too and loved every minute I spent stitching it. I changed the flag and the cats to make it a bit more personalised.






Just to round out this post a bit, here is an ornament that I just finished stitching today. It's by SB too and called...can you guess??....Ho Ho Ho (duh!). It comes as a kit with 10ct Tula but I changed the fabric to 32ct unknown hand-dyed linen, probably R&R, and just need to finish it off so it can hang on my tree this year.

Thank you all for your lovely comments about my ornaments. I think I'm addicted to stitching them and I often wonder what will happen when my tree is full. LOL. But that won't be this year.


I received my exchange from Dani on the Needle & Thread BB yesterday. It only took a week to arrive so that was good. I'm hoping mine gets to her soon & then I can share a pic. But I can certainly share what Dani sent me. It's a stocking ornament (she says it's her first lined one). Not sure who the designer is though. She also sent me some goodies, Caramel snowmen which got squashed but still tasted mighty fine; some Christmas eggs which were also yummy, some DMC threads, pins and ribbon so now I can make a pinkeep! I've not done one of those before.

I've been busy ornamentifying this week so can now share a pic of all my ornaments from this year. A couple were stitched at the very end of last year but all were ornamentified this year. Luckily, I did a finishing day earlier in the year otherwise these would've taken me weeks to do! I'm very happy with my haul this year.

Well, not yet anyway. ;)


There's not much going on here that I can show you. I'm participating in 2 Christmas ornament exchanges & am stitching them right now. However, I can bore you with show you my current WIP, Angel of Winter. This was my mother's but I took pity on her when she told me she couldn't see the holes anymore. She now only works on 28ct but this is blah 32ct Quaker so the holes are much smaller. Of course, there's also a nasty fault in the fabric, smack in the middle. I thought I'd be stitching over that so no big one, right? Oh no, think again...have a look at the pic! It's in the only bloody bit that's not stitched. I have also decided to keep track of the hours stitched. I don't usually do that. So this is her after 7 hours stitching. Geez, it doesn't look much does it?

Yep, another happy dance here! I've had quite a good year for finishes and I'm very happy about that. I think it's because I started a journal in 2006 and kept track of all my starts/finishes. 2005 was a bit of a lost year in that regard so this is much more satisfying.



I wanted to thank you all for visiting and your comments. I'm sorry that I haven't been commenting much but I've been having problems leaving comments. The page loads and just when I'm about to type, it re-loads & I lose it all. This happens over and over so sometimes I just give up.



Yuletide has a companion piece which I have mentioned before, Wintertide Sampler. There was one section of Yuletide that had a piece of lace attached but I didn't want to put that on so subbed a row of specialty stitches. So now, of course, the 2 pieces are not the same length. I'm not sure what happened there cos I'm sure the lace wasn't THAT big. The difference is more than 1" so I'm a bit puzzled. Anyway, I'm sure I can fudge it when they're framed so they look similar. Enough rambling..here's the pic

The ole parcel man rocked up to the front door this morning with a bloody big box in his hands! Whacko....it was from Kath in NZ. A "thank you" gift for a favour I did for her last month.



Here's what it contained: a gorgeous catch-all for my threads which attaches to a board with a pincushion, another one of those for my mother (nice pansy fabric too!), a yummy choc & some choc covered peanuts, a nail file, a little rhinestone "A" keychain, some fabulous napkins with a very appropriate saying on them and a little parcel for Catherine which hasn't been opened yet as she's at school right now.



Quarantine decided to open all this up for a squizz. I can only assume the wood in the catch-all thingie showed up as organic on their x-ray. They now x-ray all parcels coming into Oz. Anyway, luckily they didn't remove anything & left me a lovely brochure on what NOT to post to Australia. Ummm...I think they're telling the wrong person! When would I be posting something to Australia??? Helloooo??

This is the eighth ornament of the series so now all that's left is to make them into a wallhanging. I'm still considering how to place them all but I think 2 across and 4 down will be the go.

This month's ornament is Christmas Basket Ornament by Theron Traditions from the 1999 JCS ornament edition. It's not really a traditional ornament but the colours are lovely. I need to do some serious finishing in the next month or so although I only have a couple of ornaments to finish.

I finally got around to glueing the bling around Be Merry's edges. The flatfold has been finished for quite a few weeks but I just couldn't be bothered putting on the edging. So here it is.





Here it is standing up.

It didn't take long! I just adore the colours in this one although the photo as usual doesn't do it justice. I've seen other blogs with very "arty" photos, so I'm giving it a go. LOL. I'm not sure about the result.

I thought I'd post a pic of my progress on Winter Moon. I'm really enjoying stitching this one even though I should be doing Yuletide Sampler! I might switch between them & see if I can finish them both at the same time.

The weather is lovely this week in Sydney (28C or 82F) & lookie what I found when I went outside yesterday.






Yes, my freesias are blooming & I look forward to seeing them all out! They are my favourite flower. I planted them maybe 20 years ago & they have seeded all over my front lawn. That's my type of gardening, plant one year & never touch them again! I wish I could have as much success with daffodils but I don't think it gets cold enough here for them. Bugger.

I had two exchange partners in my latest exchange. Only because it was a one-on-one exchange & we had an odd number of participants (yeah, right I hear you say!). Anyway, this is what I stitched for exchange part 2.





Not to be outdone though, my exchange partner came through big time! This is what I received.

Now that my partner has received her exchange, I can show you what I stitched for her. It's a fob stitched from the Shepherd's Bush Heart Necklace pattern. I did a new technique for me....a beaded edge! Although I think my beads are a little close.





This is the parcel I got today in return. How funny that we both posted on the same day & received on the same day! Sometimes, things just fall into place.




Here's a close up of the fob.

I'm really enjoying stitching Yuletide Sampler! I'm almost halfway & have just done the challenging cutwork which involved cutting linen threads & re-weaving them. I also stitched the gingerbread men that are meant to be charms as I only have the chart. I also discovered that the alphabet is meant to be done in different stitches but as I only found that out when I was almost done with the first alphabet row, mine are now just normal cross stitch.

This is the ornament I stitched this weekend as part of the SAL on the Christmas ornament blog. It's another of the ubiquitous Mill Hill numbers. I went to my LNS to buy one skein of thread & came out with 2 more of these beauties. I just love stitching them as, I think, I've said before!

Maybe the subtitle for this post should be "I haven't got much to show" LOL.



I'm currently working on two exchange pieces and as the recipients read this blog, I can't show you what they look like. But in the meantime, I've also started Yuletide Sampler by SB which is the companion to Wintertide Sampler that I stitched many moons ago. I can't recall exactly when but I know it was prior to the birth of DD (& she's now 12.5!!!). The copyright date on Yuletide is 1992 and as I can't find the Wintertide chart and I don't know which one came out first, I can only assume I stitched this sometime in 1992-93. I knew there was a reason that I now keep a journal!! So here is Wintertide...it's stitched on white linen with AVAS silks.




Here is my WIP Yuletide Sampler, although I haven't done much. The fabric looks blue in these pics but it's antique white.

This is my ornament for July and was part of the ornament RR I was in. I took it along to DD's dental appointment yesterday & did most of the buttonhole around the edge and finished it off last night. It went quicker than I thought!

& it's a big one! Come Tarry is done!! I'm very happy with how it turned out and I have to say that it is just gorgeous in the 'flesh'. The colours are beautiful and the flowers are lovely. So now, back to An Open Heart which is my only WIP at the moment! I'll have to fix that.

I thought it was about time I shared my WIP Come Tarry. I don't think I've posted a pic of it for ages, probably because I haven't worked on it for ages! :) But I've got it back out now & can see the end in sight.

This is my June ornament finished in 1 day! Thank goodness as I am having a small slump at the moment. It's my usual post-finish slump but I'll shake myself out of it soon when I get back to Come Tarry.

I've just had the urge lately to sew on the machine so I got this out and finished it up. It reminded me how much I hate working with striped fabric! If the dratted stuff isn't cut straight, it will never be straight when sewn. That's my gripe for the day LOL.



Fabrics are from SB, ribbon is a sparkly burgundy organdy from our local junk fabric store, finishing by moi. Just ignore the pillow's 'love handles'. ROFLOL.

This was a totally unplanned purchase and finish for this year. I got the kit at Dragonfly Dreams during our Aussie GTG in March. The price was right so I just snapped it up. Now I need its companion, Tending the Blooms!





I'm not sure what's going on but my last few photos have been pixellating (is that a word??) when I re-size them. Not sure if someone's played with my camera or what the problem is. But if anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know!

Here are pics of the quillow that I just finished this morning. The weather here in Sydney has been awful....pouring rain & blowing a gale for the past 2 days so I got this out last night to keep me warm & I also decided to finish up the binding. It's been a WIP since 2002 when I bought the kit. My friend also got the same kit but hers is brights and looks fabulous (although she hasn't finished hers either). Anyway, I gave up patchwork long ago and this is the last quilt I will make. I limit myself to small wallhangings now and they usually have cross-stitch on them. Oh I forgot to mention, the quilt is flannel and made out of fat quarters. I just love the colours.

So here is the quilt:




This is the quilt packed into it's pocket:

This is my completed May ornament albeit a little late. I stitched it on 32ct linen rather than 10ct Tula & it will be perfect as an ornament. I also subbed Wisper for the Alpaca which was used for the beard. Now into the finishing pile it goes!

Finally! He's done and I'm happy. That wool was a bit of a bugger and I'm sure my framer will wonder how to frame it! So here he is: