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Showing posts with label Owls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Owls. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 December 2013

A Different Dragon

This year I have been stitching Dragon Dreams 12 Dragonlets of Christmas one each month.  We are in the final month, only the little Dragonlet Drumming to go.  But there are more than just Christmas Dragonlets on the FB page.  For example, there is this cute little Birthday Dragonlet:


The chart comes with all the numbers so you can personalise it for the Dragon Fan in your life.  It is my friend's Birthday today so we went out for a little drinkie last night.  We went to the old faithful pub we all used to drink in our teens and twenties.  We have all been back periodically since then and the place stays the same.  Although it is lighter now since the smoking ban - you can see the other side of the bar!  It's always been a real ale pub for bikers and alternative people and it still is.  You can guarantee you'll always see someone you know in there.  You can go dressed up to the nines in full Goth regalia or just a jumper and holey jeans and not feel out of place.  One of my favourite stories which sums up my town perfectly is this:-

A friend had gone away to university as a mature student.  She lived away for three years rarely returning.  At the end of her course she arrived back in town and went into the pub with her luggage to meet the people she was going to be lodging with.  Someone turned to her and said "Oh hi, are you off somewhere?"  She thought - Thanks for missing me, I've only been away for three years!!

Back to stitching - I have finished one of my Hallowe'en Blog Hop prizes so that will be off in the post soon.  I have also been working on the LOTR Challenge for this Spanish Blog Crochettes.  Reveal Day for that one is Friday 13th December, the day the latest Hobbit film is to be released.

I do have two little finishes from a while back to show you - Shebafudge won my 400th Follower Giveaway a million years ago back in June!  I was stitching this La D Da rose design for the Needlecraft Haven Challenge and thought it would make a nice prize.  I then decided to make it into a little bag and put some rose flavoured goodies inside.  Except I couldn't find any!  So eventually I decided on Turkish Delight because that can be rose flavoured and it is at least pink!  Amazingly Sharon loves Turkish Delight so it turns out it was a good choice.  I also sent her a huge piece of pale blue aida she wanted for a Parade of Penguins designs which is 60 inches wide - WOW.

Here is the little Rose bag:


The other giveaway was for spotting the altered word in my Just Nan Autumn Typography finish and the Southpaw Stitcher won that one for noticing one of the Autumns said Awesome instead.  I wanted an Autumn themed piece and fell in love with the Owl by Blackberry Lanes Designs from the JCS Hallowe'en Ornie Special.  I made him into a little bag too:

That's a chocolate spider poking out of the top!

This is the owl with his backing fabric prior to making up.


I stitched the owl over 1 on 28 count black jobelan but stitched the chequerboard border over 2 because it was so much quicker that way!  The variegated sky is DMC 92.

Finally, the Advent Calender Blog Hop is proceeding nicely, everyone is remembering to post on their day a and sharing their foodie traditions.  I hope you are finding some "new-to-you" blogs and leaving comments.  Because that's what this is really all about; meeting new friends.



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Friday, 15 November 2013

Theme-a-licious November Update


Theme-a-licious is hosted by Heather of It's Geek to Me

Each month Heather thinks up a theme for us to stitch to, or in my case, a theme to somehow shoe-horn my existing stitching into, no matter how tenuous the link!

This is the theme for November:

No-Xs November
What can you make without making an X?? Blackwork, hardanger, embroidery, needlelace, and the list goes on! Don't panic...you can even backstitch for the month!

I have actually been stitching alot of little Xs, very little, tiny Xs over 1 on 28 and 32 count.  I did add all the beads and Kreinik to Titania, Queen of the Fairies so here is a little sneak peek of the top part of her:


So that's it for No Xs!

Here are some of the little Xs.  First is the Owl from Blackberry Lane Designs:


Stitched over 1 on 28count Black Jobelan.  I'm using the DMC conversion and 92 for the background.  Because I'm using 1 strand over 1 it's not changing colour very much but it should be ok once I've finished.

And here is Fairytale Advent Calendar from The Little Stitcher:


This is stitched over 1 on 32count Belfast Vintage Grain using the DMC conversion.
By the way, what do you think the animal in number 4 is?  A hare or a dog maybe?

I am trusting the colour choices in this one, on the ring they are all shades of brown/sludge but once on the fabric they take on coloured hues, the little woman in 6 is a great example.  She is stitched in 3021, 433 and 3782 but they look more like red and blue together.

It seems from the comments left that I am getting alot of kudos from stitching over 1.  I have a secret!  I am so shortsighted I have to stitch looking over the top of my varifocals and hold the fabric approximately 6 inches from my eyes.  Whatever the count.  So stitching over 1 is no harder than stitching on aida.  The biggest danger is stabbing my nose with the needle it's that close!

Finally, it's time to sign up for the Annual Advent Calendar Blog Hop.  As in previous years there will be 24 doors posted on my blog.  Each person who signs up will be allocated a date, on that date they must post a photo of something Festive they have stitched, either in the past or this year.  I will then copy the photo across to my post and by Christmas Eve we will have 24 Open Doors each linked to a different blog.  Last year I had more than 24 people so we had some Double Days which was great.  To take part please email me letting me know if there is a date you prefer or wish to avoid.  




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Tuesday, 12 November 2013

To Thine Own Self be True

or Stitch Whatever Makes You Happy!

That has been the theme of my stitching since I finished Rachel's Large Mira RR piece.  I should really have picked up another large project with a view to finishing one before Christmas (ie Green Goddess!) but instead I have been stitching smalls.

Here is my progress on the Little Brown Splodge from last post:

It's the Owl from JCS Hallowe'en issue, stitched on black over 1.

And to continue the "over 1" theme here is another new start, this is the Fairy Tale Advent Calendar from The Little Stitcher.  I wasn't intending to stitch it over 1, I got out my stash of neutral 32 counts and found I had 32 count in Vintage Grain which was close enough.  The main thing I wanted to check was that Winter White would show up enough.  Then I looked at the little designs and thought "these would look cute over 1" forgetting it's 32 not 28!  Anyway, they have come out about the size of a postage stamp.  So I'm thinking of brown luggage tags and a small tree to display them on.  Here's 1, 2 and 3:


That's a one pence coin for scale.


The title of this post is also an allusion to a Challenge piece I stitched earlier this year.  Anna the Stitch Bitch launched a Challenge into the ether then promptly forgot all about it!  So she was nicely surprised when someone sent her a photo of their piece.  I decided to go one better and send her the actual thing.  The design Anna chose was a Plum Street Sampler freebie found here.  Now regular followers of Anna will know she has a "thing" about stitching being referred to in the same sentence as the words "Granny" and "craft" so I thought alot about the idea of being true to yourself.  I am a stitcher, I love traditional samplers but I am also a geek, a rock chick, a feminist, I have old fashioned ideas about books and education but love technology.  So what could I stitch to show the multi-faceted me?  Answer - a tattoo.

I looked through several magazines and books and found two tattoo designs from an old issue of Cross Stitcher which worked well with the original design - a dagger in the same proportions as the plant and a bird the same height as the original bird.  Here is the finished result:


I used the same colours throughout to link the two designs.

I chose the fabric because back in May I couldn't decide which fabric to use for my Alphabet Kitty.  One option was the pink version of this.  Anna commented that she liked it, but for her stash not the ornie!  Unfortunately I couldn't get anymore of the pink but I found the blue so used that.

Finally, it's time to sign up for the Annual Advent Calendar Blog Hop.  As in previous years there will be 24 doors posted on my blog.  Each person who signs up will be allocated a date, on that date they must post a photo of something Festive they have stitched, either in the past or this year.  I will then copy the photo across to my post and by Christmas Eve we will have 24 Open Doors each linked to a different blog.  Last year I had more than 24 people so we had some Double Days which was great.  To take part please email me letting me know if there is a date you prefer or wish to avoid.  



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Sunday, 13 November 2011

Finally I get to use the computer... Madame Muriel reports...

Honestly, everything in this house is timetabled!  The television, the computer, the bathroom, leaving the house etc etc.  So I finally get my hands on the computer to let you all know how I'm coping so far from home.  As you can see, I'm surrounded by Englishness!   You don't even want to know what the ingredients for that pickle are.  Or the "salad cream" either.  It doesn't even go on salad half the time, she has it with chips!  Which is the proper name for french fries I've been informed.  What I call chips are either crisps or for playing poker.


I've had my myth-busting hat on and the first one is that "English people are not friendly".

I am happy to report English people are very friendly - once they know you.  "Knowing you" consists of meeting you for the first time via an introduction from a person they already know.  You can't just start chatting to people in the street without a formal introduction.  Unless you are an old person in which case you are permitted to make personal comments about babies and pregnant women only.  Dog walkers may also exchange nods and "good morning" if they have their dog with them.

Life here is very sociable, I've met so many people and drunk so much tea and nibbled so many biscuits I've lost count.  My hostess is very busy running the town it seems.  The current Government (who are only mentioned via clenched teeth) are very keen on the "community" running things, not central Government.  The community seems to consist of my hostess and several retired ladies who my hostess describes as "herself in 20 years time".  Her ambition is to join the WI.

The first week there was a most enjoyable stitching lesson with a young woman and her baby.  The young woman is keen to learn to cross stitch and has already completed a Helen Philipps heart under my hostess's tutelage.  They are designing a birth sampler for the said small baby using a number of fairy charts from an issue of Cross Stitcher magazine.  My hostess is arranging the charts in a pleasing manner and the young woman will stitch them.  Eventually.  When they stop running the school.  The young woman is chair of the PTA.  I feel very old sometimes.  She is young enough to be my host's daughter never mind my granddaughter!

This weekend has been "finishing weekend".  My hostess has the bad habit of reaching the final few stitches and putting the project away instead of getting on and finishing it.  So we had a flurry of activity today.  First up is the iStitch Mystery SAL all completed and framed in this lovely DMC wooden box which my hostess uses to keep her bead collection in.

The details have been blocked out in the top picture to protect the design's copyright.  The 2nd picture has been adjusted by Carol but the top one wasn't.  In case you were wondering.  My hostess will explain the story behind the stitching and the box next time she blogs.




These cute cards are from Cross Stitcher magazine, my hostess made a New Year's Resolution to stitch every Cover Kit in the month of receipt.  However she hadn't bargained on CS changing it's design brief so much in the course of the year.  Far too many of the cover kits have just not appealled to her so she has used other designs to make the most of the materials.   Sadly the quality of these has decreased too and my hostess had to ask for replacement cards for this project.  The originals were torn and dirty.  Shocking.  Anyway she stitched these owls from a different issue and decorated the cards using felt-tip pens.  She feels the green one needs something more and will source some sticky flowers next week.


This delightful design is by San Man Originals from the Spooky SAL board.  Hallowe'en is very under celebrated here.  We didn't even get a single trick or treater call at the house!  Something to do with being at the end of a dark country lane ...  This design has been framed with some rather nice ribbon to disguise the fact that the frame is too big.  The ribbon comes from the most easterly knitting shop in England.  Frankly everything here has the suffix "most easterly" - it seems to be their only claim to fame.  They even have the most easterly prison just up the road!

I fear my allotted time at the computer is at a close now, I have to go supervise the bathing of the small boy.  I must say it has been lovely to be around small children again, my last three hostesses did not supply surrogate grandchildren.  Although the little dog did his best with the spinster, frankly she was childlike in behaviour only!
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