Smalls SAL September 2016

Hosted by Stitching Lotus

Hi there! Today is the last Thursday in September which means it is the day to post our Smalls finishes for the month, and I have some to show! ☺

Double Double
Just Cross Stitch Halloween 2013 Issue
Designer: Lizzie*Kate
Finish #30

Stitched on 32ct fabric from Colour Cascades Fabric (un-named - Studio Session piece)

DMC threads - I did sub out a couple of colours as I didn't have the charted threads for the blue wave and the witch's body parts.

Flower Owl
Bucilla Kit
Finish #31

Isn't he cute? I showed him off in my recent GG post as I received this kit as a gift in an exchange some time ago... but he also belongs in this post as he was finished in September!

Figgy Pudding
Designer: Jane Greenoff
Finish #32

This little card was a freebie many many moons ago... When I was looking for something quick to stitch the other day for the Christmas Ornie SAL blog I found it languishing in my box of magazine free gifts - it is perfect for the Christmas Food theme on the blog! ☺

Black Hearted Queen
Freebie - Sub Rosa Blog
Finish #33

Stitched on 32ct fabric from Stitches & Spice (Lime Ghost Gum) with DMC threads.  I wish the photo would show the true colour of this fabric - it's a really pretty light lime green colour and is simply gorgeous.  Unfortunately it is the only piece I have and as Naomi is no longer dyeing fabric I can't get anymore!
If you like to stitch this design you should pop over to the Sub Rosa blog and see what else she has on her blog - link is here

So that's it for today's Smalls post!  I have some WIPs and new starts to show you... hopefully I will get that post up in the next couple of days.

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs xx

Stitch Maynia Summer Olympics Challenge (Part 2)

Well, the Olympics have now come to an end which means that the Stitch Maynia Summer Olympics Challenge has also finished.

I showed you in my last post all the pieces that I worked on for the first 11 days and now I can show you what I worked over the last week or so.

I left you at Day 11 which was white for the Olympic flag....

"Santa on a Bike" (New Start)
Christmas Cross Stitch Project Book
Needlecraft Magazine - unknown year/issue
Day 12 - Cycling (or anything with a wheel)

Insert photo shows what he will look like when finished
This motif is part of a larger tablecloth design
I'm not doing his bike tyres in purple....

Day 15 - Medals - Silver

This wasn't my original choice... I did start doing a silver and purple metallic mitten on perforated plastic with some free Maderia metallic thread... and I hated it so much I threw it in the drawer in disgust and quickly stitched the yellow and silver in this one.  The mitten was frogged on Saturday and will not be discussed again!!

Nora Corbett's Christmas Couriers -"Comet"
Shoe-horn alert!!
Day 13 - Medals - Gold
Day 14 - Patriotic/National Anthems (or music related)

Added the browns of his hind legs

For gold I stitched all the gold metallic around the ribbon that forms part of the strapping/ribbon holding the presents on.

Now this is where the shoe-horn appears.... I am not currently stitching anything that could be called patriotic or music inspired so I decided that I would use the rather large shoe-horn I have to lever Comet in as a Christmas National Anthem (ie he is in the song "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"....) LOL! :o)

Christmas Candle (new start)
Cross Stitch Gold Issue 5
Designer: Pam Johnson (Kooler Design Studio)
Finish #28
Day 15 - Olympic Torch - fire or flames

Started: 20 August 2016
Finished: 21 August 2016

Queen of Peace
Designer: Nora Corbett
Day 16 - Medals - Copper/Bronze

I pulled this beauty out yesterday and did some stitching on her (not quite as much as it looks as I hadn't taken a progress shot last time I put her away!

I did work on quite a bit though from the ribbon in the middle downwards and to the left as I wanted to get to the bronze metallic so that I would be able to say that I stitched on bronze for the last day of the challenge!

So that's it for the Olympic Stitching Challenge!

See you next time!
Til then... happy stitching
Hugs xx

Christmas in July Swap

Today is the 25th July... and around the world a lot of people are celebrating Christmas in July. For those of us living below the Equator we celebrate the real Christmas during the heat of Summer, so when July comes around and it's the middle of winter... why not celebrate Christmas and be freezing while you're doing it! And of course, the next logical step would be to participate in a Christmas in July swap!!  If you want to read more about the swap rules follow this link and read on...  there is also a separate blog for the swap which can be found here.

First up I will reveal the gorgeous gifts that I received from my swap partner - Illene from Ret Dairy Queen.

Christmas Tree

Reindeer Bag

Santa, Reindeer, Christmas Tree and Snowmen table runner

Gifts galore...

Thank you Illene, I love all these gorgeous handmade gifts... and thank you for the Mill Hill designs - Mill Hill kits are fast becoming my latest obsession (I keep seeing other stitchers progress.. and I so want to stitch them) and I am very happy to receive these lovely ornie charts!  I must apologise the light was terrible when I took these photos so these gorgeous pieces are not showing up as well as I would like...

Below are pics of what I sent to Illene... I had a day of finishing a couple weeks ago and transformed all of my recent Christmas stitching into finished pieces for the swap.

Margaret Sherry Xmas Mice

Joyful Santa

Tartan Stocking ornie & stocking scissor fob
Penguin Christmas card

A box full of extras....

I also used the needlepoint card that I stitched recently as a box topper and included bon bons full of Christmas buttons, multi coloured beads, Christmas pegs, handmade Christmas angel for phone or scissors, pearl pins and a Christmas notebook.

I had fun putting this Christmas package together and it was great fun to actually "finish" off some of my stitching for once!  I really should do more of it!!!

So that's it for today.... see you all again later in the week for the Smalls update.

Til next time, happy stitching
hugs xx

2015 Online Advent Calendar Blog Hop

web image

Today is 8th December which means it's Day 8 of the Online Advent Calendar Blog Hop hosted by Serendipitous Jo.  Today is my day to post on the Advent Calendar....

I love Christmas designs and I have stitched a few, and have more than a few in my WIP basket!  For this blog post I am going to show you one that I stitched a few years ago and sent to a friend in the US for Christmas.

Kitty Ornament stitched for Crazy for Kitties Exchange (Craftbubble Group) in 2011.  Design is from a Dimensions plastic canvas kit called "Merry Kittens Ornaments".

Besides showing a photo of some Christmas stitching, Jo has also asked us to share our Christmas Eve traditions.  These days Hubby and I generally have a quiet Christmas at home wrapping pressies if we have some left to do with a glass of wine in hand...

When I was growing up we used to put out a beer and some biscuits for Father Christmas and some carrots for the reindeers on Christmas Eve.  In the morning we would get up and find the biscuits and beer finished and pieces of carrots all over the lounge room!

I remember one Christmas Eve a few years ago when the family were all staying at ours for Christmas... after the kids (my niece and nephews) went to bed all the adults went outside and prepared the way for the sleigh.... or rather we made what was supposed to look like sleigh tracks on the grass and left bits of carrots and some raisins on the ground by the sleigh tracks.  If you can't work out what the raisins were for I ain't going to tell you!!  When the kids got up the next morning it was hilarious when they went outside and saw all the mess that Father Christmas and reindeers had left behind!!

So that's it for my Day 8 Advent post.  Make sure you go back to Jo's Advent Post to get the link to the Day 9 Advent door!

Til next time, happy stitching and Merry Christmas!

Angelic Weekend Stitching

Well hello to another Monday!

I have a little bit of stitching to show today... and both pieces are almost finished!

So first up we have my Friday night stitching which I will also post over on the "Friday Frolics" blog shortly.

This time around I didn't stitch on an old WIP.... I decided to stitch on my October piece for the Christmas Ornie SAL as this month is rapidly drawing to a close and I haven't done my angel or nativity piece yet.

I actually started this new design on Thursday evening, so when Friday came around the Angel looked like this:

Before FF stitching

After stitching on Friday night, the Angel looked like this:

After FF stitching

and seeing as I need to finish her by the end of the week, I continued stitching on Saturday and Sunday on her as well... she now looks like this:

as at Sunday 25 Oct 2015

I know she looks a bit weird at the moment..... I have to find (order) the colour for her hair and locate some more of the colour of the shading around her wings, so I stitched what I could and then started backstitching the lower section.  I am not stitching the bottom of the dress as I need to keep this as a small design (further details on why later...).  You will probably notice that I changed the word "Joy" and stitched it in gold Kreinik.  I have also embellished her sleeve and head dress with green Kreinik just to bling it up a bit!!

For those of you that might like to know where this design came from.... she can be found in a very old Cross Stitch Christmas magazine (1999) - design is called "Joyful Angels Triptych" and is designed by Mona Eno.  I am stitching her on a piece of "Waratah" 32 count fabric from Stitches and Spice.

Once I had gone as far as I could on my Angel yesterday, I decided to pull out my little MS Xmas mouse again and pop a couple more stitches in him.

The last time I showed you the MS Xmas mouse #2 he looked like this:

now he looks like this - main stitching is now finished and backstitch has begun:

That's it for another weekend stitching round up.  See you all again soon!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

C - Christmas something....

3rd April "C" Post

Christmas Mouse #1

Welcome to 3rd April and Day 3 of the "Blogging from A to Z April 2015 Challenge".   

Day 3 is "C" day....  Of course the first thing I thought of for a "C' Day post was Christmas!  So here we go:

"C" - Christmas......

Christmas: Christmas or Christmas Day (Old English: meaning "Christ's Mass") is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed most commonly on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world.

Christmas is also one of the cutest event to stitch for and probably one of the most common stitching themes around!!

And I could not go past a chance to post some lovely Christmas stitching!  For those that have seen my Crazy January starts this year you will know that I have a one of two Christmas WIP's on the go to choose from!!


So which one to choose to showcase for "C" day....  After fiddling around for a bit I finally decided to stitch on the trio of Margaret Sherry Christmas Mice.

Mouse #1 was the final choice and back in January when I last had him out of the stitching basket he looked like this:

After an hour or two of stitching on Wednesday night he now looks like this:

Some progress has been made - he has a bit more of a noticeable body shape now.  Of course, as with all MS designs, the back stitch will actually make this brown and white blob look like a mouse when it's all finished!

Hopefully he and his mouse cousins will be finished over the next couple of visits to the stitching pile!  Once I have stitched all three I will probably turn this into a small hanging for Christmas... note that I didn't say which Christmas!!!

So that's it for today's "C" post...  I do hope that you are enjoying seeing my stitching updates so far.  I do have more to come and fingers crossed I can keep up with the everyday posting!!

Til tomorrow.... Happy Stitching and Happy Blogging!
Hugs xx

Day 13 - Crazy Start # 13 - Grumpy Kitty

Grumpy Cat (or I should say Grumpy Kitty) won the battle of the new starts last night.  I almost didn't get a stitch in last night as I had a last minute change of mind as to what I was going to stitch which meant I had to find fabric and threads for this delicious looking feline....

I told you that I had some more of Brooke Nolan's designs that I wanted to stitch and this little grumpy girl was at the top of that list....

"Merry Christmas Grumpy Kitty" - Brooke Nolan (Brooke's Books)

Isn't she just a cutie with her grumpy little face?  I am stitching her on a small swatch of "Arabian Nights" from Stitches and Spice.  This is the same fabric that "Comet" and "Prancer" are being stitched on.

"Grumpy Kitty" is another Freebie from Brooke Nolan's webpage and the link is here if you would also like to stitch her.

Brooke has a lovely range of designs and is very generous with the freebies that she has on her website.  I have plans to stitch the Advent Animals at some point this year as well as a couple of her Halloween designs.

Brooke has also designed the most gorgeous four seasons vintage style designs....

Image from Brooke Nolan's Etsy Store

These designs have been drawn and charted to fit the Tammy Bag pattern by Ms. Apple Heart for "Madame Samm's Tammy 4 All Seasons blog hop" at www.sewwequilt.com. The blog hop runs from 9th January to 20th January 2015, but the charts are now available to everyone on Brooke's Etsy store. I didn't join the blog hop as I can't sew to save myself ... but I so want to stitch these designs.  They are just so delightful!

See you tomorrow with my Day 14 update.....

Previous updates for the FB CrosstitchCrazy Event and Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge 2015 (DUCJC2015) are listed below if you missed them:

Day 1 - Winter Witch
Day 2 - "Eek!"
Day 3 - "Prancer"
Day 4 - "Autumn Fab Fob"
Day 5 - "Comet"
Day 6 - "Koala"
Day 7 - "Sneak Peek - Halloween"
Day 8 - "Printemps"
Day 9 - "été"
Day 10 - "Joyeux Noel"
Day 11 - "Feeling Festive"
Day 12 - "New Year's Magic"

Til next time, Happy Stitching!
Hugs xx

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad

From our home to yours, we wish you all the best for the Festive Season

Merry Christmas

Noni, Hubby, Oscar, Felix, Mitzi xx

Merry Christmas

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful
~ Norman Vincent Peale ~

Love, joy and peace are the ingredients for a wonderful Christmas. 

We hope you find them all this festive season. 

Have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Noni, Hubby

Oscar, Felix, Mitzi

xxx

The secret is revealed....

T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

~ Clement Clarke Moore ~

Remember this sneak peak...

The secret stitching that I was working on last month was for the MS Lovers Blog Christmas Exchange, and I can now reveal the finished piece that was sent to Olga (Olli) in The Netherlands.

The Margaret Sherry design that I stitched was a brand new one to me.... the magazine that it came with literally arrived just as I was about to start stitching something else for this exchange - but as soon as I saw the booklet I just had to see which one I could stitch quickly for the exchange.

Mice in Holly Wreath
"Christmas Cuties" - Margaret Sherry
Free Gift - Issue 184 Cross Stitch Crazy

When I was stitching this rather cute design I decided to "bling" it up a little bit so instead of stitching the berries as red cross stitches I used little red beads in their place, but I didn't finish there.... I used gold beads instead of where the silver cross stitches were supposed to be.  The gold was a much better match for the fabric I wanted to use to "finish" the piece than the silver would have been.

So the final finish.... a Christmas hanger!

Christmas Hanger for Olli
MS Lovers Blog Christmas Exchange

I also added a few little Christmas inspired pieces in the package for Olli.... lots of little crafting bits and pieces and a Christmas blackboard and chart.

Package of goodies for Olli

My package in the exchange has arrived today... just in time for Christmas.  I will do another post shortly to show you the lovely package I received from Heather.  I also have some more lovely things to show you that Anne sent me as a winner of her giveaway - so lots of pretty pics coming up in the next couple of days!

TUSAL Update

For those of you that have been following my blog, and other blogs in the blogosphere over the last couple of years you will know all about the monthly ORT reports and you will have noticed that we are all very diligent bloggers and upload our ORT reports when the new moon comes around... (most of the time anyway).  You may now be wondering if there will be any more ORT reports for 2014.... well, I am happy to announce that Daffycat will again be hosting the Totally Useless Stitch A Long (TUSAL) throughout 2014.  If you would like to sign up and join in the fun during the year, then pop on over to Daffycat's blog and leave a comment saying that you're in!  The first 2014 report will be on or around 1st January 2014 - see you then!

Til next time, happy stitching!

Merry Christmas

Faith makes all things possible

Hope makes all things work

Love makes all things beautiful

May you have all three for this Christmas

Merry Christmas to all

Merry Christmas **  Feliz Natal **  Joyeux Noel

Buone Feste Natalizie  **  Feliz Navidad

Wishing you peace, love and joy this Christmas season

Winter Exchange - Part 2

I'm back again... two posts in two days.... think that is probably a bit of a record for me!

Yesterday I told you about the exchange ornament and package that I sent to Rita as part of the MS Lovers Blog Winter Exchange.

Today I will show you what arrived in my mail box on Friday all the way from Francesca in Florence, Italy.

I am totally blown away by what I received from Francesca.  I am still in shock by what was in the big box that arrived.... I have been completely and utterly spoilt.

Package of goodies from Italy

Isn't this just amazing....  Francesca stitched the "Trimming the Tree" tree skirt for me.... One of my favourite designs and the full design of what I stitched for my exchange.  You can see the little hedgehog at the end that I stitched for Rita.... Think there must have been some sort of intergalactic telepathy going on here!!

I just love this tree skirt!  I love the way that Francesca has finished it off the little ties and the Christmas ribbon across the top.  Just gorgeous!!!

"Trimming the Tree" tree skirt from Francesca

Francesca also included some other lovely ornaments, a calendar and a little stocking full of goodies....

More goodies....
Francesca said in her note that the little stitched heart is a thank you
for the pixie gift I sent her a few months ago...

Also in the packages Francesca included some red and green fabric and some lovely red and green thread....  and in the stocking there were these gorgeous buttons and charms...

Aren't these just the cutest buttons & charms....
The snowman paper clip was attached to one of the packages

And then to top it all off... there was also this lovely Lizzie Kate chart and a reindeer pot holder....

Adorable.....

I am completely lost for words to receive this most amazing and beautiful exchange package from Francesca.  I can't begin to express how I felt when I saw what was inside the box.  I have to admit that I had tears in my eyes when I was opening the packages....  Francesca, you have spoilt me rotten.. and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your friendship and for this most wonderful gift.

I have displayed all these wonderful gifts on the desk with the other Christmas stuff that we have out at the moment.  You will notice that I now have an ornament tree on the desk... Hubby and I saw this when we were out on Friday... and I thought that I must have it to display the lovely ornaments that I received.

Our Christmas display for 2012

Time to go again.... with today being Christmas Eve it won't be long til the man in the red suit comes sliding down chimneys and leaves package for all the little children.

Til the next time we meet Merry Christmas to all