More Christmas Finishes....

Hello again!  Goodness it ended up being a couple of weeks between posts. Work has been stupidly busy the last few weeks and I have been collapsing in a heap every weekend lately and, unfortunately the last thing my brain has been able to handle is facing the computer and blogging!  I have managed some stitching throughout the week but not on Friday nights... so I have nothing to report for the Friday Frolics blog, and I missed FNSI last weekend! (I had every intention of stitching but the office Christmas party had other ideas.... I so should have left early!!) This post is also a slightly late post for IHSW.... oops....

So onto the stitching update!

Surprise, surprise... I do have two finishes to show you today!  Both are "entries" in the Christmas Ornie SAL Blog... October's theme was Angels and November's theme is snowflakes / snowman or a winter scene.

October's theme first:
Remember some time ago I showed you my "Joy Angel" and she was looking bit strange....

Well, she is all finished now and currently on her way to England to be added to the Christmas Tree of Joy that Clare-Aimetu is organising for her local church.  Hopefully the tree will be full of cross stitched ornies from around the world all with the word "Joy" on them in one form or another.

The chart for this design can be found in the Cross Stitch Christmas magazine (1999), the design is called "Joyful Angels Triptych" (Designer Mona Eno).  There are three angels to stitch but I chose this one as she has "Joy" on her banner!  I stitched her on "Waratah" 32 count fabric from Stitches and Spice with DMC and Kreinik threads.  Unfortunately the shine I added to her wings doesn't really sparkle in the picture but it is there!

The second finish that I have to show you is my choice for November's theme.  I love snowmen and had a terrible time choosing which one to stitch.... so in the end I didn't do any!! Instead I went with a Fizzy Moon freebie and shoe-horned this into the wintery scene choice!

This freebie was published in the Cross Stitch Card Shop magazine (issue 92).  I decided to cover the plain white card with a vintage winter scene scrapbook paper that I had and then added a snowflake to fill in the rather large white space at the top.

This card is going to head off to the USA soon... The Birthday Thread Exchange Group that I am in on FB is doing a Christmas Thread Exchange, so I thought it would be nice to stitch a card instead of sending a bought one!

Well, that's all I have to show you today... the last couple of weeks stitching has been all about finishing these two pieces!  Now it's back to my November Halloween piece....

See you again soon.... have a great week!
Hugs xxx

IHSW - Sept 2015

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW).... held on the third weekend (Fri - Sun) of every month - hosted by Joyce (Random Ramblings).

Guess what?  I have finished "Feelin' Festive".... see what a weekend of stitching can do!!

"Feelin' Festive" - Designer: Lizzie Kate
Finished Sept 2015

It is such a wonderful feeling to have another WIP ticked off the list.  And, as I always try to do these days.... I am shoe-horning him into this month's theme for Christmas Ornie SAL Blog - Christmas Trees / Presents.  While there isn't a Christmas Tree in this design there are 3 presents!!

After putting the last couple of stitches into this one on Friday evening, I then had to decided what to stitch on for Saturday and Sunday.  So after a bit of thought (and a lot of "I don't feel like tackling this one") I finally settled on the "Faces of Joan Elliott SAL" which I have had on the go for some time now....

The last time that you saw this one (back in May 2015), I was tackling the cat in the middle (as opposed to the "Cat in the Hat".... sorry couldn't resist a bit of Dr Seuss!!)

Now for some reason I still haven't finished kitty... think I might be missing some threads as I have already started the Summer Fairy next time to him... and for some reason I didn't post my start of the Summer Fairy - and I forgot to take a photo before I starting stitching on Saturday....

... so now this is what the Summer Fairy looks like as of Sunday night.  I spent the weekend stitching the right side of this square, and added the start of the leaves on the left.  As you can see I am jumping around a bit with whatever colour takes my fancy at the time!!

The three top squares look like this now:

The Fairy on the left needs her bling and the kitty needs some filling in and he will be finished.  Every time I pick this one up I wonder why I put it down again....  I have decided to keep stitching on this SAL piece for the rest of the week so stay tuned for another update over the weekend!

Well, that's it for my ISHW update....  If you are wondering what everyone else did over the weekend, drop on over to Joyce's blog and have a look at sign up post for a full list of who was participating.

See you again soon!

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx

FNSI & IHSW August Update

Friday Night Sew In (FNSI).... held on the third Friday of every month - hosted by Wendy from Sugarlane Designs.

Friday night saw me putting in the last of the back stitches on my Santa Claus.... You haven't seen him yet as I only started stitching him in the last few days and now he is finished!! Yippee :o) Amazing what a cold, wet couple of days in front of the telly can do for your stitching progress!!

August 2015

This little cute Aussie Santa and mates is my August choice for the Christmas Ornie SAL 2015.  Another task ticked off the list!!  The design is from the Cross Stitch Crazy magazine (issue #171) and is designed by Jenny Barton.  There were a number of Santas from around the world but the Aussie one tickled my Christmas funny bone!!  (I was toying with the idea of putting a red dot in the middle of the spider for the classic Aussie Red Back Spider.... but I don't think it would have worked!) 

If you think he looks a bit strange.... I stitched him on plastic canvas, then trimmed it down before gluing on some felt to the back of him yesterday morning.  I still have to trim the felt down a bit but I will do that later in the week once I am happy that everything is well stuck!

If you want to have a look at who else joined in for Friday Night Stitch In, head over to Wendy's blog (Sugarlane Designs) for sign-up links.

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW).... held on the third weekend (Fri - Sun) of every month - hosted by Joyce (Random Ramblings).

This month saw Joyce have a two part IHSW!  Part 1 was last weekend and....  this weekend was Part 2!

My plan for the weekend was to yet again stitch on "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy.  As the month draws to a close I need to finish my "Black Cat" for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog.

When you last saw this piece I had just finished the "Haunted House" for last month's Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog post:

July 2015

Over the weekend I managed to get 2 box borders finished and 3 sides of the "Black Cat" one stitched.

Tonight I will get that last side stitched and then start on the cat and with a bit of luck by the end of the week I will have the black cat ticked off the To-Do stitching list!

If you are wondering what everyone else did over the weekend, drop on over to Joyce's blog and have a look at sign up post for a full list of who was participating.

So that is it for my stitching weekend....

Now before I go.... I have a quick update on some stitching that I have now started doing for "The Alphabet Club" posts.  August was our first month of posting and but I failed to show a stitching piece... but I can sort of fix that now!!

I have decided to stitch an afghan using the gorgeous ABC cats from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes.  I have admired the designs from this French designer for a long time and finally got up the nerve to place an order.... (and it ended up being a rather large one at that.... Euro to Aussie Dollar is not kind!  I wish I had thought to go to their shop when we were Paris a couple of years ago....) I just love Parisienne / French inspired stitching.... ooh la la!! ♥♥♥

I still have a little bit more of the "A" cat to go before starting "B" but I had to put this down for a while to concentrate on other stitchy things.  I must say stitching on the very soft afghan material is going to be quite challenging I think!!

That's it for today... see you again soon!

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx

New SAL Blogs on the block!

Morning!

Just a quick post this morning before I head off to the Dentist for more root canal work on my pesky tooth.... what a way to start a Monday morning, hey?!?

I wanted to mention some SAL blogs that have recently been set up by Kaye (Kitten Stitching).

I have mentioned this one before, but it is so good I just have to mentioned it again!!
If you like Christmas stitching and want to join in on the fun of having a monthly theme to stitch to, then why not come over to the Christmas Ornie SAL blog.  This blog is the sister of the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog...

If you love to stitch the gorgeous Prairie Schooler designs then you will want to go over and join in on this blog.  Kaye set this one up after hearing about the PS team's imminent retirement....  The link to the Prairie Schooler SAL blog is here...

As is often the case, I am late to the Prairie Schooler party... but hopefully by joining this blog I will finally have the motivation (kick up the butt) to stitch some of their designs!

So not content with the first two great blog ideas... Kaye then set up a SAL blog for those of us that love to stitch Red, White and Blue designs... Americana / Patriotic designs, and so the Americana SAL Blog was born... link is here.

Love the design that Kaye stitched and then used for the blog logo... it is just gorgeous!

And finally for the last SAL Blog Kaye joined forces with KimM (Wisdom with Needle and Thread) to set up Tudor Tuesdays SAL.  The girls have a FB page for all things Tudor and now they have gone one step further and set up a blog page!  Link to the Tudor Tuesday SAL blog is here

Please pop into the new SAL blogs and say hello.... and if you have a mind to sign up contact Kaye and join in with all the new blog fun on the block!!

Have a great week....

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

The Alphabet Club & Christmas SAL's

Hi there!

I know I should be giving you a stitching update but I forgot to take some photos on the weekend, so instead of a Monday stitching update I thought I might do a post on a couple of new SAL's that I have recently signed up for...... yes... I know, not another SAL!! ;o)

Those of you that are observant may have noticed that I have added a couple of new badges / images on my sidebar under the SAL's that I am doing and I thought that today's post would be good time to let you know about these two new fun SAL's that are starting up in blogasphere... and hopefully you can all come and join in the fun!

The first one that I wanted to mention is "The Alphabet Club".

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever."  

This delightful idea came about through an email conversation between Jo (Serendipitous Stitching) and Chiara who blogs at The Grey Tail.  After a number of emails they came up with the idea of an A-Z language challenge and called it "The Alphabet Club" .

This is a posting challenge which will be a monthly posting on the first Saturday of the month (loosely called "Detention Day" after the movie "The Breakfast Club"). Each month's post can be about anything relating to the relevant month's letter/theme from stitching to designers and/or local customs, etc - those of us taking part will all link up with our posts on Chiara's link up post.  As there are 26 letters in the alphabet this will be going for a long time..... 26 months to be exact!! :o)

For the full details of how this came about, and for more in depth info on what it is all about, pop over to Chiara's blog (link here), but as a heads up, the first post will appear on the first Saturday in August and will relate to the letter "A". Jo couldn't wait til August and she has posted a pre-start post which is a great read - link is here.

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The second new SAL that I have signed up for is a sister SAL to the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL that Jo hosts.

This one is called the "Christmas Ornie SAL" and will have it's first monthly posting in August.    Kaye from (Kitten Stitching) has taken up the challenge to host this SAL.  I believe there used to be a SAL blog sometime ago that lapsed and now Kaye has started up a brand new blog for this SAL (link is here).

There are monthly themes commencing in August and running through to December 2015.  The themes are:

August -          Mr and/or Mrs Santa
September -   Christmas Tree/Presents
October -        Angels / Nativity
November -    Snowflakes / Snowman/Wintry scene
December -     Free Choice

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I am really looking forward getting started with both of these new SAL's and as long as I can get myself organised I should have something to post each month...  So if you're looking for a new posting or stitching challenge, please join in with these two great new SAL's

Til next time when I will be back with some GG SAL and TUSAL posts, have a great week and.....

Happy stitching!
Hugs xx
#realstitchersdontsteal