Gifted Gorgeousness SAL 2016 - Update #4

Continuing on with my tradition of being late for posting.... here I am late again for my GG post! :o0

Friday Frolic & GG Entry:
This month I have a finished gift to show you.... this was one of my DUCSJC2016 and Cross Stitch Crazy January starts.  When I left it on January 7 it looked like this....

... and now after stitching on it last Friday night for Friday Frolics and IHSW it is finished... and framed!

Finish #15
"With Love" - Designer: Lesley Teare
Free Gift from Cross Stitch Card Shop

With Love - Designer: Lesley Teare
Cross Stitch Card Shop Freebie

The free gift included a card but I decided to paint up a small frame and use the card opening as a mount instead. (Think I went a bit overboard with the dots!! I was definitely feeling my inner dottiness when I painted this on Sunday!!)

So where does the gift part come into my latest finish? Well, I will be sending this one to my Mum for Mother's Day... (hopefully she doesn't read my blog before next Sunday...)

So that was my Friday Frolic stitching... now onto the rest of weekend's stitching...

IHSW Update:
On Saturday I decided that it was high time to start another of the Snowflower Diaries "Joyful World SAL" pieces as I am woefully behind in stitching these cute designs.  Also, I thought that I could use "February" as part of my Stitch Maynia "April Showers Bring May Flowers" SAL entry.  (My stitching for Mum is also an entry for that SAL)

Snowflower Diaries - Joyful World SAL - February

This is where I got to after stitching on this on Saturday, Sunday and Monday evening.

So overall I had quite a successful IHSW!

I do have another WIP to show you... this one is a 2015 WIP that I started as part of last year's crazy January challenges.  When I last showed this one on my blog back on 1 February 2015 it looked like this:

It now looks like this:

Flowerpot Kitty - Designer: Helz Cuppleditch
Free Gift - World of Cross Stitching magazine

This is a Helz Cuppleditch design and was a free gift from The World of Cross Stitching magazine (WOCS).   I have to admit that I am finding the threads in this freebie absolutely horrible to stitch with.... they won't lie flat and they keep fraying/shredding..... and if I have to frog... oh my goodness don't get me started on that! I suspect they are very cheap!! I now remember why I put it away after starting it last year! But I am nearly finished so I will leave it in the stitching basket and try and get it done before the end of April.

The rest of the week just gone I have been stitching on my JCS Christmas Ornie... fingers crossed that will be finished over the weekend.  Sorry forgot to take a progress pic last night...

So that is it for my latest stitching round up.... Before I go, I would like to thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post.  I really appreciate your kind thoughts and wishes :o) I am feeling a lot better this week so hopefully that is a good sign that things are settling down again!

This weekend we have a long weekend here in Australia for Anzac Day so I will be resting, stitching and catching up with Floss Tube, or the many episodes of the Good Wife, Silent Witness and whatever else I have taped on Foxtel!  So a big weekend ahead...

Til next time, happy stitching

PS: if you have noticed all the purple on this post... besides it being my favourite colour... this is my tribute to Prince who passed away overnight ;o( 2016 is turning out to be a very sad year..... ;o(

Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL.  The GG SAL is about stitching charts/kits or using fabrics & threads that we have received as gifts, won in giveaways or anything that is intended be a gift or giveaway prize... or anything else that you can loosely use the word "gift" for!!  If you wish to sign up for this SAL, click on the button below or the button on my sidebar and you will be re-directed to Jo's blog.

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

FF, FNSI & IHSW Round Up

It's Monday.... and time for a weekend stitching round up post!

First up is Friday Frolics.... nothing to report as nothing was stitched on Friday :o(  Epic fail....   We were out on Friday night and by the time we got home it was a bit too late to even think about threading a needle for a few stitches....

And of course you know what that means don't you??  Double epic fail!

Friday night was also FNSI and while I did sign up for this and I was hoping to be home in time to stitch with everyone... it just didn't happen! :o( :o(

But I am an optimist and I also look for that silver lining.... last weekend was also IHSW and I did manage to stitch most of the weekend!!  Having a cold, damp Spring Sunday helped immensely!

Joyce didn't post a sign up page last week.... but I didn't let that deter me.... want to see what I stitched on Saturday and Sunday?

Saturday saw me rummage around in the Stitching Box and come up with "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy, which was good timing as I needed to stitch and post my "ghost" on the Halloween Ornie SAL Blog before the end of the month.... indeed before Halloween which falls at the end of the month!!!

I am really pleased with my weekend stitching progress... because not only did I start and finish the Ghost square... but I also started and nearly finished the Jack (pumpkin) square!  (If the Argentina/Ireland Rugby game had gone another half hour I would have probably finished that one as well!!!)

So first up... here is the "Ghost" square

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy

After a weekend of stitching on the Ghost and the Jack, the whole piece now looks like this:

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy
as at Oct 2015

Not bad progress for Saturday and Sunday, even if I do say so myself!!  I have only one more square (the witch) to stitch on this one and then back onto the border.....  Before I post my Ghost on the Halloween blog I need to do some Halloween decorating... have no idea what I am going to do but I think a trip to Spotlight is called for, or maybe I should just take a photo of the cobwebs and big black spiders that we have hanging around on the back patio and use them as my decorating!!!

I am going to put this one away now so that I can start on my Christmas Ornie SAL Blog piece for October.  Hopefully I will have something to show you all next week....

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs, xx

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

It's a wrap! FNSI & IHSW July Update

Friday Night Sew In (FNSI).... held on the third Friday of every month

Let's start with Friday night's stitching....  I had great intentions of doing heaps of stitching on Friday night but.... I was so knackered when I got home from work that in the end I decided to grab one of the smaller designs that I have been slowly working on rather than risk stitching on something larger and frogging it all out again on Saturday!!

Friday's lucky stitching winner was the little Christmas Kitty freebie from Margaret Sherry.  I started this one back in January, put it down again until April and then forgot about it again until now....

Before I started stitching on Friday night he looked like this:

Christmas Kitty - April 2015

Now he looks like this.... nowhere near finished though!!  Oh well, I am sure there will be another opportunity soon to get him finished!

Christmas Kitty - July 2015

Now after all the fun of a Friday Night Stitch In, don't forget to head back over to Wendy's blog (Sugarlane Designs) to see what she got up to over the weekend.

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

As I mentioned on Friday, the weekend just gone was also IHSW time.  Now that you have seen Friday's stitching effort, let me show you what I stitched on during Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday saw Nora Corbett Christmas Eve Courier "Prancer" come out of the stitching basket.

When you last saw "Prancer" at the beginning of the month he was missing a leg or two...

"Prancer" - 2 July 2015

 I have now managed to completed his two back legs and started on the front leg.  As you will probably notice the top part of the ribbon is still in the same spot as last time!!!  I am trying to leave all the white stitching to the last possible moment.....

"Prancer" - 20 July 2015

Sunday was a very dark and damp day... perfect weather for stitching on a Halloween design!  Which was just as well as I remembered on Friday that I hadn't got myself organised to stitch the Haunted House for the Halloween Ornie Blog post at the end of the month.

So enter "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy.  Now the last time you saw this one was way back in February when it looked like this:

"Halloween Sneak Peek" - The Trilogy - February 2015

As you will notice I have stitched some more of the black border and completed one inside box border.  This little inside border will have a haunted house in it eventually!  All I have to do is get the house stitched before the end of the month....

"Halloween Sneak Peek" - The Trilogy - July 2015

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.... I did do some "finishing" to my MS Lovers Blog exchange piece on Saturday and Sunday.  Fingers crossed that should be in the mail by the end of this week and then hopefully in a couple of weeks time I will be able to show you a finished finish!!! :o)

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx

It's sign up day for FNSI & IHSW!

Well.... this is a first for me!  Friday Night Sew In (FNSI).... held on the third Friday of every month!

I have seen this monthly event around on Blog and FB for some time now, but have never got around to signing up and posting about it - but this month I saw the link up post on Wendy's blog in plenty of time!  So now that I have signed up, I just need to get ready for a good Friday stitching marathon - not that I need an excuse to stitch on a Friday night!! :o)

This is probably one of the simplest SAL's to join.... just sign up for the party and on Friday Night (tonight) join in the stitching fun in any way, shape or form, stitch to your heart's content and then share your Friday night stitching pics on a blog post some time over the weekend.

Stage 2 of the party fun is to visit everyone else over the weekend to see what they got up to on Friday night!  After all the fun of the weekend, check back in to Wendy's blog (Sugarlane Designs) on Monday night to see who has won this month’s FNSI randomly drawn prize.

See, I told you it was easy.... I will be stitching tonight anyway so I thought I might as well sign up for the fun of the party.

If you want to join in, go over to Wendy's blog and sign up - the link is right here!  Will see you at the party!

Who needs another reason to stitch all weekend??  Not me, but I will take whatever excuse is on offer to prove that I just have to stitch all weekend, especially as the weather forecast is for a very wet, cold wintery weekend here this weekend!!

So as I mentioned before, today is the third Friday of the month - so that also means that this weekend is IHSW!

Joyce has now posted her sign up post for this weekend... hurry on over and link up for a great weekend of stitching!  And don't forget to visit everyone's blog that is taking part in IHSW from Monday when all those lovely pics and posts will start appearing!

Have a great weekend of stitching... see you on the other side!!

Enjoy your Friday, see you soon....
Hugs xx

IHSW Check In... better late than never!

This is a very quick fly by post as I am very late in telling you about my weekend stitching!

So without further ado, here is my little stitching update for my "Numb Bum" weekend or IHSW as it is formally called (ie last weekend's stitching)!

I stitched on one piece last weekend and only managed to stitch on Saturday and Sunday for a couple of hours each day but I did make some headway on my chosen WIP.

Remember I said that I was going to be stitching on my Jean Farish "Deer and Grapes Mystery SAL" piece - this is what it looked like before the weekend:

and it now looks like this as of Monday evening:

I managed to finish the other bit of the top half of the border and then started on the first of the top row of flowers.

Overall I am reasonably pleased with my stitching effort for the weekend.  I would have liked to be a bit further ahead but never mind it will appear back in my rotation again very soon.

For those that don't know the IHSW is held on the third Friday to Sunday every month.  Joyce from Random Ramblings will post a couple of days before the weekend so you can sign up and then you stitch as much as you can on the weekend and then on Monday (or Tuesday... or Wednesday) you post pics of what you did... all very easy really!

Thanks it for now, will be back again soon with some more wonderful stitching highlights... or something like that anyway!

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs xx

Day 18 & 19 - Crazy Starts 18 & 19

Well, here we are again....  Today's update is another multi-tasking update (and I can do that because I am a woman!!) LOL!

Last weekend was the first IHSW for 2015 and I did manage to actually get my needle and floss working correctly....  coincidentally, January's IHSW collided with my stitching days 16-18.  I have already shown you what I stitched on Day 16 (Faces of Joan Elliott Mystery SAL) and Day 17 (Lizzie Kate's Jingles) and the link to that update post is here: Day-15-16-17.

So that covers Friday and Saturday, what about Sunday?

Sunday was Day 18 of Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge 2015 (DUCJC2015) and I was again working on a WIP - "Witch and Friends" designed by Donna Giampa.

You last saw my lovely witch and her furry friends back in October when I was quite happily spout how clever I was that I could shoe-horn this design into 3 months worth of Hallowe'en Ornie Blog themes!  Well, umm, yes..... she didn't get finished before 2014 ended and I failed dismally in that challenge last year!  But I did manage to stitch on her after my October update (although I didn't post any further updates) and this is what she looked like before I started stitching on her again on Sunday evening.

"Witch and Friends" - Donna Giampa
Status at the end of 2014

After a couple of hours on Sunday evening, "Witch and Friends" now looks like this:

"Witch and Friends" - Donna Giampa
Status as at 18/1/2015

Not a lot of progress, but I did manage to fill in the bottom half of the owl, some more of the bottom kitty and start on the green cloak.  She is now back in the stitching basket until next month when I pull her out again.

So that rounds up the IHSW part of this post.... onto Day 19's update!

Monday (last night) was Day 19.... and another night of WIP stitching for me.  It is scary how long ago it is since you have seen this one...... almost 12 months ago!!  Day 19's WIP was my "Mini Mandala II - C" designed by Martina Rosenberg (Chatelaine Designs).

The last update on "Mini Mandala II - C" was actually on 25th February 2014.... and I hang my head in shame to say that I haven't stitched on this design since my last update!!

"Mini Mandala II - C" - Chatelaine Designs
Status as at Feb 2014

So after a little bit of love and stitching last night, this lovely design now looks like this:

"Mini Mandala II - C" - Chatelaine Designs
Status as at 19/1/15

I have included the photo from the chart pack which shows that I have a fair way to go yet!!

Tonight will be another WIP night and I also need to take a photo of my very colourful ORT's jar so that I can post my TUSAL update tomorrow.

Til then, if you want to have a look at any of my previous updates for the FB CrosstitchCrazy Event and Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January Challenge 2015 (DUCJC2015) the links are below:


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"
Day 13 - "Grumpy Kitty"  Day 14 - "Happy Howloween"  Day 15 - "Happy Owl O Ween"
Day 16 - WIP "Faces of JE Mystery SAL"  Day 17 - WIP "Lizzie Kate's Jingles"

Til next time, Happy Stitching!
Hugs x