SfS January 2015

January report

Spent - £8.50 (2014's JCS Ornie issue - can't believe I didn't get this!)

Finish - January freebie by Lynn B, from here which fits into the 30x30 category - earning £2

Budget £25.00

Spent £8.50

Earned £2.00

carried forward £18.50

This is really cute and I have February printed off and ready to stitch.

Gifted Gorgeousness and DSDUCJFC for the last week!

Oh dear!  Late for my very first Gifted Gorgeousness...oops.

Some of these have already been seen as part of the DSDUCJFC projects that were up for stitching. Firstly, Honeysuckle Courtyard (already seen).

Spring - San Man (again already seen)

...and that is it as far as Gifted Gorgeousness goes.  Sorry Jo!

On to DSDUCJFC.  For some reason, I just can't drag the photos into the right order...they are just not playing ball!  So, the second photo down is last Sunday's project - Chatelaine's Gardens of London.  I forgot the before photo but I have done the dark green bit in the top right corner.  

Monday - Thursday became Lizzie Kate days as the fabric and charts were already out.  I stitched the 'br' of February, then the January partial border, followed by the partial April border and finally the August partial border.

Friday and Saturday were Santa's Village days.  I stitched the red in the border for Poinsettia House and then a couple of the bars to start the one after that.  I did carry on and finish the rest of the red from Friday's first though to save miscounting on Saturday.

Today, I have done a bit of Cut Thru Haberdasher's but as I am hoping to do a bit more tonight I won't take a photo just yet. I have made a decision though about the January/February Challenge.  I am finding it really hard to keep up with it as can be seen by the really miserly progress on any of them.  So...I am going to leave all the projects in the box they are currently in and just stitch on them as the year progresses.

I still want to honour Debbie's memory and have decided that the way I can do this is to start the kit that I much admired on her blog as she stitched it and that she encouraged me to buy.  In fact, she even sourced it for me as it was OOP/discontinued.  The design is, 'Universal Unity' by Dimensions.

Turtle Trot...hmmm

Well there is not a lot to see on Turtle Trot pieces this month. I have worked on some of my TT pieces but as they are forming part of my DSDUCJFC none of them have seen much progress.

Halloween Town Mystery SAL - The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

Henry VIII and his wives - DMC

Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe - LHN

Honeysuckle Courtyard - Patricia Ann Designs

DSDUCJFC - days 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

Well...you can tell that normal service has been resumed and the school holidays are over.  No time for blogging and not much more for stitching.

I had a mock maths exam on Wednesday so I have had to revise for that this week as well.  There's no rest for the wicked!

So on Monday (aka day 5), Rachael had chosen from the box. She picked Henry VIII and his wives. Here is the before and after photos.

As you can see, a bit of brown, a bit of red to the left hand side and that's it!

Then, it was Luke's turn to choose from the box for Day 6.  He picked LHN's Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe which was WIP.  Here is the before...

...and here is the after!  A couple of lengths of threads down the left hand side...so much more exciting that the little black blob you got to see a few days ago...lol.

Luke's choice for Day 7 was Lizzie Kate's Santa which is stitched on some random fabric from my stash.  It is one of my new starts so no 'before' photo.

Day 8 and I chose Halloween Town by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  I had stitched Part 1 and 2 but as the SAL is long since finished I won't worry about stitching the other 2 parts as parts but will just stitch it as I feel like.

I started the pink border which will have Halloween Town stitched in it eventually.  So...not a lot!

On the 9th day of Debbie's Challenge, my stash box gave to me...LHN's Party Cakes.  As this was also a new start, there really isn't a lot to see.  

Wipocalypse 2015

I have signed up for this again this year and hope to make it further through the year than I have previously.  The projects I am going to choose for WIPocalypse this year are ones that I would REALLY like to finish this year.  In no particular order, they are:

1. Honeysuckle Courtyard - Patricia Ann Designs
2. Gardens of London - Chatelaine
3. Oh Christmas Tree - All Through the Night
4. A Place we Call Home - CCN 
5. Halloween Town SAL - The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

So that should be enough to get me started!

I would like to make some serious progress on projects this year and be a lot less flittery fluttery with what I stitch.  I think racing to finish Debbie's unicorn last year showed that actually I don't stitch quite as slowly as I thought I did and that when I make an effort to work on just one project I can actually record a decent amount of progress.

Honeysuckle Courtyard

A Place we Call Home

Halloween Town SAL

Gardens of London

Oh Christmas Tree

This is where I am on all my projects at the moment.  Hopefully there will be some progress on each of them this month. 

I think that people probably know about me but if you don't and there is anything you want to, just ask!

DSDUCJFC - Day 4

I asked Rachael to choose from the box to see what I worked on today.  She narrowed it down to 2 different designs so I told her that I would stitch one for Day 4 and stitch the other on Day 5.  This means that yesterday I worked on Honeysuckle Courtyard.

So here is the design...sorry about the flash in the corner!

This is where I was before I started stitching.

And this is where I left off last night.  I am going to work on this later on today as well as I want to finish that band off and maybe make a start on the big one.  It has a little bumblebee button in the middle but I was wondering about changing it to a gold/brass 50 as it is for their 50th anniversary. Would anyone have any idea where I can get one from though?  I haven't got a clue where to look!

DSDUCJFC - Day 3

Yesterday, for day 3, I chose to start Shakespearean Fantasy.  It is a tiny little HaED chart with a mere 60 pages. Granted a few of them are part pages but even so...

I am stitching it on 28 ct white jobelan 2 over 1.  I did briefly toy with the idea of using black fabric so that I didn't have to stitch all the black background but VERY quickly scrapped that idea.

So, this is what it will look like one day.

This is what it looks now...500 stitches in starting with the top left hand corner. Don't get TOO excited.  That little white bit in the middle is where there will be one stitch of some colour other DMC 310.  I haven't looked to see what colour it will be as it might be a little too much excitement for me to contemplate a different colour! I'm sure the photo will be clickable if you really do have some kind of mad urge to examine the little black rectangle in more detail.  I will probably just about forgive you if you choose not to!  I think that perhaps the mark left by my Q Snap is possibly just as interesting :)

DSDUCJFC - Day 2

For Day 2, I chose to start San Man's Spring tuck.  This was gifted to me so it will also fit into Jo's Gifted Gorgeousness SAL too.

Once again, it was a day with less stitching than I would have liked.

Day 1 DSDUCJFC and the final finish of 2014

Happy New Year to you all. Let's hope that 2015 is a good one for us all.

In 2013, I made a little ornie with all my Tusal orts. So I thought I would do the same again in 2014. Luke chose the thread colour and said he wanted it in a square. It was finished 6 minutes before midnight.

Yesterday,was the first day of the DSDUCJFC. I chose Spell Check from Just Cross Stitch Oct 2014. I didn't get a lot of stitching time so there isn't a lot of progress. It's a cute design though.