Winter Unicorn - The Final Countdown

Tomorrow is my best mate's birthday.  Winter Unicorn was finally finish finished.  I had bought a lovely white frame from Ikea earlier in the week to frame it for her.  I totally mucked up cutting the mount and had to bin it.

What to do, what to do?

Well, upstairs I had a piece of styrofoam or something similar so decided to make a cube finish instead.  Here are a few photos of the finished item.

 This is it with the fabric I used for backing.

You can just about see the stars in this shot.  I actually stitched the moon and stars with Kreinik blending filament rather than a pale blue DMC as called for in the design.

This is the bow I managed to make at the second attempt.  I am actually really proud of it.  Not something I often say about things I have done.

Sadly, Debbie wasn't in when I went round to drop it in but she rang later to say thank you.  She was thrilled that I had remembered her birthday (don't think I have ever forgotten) and wanted to know if she was to open it now.  I made her wait until tomorrow, because I am mean like that!  I can't wait for her to ring to let me know what she thinks of it.

Edit - the pin in the middle, next to the bow was removed!

Winter Unicorn - IT'S FINISHED!!!!!

I have literally just added the last bead to Winter Unicorn.  Here it is...

Winter Unicorn

Just a quickie of this week's progress.  I should easily finish it in time I think.  I am working across the bottom before going up the side.  I had the urge to do some of the backstitch as I went as I didn't want to leave it all until the end.

Winter Unicorn

I finally realised that it is my friend's 50th birthday at the end of the month.  I can't believe she is going to be 50, she looks so much younger than me. 
So I quickly worked out roughly how many stitches there were left to do in Winter Unicorn and divided it by 28 which would leave me 2 days for backstitch, washing, beading and framing. It came out as just under 300 a day so may just be possible.
The top photo is where I was before I started and the bottom one is the progress after 2 days.

Crazy January Challenge - Days 6 and 7

Day 6 was Witchful Thinking from Pickle Barrel Designs which I was lucky enough to win in a giveaway by the designer last year.  Over half way through I realized that I was one stitch short in the upright of the letters stitched so far.  I looked at it, thought 'shall I unpick?' Very quickly that was followed by 'nah, it's fine' and I finished the last few letters off the same.  Now the question is...do I stitch the Witchful with one less stitch too, so they are the same height or as charted?

Witchful Thinking - Pickle Barrel Designs
fabric - Crafty Kitten, Bubbling Cauldron (second)

Day 7 was Winter Unicorn by Durene Jones.  As you can see I haven't had a lot of stitching time recently as there is an assignment due in.  2000 words on the depiction of the family in Peter Pan and 2 poems from 100 Best poems for children!  Thankfully that is now submitted and life can get back to normal for 2 weeks!

Bad blogger...that's me!

In fact at the moment I am a bad blogger, bad stitcher, bad everything.  My whole life at the moment revolves around cramming enough knowledge into my head so that I can pass my exam which is on Thursday.  YIKES! Colin took the kids to his parents so I have had child free time to study which has been good and it's rained the whole time here which is also good as I don't feel like I was missing out on doing something else.

I have done a little stitching this month but not a lot.  The camera battery is dead so I can't show any pictures until later on but I have finished off the licquorice allsorts design which is then going out as a RR. I have done a bit on Helen and Kev's wedding sampler.  This is going to be focused on once the exam is out of the way so that they do finally get it!  If you see me stitching on anything else, shout at me.

Around the World has 1 heart completely finished other than beads.  I will work on that too once the exam is out of the way but of course not until I have finished the wedding one.  I have also put a few stitches into Two Little Love Birds but not many!

My cousin has asked me if I will stitch a design for her.  Now why I didn't find out what design it was first before I said yes, I don't know.  So I have now got the fabric to stitch JE's Cinderella from Cross Stitch Gold.  I did warn her that I was not the quickest stitcher and not to expect it for a good while.

I think that is all the news on the stitching front.  Nothing much else to say unless you want to hear all about my revision...as I don't really, I'm sure you won't...lol.  I have been reading the odd blog between studying but I haven't left comments.  I do feel really bad about that, so please accept my apologies.  Normal service will be resumed very shortly.

And finally....welcome to my new followers, I'm really pleased you're here. x x