I love cross stitch

Well, I do - but it is also the 'thing' that I finished today. This little bookmark kit was a cover freebie from CrossStitcher magazine around about a gazillion years ago.  I probably won't finish it as a bookmark but after about 10...15...ok ok...maybe more...here is I love cross stitch, the bookmark!

The one thing that is annoying me is how there was a wider gap at the top between the design and the border to what there was under the flowerpot.  I will have to see how much it annoys me and perhaps change it so they are the same width.  The border should have been 3 wide but looked very heavy so I changed that as well.  Oh and it should all have been stitched with one thread but that clearly didn't register when I started it as it was 2 threads.  I left out the back stitch too as it was that blocky outlining that doesn't usually add much to a piece. Apart from that it is as charted/designed 😜

Last year, I got loads of SewandSo vouchers for Christmas and birthday presents and therefore treated myself to a floor stand.  Today I have put Gardens of London on it so that I can work on that more effectively.  I thought I would bore you with a few pics of what it looks like at the moment.

Tried to capture the bling of the metallic threads but clearly failed miserably!!

I have found a couple of flosstube channels that I really enjoy (Kitten Stitcher and Stash Queen).  Please feel free to give me some recommendations or if you know I have followed your blog, let me know that you are on flosstube.

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.

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!

Turtle Trot 2015

I love this picture that Claudette used for announcing Turtle Trot 2015.  In case you have been on Mars for the last few years, you choose 10 projects to stitch on and post about them on 10th of each month.

Mine are going to be: my 2 Chatelaines - Paris Roses and Gardens of London with all the following too.

I will put a current progress photo on once we take the Christmas decorations down and I can have my stitching out again!!

Stitching and our allotment

There has been a little stitching this week.  Sadly there is nothing to show for Home of a Needleworker as everything I stitched needs unpicking as I stitched it one stitch the right...argggh!

More happily, I spent a day playing with the silks for Gardens of London and this is where I am at the moment.  I am alternating between algerian eyelets and dense Rhodes stitches.  There are a LOT of the dense Rhodes stitches!

This is the bit of progress to Rue Paris.  I am pulling out the gridding as it is driving me up the wall!  I am finding the chart easy to follow and progress is quite good.  This is approximately 1000 stitches or around quarter of the first page.  There 50,000+ stitches in total!

Haberdasher's is rolling along nicely and I am loving stitching this.  I am considering converting the kits I have to DMC and kitting them up myself.  I really can't believe the difference stitching one of the Cut Thru's with DMC rather than the madeira from the kits is making to my stitching. 

Gaynor of StitchersAnon is having a Mystery Halloween SAL which starts tomorrow.  She has been tormenting us with lots of freebies and I actually finished one.  It's a really cute design which I stitched on Sparklies Pumpkin Patch.  There is still time to join up if you want to.  If you click on on StitchersAnon, it will take you straight to the page you need for the information on the SAL.  She has assured us that each part is easily stitched in the week before the next part comes out.

Another thing you may be interested in if you are on facebook is The Pumpkin Seed Stitchers group.  This is a Halloween group that is having guest designers provide a design a month for the year.  There are amazing designers lined up but I am not sharing anything else with you.  If you want more information, you will have to go and investigate!!!

On the non stitching front, I thought I would share a couple of photos of our allotment at the moment.  In the bed bottom left are the few lettuces we have left that haven't bolted, the courgettes and squashes.  The plot behind Luke has our late potatoes in which will hopefully provide potatoes for Christmas dinner. Under the netting on the right are cabbages and cauliflowers with the runner beans at the back there.  Compared to everyone else, we grow a LOT of runner beans and so far we have picked 5.35kg of beans (and there are a lot more to come yet!) We need another freezer!

Here is a close up of my favourite vegetable of all...the runner bean :)  You can just see our sweetcorn in the bottom left hand corner too.  They need to get a move on!

Stitching Bandits Chatelaine Challenge

Due to the last assignment being handed in there has been little (no) progress on this since my last progress photo.  Still, you're here now so you might as well get another look at the beautiful thing...

Belated Theme-a-licious update for April

The only designs I have stitched on in April that feature water are: Just Nan's High Hopes and Chatelaine's The Gardens of London.  High Hopes was just too late to count for my Just Nan SAL for April so at least it edges in here!

Stitching progress, giveaway and flowers

I'm afraid the title of this post is a 'does what it says on the tine' type title.  I couldn't think of what else to call it!

This is where I have got to now with Gardens of London.  I am absolutely loving it and don't really want to put it down.  It really isn't conducive to writing an essay.

I was also lucky enough to win a chart in a giveaway too.  Nancy at Pickle Barrel Designs had one recently and gave a choice of three charts to win.  I loved 2 of them in particular and said she could choose to send whichever she preferred of them.  Nancy picked the one below.  It's a cute design and great sentiments to live by!  Thank you Nancy :)

Lastly, I thought I would share a few photos of our garden with you.  Well, more a few photos of my favourite tulips at the moment!  They probably all have names but in our house they are just known by their distinguishing features.  So you have the pink, tatty one, the blushing yellow, the pointy one, the white one and the pink and orange one - no marks for originality in naming them!

Stitch from Stash - April update

This is my free month!!

Colin 'allowed' me to buy the silks for Gardens of London which cost a fair bit.  I got them from several different companies as some were cheaper than others.  If you need any Gloriana threads, I can highly recommend West End Embroidery for them.  They were over a pound cheaper than sewandso which surprised me.  Their service was very good too and threads were received within a couple of days.

Here are a couple of photos of my progress so far on it.

Stitching Bandits Chatelaine Challenge

Seeing as Roses of Paris is on my Turtle Trot list I thought this might be a good challenge to join in with. Then of course with having started Gardens of London...well...

The SAL/challenge started on 1st April, which is coincidentally the same day as the first part of Gardens of London was released too!

Here is my progress on both designs for this month...

Roses of Paris
Chatelaine Designs

Gardens of London
Chatelaine Designs

Stitch from Stash - March

The grand amount spent by me this month is...drumroll please...

  £25.87

This month although I got some lovely new stash to fondle, it was mostly courtesy of a 123stitch gift certificate from Linda and birthday presents from family and friends with some threads from a birthday exchange group I am part of too.  However, I did totally cave in to lust and bought Gardens of London (Chatelaine) which is available on April 1st.  I can't wait although I am hoping that Colin is going to provide the fabric or I'm stuffed!!

So...out of a possible £45.00 for the first 3 months (£15 per month) I have spent £26.53 so far.

So in the meantime...here again are all the lovely cards and threads that I received.