Passifloral and fantastic framers

Last month was Colin's parents 50th Wedding Anniversary and as you are probably aware, I decided to stitch them something.  The design I chose was Patricia Ann Designs 'Honeysuckle Courtyard'.  I did change some of the colours to make it more golden.

As you can see from the photo above, it turned out beautifully with a few tweaks to it.

I then sent it off to Israel to Rachel (Passifloral) (with my heart in my mouth, it has to be said) to have it laced and a handpainted mount added.  I gave Rachel a free rein with it, other than telling her it was a 50th wedding anniversary gift and what the design was called.  She painted it in record time for me and had it back within 2 weeks.  Rachel had asked if I wanted a sneak peek but I decided to wait until it arrived back home to see it in all its glory.  Oh my word!!! It was worth the wait!!!  LOOK!

So then, it was a case of finding somewhere that could make me a frame to fit and in a fairly quick time too!  I found Picture Frames Express.  They are utterly amazing!  I ordered what I thought I wanted but did mention that I wasn't entirely sure about the measurements and if I had got it right. This lovely man (Mark), spent most of the morning emailing me - in all honesty he muct have been tearing his hair out at my dithering!  He was brilliant!!  Once that was all sorted and confirmed, the order was here within 2 days.  The frame was absolutely perfect, good quality and just what I wanted. It was so well packaged that even Royal Mail couldn't have broken it.  I honestly cannot recommend them highly enough and will definitely be using them next time I need a frame.  

So once framed, it was sent off to its new home and I am happy to report was immediately (literally) put on the wall in pride of place where absolutely no-one is EVER going to be able to miss seeing it!

Gifted Gorgeousness and Turtle Trot

All I have worked on this month, and not very often as is seen by the pathetic progress I have made.
I have been trying to find a backstitch alphabet that will work with the design to personalise it for them.  I'm finding it quite tricky though as it only wants to be 4 stitches high and I don't want anything too fancy or too plain.  Let me know if you have any ideas?

On the way back into the house after archery today, I noticed how many flowers were already out in the garden.  We have daffodils showing a bit of colour too but not enough to make it worth a photo.

Can you see the little bee on this next one?

January reveiw / February goals

January goals

• A new project every day...yikes!  Some of these will be WIP's...well more UFO's so they will seem like new projects anyway :)  FAIL - I got really fed up of keep getting a new project (or a different project) out every day and quit the challenge.  As one commenter told me, Debbie would have been the first to remind me that stitching is supposed to be fun.
• Stitch Holmsey Hare for January. FAIL - I want a nice piece of fabric for this one and as yet haven't found it.
• Make good progress on Honeysuckle Courtyard as Colin's parents 50th is in April (at least 4 bands).  WOOHOO - one that I actually managed to do! 
• Not spend any of my SfS budget. FAIL - but in fairness, if I had bought the JCS ornie issue last year when I thought I had, I wouldn't have spent a penny :)

February goals

• Make good progress on Honeysuckle Courtyard.  It would be nice to pretty much finish it off if possible so that I can send it off to be framed.
• Stitch an ornie from JCS.

I'm not going to have too many goals as I do want to focus Honeysuckle Courtyard.

WIPocalypse - February update

There has been very little stitching going on in the last month what with college applications and interviews, archery, school stuff (both mine at work and the kids).  In fact, the only thing that I have worked on is Honeysuckle Courtyard.  I am doing this for my soon-to-be-ex-husband's parents for their 50th wedding anninversary.

Note the cute little needleminder that Justine sent me recently.  I've never had one before and am loving it!  So is my daughter actually, she doesn't keep getting stabbed by me needles in the arm of the sofa now!!

The topic this month is 'How do you overcome the feeling that you are in a rut with a particular project?'   Well, I hate to say it, but if you know me you will know the answer to this already!  I tend not to.  I tend to move onto a new project although I always intend to go back to it eventually.  My worst habit is not unpicking mistakes straight away which always makes it harder to go back to it.  I did try stitching a length or two of threads in 'unloved' projects once, but it didn't work for long!  I am looking forward to hearing the answers to this question for a bit of inspiration!

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

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!

Gifted Gorgeousness projects

Our Serendipitous friend, Jo, is hosting a Gifted Gorgeousness SAL this year.  As she notes, we all have received gorgeous gifts, giveaways etc from other stitchers and this SAL is to encourage us to actually stitch them!  Follow the link to her blog to get the full rules.

I have been gifted or otherwise given quite a few things and have pulled some from my stash to work on this year.  Some of these are also going to form part of my DSDUCJC starts too.

I don't have a photo of Penguin Parade but just imagine a line of penguins!  The fabric was gifted to me by Jo.

gifted the chart and button

gifted the chart

gifted the chart

gifted the chart

gifted the chart

gifted the chart

gifted a gift certificate which I used to buy some of the threads

gifted the chart

As Jo is Queen of Shoehorning, I feel quite justified in saying that this fits the Gifted Gorgeousness by being something gorgeous that I will be gifting to Colin's parents in April.  That's my theory...and I'm sticking to it! (edited:  Argggghhhh...just re-read the rules and Jo has already allowed this...rats!)

WIPocalypse - May update

This month's topic is:

What designs or themes do you really wish you could find?  What do you think is missing among stitching designs?

Well!  I love horse racing and would love more horse racing designs.  There are only a few that I have found (and bought!)  Apart from that I'm not sure what else I would like to see other than perhaps some official Manchester United kits.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone's answers this month to see where all the gaps are in the market.  I wonder if designers will be trawling blogs to see what they are missing out on too :)

As for stitching...I actually worked on 2 of my 5 WIPocalypse pieces!

First up is Honeysuckle Courtyard by Patricia Ann Designs which will be a golden wedding anniversary gift for Colin's mum and dad next April so I need to get my finger out!

Then I did about 50 stitches on my Cut Thru Stable.  I love this design but hate the fabric and threads.  I am wondering if I should make it a project whereby I stitch one length of thread a night on it.  What do you think?

Turtle Trot update - May

I am starting to feel like a tired, old, broken record...not much progress...assignment writing...bleurghhhh. Well guess what?  In 11 days time I will be finished my degree, providing there is nothing disastrously wrong with this final assignment, so next month there will be loads and loads of stitchy progress. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

3 projects got dusted off and saw the light of day. First up, Henry had the dark red almost finished in his sleeve and a bit of the grey down the sleeve. Progress is progress, I know.

Honeysuckle Courtyard had some love and after looking at this photo, I can see that I had stitched the top leg of the top band with 3 going \\\ and the other 5 going /////.  Damn...looks like some unpicking to do there then!  I love the graduated look of the yellow flowers though - I couldn't have planned that!

And finally, wait for Linda's thud, I did a little bit on my Stable.  Only a bit of the grey in the horse and the red bucket at the bottom but as was said before, progress is progress!

Theme-a-licious -

In January I stitched on the following designs that I could shoehorn gardens or flowers into.

In the order of the photos:

1. Cinderella - Joan Elliott
2. Rosa - India Grace Designs
3. Halloween House - Ursula Michaels
4. Touching the Autumn Sky - Mirabilia
5. Honeysuckle Courtyard - Patricia Ann Designs

I suppose I could have tentatively suggested that Oh Christmas Tree and A Very Merry Christmas have trees in which could be in a garden...but I won't!