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!

New starts and Christmas in July

First of all, how on earth am I suppose to stitch with Smudge taking over my lap?  Honestly cat!  There are other places to sit!  Of course, he is only bothering with me as Colin and the children are away.  Usually he prefers a male lap but will slum it on Rachael if Colin or Luke are not 'available'.  No doubt when they all come back later, he will leave me in peace again!

Smudge is in the doghouse at the moment. I have had the back door open so the cats can just wander in and out at will and he came in, jumped up on my lap which contained my cross stitch and had wet paws. Thankfully a quick wipe with a damp paper towel removed the mark...but still!

So, onto my new starts.  I thought as Colin and the kids are away this week that I would treat myself to a new start and see how much I could get done before they come back.  I chose Bothy Threads Haberdasher's which I had the chart of rather than the kit (hate the fabric, hate the threads but apart from that the kits are fine!)  I found a piece of 28ct jobelan, what else? and away I went.  Don't ask me why I decided to start at the bottom but I did and I have found it made for speedy stitching!  This is progress so far.  The bottom left page is completed bar the backstitch.  The big lilac column is the start of the left middle page. 211 is one of my favourite DMC colours so I am really enjoying this page.

My second new start is the one that Colin bought me to celebrate the conclusion of my degree.  Paris holds a special place in our hearts as it is where we went for our honeymoon (16 years ago next month...yikes!) so I had a look for a Paris chart that I liked.  I was rather taken with Thea Gouverneur's design but wasn't sure about getting a kit and ending up with threads I didn't like as it just says 'stranded cotton' and not what brand they are.  Then I found this one from Artecy which we both liked. I ordered it as a printed chart which cost under £10 including postage from Australia!  What a bargain!!  I  received the chart in around a week, again fantastic coming from Australia. I have never seen an Artecy chart before but it is great.  Nice clear symbols which are large enough for me to see clearly without constantly picking up the chart or squinting at it.

Anyway, this is my progress from last night and an hour or so this morning.  I'm giving gridding a go to see if it will help me, but the jury is still out on it at the moment.  It won't surprise you to know that I am stitching it on 28ct white jobelan will it?

Donna emailed to say that she received her Christmas in July exchange from me (luckily just in July!)  So here is a quick photo of what I sent her.

And a close up of the 3 stitched pieces that I sent her too.  I have never used ric rac as a trim and was reasonably pleased with how it turned out.  It's not perfect but isn't too bad for a first attempt.  Oh, and the fabric was dyed by me too, using coffee.  The designs are Plum Street Sampler's 'Christmas is coming'.