Stitching mojo may have returned

Well I finally picked up a needle and thread on Monday night. After contemplating a new start and then deciding I had quite enough WIP's as it was, I decided to do the last part of How Does Your Garden Grow? This was really quick to do. I stitched it all in one evening and then beaded it Tuesday morning. Now I have a problem - it needed washing and off course needs ironing. The trouble is I used invisible thread to attach the beads and if I iron it I suspect the beads will all drop off! Any ideas what I can do??

After finishing that, I decided to finish off June Zooms as there wasn't a lot to do on it. That got finished Tuesday too.

On Wednesday I finished January Snows and started March Blows, which I finished today. Finally, more than 5 years after it was started, the whole series is finally stitched!!

I contemplated a new start and even picked out a chart and found the fabric for it. Unfortuantely I can't find where on earth I put the threads for it!

WIP and new start pics for 2009 - part 1

These are more for my own reference than any other reason. I thought I would post pics of where I am with my WIP's as of the start of 2009. It might be interesting to see what progress actually gets made on some of them by the end of 2009!!

Snowy Days Sampler from Cross Stitcher magazine.

Bothy Threads Cut Thru Garden Shed. I REALLY want to finish this one this year.

Maggie the Messmaker. I want to make real progress on this one this year.

Last 3 Snappers need doing. Started January then March and June to do.

Cotswold Design from Cross Stitch Collection magazine. Again I would really like to make a lot of progress on this one this year.


Part 9 of How does your Garden Grow is started and I really want this finished by my birthday in March.

A few finishes

I still have a couple of finishes that I can't show but there are some I can. This week I have finished both February Glows and September Brings. Only 3 left to do. I will probably leave them until after Christmas now.

I finished this ornament a few weeks ago but as it was for an exchange I couldn't show it. It is one of my favourite designs from the ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch and I fancy stitching it again for myself. It was the first time I had finished one in this way.

This one is one that I stitched a long time ago but only just got round to finishing.

Robin Titan can you please email with your snail mail details so I have them to hand when I am ready to send you your PIF. For some reason I can't just click on your email link!

August's update/September's goals

This is being posted a bit early as Rachael goes into hospital tomorrow to have her teeth out and I don't know if I will be blogging for a few days. Rachael has something called enamel hypoplasia which basically means that some of her teeth have no enamel on at all. These are the 4 back molars that come through as adult teeth at around the age of 5 or 6. She is also due to have 2 of her front baby teeth out because of overcrowding but one of these has fallen out and the other is loose so I will ask if they can leave that to fall out naturally. The poor girl is going to have nowhere to eat in her mouth for a few days until it heals a bit. Unfortunately as she has diabetes to throw into the mix with a general anaesthetic, I am worrying more than I should be about it. Her diabetes nurse is unfortunately on her holidays too so she won't be there to hold my hand!
September's goals are to.........

• complete and make up the biscornu if the threads turn up.
• work on Madonna of the Garden as much as possible until the end of September.
• Stitch part 9 of How does your Garden Grow? when it is released middle of September.
• Complete another Snapper month.

August's goals were to......

• finish stitching on the biscornu. (waiting for thread to arrive.)
• make up the biscornu. (as above.)
• stitch part 7 and 8 of "How does your garden grow?" (done)
• complete another month of the Snappers. (completed May and stitched a bit of Jan, Feb and Sept)
• stitch 1000 stitches in the crossstitchcrzy SAT. (completely and utterly smashed this one! 4220 stitches in total! Obviously the school holidays have helped!!

I had another little finish, 4 in one week - must be a record!

Help me decide which one please

I have nearly finished the Bent Creek Snappers series - at long last - and today went shopping for fabric to use for making it into a wall hanging. I chose 2 that are autumnal colours, mainly because I felt that any other colour would be too bright for a seasonal piece. The colours of the designs are quite muted too. Anyway which would you use for this? I love the one with the leaves but thought it might be too busy and detract from the stitching. The marbly one isn't so bright in real life it is more browny orange. I am going to set up a poll for this and see what wins.

Piece A



Piece B

A finish and update

I have finished another one of the Bent Creek Snappers - December. I am now half way through stitching the series. I had to order a couple of threads for the rest of the designs but now the kids have broken up from school I should be able to get the rest of these finished fairly quickly now. I want to finish this as a wall hanging and am thinking about making my own bellpull ends as I can't find anything I really like.

I have also completed Part 6 of How does your Garden grow? but I decided not to bead it yet as part 7 and 8 are both filling in the gaps of part 5 and 6. I thought it may be easier without the beads in the way. I am really enjoying seeing how this is stitching up.

Luke painted a pot a while back and planted a sunflower seed as part of his Beaver scout activities. Yesterday was the final meeting before the summer holiday so we were going to take his sunflower in to show towards his badge. However it was too big to carry so we took a photo of him and it and took that instead. There is a photo of it below.

It won't be long before it is taller than he is!!

Luke was also awarded 4 badges at Beavers last night. He got his Creative, Experiment, Healthy Eating and Imagination badges. Not a bad haul as he hasn't been going to Beavers that long really.