More little house stitching

Hi everyone,

This week's stitching is a little on the light side. I did manage to do a little more on my birdcage and do so more finishing on the box class, but there was not enough to show.

Here is a finish and a near finish of two of the new charts bought recently.

Little House Needleworks
Needle and Thread, 32count Natural over 2
Deck the Halls
32count Natural over 1

I am trying to use linen from my stash and I seem to have accumulated a lot of Natural linen in various counts, luckily it works well with christmas stitching which have lots of whites, reds and greens.

Thursday night is Embroiderers' Guild stitching night and I found out some great news for Australian stitching friends. There is a Needlework cruise around New Zealand in 2014 for 14 days. Two of the tutors on the cruise are Christine P Bishop and Fiona (Peaceful Threads blog). Check out the post by Fiona to see information about the cruise and the classes offered.

Both tutors are listed in my blog list to the right. Click and enjoy. 

Happy stitching, bye for now Carol

More of the birdcage accessories finished

Hi everyone,
This week my new steam iron arrived. Wow it just about does everything except a cup of tea. It is a Tefal Aquaspeed autoclean 5375 and looks like a light blue spaceship and is just as speedy.

I have been waiting to sew up some of the accessories for the birdcage but I needed to press the embroideries to bring them back into alignment and freshen up the linen.
The class notes were great and helped a lot which made the making up a lot easier. Thank you Christine for a wonderful class and project. 

Here are the nearly completed accessories. I still have to add a closing loop and crystal onto the needle-case.

French Birdcage by Christine P Bishop
Needlecase,Pincushion,Thimble holder bag,Laying tool
holder,Needle threader fob

The red is DMC 814, one of my favourites, my friend Lis in stitching her birdcage in a wonderful shade of a blue Finca thread. Just yummy. It will be onto the actual birdcage next after I finish the scissor holder which is the final piece to the accessories.

Last Sunday was another class with Christine at the Guild of SA. we learned how to construct a fabric covered box, all stitched with no glue. It was a 1 day class and we all managed (20 very busy ladies) to reach the halfway point. At the end of the day my hand was telling me to have a rest. It was the first time I have used a curved needle and I think I stitched enough of my finger into the box to make it contain a sizeable DNA record. I will post a photo soon.

The second ornament in Santa's Village is finished and I snapped another photo, sorry it is a little overexposed but I have workmen digging up the road out the front of my home and the dust is just incredible so I changed my photography spot and it is not as good.

Santa's Village, Country Cottage Needleworks
35 count Natural , one over one
Santa's House and Poinsetta Place

These ornaments are so great. They are really fun to stitch and being small it intensifies the colours really well. This week I found out that Little House Needleworks are starting a 12 month series of little houses the first one is called My House and can be personalised with your own family name. Take a look and enjoy.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

Santa, samplers and bits and bobs

Hi everyone,
This week the stitching is a bit slow. My right hand has been telling me I have been stitching too much lately and to slow down, so I have listened.
After spending some time in the "wharehouse" (aka my stash room) I came across an old class piece in a folder waiting to be constructed. The notes from the class had the date of January 2003, yikes where does the time go. Here is two pieces of the four piece stitching set.

Blackwork Hussif, Dark Green AVAS silk
on eucalpytus leaf hand-dyed linen
by Carol Mullan, 2003

There is a needlecase and a hussif to complete the set. These are partly completed but I am waiting for a new steam iron to arrive to press the pieces before I continue. More later.

Last post I was talking about adding a sampler into my stitching rotation and on the same journey to the wharehouse I found, Martha Salter 1651 waiting patiently to be completed.

Martha Salter 1651

She is almost 2/3rd complete with only one more band and the bottom alphabet for a finish.

Martha Salter 1651, Scarlet Letter

Only a few more hours days and she will be complete. Again my 2/3rd finish problem surfaces. It will be so nice to add one piece to the finished basket.

Santa's Village is growing, Poinsetta Place is done but the photo I took is too blurred to show you, so I will take another and post this one later.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

Santa's village is growing

Hi everyone,

Look what arrived in the post this week

CCN - Santa's Village, Poinsetta Place
35c Natural linen 1 over  1

I resisted starting it for exactly 2 days and then caved in and stitched about half the design very quickly. The colours are gorgeous. Some weathered green, GAST Shutter Green and the lovely rich christmas red  DMC321. These little designs are contagious it would be very hard to stop at just one.

So..................a shopping expedition later, ta da.......

Charts by CCN, Plum Street Samplers and LHN

CCN= Country cottage needleworks, LHN = Little house needleworks

See, I just couldn't help myself. So cute. Lets just call it an early birthday present to me by me and maybe we could justify it that way. NO... oh well I tried.

My french birdcage is coming along nicely most of the accessories are stitched and ready for construction. No photos sorry. I have agreed with the designer to only show finished pieces and I will be honoring her wishes. So I will post photos when I have completed some of the smaller items.

My little house is growing slowly, this is how it looks now with another side of the building stitched.

Nutmeg Company miniature house

This is about halfway and then the roof needs to be stitched before the making up.

I have been watching with interest all the wonderful samplers that have been started and restarted on many blogsites. Nicola's wonderful idea of a year long project stitch along has fueled a wonderful resurgence in interest of historic samplers. Many years ago I was lucky to find The Scarlett Letter website and fell in love with their samplers and bought several. They sit patiently waiting to be completed, some started. Methinks its time to pick one up and put it into the stitching rotation.

Bye for now, Carol