Needleroll experiment

Hi everyone,

Happy Easter to you and your family! Try not to eat too many chocolate easter eggs, just keep it  down to no more than 10. Well, what do you expect from a chocoholic, abstinence? NO WAY, this is the only time of the year they tell me that chocolate has no calories and is good for you. Well this is my story and I am sticking to this myth.

This week I dug out of the mystery to do box a needleroll by Mary McLeon of M Designs, this one is called Country French. I decided to play around with the finishing. The design was stitched using the DMC colours recommended and are perfect summery colours.

Country French Needle Roll
M Designs
35 count Antique White with DMC colours

The original was stitched on 30 count White linen so I changed it over to 35 Count Antique White. The long seam was finished as a french seam so the edges don't show then I withdraw 3 threads and replaced them with stranded cotton to form the stripe on the edge. The outer edge is a row of double backstitch then a row of 4 sided stitch with gives a nice crisp edge and you can cut away the excess linen right back to this edging. Next I made up 2 long twisted cords and threaded them into the withdrawn thread space and tied them off. The ends of the cords looked a little woeful so I attached 4 tiny hand made tassels to finish. Viole!!! its finished.

As this took a bit of time I was only able to stitch a start on Santas Village, North Pole Post Office.

Country Cottage Needleworks
Santa's Village, North Pole Post Office
35 count Natural,  1 over 1

The colours in this one are quite interesting with names like Bluecoat Red  and Louisiana Hot Sauce (Weeks Dyeworks). Don't you just love the inventiveness of the person who named these. So clever.

Well I am off to tidy up some notes and photos for my next class I will be teaching in April for the Embroiderers' Guild of South Australia. A Wessex embroidery linen mat on 30 count linen with stranded cotton.

Bye for now, Happy stitching, Carol

Christmas? but its only March...........

Hi everyone,
This week I finished up my Christmas exchange piece for The Common Stitch Group in Camberley UK and the piece for our Thursday night guild group. Wow, this is the first year I will not be stitching until midnight before the exchange time. Mary will be sooooo pleased but sadly I will be called an overachiever by some others (Sorry Anne I know). Lol...................... Well girls the challenge is up so set to it. Here are the pieces.

Santa- UK exchange, Lizzie Kate, Merry Friends Santa 03
Scissor fob- Aust exchange, The Sweetheart Tree,
The stitchers favorite fob

The Sweetheart Tree designs are great but they always have lots of part stitches so they look really delicate but do take time to stitch. I have tracked down a companion piece to this one so I can stitch another set. This design is double sided and so as not to miss the other side I stitched them separately. The Sweetheart fob was stitched on 32count Antique Linen over 2 threads and the Lizzie Kate on 32count Natural linen over 1 thread. 

My next installment of Santas Village arrived so I have 2 more waiting to be completed, North Pole Post office and Mrs Claus's cookie shop. Looking forward to these they are sooo sweet.

I dragged out my canvas piece for the exhibition to work on this week. It took a while to get back into the swing of canvas stitching and to work out where I was in the pattern. Here is where the piece is currently.

Threedles, Looking Glass
18count yellow (Buttercream) canvas

I had a try at fixing the colour image to a more realistic yellow but this the best an amateur photographer like me could manage. The canvas is a very bright yellow with orange,gold,copper,purple,brick red and turquoise threads. Very bright indeed. Kurdy the designer has just released 2 more new designs. Click here to see more of her beautiful works of art. Be prepared if you love canvas designs this may be dangerous to the budget.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

Yippee the roadwork is complete

Hi everyone,
Yesterday the roadwork outside my window was finished. It has taken a couple of weeks surprising really as the weather has not been kind to the council workers. 11 days straight of above 30degC. Finally my world can get back to some sort of normality, well the housework at least. No more grit and dust everywhere.

On the stitchy front there has been an addition to the christmas ornament tree stash.

All six tree ornaments
New ones Fa La La and He's a Flake
on 32 count Natural 1 over 1

I decided to switch over to 32 count linen on these to make the stitching a little easier and to save my sanity. It makes them every so slightly bigger but they still are a great size for hanging christmas tree ornaments.

Also I dug into the mystery box of things to finish and came up with this one.

Textile Heritage Collection
Arts and Crafts, Carnation and Feather

This was at the 2/3rd finish mark so it got a little more love and attention and voile it is now in the finished basket. These little designs come from Edinburgh Scotland and they have lots of pretty and small designs to chose from. It was supposed to be a scissor keep but because of the finished size it makes a better pin pillow. Pretty blues, they are so blue the colour shines.

I managed to stitch a little more on my 3D house, so this is where this one stands at the moment.

The Nutmeg Company
The Castle Inn

March is always a busy time in my family with lots of birthdays and family celebrations and currently we also have our nephew visiting from the UK. So lots of good food, drinks and great company. Looks like I will have to add a few more minutes to my daily walk to compensate for all the goodies eaten over this time.

Our Guild has an exhibition next year with the theme of Venice. Although I don't have anything really Venetian I was thinking Kurdy Biggs Looking Glass canvaswork piece might fit as it is really colourful and it would hopefully fit the theme. So I am off to do some work on this piece so I don't have to stitch it at the last minute (well that's the intention, LOL.................)

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol