Charity stitching

Here's the most recent piece that I have completed for Love Quilts. The brief for this one was simply "Disney Characters" These tend to be fairly easy to stitch, the nature of the pictures means that there is very little shading involved so there are not to many changes of colour. This does also have it's downside too though, if it is a large area, as in the Simba I completed a couple of months ago, it can get quite boring to do. I did cheat a little bit on this one. The pattern had the table cloth stitched in white thread on white fabric, I just stitched the backstitch without doing the white underneath. I don't think you would know if I didn't tell!

I think my next one for them will be one for the Any Child pot. There are a number of themes here, one of which is hearts. I have a design programme for my PC, so am going to try my hand at designing something myself. We'll have to see how that goes.

Recently completed

I was browsing through some back issues of World of Cross Stitch when I saw this design by Joan Elliot on one of the letters pages and had one of those"I must do that" moments.

There was reference made to a book, but I was unable to find the one that I thought might contain it so I went to my usual first port of call, Sew and So (more of them later), to see about buying the kit. My order duly arrived and that weekend I settled down in front of the cricket and spent the best part of the day working on it. I would like to say that I had it finished within the day, but didn't quite. I was left with the backstitch and beading to complete on the Sunday.

I am absolutely delighted with it, and am now in a quandary. I think it is lovely (will fit nicely in a 5x7" frame) and don't want to part with it, but don't really have anywhere to put it. I can also think of three young girls for whom it would be a perfect gift. I'm quite frugal with my threads and have double checked - I have sufficient left over to stitch a second one, so I can feel that happening in time for birthdays to come.

There are actually four in this series. Having done Imagine, I couldn't then resist doing another.

This one was done on the train journeys, there and back, during a recent trip to London. It takes a steady hand to stitch on the train (can't do the same as a car passenger, unlike my niece) but it certainly makes the trip pass a lot faster. I was left with the second bird and the beading to do once I got back to the comfort of my own home.

I haven't yet got the other two, Dream and Believe. These have Butterflies and Fairies and introduce other colours so I am undecided whether to do them. Though I guess I probably will, again, they would make perfect gifts and if I'm not quite as attached to them they will be easier to part with.

But back to Sew and So. I can't speak highly enough of them. Providing you order during the working day, you are pretty much guaranteed to get your order the following day, order at the weekend and you will have your things on Tuesday. It is a real surprise to have to wait more than 48 hours. On top of that, the standard postal charge is £1. This is a real driver for me. You can place a small order and not feel that you really need to factor that into the equation. I'd be put off placing a £6 order if the charge was £2.95 p&p, but at a pound, I barely even think of it. (I'm not going to say how often I buy from them (just in case DH is reading :-) )

On top of that their customer service is great. I've had a couple of causes to speak to them, neither their fault. Once about a faulty product - they replaced it virtually by return of post, no questions asked, and a second about a failed next day delivery, the delivery charge was refunded. Brilliantly handled on both occasions

And that's before you even start to talk about the great range that they stock...

WIPS and UFOs

WIPs and UFOs we all have them, though what is the difference? All for me will get finished in the end, it's just timescale.

A WIP (work in progress) is the one mainly on the go, that I keep coming back to after having been lured away by other shiny new projects, the "I must do that" things that appear in magazines or on the many websites (Facebook is the worst - Sew and So keep putting up lovely kits, my wish list on their site has more than doubled in size since I "Liked" them).

My current WIP is a design called Frederick the Literate - a tabby cat sprawled over a bookcase. It's a design I looked at for years before finally giving in and purchasing. Stitched on black aida, it's not the easiest to do, though the pattern is relatively simple. I'm going to need to get a small daylight lamp I can attach to my lap frame I think, if I am going to avoid him moving into the category of UFO.

Unfortunately I've been tempted by another and have just started this one now too:


It's a design by Dracolair Creations, called Rune Sampler. It features a Norse style ship in the centre and then an alphabet of rune tiles across the top, with quite an elaborate border. It's fairly tricky, with a lot of half crosses, but stitching on evenweave makes these a lot easier to do.

One problem with this one, apart from many of the flosses are blends of two shades, is that the pattern is DMC and the threads I have are Anchor. It just means that I have to convert between the two, and somethines the shades don't match. (DMC has a larger range) My last hour of sewing last night was spent unpicking the work of the previous half hour. The colour blend that I was stitching the background of the border in just didn't look right. So it's back to the floss box this afternoon to do a bit of experimenting and see if I can find something else I'm happy with instead.


The UFOs (Unfinished Objects) however, sit there, taunting me. Occasionally they are things I have grown out of or gone off, I'm thinking in particular here of a hardanger table runner that I could probably have finished in a couple of weeks if I set my mind to it, but it's been sitting at the bottom of a box for so long it has discoloured, and I have no idea where the right copy of New Stitches would be. Other UFOs are ones that are too complex and involved to be able to pick up on for a couple of hours an evening.

I am in the middle of a lovely sampler by Teresa Wenzler, and I know I will get it finished, but it won't be this year - or next. It has been on the go for about 5 years now.

It's on my floor standing frame, so until it is done I'm not allowing myself to start another biggie. The main reason for stalling on this is there are so many colours and then most of them are a blend of two threads as well. It is worked on evenweave over two threads in the main, but there are places where it uses a single floss over one thread. It is not an easy pick up project. I'm looking forward to a peaceful few days over Christmas where I can settle down in front of movies (and pretend to watch) while i engross myself in the work.

Recently completed

I know it is early August, but as a stitcher it is never to early to be thinking about Christmas. I even know of people who start the year's Christmas cards in January to get ahead of the game. Rest assured, I'm not that bad. However, while tidying out the last of the boxes from the house move (yes, I know that was six years ago) I came across this tablecloth in a back issue of Cross Stitcher magazine. Once again I was seized by the "must do". I felt that with this I could make it for myself, a lot of the cute things feel like they should be made for youngsters, but a tablecloth! That's a fun project I can do for myself.


I was worried that 8 years down the line I wouldn't be able to find the tablecloth on which to stitch this, but I shouldn't have worried. Another of my favourite stores, Willow Fabrics, were able to supply it for me and I was able to get stuck into the sewing the following weekend.

The pattern suggested that as the stitch count was roughly 10hpi to use 3 strand, but I used 4. Firstly to give better coverage, but also because I prefer to use the loop method to start my threads, this makes for a much neater reverse, and I felt this to be imperative where the back of the item was going to be visible.

There are four penguin motifs repeated twice round the border, and a limited palette of colours. I wasn't paying too much detail to how long each one took, but at a guess I'd say about four hours each.

Margaret Sherry's animals are so charismatic, I have so many designs on my "want to do" list. I'm even tempted to keep these guys out and stitch them on 14hpi for use on cards. One of the nice things about doing small designs such as this is it doesn't really matter if you don't have the exact shade the pattern has. If you don't have green 265, there is no harm in using 256

Summer Holiday

I have just spent a lovely few days with my 11 year old niece visiting. She has history of being a craft bug. The first summer she stayed with us on her own I had a nice girly day out planned, lunch, cinema and swimming, but she announced that she didn't want to do that, she wanted to learn how to cross stitch. Fine by me, little did I expect that 12 hours later we would still be sewing...! cheaper than the day out I had planned too.

Among the projects we had for this weekend was soft toy making. I had bought what looked like a simple pattern for a duck billed platypus from the Funky Friend Factory (don't ask why the Platypus, he just looked cute) and I figured I would teach her how to use a sewing machine and make one. She wasn't however interested in Platypuses (platypi?) and after having seen something I had already made, wanted to make a gecko instead.

She did pretty much all the work herself, happily using the old Singer sewing machine, needing little after the initial instructions, and seems to be delighted with the end result.

I lost my gecko too into the bargain!