Geekery

Who says that cross stitching has to be all hearts flowers and bunnies? Though looking at some of the publications you would be forgiven for thinking that is the case. Etsy in particular has opened the market place up to independent designers and it is possible to get a whole range of things to stitch whatever your taste, subversive, snarky, rude... you want it, the chances are you can probably get it.

Some of my projects recently have made a turn to the geek side. I have these three hanging in my kitchen, points if you can tell me what the molecules are for. (More points to me if I can remember which is which?) These ones are from Robin's Designs on Etsy. There are some really different and fun designs on here. I particularly like the 3D cross stitch figures she does, amongst which she has done a range of Dr Who figures, though I have not yet attempted one of these. The "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock" design is also one of hers.

As an additional point, I can't fault her customer service.

My large project for 2015/16, and I mean large (82cm x 43cm) is the periodic table. I did it for myself, simply because I wanted to, it's colourful, informative and an iconic image. This one comes from Holly's Hobbies UK. I'm not 100% happy with the framing on this one, it was very difficult to get laced straight. Will just have to see how much it starts to annoy me, and whether I can find time to have another go at it.


Given some of these pieces you might be forgiven for thinking that I come from a chemistry background, but no. Unless you count school chemistry 30 years ago! My education is history, language, law. I hoping however that Squirmy and Posy will show some curiosity in these and interest in science once they get older.

Have a good week, happy stitching, Xx

* Caffeine, Chocolate and Ethanol

Progress

The start of March saw me having to concentrate on getting a couple of sign up's finished for Love Quilts, they were done and in the post on Tuesday so fingers crossed the Royal Mail has got them to LQ HQ in time for the end of month deadline.

Disappointing customer service meant that I struggled with thread for one of them, I ordered on the 28th Feb from a company that claims to despatch in 24 hours, chased up 10 days later, then again after a further week with no response. I had an email on the 18th March to say that it would be sent the following day, but still not arrived by 30th, lets see if the most recent email manages to get my goods! OK I was a small order (though I did add a couple of extra things to increase the value as I felt mean only ordering one skein) but if that causes problems with them or their free postage on all orders, they should have minimum order value.

As a result of that I wasn't as quick off the mark with the Fantasy SAL for this month. March's design was a vibrant Phoenix and once I was able to start it took me two good evenings sewing (I can quite happily sew for 3 hours once the twins are in bed, especially as DH is so shattered at the moment he tend to go about 9pm too). It came together very nicely.

Then April was a gnome, I'll admit I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't a dragon for St Georges Day, but he's sweet nonetheless. I was able to get a good couple of nights in on that too with DH having a weekend away and he was finished within 48 hours. Indulging myself for a few weeks with intensive sewing before I need to get stuck back into study, which seriously cuts into my sewing time!

The Insects is a fortnightly release, so we got a fly in the middle of the month, and a shield bug for the end, I took inspiration from a fellow stitcher and added legs to this one.

Not the most adorable things to stitch, but they actually looks quite nice once done. They only took about an hour and a half each to do, so 30 minutes snatched pre-work and a sewing lunch hour had them completed before I even got home for the day. For a change I actually stitched these from the pattern still on my table, I normally prefer to work from printed copies. For something that small and simple it worked, I'm not sure I could be convinced for a larger project though.

Under the Sea - if I was a little disappointed with the fish for March, then I was anything but  with Aprils submarine (which due to a MailChip error, came out early). I know some fellow SAL-ers have been good and left this to do in April, but I couldn't hold off and did both sections together, though it does mean a longer wait until the next section. I've seen some people have changed the sub to be yellow - I wish I'd though of that. It is nice to have the Facebook group where we can all see what everyone else is doing, some people are so imaginative - Not me,  I'm a pattern follower.

I've fallen out with the Ships Manor SAL so have made no progress on it, I will finish it, I hate leaving things incomplete, but am not inspired to keep up any more, sorry Erik. And I'm still struggling with colour choices on the Mind one, I'll come back to that I'm sure.

That just leaves the One Ring for this month - I nearly have another page finish, I'm left with one colour to fill in and that gets the page (and row) completed. As the design is only 5 pages by 3 that also means 1/3rd complete. There's more detail (and colour) on the next row, so I don't expect progress to be quite as fast

Happy stitching, Xx