Penguins finish

Friday evening I finished the penguins for Teejay's birthday and he loved it :)

Lucy has taken them home now and will find a suitable frame.

I changed the fabric to the blue, the kit came with a linen which I don't like at the best of times and it looks so much better on the blue.

I also stitched it in full X, the kit called for it to be done in half stitch and I just didn't like the way it looked but it did mean I had to use some of my own thread to complete it.

TUSAL time

I'm a few days late posting my pics of rubbish but I'm here now :)

Orts have been added from some exchange stitching, Art Deco Sunrise, Penguins, Sunflower and lots of normal sewing cotton from the quilt I've started.

Teejay was here last week and at some point he got into my jar and started playing with the orts so it's not as tidy as it normally is.

And my beading orts.  I've worked on projects that use something other than white thread because I was so fed up of it

Stitch from Stash July report

I've spent this month but I knew I would with going to The Nimble Thimble for a get together a couple of weeks ago but I've also carried on selling off stash I no longer want so my stash hasn't grown really.

The goodies I brought home with me and no I've not started any of them yet but only because I had to finish the penguins for Teejay (which I did just before coming online).

In total I spent £66.55!

I've also bought another Penguin kit from local shop to do for Teejay for Christmas but I won't be starting it for a month or two yet, I need a break from them and I have a model to do 

New Starts from stash = 0 :(

PHD's worked on = Sunflower (finished), Art Deco Sunrise, Bears on Drawers (my oldest PHD) and Penguins (also finished)

£ spent = £66.55

Budget left = £63.57 - £43.57 rolled over and £20 for August

IHSW weekend

Last weekend was IHSW weekend and I was late to sign up this month but I did :)

My before pic is here and is last week's after pic.

I had hoped to make it to the other side of the design and I managed it Sunday evening not long before I was done working on it.

Fingers crossed it'll be finished in a couple of weeks.

FIL came home from hospital yesterday and has gone back in today after another fall in the early hours of the morning and his left side once again not working :(

Some beading bits

I'm still beading but lately I've not done quite so much as it seems that every time I go to work on it something goes wrong with it from thread breaking, patterns not working out right, having to undo several rows of it and then the beads went everywhere and so mixed up it took over an hour to sort them out and I didn't touch it for a week to name a few

Before the run of bad luck started I stared and finished this little patriotic butterfly.

It was designed to be worked in 15s and turned into a necklace but I don't have many 15s to I used normal delica's and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, it was one of those projects that screamed to be done right away.

The Dragon Robe has had some attention and is the project that had to be undone

And I've started on a balloon.

I've admired these for a few years now and finally got my arse into gear, bought the pattern and made a start 

This  is how it'll look when finished and it comes from the same designer as the ornament I entered in the Cheshire Show

Sunrise update

It's getting there :)

The aim for this coming weekend is to make it to the corner even if it's just with the outline.

FIL is doing much better, went to see him yesterday and he's his normal colour and more his normal self

Sunflower finish

I finished the Sunflower yesterday while at a gtg at The Nimble Thimble.  

I'm really pleased with it and it's so much brighter IRL, it was a lovely stitch and I think I might have to dig another Sunflower out to replace it!

I would of had it finished on Friday but FIL either had a fall or just sat down on the floor but either way I couldn't get him up so we had to call for help :(   when the paramedics arrived (after 1 1/2 hours and a second phone call because he was getting more confused and agitated) and got him up he wouldn't use his left leg so they took him off to hospital to get checked.  So I spent my Friday evening there with MIL, he's been admitted so they can give him antibiotics for the water infection we knew he had and he's doing much better now.

Sunflower - Just a Moment

Started 23 Jan 

Finished 12 July

My oldest PHD

For the last few months my oldest PHD has been quietly whispering in my ear so yesterday one of the things on my list was to go to the library and copy the chart which I did.

Today was the day it came out to play so as any blogger knows you take a pic

This PHD is so old that when I started it you had a either a hoop or a scroll frame, Q snaps were a thing of the future so I tried working on it on the scroll frame but you can't see where in the pic as it was a light colour right at the top.

I didn't enjoy it one bit, it wasn't the working on the scroll frame that was the problem it was that I had to stitch the opposite way to normal because waaaaaay back when I started it I must of thought it would be a good idea to work with the frame horizontal but stitch it so that my stitches would sit the way they usually do.  Either that it I started it with the frame vertically which given it's 28 inch' is unlikely.

So it came off the frame

My first OMG moment was that I used masking tape on the edges and the second was at the colour of it!

You can see the huge lines of dirt and *cough 23 years cough* worth of dust on it but I thought I'd still stitch on it and did that little bit at the bottom.

Then I decided that it would probably be a good idea to wash it before I did any more just in case it didn't come clean after I'd spent probably a couple of hundred hours on it.

And tada it came clean but there is still a bit of a rust mark from a needle but it's right done the bottom and will be covered by a mat when framed so I'm not worried about it.

I hadn't been stitching very long when I started this and I think it's purely a case of far to big a project for a new stitcher combined with having 2 small kids running round at the time.

I no longer have the original pic from the kit so I've had a poke round the net and found out that it's now retired which wasn't a big surprise given it's as old as Mel but I did find one on ebay as an ended listing so you can see what it looks like and just how far I have to go on it

Updates

Last week I worked on my Sunflower and I've decided to carry on with it this week because there isn't much more to do

I never got round to posting a pic of Art Deco Sunrise after last weekend so here it on Saturday morning before I started on it

And this after the weekend, not a huge amount done but it all counts as progress and gets a finish closer to arriving :)

Cheshire Show entries

Wednesday was WI meeting night so I got to bring my Cheshire Show entries home at last

My individual entry was the 2011 Christmas ornament from Robi Lynn and I got second place with it

And for the institute I made this lily of the valley lariat from an old issue of Bead and Button and got full marks for it :)

Exchanges

Last month I took part in a couple of exchanges.

The first one was a card exchange on Stitchy Pen Pals a new group on Facebook for folks who want pen pals and to receive good old fashioned letters in the post :)

This is the one I sent.

I used a cover kit from a very old issue of Cross Stitch Collection that I discovered when I was looking for a design to stitch

This is the one I received, my partner told me that as soon as she knew I lived in England it jumped out at her as being the perfect one and she was right :)

Monday was reveal day for the Meet up Exchange over on Needlecraft Haven this time we had to stitch a coaster.

I dug this out of the depths of my stash for my partner who likes to garden

And this is the one I received from Clare along with a bag of my favourite humbugs :)

A closer look, Clare told me it's a Just Nan design and she changed some of the colours to purple 

June progress & July goals

For June I said

Get Art Deco Sunrise almost finished  I've got about 1/4 left to do

Get my card exchange stitched and sent sooner rather than later  Done

Get my coaster exchange stitched and sent sooner rather than later  Done 

Plod on with the daffs and not lose the plot with the over one  Haven't touched it, I can't face anymore over one yet :(

For July I'd like to

Finish Art Deco Sunrise

Finish the penguins for Teejay

Maybe start a Lizzie Kate

Stick to my SfS budget when I go to the Nimble Thimble in a couple of weeks

Keep selling my unwanted stash

I stitched for 78 hours 8 minutes in June, had 3 new starts and 2 finishes both of which were for exchanges and I stitched every day :)

Current PHD total =31