Brummie Blogger

Designed for me?

Last night was Friday night Sew-in and I made the most of it as I've had a week's holiday this week. I've spent a good part of the week spring cleaning and working my way through a rather large to do list so yesterday I decided should be Friday afternoon/evening/night Sew-in. It even made its way to Saturday morning as I stayed up until 1am finishing the small project that I'd started.

Following on from that badge that was 'made for me', I'd spotted this design over on Kell's blog last Saturday and was waiting impatiently for it to be released on the 16th so I could stitch it, as obviously it's either designed with me in mind or Kell and I have this in common. What do you think?

 
I had some rather lovely Opalescent hand-dyed fabric. It was just a small piece and it went beautifully with the color variations DMC that I had. I used one of the solid colours that co-ordinate with it for the text. I have plans for framing this with some craft materials that I have on hand. I'm not sure if it'll work but if it does it'll be very useful for all future small projects. I'll take photos as I go and pop the results on here if it works. If it doesn't, I'll never mention it again *grin*.

I seem to be getting a bit addicted to Kell's designs as this is the third one I've stitched this year and I have several more downloaded with plans to stitch them. I just had to do this one straight away though. It's perfect, isn't it? I loved working on that swirly border and when it's framed, I do think I ought to hang it on one of my bookcases.

 

June's WtP calendar

Is finished. Hooray! I did loads to it on Friday night, but strangely enough when I got up on Saturday morning it didn't look quite as near completion as I'd thought. I was planning on just finishing it off and then doing my Friday Night Sew-In post to show what I'd done. That didn't quite work out though as I stitched pretty much all afternoon, and then into the evening and finally finished the last bit late last night. Phew.

Why did it take so long? There's not that much to it when you look at it, but I kept finding more bits to do. I almost missed doing those bees and then they took ages as there are three colours plus backstitch and they're fiddly. Very fiddly. More fractional stitches than full crosses.

I did find a new method that made the backstich more fun to do than the previous ones. I saw on the cross stitch forum that several people do their backstitch as they go along so I tried that and it was much better. Not only did it mean that I didn't have it all to do at the end, obviously, but the picture came alive as I went along. These rely heavily on the backstitch. There's virtually no shading so they're just blobs of colour without it.

Here it is. I'm really pleased with his face on this one. I've picked up loads of tips since I started this project so I think I did a much better job on his mouth and not only did I do both French knots on the first attempt. I'm actually happy with them.

 
This afternoon I'm going to finish prepping the fabric for Starry Night and then I'm all ready to make a start on it. I'm half scared and half excited. It's such a huge project but it's so amazing.

Friday Night Sew-in

Is tonight! And I intend once again to make the most of it. I haven't made as much progress with the Pooh Calendar as I'd hoped this week as I've pretty much either been at work or in bed due to a migraine that didn't know when to give up and go away. I am determined to finish this section before the weekend is done however. I managed to do most of my chores in a last minute scramble last Sunday so I don't have too much that I should be doing instead, and I have the glorious excuse of two lieu days on Monday and Tuesday which I can use to catch up on any housework.

Or, knowing me, to catch up on my reading...

I'll post my Winnie the Pooh progress tomorrow. Fingers crossed that June will be near completion as I'm getting very twitchy fingers every time I think about that Starry Night project.

 

Feb's Friday Night Sew-in

 
That was fun! I stitched away quite happily all evening and into the night to the sounds of VH1s 80s shuffle on the TV. Oh how I mocked the hairstyles. And how I cringed at the the thought of some of the hairstyles that I had myself, but we won't go there, eh? Some of that music brought back memories though.

But the stitching - I just about managed what I set out to do, in between the mocking and the reminiscing. I now have Little Women completed and have the first teeny bit done on The Secret Garden. It's only the trunk and branches of a tree but it's a start. I shall do a bit more today between loads of laundry.

 
I really enjoyed my Friday night Sew-in. I'll be looking out for the next one. In the meantime, I'm going to go and have a nose at what some of the other participants were doing.

The Bookshelf update #3

I've been doing bits to The Bookshelf in between prepping Starry Night and I've now finished the Sense and Sensibility section.

 
One down, three to go. Next is Little Women and I plan to work on that tonight. I've noticed that Tree has mentioned something called a Friday Night Sew-in several times over the past few months and as it's on the Treehouse blog again today I've just investigated it further. I like the idea so I'm joining in. Any excuse to curl up with my stitching.

Tonight I'm going to see if I can finish Little Women and perhaps make a start on The Secret Garden.