Brummie Blogger

September's Cottage update #1

Just over halfway and really enjoying this one.

August's Cottage - final update

It didn't take too long to finish off the last few bits of this. The leaves on the trees were the most time consuming as I had to keep stopping and starting. The rest went really quickly. I'm rather pleased with it. I think it's one of my favourites.

I'm all ready to start September's Cottage. It's been kitted up for a few weeks and it's now in the Stitchbow organiser ready to go. I love the colours in it as it's such a contrast to most of the others.

I may make a start on it this afternoon, but shall I go top down, or middle out? Decisions, decisions.

August's Cottage update #2

I've been plodding along with this and thought it might be a good idea to stop and take a photo as I haven't got much more to do.

I kept wanting to do just a little bit more before doing an update as I'm really enjoying this one. I love the bottom border as it's so different to the others. All the other Cottages have the top and bottom border matching so this one was much more fun. I liked the windows on this one too.

All I have left to do are the bits either side of the Cottage. Two very leafy trees, two birds and a few shells. Hopefully it won't take long and then I can start September.

It's so odd typing now, you know. I can touch type after a fashion. Not very fast as I'm self-taught, but mostly accurate. I can rattle along quite normally on the desktop (Old Clunky) but I seem to have developed a different style on the laptop, because I was usually expecting it to turn itself off at random intervals whenever I tried to type. It's a sort of furtive style with my fingers trying to sneak up on the keys. I hadn't really noticed how odd it was until I no longer need to do it, having now sorted the problem out, and I'm finding slightly hard to stop doing it. Stealth typing ;)

August's Cottage update #1

I'm quite pleased with how much of this I've got done so far, especially as it was odd starting from the top. Don't ask me why I decided to do this one differently as I have no idea. I've started all of the others from the roof as it was easy to find that from the centre point, but this time I just felt the need to work top down. I rather like working in this order, although I did have to count everything three times just to be sure.

I love the wee seashells in between the border flowers.

On with the roof next then.

August's Cottage

I've finally made a start on this one but haven't really made enough progress to post a photo of where I'm up to. I do have a photo of the stash for it though and will have a progress pic soon hopefully.

There are some lovely colours in this one and I do like the design. I'm going to enjoy this.

I'm going to have to take it slowly though as I've now had a diagnosis on my hand from the doctor. Apparently it's the start of Rheumatoid Arthritis, which I'm just a bit gutted about. I do have some capsaicin cream to see if that helps and so far it seems to be doing something with the pain, so that's good. I'm finding that some stitching helps, presumably as it keeps the joint moving, but too much aggravates it so I need to be careful not to get carried away.

I'm thinking it'd also be a good idea to stay off the internet a bit more, as using the mouse really doesn't help. Yeah. Good luck with that one.

Too fond of books update #1

I haven't done much stitching lately due to my painful thumb making it hard to hold the needle but I have made a bit of progress on this and have a little row of books appearing.

It was touch and go whether I managed to upload a photo or not. The laptop is playing up again. Two weeks ago it refused to switch on at all and I spent two days persuading it that it would be in its best interests to cooperate. I'm not sure if it was the thinly veiled threats or my limited techy skills that saved the day, but something worked which is all that matters.

Over this weekend it developed problems with three things. First it refused to access my webmail for around 36 hours, plus it kept saying one piece of software couldn't see the internet when clearly I was connected. A system restore fixed those problems but not the third problem. Photoshop Elements is acting up. I can load the Organiser and look at my photos, but I cannot load the Editor as when I do, I get a runtime error and it closes straight down again. It is very frustrating as I have no idea how to fix it. I shall have to consult Google, methinks.

In the meantime, I had to use the photo editing thingy that came with Windows and it is dire compared to Elements. I do not like it at all. Not in the slightest. So, there's an incentive to fix Elements then.

Too fond of books

I've been promising myself a new start for a while and although I've got several projects kitted up, this one that I only bought recently has been calling to me. It's a fairly simple one so I should be able to stitch it quite quickly I think. I bought the chart from PixyStitches on Etsy and have been gradually kitting it up over the past couple of weeks. All the threads are now on Stitchbows and installed in my rollup organiser. I love the colour palette.

I was sure I had some fabric in my stash that would be suitable. I  just needed a piece of 28ct white or off white that was large enough, or even a colour that all of the above threads would look good on. I had fabrics the right count but none long enough or wide enough. The ones the right size were 32 count and although I could probably have managed with those, they were really too dark in colour. I had no choice but to go shopping. Such a hardship.

I've been meaning to try a store that does hand dyed fabric for a while so I browsed the lovely colour choices, ordered and waited. The fabric arrived yesterday from Sparklies and it's gorgeous. All marbled buttery yellows with the merest hints of green, on a creamy background.

It's beautifully finished off with stitching to stop it fraying too. I was impressed with the email updates letting me know the order had been received, that my order was being dyed, was ready for dispatch, and then had been shipped. I'll be using Sparklies again. It's just a shame that I can't manage to get a decent enough photo of that fabric so you can see how lovely it is. It's just a bit paler than the one on the website here.

This is the design that I'm going to stitch on it. It's a quote by Louisa M Alcott, the author of Little Women, and anyone who knows me will know how appropriate it is for me. It may also explain a lot...

This is just one of the many designs on Pixystitches that I was lusting after. I have a few more in my favourites that I intend to buy soon including a Harry Dresden quote, a Big Bang Theory quote, A Hobbits one and a gorgeous Doctor Who one. I had to do the books one first though. Isn't it marvellous? And so me.

Around the World - part four

This section consists of two smaller pieces. They both have similar stitches in them so once I'd done the first one, the second one didn't take long. I'm getting into a rhythm of doing these now. Outline first and then the backstitch in pale green. Once that's done, it's easier to see where the fancy stitches go.

This stitch was one of my favourites. It's crossed Romanian Stitch with the blue Ray Stitch on the top. It was quite fun to do although a bit fiddly. I rather like the large pink stitch too. It's called Romanian Stitch and was a nice easy one.

This close up shows one of the butterflies that are done using Hungarian stitch. It's a base stitch that is used to make up flowers, hearts and butterflies. There's some Ray stitch in the dark blue and some Tied Windmill in the variegated pink/gold. I've done that stitch before and I really like it. It's very easy but looks so pretty. There are some Cross stitches dotted about too. Just for a change.

In this section is my other favourite bit. The centre is made up of Hungarian stitches and is surrounded by two different forms of Romanian leaf stitch. There are also two hearts formed from Hungarian stitches.

This has flowers made from Hungarian stitches but the hearts are made from diagonal Hungarian stitches so are slightly different. They're much tighter. There are more Tied Windmills and Ray stitches and some odd cross stitches dotted up and down the backstitch vine.

I'm not quite caught up as I have part five printed off so I'm trying to decide whether to carry on and do that next or if I should start August's Cottage with all its pretty blues. Ho hum.

The Great Escape - Finished

Whoo hoo! It's finally finished. It's been ages since my last update on this. The reason is that in order to complete part eighteen, I needed beads. I thought I had some that were suitable but when I came to use them, they were just too large so I obviously needed to get some smaller ones. I knew which ones to order, as I'd bought some for the Around the World SAL and they were the right size, although the wrong colour. I'd have borrowed them otherwise. The problem was that I didn't want to order just two tubes of beads, and pay postage on them, when I didn't need anything else. I'd been waiting for August's Cottage to become available to order at The Patchwork Rabbit, so I could pop the beads on that order. And once I'd got the beads, I then had to wait until I'd finished off July's Cottage, and part three of Around the World.

So, with those out of the way, I finished off part eighteen which consisted of the moon, some stars and the part that needed the beads - some rather pretty moths.

The moon is in a variation of Jessica stitch. I did try adding some blending filament but it didn't look right so I just used standard thread. The stars are Star Eyelets and should be pulled stitches but I wanted a slightly fuller effect so I didn't pull them. I used a silk thread to make them a bit shinier. The moths wings are a variation of Rhodes stitch with the antennae in backstitch.

All I had to do after doing one more moth and scattering the rest of the stars was to add beads to some of the flowers.

There are three lots of flowers that have beads in them and once I'd got it figured out I managed to get all the beads the same way up. Good practice for Around the World as that has hundreds of beads in it.

This is what the finished piece looks like. It isn't perfect but as it's my first attempt at doing different stitches, I'm really pleased with it. And I do love that owl.

I'd quite like to do some more on the Tree of Stitches now that this one is finished. Especially as I seem to be on a roll at the moment...

July's Cottage - finished

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out and I'm just sorry that I can't share more of it with you. Tree sent me a perfect little chart of a Union Flag that fitted perfectly onto the flagpole instead of the USA Flag and then I charted some other bits myself. Unfortunately I've had to cover them up as there are some things you're not allowed to use. If I tell you I went for a bit of an Olympic theme, you'll get the general idea though.

The backstitched text isn't as faint as it looks in the photo. I'm not sure what happened there.

Sigh, I'm really missing watching the Olympics while I'm stitching in the afternoons. I might get more done now though as it was a lot more distracting than I anticipated. So exciting. I feel a bit now it's finished.