Flowers of the Field

Hey Stitchers!  Time and energy have eluded me when it comes to stitching and consequently for the first time in years my stitching mojo is on the wane - my reading mojo has replaced it though, so every cloud and all that!

However as some of you who follow me on IG know, I finished Flowers of the Field last week, so I actually have something to blog about.  It was a lovely design to stitch, but I'm glad I chose 32ct and not 40ct after all that over 1 lettering!

Here is a close up of the final part:

 

And the whole design completed:

 

 

A terrible photo, but long and narrow designs are so hard to capture!

 

I know that samplers aren't every stitcher's cup of char, but I love them - original and repros!  I love their deceptive "perceived" simplicity.  Flowers of the Field, though not a difficult stitch by any means, contained a much greater variety of stitches than is found in any Chatelaine Design - designs that look very busy and complicated, but are actually quite simple to stitch.

 

Difficulty, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder though - which reminds me of a recent article by The Oracle of Needlework.  There are some reproduction samplers that I would love to attempt in the future that scare me to death, that other stitchers wouldn't bat an eyelid at.  In a weird way the difficulty makes me want to stitch them all the more so - much safer to be an adrenaline junkie from the comfort of my stitching chair lol!  The designs themselves look simple, but if you are fortunate enough to be able to look closely at an original (or if you are stitching a reproduction), you can see the variety of stitches used and the perfect tension (my personal nemesis!) applied to thread and fabric.  The really mind blowing thing though after you've admired such a piece of stitching, is when you realise that the needlewoman that created the original piece was actually only a young girl!

 

In the future I would love to stitch a "scary" repro sampler as a learning piece for myself, really focusing on the quality of each and every stitch to produce the best piece of needlework that I can.  For the moment though, the closest I can get to that is by stitching vicariously through SANQ, by reading through the last collection of the final issues on CD that will hopefully be dropping through my letter box sometime today.

 

In the meantime, who knows when I'll put another stitch in a piece of fabric.........my next blogpost may be quite some time lol!

 

Happy Stitching!

Finally a proper finish!

Started 2 January 2016 Completed 7 February 2016
Jodyri Designs 28ct Brittney Opal in Christmas Poinsettia (Dec 2014 LE)
2.5 skeins of Anchor 403

 

 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my previous post and for everyone that continues to pop by my blog and who emails and messages me.  I think Monday marked a year of blogging for me, the time seems to have gone so quickly!  Considering I started this blog for myself as a better way of keeping track of my stitching, it's nice to share a bit of what I do with other likeminded stitchers.

 

Happy Stitching!

Round Two!

Just a quick post!  A day off today, so I spent the morning starting and finishing Mabel's second instalment in her Round In Circles SAL:

 

I used a variety of threads, including some #8 Kreinik braid that I used for the whipped backstitch and some of the square filets. I'm not a fan of Kreinik as you know, and the #8 braid is worse than #4 - but it worked well for this project, possibly because it is on 25ct.

 

Hopefully I'll be back in a week or two with some slightly larger finishes!

 

Happy Stitching!

More of the same........

As predicted, stitching time continues to be significantly less and time for blogging even more so, hence the lack of posts in January.  To be honest, I've been working on the same four projects all month so it would only have been a case of more of the same, so maybe a monthly post is better lol!

The majority of my stitching time for January was weekend stitching or the odd hour or two grabbed before I leave the house at 7.30am - thankfully the pieces I picked to start off the year are nice and easy for early morning stitching!  Considering these pieces of fabric were all blank at the start of the month, I don't think I've done too badly, though I am missing working on more challenging pieces, so I may tweak my "rotation" a bit when these WIPs turn into finishes.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my progress for January!

Firstly QS Lady Bug, such a fast stitch this one and I'm sure I'll have a finish in February!  All the surrounding foliage you see in the picture below was a Sunday afternoon's worth of stitching whilst streaming The X-Files - hurrah for tent stitch!

This is how far an entire skein on Anchor 403 will get you!

Next up is Flowers of the Field by Eileen Bennett, I got up to part 2 (of 3) this month, again a great design to pick up when time is short as you can stitch a band or two and see the progress immediately.

 

 

Over 1 lettering on 32ct and tweeded French knots!

 

Berthe Massiet didn't quite make it to her second turn in the "rotation", but I still managed to chip away at her and complete 1 (of 6) pages:
 

 

 

 

Lastly Cinderella, which I very much expect will take me the longest to finish as I think to make any sort of progress she needs to be a weekend stitch:

 

 

I've just downloaded Mabel's February RIC SAL chart, so although I won't get to it until later in the week, at least I can think about colours and it will make a nice change from cross stitch.

 

I'm thinking that once these four are finished, I will reduce the amount of WIPs I have on the go to a weekday piece and a weekend piece - with the weekend piece providing me with a bit more of a challenge.  I've got my eye on some new hardanger designs and a Ukrainian whitework piece so I may well treat myself to some new patterns to start once these four are completed.

 

Happy Stitching!

A Weekend of WIPs and a Finish!

The advantage of starting the year with no WIPs is that you get to have new starts with abandon - well four new starts, which for me is my "rotation" maximum!

So here they are, with a few hours stitching in on each of them!

My New Year's New Start was Berthe Massiet, by Reflets de Soie, a pretty sizeable French sampler which is why I choose to stitch it 1 over 2 on 40ct using AVAS d'Alger.  It is mostly cross stitch with some pattern darning sections.  Here is where a couple of hours got me:

All  materials from stash

 

Next, surprise surprise is a HAED!  I haven't stitched one of these for over a year after I decided that their BAPs were not for me, though I have completed a few SKs, QS and Minis in my time.  Every so often I feel the pull of a few on my hard drive, but I know it's more the art than the stitching that I'm attracted to.  That being said, there was a nice easy design in my HAED stash (a chart I received in the rewards programme) that I love and would use up a piece of hand dyed fabric in my stash so I thought why not!  So here is HAED QS Ladybug by Ching-Chou Kuik, stitched on 28ct Brittney Opal LE Christmas Poinsettia by Jodyri Designs, 2 over 1 tent stitch with Anchor black as I prefer the coverage to DMC black:

 

 

All materials from stash

Next up I started a design that I've had in my stash since it was released in a magazine back in January 2012!!!  In fact it was probably one of the last times I purchased a UK cross stitch magazine and I only do so for this designer's charts - yes you've guessed it, it's a Joan Elliott design.  I have her Historical Ladies (Medieval Lady already complete) and Fairy Tale Princesses in my stash to stitch and I've been looking forward to stitching at least one of them this year.  So I've chosen Cinderella as I had suitable hand dyed fabric in my stash for her and the majority of the DMC, beads and metallics used, so just a small order to Sew and So was required :).  I've swapped the Kreinik metallics for Petite Treasure Braids as I usually do and she is stitched 2 over 2, except for skin - that will be stitched 1 over 1.  The fabric is 28ct Brittney Opal in Speckled Eggs by Jodyri Designs:

 

Majority of materials from stash, just some extra DMCs required

 

My final start was from the Fall 2003 issue of SANQ Magazine and is entitled Flowers of the Field by Eileen Bennett (#99 on this page) and contains 15 different sampler stitches in 10 shades of Anchor and one metallic (which again I subbed for PTB).  Initially I had thought to stitch this on 40ct, but when I looked at the pattern there seemed a fair bit of over 1 stitching so I opted for 32ct Belfast instead to save my eyes a bit!
 

All materials from stash

 

 Last but not least I had my first finish of the year courtesy of Mabel's Hardanger SAL Round in Circles.  Round One was released on Friday and was stitched up within a couple of hours.  I opted to go for the same colour scheme that I used for Confetti of Hardanger as it felt suitably January-ish, although I frogged the entire whipped backstitch border so that I could use (the very last of my) petite silk lame braid in white instead to tie in with the PTB pearl I'd used for some of the star stitches.  It is stitched on 25ct white lugana using DMC #5 in 211 and white, Jodyri Designs Alaskan Beauty #5 perle, DMC #8 perle, PTB10 and PSL02 and a delica bead in lavender:

 

 

All materials from stash

 

So there you have it, the results of my stitchy weekend!  I have no particular order in which I will work my four WIPs, just whatever I fancy at the time.  When one is finished I'll add another piece in from the list, or just keep whittling them down until I can have another four starts as I did in the Summer and Autumn/Winter last year.

 

I will be back at the end of the month to share any progress I have - I'm never very good at sharing WIP pics unless they have a definite point of closure e.g a page or part finish as I think if I just keep stitching there will always be more to show lol!

 

Happy Stitching!

I'm Done With Stitching!

Well, stitching in 2015 that is!

A few days ago I put in the final stitches in to my final finish of the year, Catherine Agnes by Indigo Rose, gifted to me by the lovely Dana (you may know her as Parksfarm here and there) and she was right - I loved (almost!) every stitch!

 

I stitched this using 28ct Quaker and a mixture of Jodyri Antique and Regular silks (with a Caron Wildflowers used just to outline the cutwork) and it was packed full of speciality stitches (closeups of which you can see here if you are interested).  It did include the stitch that a lot of stitchers love to hate (except the crazy ones that love them, not mentioning any names you know who you are!) and I was very proud of myself that I powered through and did them at great cost to a now very bent straw needle - Bullion Knots, 28 to be exact !!!!

 

 

Not perfect but the best I've managed thus far!
 

Now that piece is completed I have the final results of my stitching for 2015!  With a clean slate for the start of 2015 I managed to have 50 starts and 50 finishes - more finishes than in the past three years combined!

 

I didn't start the year intending to have that many finishes, I knew I would have at least 27: 12 freebie projects, 12 hardangers and the 3 medium size projects I'd picked last year. 

 

The number of finishes would explain how I managed to smash my Operation Threadporn goal total!  At the start of the year I wanted to use 12% - 15% of my hand dyed thread collection in my projects, but was dubious as to whether I would ever manage it!  I can now reveal that in 2015 I managed to use 26.43%, which I am chuffed to bits with as when your collection is in the four figures that's a lot of different threads!  I loved stitching from stash, in the truest sense, as 92% of my finishes were stitched from stash - patterns, fabric and thread, changing threads and fabric to suit what I had already.  Of course it helped that I didn't purchase hardly any threads, especially in the latter half of the year - my sister was right, having a percentage as a goal was a real motivator!  The last few months I have only bought #8 and #12 white perle, white #9 beads and black AVAS - all needed for current projects.  The whole challenge really did cure me of my need to own all the threads - I knew my favourites before, but now I'm really sticking to them, quality over quantity and all that.  Consequently I've halved my stash budget for 2016 so as not to be drawn into temptation again!

 

The other part of Operation Threadporn was to try and fully finish more of the pieces that I stitched, which worked until about halfway through the year, then all I wanted to do was stitch!  The fact I told myself I "had" to do something was probably the reason for my rebellion!  However on the positive side, the 10 FFOs I did have were 10 more than I would have done last year lol!  I'm never going to be a finisher - neither me or my friends that love my stitching have the room in their houses for it to be displayed properly.  As much as I love my stitching, I don't have the room for all the things I finish - so they go in The Drawer where they take up far less space as I am not giving up stitching!  I'm still trying to figure out where I can display ONE of these (and I have many that I want!!) as wall space is already scarce in my little apartment!

 

The other thing I was keeping tabs on this year was the number of different stitches I used in all my pieces.  I gave up counting sometime in September, by which time I had already used 60 different stitches, so my total for the year will come in at around 70, probably 80+ different stitches used in 2015.  That pretty much confirms that although I am interested in all types of embroidery, its history and technique - counted threadwork is where my heart lies and where it will settle.

So having already discussed my (lack of any real) plans for 2016 here, I leave you with four little teaser shots for the projects I've kitted for January - not including Mabel's first piece for her SAL as until I see the design I cannot pick the colours :).  One of them is my New Year's New Start for 2016, by a designer that I have not stitched before and the others to be stitched as and when the mood takes me in January and beyond:

 

Answers on a postcard.........

 

Thank you to everyone that has stopped by my blog this past year and to all of you who comment/email/message me and encourage me in my stitching - I hope you are all having fun planning your new starts for 2016!

 

Happy Stitching!

Autumn Tree of Stitches

After a lot of cross stitch I was finally ready for some more speciality stitching!  Part of the reason why I like to have several pieces on the go is so that it keeps my interest as I find if I have too much plain cross stitch it drives me crazy, as does too much fiddly stitching, so I like to switch between the two!

Anyway, I've finally finished Summer (Autumn) Tree of Stitches by Abi Gurden and I am so pleased with the way it turned out!  I've wanted to stitch this for the longest time, it's been sat in my stash since its SAL days.  I'm so glad I took this year to actually stitch all those designs that I kept saying I was desperate to stitch but could never find the time in my stitching schedule for some reason.

I won't bore you with endless pictures of each part (there are 12 parts), but if you want to know more details of threads and stitches used for each part, you can see close-ups of all that stuff in my Flickr album.  Here is the finished piece:

Stitched on Jodyri Designs 28ct Brittney Opal Fall Trees (LE) with Gloriana, AVAS, HDF and Dinky Dyes silks, Caron Wildflowers, PTB and delica beads

I've got a small cross stitch piece on the go from GOSM for easy TV stitching and hopefully this weekend will finally make a start on Catherine Agnes - ugh I hate starting pieces lol!

 

Happy Stitching!