Thank You Claire G!

I'm delighted to report that I received my Spring Fair Squares from Claire G on Saturday :) She stitched lovely squares for me - I'm thinking pinkeep. She tells me they are designed by Gail Bussi, from a design called Emily's Garden. Thank you so much Claire, I love them :)

I haven't really been inspired to blog much recently, as you may have noticed. Hopefully I will regain my blogging mojo soon!

Oh, and one last thing - Bernadette, please can you contact me as you were the winner of my Spring Blogoversary draw at the beginning of last month! The countdown is on - I'm afraid if I don't hear from you in the next seven days I'll declare the original draw void and draw another winner from the original contestants.

Thanks for stopping by - happy stitching!

Stephanie

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Yay, it's my birthday!! And what better way to celebrate than to take a day off work. Yes, I'm truly relaxing today :)

But, important blogging matters need to be taken care of, because I'm a member of the SBBC, and a package arrived for me the other day, which I managed to save patiently for today. And what a package it was!!

It turns out that Diane was my partner - and I count myself very lucky that she was :) Diane stitched not one, not two, not even three, four or five, but SIX, count 'em SIX smalls for me for my birthday surprise! Isn't that amazing?? I so would have lost the will to live after about four (hope my partner isn't reading this ;)

Here they all are: a pinkeep, a scissors keeper, a scissors fob, two floss tags and an ort bag, all stitched with pale blue floss as a set. I think you'll be forced to agree with me on their gorgeousness!

And that wasn't all, oh no, this wonderful lady wasn't done yet - look, she included some fantastic little extras for me too - a chart from my wishlist, some backing fabric (look, it's the same one that she used for the smalls!), some DMC (again, same colour: clever, eh?), and a beautiful pair of Gingher embroidery scissors - again, matching!


Diane, you have truly outdone yourself and I am delighted with every single thing, and I so appreciate the patience and effort that you so obviously put into making this a special birthday for me - THANK YOU SO MUCH :)

Happy stitching!

INSERT SIGNATURE

And the (very late) winner is...

Hello all - I'm sorry that I'm nearly a week late with the drawing for the LHN needlebook. We had my SIL and her daughter over last week which kept us quite busy, and then things got a bit hairy at work with a few people being made redundant (laid off). So has been a busy week in which I haven't done much of anything stitching related.

But now it's the Easter weekend, and four days of freedom stretch out wonderfully before me, so the very first thing to do is get this draw sorted out!

With the help of my trusty hat and helpful H, I can now tell you, the winner is...



Congratulations Bernadette! Please send me an email or leave a comment on this post with your email address so I can get your contact details and get this in the post to you.

Thanks as ever everyone for stopping by - happy Easter to all!

Happy stitching

The Second Giveaway

In honour of my second blogoversary (last week) and only slightly later than advertised, here it is, my second giveaway!

Continuing on in the Spring theme (my very favourite season) (is everyone else's favourite season the same season their birthday is in?), I will be giving away this:

(please excuse the rubbish photographs, it was quite dark when I was attempting to capture these)






It's Little House Needleworks' 'Season of Hope' finished as a needlebook. I'm quite fond of this one, I nearly couldn't part with it :)

The giveaway is open to absolutely anyone, please simply leave a comment on this post by Sunday 5th April (I'll probably do the draw in the evening UK time). Good luck! And, of course, thank you as ever for stopping by and making blogging such fun :)

Happy stitching!

And the Winner Is...

Whoops, events slightly overtook me yesterday, so here is the result of my first blogoversary giveaway a day late.

With the help of H, I present to you the first winner:



Congratulations Staci and thank you all for entering :) I will post the second giveaway contest tomorrow - thanks as ever for visiting and making blogging such a great experience :)


Staci I have sent you an email to get your snail mail address.

Happy stitching

Christmas Stitching, Of Course

Well, it's that time again - time to stitch for Christmas! The little SAL that Leena and I stitch each third weekend of the month. Last month, I had intended to stitch Gabrielle's Star by La-D-Da, but was foiled in my plan by the online stitching shop where I bought the threads for the design - they only had 2 of the 3 threads I needed. But they have since arrived, so here it is, all stitched:

Design: Gabrielle's Star by La-D-Da (from JCS 2008)
Linen: 36ct Navy Bean - Lakeside Linens
Floss: NPI Silks as charted

Now that will be a challenge for a little later on in the year, to finish it in the star shape!

I also have had plenty of time to stitch over the past few days, because I've managed to strain the ligaments in my knee - hockey (field) is a great thing to keep you fit, but you do feel the knocks a little more the older you get I find! So I'm limping around the house, signed off work by the doctor for a few days, icing and taking ibuprofen and trying to keep it relatively rested. I always thought I'd fancy a bit of a holiday from work, but I'm finding that as I can't go anywhere (I can't drive, and I'm walking sooooooo slowly because I can't straighten or put much weight on my knee) that actually I'm a bit bored. Sod's law!

But I have had time to finish up the Just Nan Needlebook Fob that I started recently, and this is going to be another finishing challenge (for another day of course!):


Design: Hop! Needlebook Fob by Just Nan
Linen: 28ct Olive Grove by Country Stitch
Floss: DMC as charted (with one substitution - if you're stitching this, beware that I think 3865 is a misprint and the intended floss is 3864 judging by the photo on the front of the chart)

Well, it's time for me to go and get the bag of carrots and peas out of the freezer (who actually has proper icepacks??) and retire to my sofa (stitching in hand of course!). Don't forget that I'm doing a giveaway to be drawn on Saturday March 28th, entry open to all, so leave a comment on this post and good luck to you all :)

Happy stitching!

Happy Blogoversary to Me!

Happy blogoversary to me! It's been two years since I started this blog, and although I'm not the most regular of bloggers, I really enjoy being a stitching blogger, particularly in seeing what you're all up to :)


So, in celebration of my second blogoversary, I'm going to do a giveaway. In fact, I'm going to do two. But I'll do them one at a time, so for the first giveaway, leave a comment here on this post - it's open to anyone - and I'll draw names out of a hat next Saturday 28th March in the morning (UK time).


My first giveaway is this:




It's Brightneedle's 'Spring' design from Season Petites, and stitched 1/1 on 28ct pale lilac linen. Not a brilliant photo, but you get the idea.


So welcome to the giveaway; simply comment on this post and I'll post the winner (and the next giveaway) on Saturday 28th March.


Good luck and thank you for making blogging such fun :)

Happy stitching!

Glue, Tack, Baste, Cut, Measure, yes MEASURE, Stick, Snip

Bar my hockey game (3-1 loss, don’t ask), and a VERY expensive *tears* trip to the VW garage, I spent every spare second this weekend finishing up a number of smalls. I didn’t even take time to change out of my jammies on Sunday in the final push to get everything done (oh how I love a jammy Sunday). Finishing holds a fair amount of peril for me – I try to measure 4 times and cut once, but sometimes, sometimes I just measure wrong 4 times. You know? But I had given myself a deadline, and a list (something else I love, a list. And don’t even get me started on an alphabetised list – bliss) so I was determined to get everything done. And, I’m proud to say, with only a few minor hiccups, I did!

Now I can’t show you everything, because I posted off Edda’s return Crazy Exchange to her on Monday, and it wouldn’t be fair to ruin the surprise here. And I finished 2 secret stitchings which I will reveal to you very shortly (maybe even as soon as tomorrow).

But I can show you the last two.

First, it’s a needlebook that I stitched back in 2007. (Once they’re stitched, things tend to languish in my finishing drawer for quite some time before I finally get around to finishing them off. It’s just the way it is.) It’s not really very spring-y, but I will think of it as being ahead of the game for autumn 2009, rather than 2 years behind since autumn 2007.

Design: A Touch of Orange Needlebook by MTV Designs
Linen: 32ct Vintage Country Mocha
Floss: Gloriana, Atalie, Kreinik
Beads: Mill Hill

And, second, I finally got around to stitching the first Just Nan tin from last year – Hop. It stitched and finished up really quickly, which is encouraging me to stitch the rest of them this year too. (Yes, of course I’ve signed up on an auto for this year’s lot…I’ll stitch them next year.) I’m now stitching the companion piece, the Hop needlebook fob, so that will undoubtedly sit in my finishing drawer for a few months before I get around to completing it :)

Design: Hop Tin by Just Nan
Linen: 28ct Lilac Grove by Countrystitch
Floss: DMC
Beads/Charms: included with kit

Oh, and nearly forgot, I picked up Their Song from the framer’s – I was in two minds about whether to have a matt or not, went into the shop, chose a matt and a frame, walked out of the shop and immediately began second guessing myself. I nearly walked back in and cancelled the order. But in the end my pragmatic and shy streaks won (too time-consuming and would look like an eejit going straight back in the shop), and I’m delighted they did:


It was a bit expensive (as in, framing in general, not that this framer is any more or less expensive than the average), so I’m going to wait a bit before dropping in the next thing to be framed. Perhaps Awake the Dawning Day which I finished back in July 2008, to match Their Song?

Happy stitching!

PL Update

[I’ve been so busy that this update is a week late!] I had planned to stitch with the Let’s Stitch SAT group on Friday night (last week), but a late night in work and an early morning on Saturday to go play hockey meant that I didn’t really have much time to devote to Paradigm Lost. I did get a few stitches in and here’s a progress photo:


Also, I finally got Sailing Home back from the framers, and they did a wonderful job – I’d never used them before so that was a good find. My boss was delighted with the sampler as well, phew :) (Sorry for the inexpert photo, I realised I had forgotten to take one and so this is my attempt at work to get a photo of it.)



I’ve since taken ‘Their Song’ to the framers, which I finished back in 2007, so I will post a photo of it proudly hung in the house in a couple of weeks when it’s ready.

Happy stitching!

February's Christmas Ornament

Well, it was the third weekend in the month this weekend, so of course I made time to stitch a Christmas ornament, as I do with Leena every month. This month I’d been hoping to stitch Gabrielle’s Star, the La-D-Da ornament from the JCS 2008 ornament issue, so I ordered the floss (I love stitching with NPI silks as it is charted with), but then only two of the three colours arrived in the packet as the shop was out of stock on the third one. So back to the drawing board, and I thought I might as well get my sister’s ornament out of the way – two years ago she got ‘A partridge in a pear tree’ and last year she got ‘Two turtle doves’ so this year it was pretty clear that she will be getting ‘Three French hens’! I’m stitching the designs from Prairie Schooler’s 12 Days of Christmas design. At least that leaves me without any difficult decisions for her ornament for the next 9 years :)



Stitched on: 32ct Opalescent ‘Dune’ from Countrystitch
Stitched with: DMC as charted

Happy stitching!