March Fully Finished Gallery

The tenth of the month is when we share our Fully Finished items that are ready for display and link them up on Rachel’s blog The Ten Hour Stitcher. This post is a bit late because I was waiting until Lucy’s Calendar was finally ready to show. I finished it yesterday and hung it up for her, so here it is: 

And here she is showing it off:

I learned a lot finishing this one off, much of it was how not to do things next time. I should have been much more careful measuring and keeping my seams straight. I basically had to learn how to use my sewing machine all over again as I haven’t used it in years, and then I attempted to bind it like a quilt, which I have never done before, and I had already sewn the hangers on so I made a bit of a mess of that bit.  Luckily as the intended audience is a three-year-old it doesn’t matter too much!

That is the main news for this month’s post, but I also have the three small finishes which I already put in my WIPocalypse post. They are the hedgehog, the birthday card and the butterfly necklace. So that is four in total for this month!

WIPocalypse check in for February

Hello everyone, it’s time for the ‘Leap Day’ WIPocalypse check-in, when we post how much progress we have made on the WIPs we want to complete before the end of the world!

This month I have three small finishes, some progress on a larger WIP and a new start.

The three small finishes are:
1. Butterfly necklace (cover kit)

I’m wearing it here, but I’m pretty sure Lucy thinks it is hers...

2. Hetty hedgehog - another cover kit!

This one is really Lucy’s and after being played with for a while I’m pretty sure her bead nose is going to fall off so I’ll need to find a better way to secure it. She was originally meant as a pin cushion but I don’t really need any more pin cushions anyway.

3. Flowery heart card. Guess what, this was also a cover kit, but it think a very pretty one. I finished it off as designed as a birthday card for my friend.

The larger project I have been working on is Canadian Beauty by Joan Elliott. Here’s where I left her back in 2016 before Lucy was born:

 And here’s where I’m up to now:

I’m very happy that I’ve actually made visible progress on her and I’m looking forward to stitching on her again.

The final project is a new start made at Lucy’s request. It is a Pooh bear kit which I’ve had in my stash for years. She has suddenly become obsessed with Pooh (largely because she can run around shouting Pooh very loudly in public, but that’s three year olds for you). I’m sometimes allowed to work on Pooh while she is awake, and she has actually helped to work on him a couple of times pulling and pushing the needle up and down for me. Perhaps I might be able to teach her to stitch sooner than I thought!

Finally, this month’s question is about a time you had to make a ‘Leap’ in stitching. I’m finding it hard to think of anything particularly impressive, but a few years ago I did go through a real burst and started trying out lots of different projects like starting my Chatelaine and a Heaven and Earth designs piece. It was a lot of fun trying different ways of stitching. I didn’t finish either of those but I hope to someday. I think Chatelaines are more enjoyable for me than HAED as I like having a variety of stitches. I would like my next leaps to be designing my own projects, and also maybe starting a Teresa Wentzler design. I’m sure I had kitted up Egyptian sampler back in 2016 but I never did get to it. 

Secret Stitching Sweetheart

For the first time, I am participating in the Secret Stitching Sweetheart blog hop, organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching!

I received this beautiful picture:

I love the ornament design and the finishing, the fabric is just perfect. And what a wonderful way to stage the photo too! Thank you very much to whoever stitched this, I feel too new at this to try and guess who you are though, but I look forward to finding out. Many thanks to Jo as well, for hosting this lovely blog hop.

February Fully Finished Gallery

It’s the 10th of the month, so it’s time to post fully finished objects. Very timely as I just managed to get these finished this past weekend!

First is the full set of Winter Woodland Animal Ornaments:

They are from an old cross stitcher cover kit, but it only had fabric for two so I used some of my own for the other three. I want to display them now as I say they are winter ornaments rather than Christmas but I haven’t found a good place to hang them yet. Lucy had a go, but I’m not sure these are good permanent homes!

Next is another cover kit, a little owl. He is now called ‘Owly’ and he belongs to Lucy:

That’s it for this month. Hopefully by next month I will have Lucy’s calendar done as I have been making progress on that too.

WIPocalypse January Check In

It hardly seems any time at all since the into post, but this month I have worked on three projects and I have one finish.

On My First Calendar the stitching is finished, and I have spent a lot of time cutting out months and days and weather and backing them with felt and Velcro. Now all that remains is to add the Velcro and pockets to the main piece and then make it up into a wall hanging.

My finish is Assisi Blue Flowers. I took this when we went to visit my Mother-in-law for the weekend as it was a good size for a travel project. And with more adults around to entertain Lucy, I actually got all the stitching done! I finished off the beads yesterday and now it just needs me to decide what to do to display it. We had a new kitchen put in last year, and it has a beautiful blue and white floor so I’m thinking the kitchen might be the place to hang this.

I also worked on Winter Woodland Animal Ornaments. The stitching on the first two is finished.

And here are the ones I’ve started on my own fabric:

They are going to work out smaller as it’s a higher count fabric, so I’ll have two large and three small ornaments in the end. 

That’s it for January, so see you all next month on our ‘leap day’ check in!

Fully Finished Gallery SAL

Over the Christmas break I started reading blogs again after a long hiatus and I discovered the Ten Hour Stitcher’s Fully Finished Gallery SAL. It has inspired me to start tackling the drawer/wardrobe of shame! I have a drawer full of small unfinished pieces, and several larger ones which are hanging ready to be framed. 

I have two finishes to start off this post with. Firstly a larger one, the Peak District sampler. I stitched this years ago, I don’t remember exactly when. I bought the frame last year but hadn’t got around to actually framing it. I originally bought a double mount, but I’d got my measurements wrong, failing to account for the fact that I’d want some fabric visible outside the green border, so I had to scrap the inner one. I think it looks good with just the green though.

Second, a tiny little FFO I’m calling party time raccoon! Again it was stitched a while ago, it came with the frame and little mount so I don’t know why I hadn’t done this earlier. The only thing putting me off was the instructions were in french. I google translated them but they didn’t really tell me anything I couldn’t have worked out myself!

Hopefully I will have some more ready for next month, fingers crossed. 

WIPocalypse intro 2020

It’s been 5 years since I last attempted WIPocalypse. Things were a lot different back then! These days I am a stay at home mum to a very energetic 3 year old girl. She doesn’t give me that much time for stitching, but I have been getting back into stitching in the evening although I haven’t been brave enough to work on any really big projects lately. I rediscovered the joy of browsing cross stitch blogs and I decided to list out all my WIPs (including a lot of random small projects I forgot I even had) and see where I can get to.

These are my top priorities that I have been actively working on:

1. My First Calendar (Magazine Chart). I’m making this for my daughter, it should have been a Christmas present but I’m slow. The stitching is done but there’s a lot of making up to do as I intend to make it into a wall hanging, with pockets for the ‘option’ bits. 

 2.  Winter animal ornaments. This was a magazine cover kit a few years ago. The kit has materials to make two, but there are five animals charted and I like them so I want to make them all. I’ve found some extra fabric in my stash which will do for the other three. 

Then the rest in no particular order

 3. Hearts & flowers. An old cover kit I seem to have almost finished!

4. Lady with hat (County Needlecraft) This was from a class at a stitching show years ago.

 5. Butterfly necklace. Another cover kit.

 6. Assisi blue flowers (County Needlecraft).

7. Black work autumn leaves. I don’t know why I left this incomplete, it’s so close to a finish.

 8.Snowman card. Yet another cover kit!

9. Canadian Beauty (Joan Elliott). One of my bigger projects that I started before Lucy was born but has been abandoned ever since. I would love to work on it this year.

10. Tuscany Town Mandala (Chatelaine). This is a really big, challenging project and I’m not sure when I’ll get back to it.

11. Dream Beautiful Dreams (Heaven and Earth Designs). This is the only HAED I’ve ever dared to start and I only got through a couple of pages. I will get back to it one day, but I’m not sure if this is the year. 

12. Little bear. This is another cover kit, it had a background with it but it I think it might make a nice  ornament. 

13. Quilter and Friend. This is done apart from the quilter should have long hair, which I haven’t figured out how to do. Once I’ve done that I think it cries out to be made into a quilted hanging so I’ll need to figure out how to make that too!

 14. Poppies. Another cover kit I have no recollection of ever starting, but it seems to be almost done.

15. Royal Guard. A cover kit which is nearly done, 8 think he just needs his buttons and the frame adding. 

 16. Little owl. Another cover kit I’ve worked on recently. He just needs some stuffing and a key ring adding.

 17. Christmas houses. Another nearly complete cover kit. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish so many of these!

 18. Gift tags #1. Again it’s a cover kit.

19. Gift tags #2. 

20. Mini Misty Hill Town (Michael Powell). I should really give this one some love, it’s been neglected but I love the colours in the sky. 

 21. Christmas Teddy.

 22. Sheep card. I’m not sure if the threads are with this one, so it might be quite difficult to finish.

 23. Shawn the sheep bookmark. Cute, but I haven’t got very far with it.

 24. Celtic ornament. I don’t know what pattern this is, I’m just going to make it up when I get around to finishing it.

 25. Mini sampler. Another one I seem to have lost the pattern for.

 26. Black work bookmark. I’m not really keen on this one, I don’t know why I chose red and green. Possibly it was meant to be Christmassy...

 27. Gift tags #3.

 28. Gift tags #4. Actually one of the things I’ve worked on recently but I seem to have missed taking a photo. I seem to have had the same idea every year to do one of these gift tags cover kits, but I never finish them.

29. Hard anger for the horrified. This was for a class at a stitching show years ago. It’s only tiny but I’ve never got around to finishing it.

 30. Name bookmark. Very close to done, I don’t know what stopped me.

 31. Cards/gift tags. I’m not actually sure which these were, I’ll need to find the magazine to find out.

 32. Hardanger bookmark. I have no memory of starting this one at all.

 33. Red and white bookmark. Another one I don’t remember, perhaps I bought I half done?

  And I think that’s it! My other goal is to try my hand at designing something of my own and work on it. I have lots of ideas that I haven’t managed to make into anything concrete yet but they seem like WIPs as I’ve been thinking about them for a while. So I’ll count them if I do get around to starting my own project!