Saturday 24 June 2017

Indian elephant and Van Gogh

I almost did something else again! But if I don`t post now, I never will. *puts on determined face*
I`m so busy having fun with my own stitching these days that I keep forgetting about other stuff I`m supposed to be doing. Not to mention the wee man`s school programs - and crocheting: have I mentioned I`ve learnt to crochet sunburst granny squares? I enjoy them so much I`ve started mass-producing them:


I`ve decided it goes faster if I do the same round on all of them - but when that gets too boring, I switch back to completing each square individually, it makes a change to swap between colours and stitch types. Hopefully, one day I`ll have enough squares to make a blanket.
So. There are some publications out there this week (last week?) that have my pieces in them, including this gorgeous Indian elephant in Gold 139, designed by Carol Thornton.


I love the vibrant colours and the straight lines that were especially soothing to stitch, as was all the filling in with that gorgeous pale yellow. Elephants are my favourite among favourite animals, so I was really pleased when this project came my way.

5,5 hours

11,5 hours

20 hours

32 hours

50 hours

67 hours - finished! 😊

I don`t always take pics of the back but I love how tidy those straight lines make this look

There`s also issue 257 of The World of Cross Stitching in the shops, and this month`s free gift is the beautiful butterflies card... that I think I`ve posted about already but here it is then, as a recap:



This week I was also excited to be able to pick up my parents` "Christmas" present from the framer - it looks just the way I pictured it in my head so I`m over the moon with it and I hope they`ll like it too. I`ll find out in about a fortnight - and when I come back from holiday, I can finally put some photos of it up here too.
What else? Finally, after 5 long years of owning the HAED chart of Van Gogh`s Starry Night, I managed to get round to having it re-printed in the library - I thought, why struggle when I can have the chart on A3 pages? So I had them done and last week I was ready to go:


I started from the bottom right corner and after 7 days I had my first page finish:


But then as I was showing it to folks on Facebook, I began to realise that I wasn`t happy with the colour scheme. 😩 I chose Starry Night not only because I love Van Gogh but also because blue is my favourite colour - as opposed to purple, the only colour I don`t like. I put my chart and a picture of the original painting side by side...


...and decided to abandon this project for the now. I think I`m going to chart it for myself, using blues instead of purples, and I`ll try to make it the right size so that I can still use this nice big piece of aida, which is still going to be quite large, even after I cut this stitched bit off (as there is no way I can unpick it). But so as not to be without Van Gogh in the meantime, last night I started his Sunflowers (I`ve had this Maria Diaz design for ages, it`s in the July 2009 issue (172) of Collection).


And while I was working on the bottom right corner of the purple Starry Night, I also realised that if I`m going to spend months and months stitching such a confetti-heavy piece, I`m going to need something (crafting-wise, I mean. At the same time, I`m also translating but that`s a different kind of challenge and satisfaction), so I`m going to need something that gives me instant gratification, i.e. a project that`s made up of blocks that can be finished in a day. So I had a look on the internet and found this amazing blackwork sampler (called `Save The Stitches`, free to download from Elizabeth Almond`s website), and I already have the fabric and threads - I`m going to use stranded cotton 301, 415 and 3821 instead of the metallics and no beads, either, I want to keep it simple and non-blingy. So in a few months/years/decades, I should end up with something like this:


How gorgeous is this?? 😍 I think I`m going to start this today 😉 Happy stitching!

Monday 5 June 2017

dreamy tents and foxes

I`ve been a busy bee lately and only just remembered today that issue 319 of Cross Stitcher has been out for a week or two and in the back of it - well, you know, if you turn it around and upside down - there`s a summer festival supplement and in THAT there`s my wee `tenty` poster. It took about 38 hours to stitch and I enjoyed it tremendously because I love projects where you can load up half a dozen needles with the same colour of thread and off you go stitching. So this was ideal for me, a nice quick finish (my mom was here at the time so with this fast-growing stitch at least we could hang out more together - I try not to stitch 24/7 when she`s here). 😂


The other day I also received my copy of Cross Stitch Crazy 231 and in the back of it I saw that my little sleeping fox mum and cub will be next month`s free gift - I`d better attach some pics here, just in case I`ll be snowed under even more in a few weeks time (the wee man is about to finish his last year at primary school and the last few weeks promise to be pretty hectic, from award ceremonies to their end-of-year show, from family barbecues to discos and induction days at his future high school, from birthdays to orthodontist appointments, I have a bit more to keep in mind than usual... usual being "stitching deadlines" 😉 ). And then we are going on holiday, so anyway, just in case I forget, here are my sleeping (dreaming?) foxes - first my own photo, because for once it`s brighter than the magazine`s, but only because it`s a small picture in the preview section but I`ll attach that too so you can see how cute it looks in that hoop that`ll also be a free gift next month, I can`t wait! 😊 Happy stitching!