silver bells

No, it`s not about Christmas - I just had to wait until now to show you this card I made over two weeks ago for my parents` 25th wedding anniversary. Finally, this Tuesday the big day arrived - and, surprisingly, so did the card which, for a change, didn`t get lost in the post - so I can share this photo with you:

Oh, and just so that you can`t say I never give away any trade secrets: for the silver frame around the fabric I used a piece of the silvery card lid that comes with these foil pie dishes... well, do I have my moments or what?! And the reason for picking a bells-motif is that for this special anniversary my parents decided to renew their vows - hence the wedding bells... And all this just a fortnight after Valentine`s Day... there`s so much romance in the air: should I watch Pride and Prejudice tonight?

new project in-between birds

I`ve created a new Facebook page, called (surprisingly...) Cross Stitch A to Z. For the past few days I`ve been so busy making new friends over there that I quite neglected my wee blog - I realise this ashamedly (is that a word?) now. Besides, I didn`t have the usual amount of time to sit in front of the computer anyway, thanks to the mid-term break and a boisterous 6-year-old running all over the place but we survived (albeit barely) and now I`m here again. So here`s the story of the past week in photos:

I got this far with my birds when I was forced to stop: partly because after the dark blue I also ran out of the dark green, so I couldnt`t finish the knotwork anyway... and when I thought that nevermind, I`d just get on with the hundreds of yards` worth of backstitch, I fell in love with this...

How beautiful is this picture? It is called Shire Horses, originally by Coats Crafts UK, but I found the pattern in the World of Cross Stitching issue 114.

I started it on Friday night and this is where I am just now:

14 February - Happy Valentine`s Day!

If I`m honest, I`m starting to panic a bit: after the dark blue, I`m about to run out of SEVERAL colours. When the sky`s a bit cloudy, I`m thinking, "Not fair!" (not the sky but life in general, you understand...). When the sun comes out, I`m thinking, "Good! At least it`ll make my trip worthwhile and I don`t have to go to Kirkcaldy for just ONE skein!". And whatever the weather, I`m stitching like crazy, like the proverbial old dear who`s knitting faster and faster to finish the jumper before her wool runs out... Not that you can see much of a result of all that "fast" work... can you?

11 February update

Just a quick photo attachment this time - sorry, sore head, sore tooth... and we didn`t win the lottery AGAIN so I think I`ll go to bed. At least my birds` knotwork frame is growing (although if I wanted to continue in the negative vein, I could say that my dark blue, typically, ran out just before I could complete the circle - the eagle-eyed among you might notice that there`s cca. 10 cm missing at the bottom... and, I`m afraid, it`s going to be missing until the next time I`m in Kirkcaldy to get one (=1) skein of DMC 791). Anyway, I can hear my bed calling, so here`s this weekend`s photo:

7 February update

Good news: the cold is almost over, I`m on my last few tissues. Bad news: my wisdom tooth, the fourth one that still hasn`t grown out completely, decided to give it another go last night, so I hardly slept a wink, now my whole jaw is throbbing. But even this has a silver line in it: since I can barely swallow, losing some weight should be as easy as... pie... yumm...!
Last time I hinted that I have a knitting project as well. So here are the details: a few weeks ago I found this knitted sausage-snail cushion on Etsy, in a shop called WaveSong (how beautiful is that?) and I`ve been itching to try to make one myself ever since.

I only have a rough idea how it might have been made so, absolutely playing it by ear, I started to knit a roughly 18-20 cm wide scarf - I`m thinking, by the time I roll it up sideways, it should give me a thick-enough sausage for cushion purposes. I still need to figure out how long it`ll need to be (Hubby reckons at least 3 metres), because the diameter of the cushion should be at least 35 cms to be ideal for average chair- and bum-widths.
So far, this is what I`ve got:

I know, I have a long way to go yet... but it feels good to knit again, it exercises other muscles in my hand for a change. Well, not SUCH a big change, you see, because I`m never too far away from my cross stitch. This is the state of my birds after the weekend:

As the picture grows, it`s increasingly more time-consuming to get round a whole circle so I`m expecting my progress will slow down too - hopefully, though, I`ll be able to finish my January project before the end of February!

1 February update

Well, it looks like I haven`t been able to finish my birdies in January... nevermind, it can be my February challenge! And to my defence, may I add that I`m full of something - yeah, I know what you`re thinking, probably THAT as well but no, I meant the cold or, scarily possibly, the flu... plus, on top of all that, whenever I`m not feeling too weak to hold the needles, I started a knitting project as well (more of that later).
Anyway, last night my nose finally stopped dripping like a dodgy tap for long enough so that I could do some stitching and here`s the result:

I`m not sure the difference is instantly obvious so I`d better explain: I finished the knotwork under the two birds and started adding the backstitch at the bottom, e.g. the feet of the blue-headed bird are now visible (I hope! If not, I`m sorry for the photo`s quality!). I`m also beginning to realise that the backstitch will take me absolutely ages - something I should`ve known from the fact that the magazine suggested getting 3 skeins (!) of the backstitch colour, which means I`m going to need roughly 144 metres (!!!) to finish it. Lovely...