Lesley Teare`s cottage teapot and some Twilleys

Well hello, peeps - the weary traveller has returned. ;) The holiday was great and a lot has happened since then too: firstly, the shoe sampler I`d teased you with in my last post got bumped up into a later issue of Collection; at the same time, I stitched a cute ties (as in `neckties`) alphabet by Rhona Norrie for Cross Stitch Crazy that, it seems now, will be in next month`s WOCS; however, there is the cottage teapot that was supposed to be in that issue and is now brought forward to 242 - and if you think you`re confused, imagine how I manage to follow all this, I who actually have to think for long minutes every morning about what day of the week this is.

So the cottage teapot. What can I say? Dream project. So much detail to keep it interesting, not an overwhelming amount of colours or backstitch and it`s cute to boot, what more does the stitcher need? Hehe, maybe that`s why it`s this month`s Stitcher`s Challenge...? ;) It took 48 hours to complete and I loved working on the evenweave, plus I distinctly remember that the BS on the roof felt positively therapeutic. So all in all, good memories - and a wonky photo:

Luckily, there`s a much better one in the mag (love the pink mat, I`d never have thought of choosing this colour but it complements the flowers on the handle beautifully):

And apropos my wonky pics vs. professional photos: yesterday I had a look at the Thomas B. Ramsden site here to see if any of the projects were available yet that I`d stitched for Twilleys of Stamford - and there is an abundance of them! So here`s a wee photo album and for comparison`s sake, I chose the worst of my lot, sometimes the back of a project or a pic that was taken in pitch dark, just to accentuate how much better the other ones are. ;) Hope you`ve all had a great Spring break, happy stitching! :)

Clearly (?), here I was experimenting with taking photos of phone cases out of focus...

Ah, that`s much better!

The back of my perfume bottles...

... and the finished article

My two pub signs in the twilight...

... beautiful in their frames

Two little sweet pea designs...

... turned into two sweet (pea) hangers

A pair of designs entitled Weekend and Weekday...

... and this is what they look like with the backstitch detail added

A wee tapestry for a change ;)

`Lush Meadow`

And, finally, a larger tapestry (the wee man`s there for scale, lol)

And the beautiful end product, a rose cushion :)