baby girl love tree - Collection 270

You know how Facebook recalls an old memory of yours by randomly choosing something you posted 1-2-3 etc. years ago on the day? I was surprised to see the entrelac rectangle I`d knitted and then turned into a `dress` for my Mum - apparently, this was THREE years ago...?!? It surely feels less. Coincidentally, that might be the last time I shared a personal project here too, lol - since then, it`s been just one continuous stretch of stitching. Mostly models for magazines, so I can only show pictures of these once they are published - and now, when for the first time in a long while I am free to stitch for myself, I cannot share any pics because it`s a Christmas present and I don`t want the recipients to see it. I`ve been working flat out for over a week now and I have 9 days left to complete it, so I`d better stop rambling here and go back to my threads and needle. But before I go, here`s the Shannon Wasilieff baby girl love tree that`s the giant pull-out chart in this month`s Cross Stitch Collection - unbeknownst to me, someone else stitched the boy version for next month`s magazine, and magic hands also added the beads to mine which I didn`t have to. Thus my piccie is beadless... and badly illuminated, as usual, although I tried my best to make the tree visible on the almost identically coloured fabric. Thankfully, the magazine`s professional photographer did a much better job, so I`ll add the nice&bright photos and close-ups from the mag too. Hope you`ll all have a lovely Christmas and if it`s my last post for 2016, Happy New Year! :)

Cross Stitcher 302

In the latest issue of Cross Stitcher, there are three mum-and-baby animal pairs that I stitched towards the end of last year. I loved working on these, they were a nice wee breather between larger projects and amidst the preparations for Christmas. Plus, I love Diane Machin`s pastel colours, they always have this soothing effect on me, which was especially welcome during those hectic days, and what could be cuter than baby animals with their mommies? It`s a pity I only had to stitch three of the patterns but there are lots more in the mag so they could be turned into a sampler even, or any number of little presents e.g. for a baby shower - as you`ll see below, in the magazine they are featured as baby toys and decoration for a basket.

Surprisingly, I have a couple of days off just now, so I`m very excited to be working on my own stuff for a change: it`s going to be a photo conversion for someones` Christmas present - if you think it is frightening how organised I seem to be, I`m not really, I just reckon if I can only pinch 2-3 days here and there, I`d better start preparing for Christmas 2016 nice and early. Also, just today I got nominated for the 7-day cross stitch challenge that`s doing its rounds on Facebook, so I`m going to spend a pleasurable hour or two rummaging through my old photos now - if you follow me on FB, you might see them popping up there, starting from tomorrow. Happy stitching, folks!

Picture taken by my official photographer, DS :) #WeeManPhotography

George, the handsome hippo

Do you remember Gloria, my glorious diva of a hippo? Well, I put her up for sale in my Etsy shop, and a couple of weeks ago someone saw her and - as expected - fell in love with her. Only problem was that this lady wanted a boy version for her (yet) unborn nephew, and preferably in grey. So I slightly amended the original Alan Dart pattern and came up with this:

I think he`s just as gorgeous as his big sister - pity the lady who`d ordered him never contacted me since! I hope she still wants him... then again, I wouldn`t mind keeping him at all! I`ll keep y`all posted.

Elsewhere, in my little dreamworld of freedom (=I haven`t had any commissioned stitching for over a week now), I stitched this freebie from the latest Crazy and made it up for my MIL for Mothers` Day - I hope she`ll like it, I wanted something cheerful (she had a heart operation a few weeks ago and she`s still not 100% but she`s getting there). So here are some colourful birds to cheer her up:

And as there`s still no sign of any model stitching in the pipeline for the noo, you won`t believe what I`ve unearthed from the bowels of my cupboard: La Scapigliata! Yes, I started working on it last night and I hope to finish it before the next commission arrives - again, I`ll keep y`all posted of my progress. Happy stitching!

Cross Stitch Card Shop 94

This will be such a flying visit that if you blink, you`ll miss me. I`m in the middle of another Maria Diaz design, a huge Paris scene (cca. 13x13", about 33000 stitches, tons of backstitch and 320 French knots), plus 6 Lesley Teare cards - all to be finished within the next 10 days so I`m stitching from dawn till dusk, with only the occasional tea break (on the upside, though, I`ve lost some of the Christmas blubber, yay!).

Anyhoo, as I`m slurping my tea just now, I thought I`d share some (rather creased!) piccies of the Mothers` Day cards that appear in this month`s (?) Card Shop - I haven`t seen the actual magazine yet but I know it`s in the shops... I think...?

*stares into middle distance with a confused expression, having no idea which day of the week this is supposed to be, then shrugs and, without even noticing, picks up needle to continue with the cobble stones*

Gloria

Well, do you remember this?
Alan Dart`s hippo, whom I named Gloria

I don`t blame you if you don`t, it`s been a while... Still, that doesn`t matter now, the main thing is that SHE IS HERE!!! Are you ready for a gorgeousness overload? (You might want to sit down first...?)

As you might have noticed, I substituted the grey yarn with light brown - this is more of a hippo-colour to me. Also, I have omitted the `finger and toe` nails because I hate sewing and the mouth + nostrils + eyes and generally making her up was more than enough for me. (May I just add here, on a personal note... not that my whole blog is not personal... anyway, probably the greatest factor in Gloria being finished today is the fact that this morning I spent about an hour and a half frogging a commission stitching, practically half of what I`d done so far, so I thought I`d better give cross stitch a break and get on with my knitting - but I`m not a masochist so I didn`t want to sew too much). You might also notice that I changed the eyes - the black pupil with white circle around it freaked me out a bit so I just used black yarn, and also stitched her a few eyelashes, for extra gorgeousness. Finally, I gave up on the sunglasses, and let this be a lesson for all of us, shades knitters of the future: if the pattern says spray it with hairspray, use that and don`t try your luck with spray-on starch - it won`t stiffen the yarn at all. And if you, like me, are crazy enough to switch on your iron in this heat, that`ll make things ten times worse: even on the coolest setting, it`ll make your already limp wool flat and shiny to boot. Thus, alas, there are no cool shades for Gloria but I think she looks stunning even without them - crazy summer heat or not, I might just go back for another cuddle... ;)

the greedy Green Pig from Angry Birds

This time I promise to be short and sweet: Saturday night I finished the black hat for MIL (I won`t attach a picture here, it looks like the one I`d made a few days ago, only this hat is plain black). Yesterday I spent practically the whole day knitting, and a mere 5 minutes before I had to go and pick the Wee Man up from school today, I managed to finish the green pig I`ve been meaning to knit for a couple of months now. I found the pattern here - thanks again, Knitterbees - and the other day in Dundee I finally overcame the last obstacle too (that I didn`t have light green wool), so here`s the result:

Gregory`s favourite, the Green Pig

I don`t write often but when I do, I write a lot :)

I thought before I disappear for another half a year, I`d better do something about the promised photo montage - and I have to say, the project didn`t start out too well. Trying to save myself the trouble of going through six months` worth of photo archives, I thought I`d just simply look up e.g. Bothy Threads` website and cut-and-paste pictures from there... Problem is, I could only find 1 of the 3 (Hen Fun) and the other two, Sand Castle and Paddington Sports are either not available yet or they`ve been re-named. In either case, I don`t think I should attach their pictures here from my own collection but here`s the official version of my first one:

This week so far hasn`t been a great success story in general, anyway. After posting my latest assignment last Tuesday to Anne for Card Shop (some lovely Fathers` Day cards by Jenny Barton, by the way), I experienced that "school is out for the summer!" feeling for the second time since last May: I had no other job lined up, so I was free to do whatever I wanted to do. I was spoiled for choices and my head was reeling... Should I get my La Scapigliata out from its hiding place where it`s been gathering dust (just kidding! It`s safely packed away, especially as since I`ve started working on it, we`ve moved house AGAIN!). Or should I knit for a change? Or start a new stitching project? Eventually, I decided on the latter and started something for my Gran`s 80th birthday this April. There was a freebie calendar that came with the World of Cross Stitching (issue 195) that, incidentally, contained one of my works, the cat bride by Margaret Sherry (top right):

I started to stitch the three little chefs (bottom, middle) because I like to stitch useful things (i.e. not only pictures you hang on the wall) and I thought this bluish design would go well in my Gran`s kitchen, so I`ll laminate it and add another laminated white paper under it, so she can write her shopping list on it with a marker. But in order to do this, the stitching shouldn`t be bigger than A4 - so what did I do? Like a rookie, I cut the fabric first (to my defence, the pattern DID say it`d be 25x14.5 cm on 14 HPI aida) and I`ve already done the dog`s apron and half of his legs when I realised I was running out of space. So I unpicked the whole thing and duly got side-tracked by the usual "so is this piece of fabric wasted now?" dilemma - so I started to stitch a teddy with a birthday cake for my Mum (whose birthday is in February - my Mum`s, not the teddy`s!) which I managed to muck up THREE consecutive times, after which I decided that this piece of aida is cursed and threw it away, while my Mum`s birthday stitch has gone to the back burner for the now. Anyway, a couple of days ago I re-started the 3 chefs on 16 HPI and I got this far:

So far, I`ve only had to frog it once and luckily, not the whole thing just some of the white at the bottom - I kept miscounting until I photocopied and enlarged the chart so I can mark the squares off with a felt pen (I just hope it`s not a sign of my eyesight getting worse! Although that`d still be better than me getting sloppy - especially as I got an email from Anne yesterday and a new job is in the post so I`d better get my act together!). Oh, and in the meantime I knitted a reversible teddy square, as the first installment of (what I plan it to become), a baby blanket made up of different coloured squares, probably for my (also un-visited for the past six months!) Etsy shop since Gregory is, sadly, not interested in these kind of things any more:

EDF Energy`s ZINGY

This week the Little Man`s "all time favourite EVER" is the EDF Energy advert, where Zingy`s first all sad behind the rainy window, then gets uber-cheerful and dances in the birdbath. Gregory finds it hilarious, so much so that he just got home from school but we already had to watch the ad 3 times on YouTube. So how did I spend the day, instead of cleaning the house? I knitted a Zingy for my son, of course! And what was his first reaction? "This is pink, not orange..." Well, I guess it`s time I stocked up on some more shades of yarn - then maybe I can make a Zingy #2...

another wee flower

Since I`ve been patting my own back for the past hour, I thought I`d better share it with the rest of the world: I`ve finished the 25 cards! Although I can`t post pictures for another month, the main thing is that they`re done - now I just have to cross my fingers/toes so that they won`t get lost in the post. I`m so happy that I thought I`d "surprise" myself with another knitted flower - here it is:

Elsewhere, in the crazy world of our teddies: I can report that our Bigyi family is growing, thanks to the two new Ikea bears we found at a car boot sale on Saturday (plus there`s an "honorary Bigyi" with the blue T-shirt on, he`s the baby):

Ellie, the elephant

Finally, after 5 days of on-and-off knitting and sewing up, Ellie is finished! She`s 28 cm (11") tall and I found the pattern among the free craft project ideas on the Woman`s Day website. I have to say, I only made it because I was curious to see if I could, but I don`t think I`ll make a lot more of these big cuddly toys: Pandy and Ellie gave me way too much sewing to do and - believe it or not - I HATE sewing: as opposed to cross stitching, where you create a picture with your sewing, the mere binding of two pieces of fabric together by hours of stitching seems such a waste of time to me; after all, that`s what a sewing machine is for, isn`t it? OK, philosophising is over, here`s the picture:

Ollie, the owl

Just a quick post for my boxes are waiting: last night I wound down in front of the telly (Shakespeare`s As You Like It from the Globe on SkyArts2 - if you haven`t seen it yet, watch it if you can!) and I knitted this little owl:

The design is from Issue 27 of Let`s Get Crafting, subtitled "Toddler Knits". I also got the patterns for the turtle and the rocket ship from here.

holiday snapshot...

I`m back! And so is the phone! Finally, after spending 5 days in the new house without any means of communicating with the world, we`ve got the phone line fixed and we have internet access once more... Bliss! I feel like I`m not only back to Scotland but in the 21st century as well! As you can imagine, after moving home, there are plenty boxes to empty and cupboards to clean - however, I`ve decided that they can wait another half an hour while I have a cuppa and quickly post this (rather reddish) photo of all the little cutesies I made in Hungary (of course, I couldn`t take any needles, embroidery or knitting, in my hand luggage but nothing can stop an obsessed crafter like me: I just raided my Granny`s stash). So here they are: a curly-haired teddy (sponsored by Dr. Oetker), a rather morose penguin, a bumble bee and a snowman (with no hands, as my eagle-eyed son had spotted who, by the way, was well-chuffed with his Mr. Bean Teddy), the latter inspired by a whimsical snow-flurry in the middle of our Easter celebrations... April weather, eh?

last 24 hours

Yes, it`s the last 24 hours before our flight and I have not just a couple of suitcases to pack, but all of a sudden a whole house, since I don`t want to leave my poor Hubby to do it all by himself, alone...:( Still, last night, before I fell asleep exhausted, I managed to finish another boy turtle (I`m told, tortoise), like Stripey, and I also made a pink girly one for a friend`s granddaughter.

And for another friend, who has a grandson, I made this wee rocket:

Stripey, the turtle

I`m beginning to feel a bit guilty about all this knitting... Although I guess I could say - with a generous amount of liberal use of the word - that I`m still using stitches, I just don`t cross them at the moment :) Besides, I could have stopped ages ago; problem is, every time I knit something to take with us on Sunday (as a lot of my friends have children under the age of 5, so I thought fluffy toys would be ideal for not-arriving-empty-handed), but as soon as I finish one, Gregory claims them. Thus "Pandy" has already become a member of OUR household (which, by the way, is moving! I only found out yesterday that we got the house we picked, yay!), so anyway, I made this turtle last night:

Gregory just got up and he instantly declared that it`s his, and after some inner debate regarding names (a toss between Cottontail, Berryhead or Stripey), he decided to choose the latter, after instructing me to make another one for my best friend`s wee boy. So I know what I`ll be doing today: pack boxes for the removal men (the move might happen in my absence, so I want to leave everything in order - so strange to think that I might come back to a different home from Hungary!), and, of course, I`ll be knitting turtle #2 which, hopefully, will indeed end up in my suitcase: unless Stripey suddenly develops an overpowering need for a BFF...

Bear-knitting continued

After the Mr. Bean Teddy I embarked on something a little bit more ambitious: a giant panda! OK, he`s not that "giant", only about 23 cm (9") tall... but he`s sitting, isn`t he? I just finished sewing up (which, by the way, I hate doing, so it took me longer than the actual knitting) and we`re basking in the lovely sunshine at the moment.

My next project will be an ordinary teddy bear, following the panda`s pattern, only this time I`ll use brown wool instead of black and white. As soon as I`m finished, I`ll post a picture - until then, cheerio!

Mousey

I can report (mind you, only report and not illustrate) that I finished both my Mum`s and my Gran`s little present for Mothers` Day, which I can take with me when Gregory and I fly to Hungary in a couple of weeks` time. And when the girls can open their prezzies on the first Sunday in May, then I can FINALLY post some pictures here... Well, a long way to wait until then but just so as not to leave y`all without a photo, here`s a wee mouse I knitted last night:

He`s a wee bit nose-heavy and I realised too late that white mice usually have red eyes, not black, plus I forgot to secure the whiskers so they`re just sitting there at the moment (until Gregory casually pulls them out) but, as far as prototypes go, I think it`s not too bad. By the way, this is one of the first tentative steps towards changing my profile a bit; a few weeks ago I posted my Woody-story to the cross stitch forum I`d joined on Facebook, and you wouldn`t believe the debate it sparked! Silly little me, I just wanted to brag a bit about my achievement, but a few members of the forum went into battle with all guns blazing about illegal pattern distribution and other nasty things. While I was gutted on the one hand, I also had to admit they were right, so I started to look more closely into copyright issues. Up to a couple of weeks ago, I thought that I can just stitch anything I like in my magazines and then sell the pictures in my Etsy shop; naturally, I was aware that the actual pattern in the magazine is the designer`s intellectual/artistic product but I thought the stitched, finished picture is MINE - however, now it turns out that that`s NOT the case: even though I created that work of art, sometimes with several months` worth of work, it`s still not my property and I can`t sell it, unless I ask the designer`s permission first (which, let`s face it, would be a bit cumbersome). So I decided to take every such picture off my Etsy shop (nobody`s interested in buying these big, and expensive, cross stitched pictures anyway), and from now on I`ll concentrate more on smaller items, such as keyrings, bookmarks, kids` toys, etc., that will be all designed by me. And the big patterns I still fancy from my magazines, I`ll stitch for myself. Now, I think my Mum wouldn`t try to read this far with her English (she`s following my blog but I think she`s just looking through the photos) so, without attaching any pictures, I can tell you that I made a new glasses case for her (also my own design), and for my Gran a bellpull with some alpine flowers on it - I hope they`ll like their prezzies! If I don`t write for a while now, it`s because I`m on holiday - oh, and the Celtic birds are still waiting to be finished!

"baby feet" photo album

This story started almost a year ago. That`s when I found this cute motif in Issue 209 of Cross Stitcher and, naturally, I had to stitch it straight away (NB: although I didn`t know why I was stitching it at the time, I instinctively chose the blue design of the three, despite the fact that I liked the pink and sepia versions too. Must be a "son`s mother" thing...).

Cross Stitcher Issue 209

I think I had a vague idea at the time that I would turn it into a card; however, by the time I finished I`d realised that it`d be too big for a card and I didn`t want to "waste it", you know what I mean. So anyway, I figured it`d look much better on the front cover of a photo album - I envisaged a nice, white album, about 30x30 cm, with these baby feet in the middle. And that`s when my search started...

Unfortunately, I couldn`t find what I had in mind anywhere - until one fine day last week, that is, when I walked into this charity shop in Cupar where this album was smiling at me:

 

There was a white ribbon on the spine as well which I took off before taking this photo.

I couldn`t describe my happiness: although it wasn`t white, at least I finally found a photo album that had this boyish theme going on with the baby-blue gingham cover. And while I had no idea who "junior j" was, I felt pretty confident that my patch would cover the name, leaving only the "baby album" part visible.

So chuffed as I could be, I bought the album - only to discover the next day that I must have put it on some of the (maybe damp?) fabrics I also acquired the same day, for my lovely album that I spent months looking for had dozens of strawberry spots on its back, like a poor victim of some mysterious album-pox:

I was devastated! However, after a few minutes of wondering, "why these things always happen to me", I realised the futility of this excercise, and promptly asked hubby to take me to St Andrews where - and I`m not surprised if you see a pattern emerging here - in one of the charity shops I found a lovely pale blue baby blanket. I brought it home, cut it up and turned it into a book-cover which I sewed on the album, so now it looks like this:

Instead of the white shoelace-imitation, I put a piece of baby-blue ribbon in the holes and it`s done. A nice, padded photo album for a wee baby boy. I`m quite pleased with the result - what do you think?