organised threads and Jungle Book

First post in ages where I can just blather to my heart`s content - no rush, no deadlines: I`m on a mini break, woot woot! 😁

To put my joy in context: Monday was the first proper day off I`ve had in over 2 months. I`ve been working flat out on a Disney Special, the first batch of which arrived on 26 Aug, with another load in Sept and more in Oct, plus I had other commissions coming in in the meantime so, long story short, I completed 33 projects between the end of Aug and 15 Nov. Some of them were card sized, some quite large, and I can`t wait to show you the lot once they`re published! 😊

Since I`ve been stitching 8-10 hours a day most days (tbh even I don`t know how I don`t have carpal tunnel syndrome yet), you can probably imagine how much I enjoy doing non-sewing stuff for the now... until the next commission comes in, that is. 😉 I`d imagine by the end of this week, I`ll be thoroughly lost without my stitching, so I might even bring out one of my WIPs... although the only problem with that is that it`s hard to get into the mood when you don`t know how much time you have to work on it before you have to put it away again. Still, I`m making the most of my time off by getting organised with my threads - this has been long overdue as the shallower drawers of my original (white) tower were getting to the stage where they were hard to open as bags of threads got caught at the back. So I got another (black) tower with deeper drawers, for my most numerous `hundreds` (I store my threads by DMC numbers, each hundred having their own drawer - or drawers, if they won`t all fit in just one).

I`m not particularly pernickety (at least I don`t think so - the subtle messiness of our house attests to that 🤣), but I find well-organised threads not only pleasing but also practical and very important when I need to stitch fast - hence this little introduction to my thread storage system. 😊

So as I said, I keep my threads in wee ziplock bags: I find these the handiest solution, not only because I think bobbinating is a waste of time I`d much rather spend stitching, but also because I can put any leftover threads in the bags too (and I keep even 5cm pieces that might do for 1 or 2 sts that I spot after I thought I`d done all of that colour). These bags are 9x12 cm, can hold up to 20-25 skeins, and also serve as impromptu pin cushions - at first, I wasn`t going to pierce them but then it turned out it even helps squeezing out the air of them so they take up less space in the drawer. #winwin

I admit, the thread situation has been getting a bit out of control lately: when I juggle several projects at once, some of which use the same colour(s), and when I`m pressed for time, I just chuck everything back in the drawer... and then some bags get stuck at the back the next time I try to open it, and why is it always the very last bag you come across that you need?? 🤷‍♀️ So, lesson learnt - they`re all organised numerically, in ascending order. 🤩

The hundreds I have not so many of, e.g. the 500s and 600s (pic above), I left in the shallower drawers, but the big ones - like the 700s, 900s or 3800s - I further organised into groups of 10. I bought new zippy bags that have a hole on the top, and I also ordered some colourful binder rings so I can use them more or less like a Rolodex. 🤣

So now all my threads are neatly organised, I should be able to just quickly pick out the colours I need when the next project arrives. Until then though, here`s the most recent one published in issue 64 of the Disney Cross Stitch Magazine - I loved working on this fabulous jungle themed leafy aida and the Jungle Book characters are always such fun to stitch - hope you like them and thanks for visiting my wee corner of organised thread heaven, happy stitching! 😊

Christmas baubles, cats and dogs, and finished Monarch 😊

The latest issue (261) of Cross Stitch Crazy is out now so I can share my picture of the cute cover kit:

Designed by Durene Jones, these were so much fun to stitch I did them twice 🤣 and the free gift includes 2 bauble shaped wooden frames too so the finished decorations are ready to go on the tree or in a card with added oomph.

The other day, I was browsing the worldwide web, and I came across the 2019 catalogue of DMC (here). Remember the Vintage Circus range I mentioned in a previous post? Here they are, all 5 together:

Hmm, I`ve just noticed I got the last two with the drapes - there must be something about me that screams "curtain!"...? 😂 Def. not in the `that`s it, no more` sense because my next DMC commission was this set of 6 hoops, 3 cats and 3 dogs:

I loved this set, they`re such clever designs: they only use 1 colour each but utilise both XS and BS in 1 and 3 strands to create depth and even a sense of movement.

Again, I can only repeat myself: these were so much fun to stitch I did them twice... plus a few (few?!? 🤪) more times: 

Finally, as promised, here`s the finished Monarch of the Glen! 😍 In the end, it took 230 hours, 65 days spread over the past 5 months, and it`s already at the framers (I`ll post a photo of the end result too when we get it back). Thank you for visiting my blog, happy stitching! 😊

surprise post

This post is not only a surprise to those who thought I`d disappeared (it is truly shocking how long I`ve neglected my blog!), but the title also refers to the surprise I got a few minutes ago. I was looking for a Riolis design and while browsing the Sew and So website, I spotted Twilleys on their list. I clicked on it, and sure enough, I came across some familiar pictures! :) I stitched these for Twilleys of Stamford such a long time ago that I can`t even remember where I saved the photos, so I`ll use Sew and So`s links. I worked this poppy wreath sometime last autumn, and this beach sign... oh, it must have been over a year ago now...? Gosh, and as I`m scrolling down the Sew and So page, I`ve just discovered some bookmarks here and here that were also stitched by me - wow, what a strange `reunion`!

That reminds me: this year it`ll be 20 years since we`ve graduated from high school and my old classmates are busy organising the party - for the first weekend in September! :( If everything goes according to plan, we`re going to Hungary in July for a wee holiday, so I`m going to miss this reunion again - such a pity, I`d love to see the old faces after all this time! Ach, well, I just have to wait another 5 years now... ;)

In other news, the reason why I`ve been neglecting my blog is that I`m super-busy with more (!) Christmas stitching - big piccies, cards, you name it. I`ve been humming Jingle Bells since the end of March now but photos, alas, I can`t show you yet - my next project will be in Gold 112*, out around the middle of June. So until then: happy stitching!

* Technically, if you`ve seen issue 111, you`ve probably seen my pic too in next month`s preview, but I`m such a tease, I won`t even tell you it`s the pa... oooops, it almost slipped out! :)

DALD sampler finished!

*sigh* (That was a huge sigh of relief). Even though I loved every minute of stitching this sampler, I`m also glad in a way that after 4 long months of looking at it, it`s finally on its way to the (hopefully!) happy owner - a lovely 84-year-old lady who commissioned this for her granddaughter`s wedding. /I also hope that the granddaughter will like it too, lol!/

Since this was my pet project in between magazine works, I revelled in the luxury of not having to keep track of any detail, therefore I don`t know how many hours it took, only that I spent a total of about 2 weeks out of 4 months stitching this. And here is the end result:

 Apologies for the worse-than-usual photo but I finished it last night and couldn`t wait to take a pic - it would`ve been pointless to wait for the bright daylight anyway, it`s been so doom and gloom here lately. So the colours are not as vibrant as they should be... maybe a couple of close-ups will help:

Well, these don`t really do justice to the colours either, but at least I can illustrate what I enjoyed most about working with 2 strands on 18 HPI aida (tbh, this was the ONLY thing I enjoyed about stitching on such a high count fabric): the fact that every single cross sits there like a tiny little pearl. I think they`re awesome!

DALD update

An uncharacteristically short post as I`m crazy-busy stitching the Dream a Little Dream sampler which I fully intend to finish this week (I kinda have to since I have other things in the pipeline). So here`s a wee recap where I left it off after Go #3:

And this is where things stand just now, at Go #4:

Dream a Little Dream update

I`ll be honest here: I`m having a naughty weekend. Nothing kinky, I just decided to have a few days off, despite the fact that I`d sent the latest commission stitch back on Thursday and that the next one turned up with Friday`s post - luckily, with a very generous deadline, so I thought I`d better get a move on with the DALD sampler. Even though I started it over two months ago now, this is only my third go at it, due to magazine commitments, so here`s a wee recap of the progress:

Go #1: Just a few hours, to get a taste of this sampler malarkey :)

Go #2: Finished the house in the middle and started to stitch the motifs along the fold lines of the chart
so that I could separate it again into four A3 sheets for easier handling

Go #3: This weekend I concentrated on the top right A3 - getting there!

 Elsewhere, in the knitting world: I took the plunge and FINALLY tried my hand at entrelac! I have no idea (yet) what it`s going to be - depending on the finished size, it might be a scarf, or a bag, or maybe a cushion cover - but at the moment I`m just enjoying seeing the design grow, so whenever I`m not too tired after stitching all day, I knit another coloured row in the evening. As you can see, there have been 3 such evenings so far:

First attempt at entrelac knitting, a.k.a. The Mystery Project

Cross Stitch Gold 105

Those of you who are lovely-sweet-kind enough to follow my occasional ramblings or mere outbursts on Facebook as well, might remember that a few months ago I moaned a bit when I started my fifth hour of stitching French knots with metallic threads (I know, I`m such a wimp!). Anyway, the result of this Metallic Marathon is in the shops now - my beautiful little advent calendar picture which I absolutely adored working on, despite those few (one hundred and thirty-four, but who`s counting?) French knots. And that`s not all: issue 105 of Gold features Lesley Teare`s unconventional, super-girly Christmas stocking - also stitched by yours truly. So let`s see some before-and-after pictures, shall we?

A nice and easy stitch for a `last-minute` stocking 

All made up, complete with some funky fabby 

And a more traditional Christmas scene, with 134 (!) metallic French knots

The finished advent calendar, complete with the 25 numbers I stitched - I love the idea of these tiny drawers!

ingenious husband turns wife into happy stitcher

And this is not the only headline for this week! After 86 hours of work, of which I spent the last 20-odd backstitching (and literally working my middle finger to the bone, so I had to use plasters to be able to finish the job on time), I finally managed to send the latest magazine commission back yesterday - hurrah!

So, today I`m a lady of leisure - which means I took the Dream A Little Dream sampler out again and let me tell you, words cannot describe how relaxed I feel while stitching it: the fabric`s light, the cross stitches are full, not a single backstitch in sight and I can pick it up/put it down whenever I feel like it, without having to make a note of the exact time.

Not that this is such a big deal, mind you, but it started to bug me a bit, especially at the weekends, when (sod`s law) as soon as I took a note of the time and picked up my stitching, I was dragged away and had no idea how long I`d been away looking for a toy or a spanner. Anyway, long story short, my lovely Hubby devised me a gadget to make my life easier: it`s an old wall clock that we never used, to which he added a switch and now all I have to do is flick the switch every time I start stitching and turn it off when I stop (a bit like a chess clock, just bigger, lol!).

Looks like I`ve been stitching for 4 hours - time for a cuppa!

Then last night I started to whinge again because I found the sorting cards that came with the DALD kit too clumsy for frequent colour changes - so my knight in shining work clothes rushed to my aid again and made this sorter for me out of some scrap wood and a (sadly, empty) chocolate box:

I just cut up the sorting cards and put the corresponding strips into the wee boxes

Now whenever I need a new colour, I just pick up the right one and off I go. I`m so much faster and, therefore, more productive this way - well, you have to trust me on this because I only started to use the new method this morning so you`ll not see too much progress yet:

I`ve done a bit above the black cat and some flowers in the bottom middle

And, as I`m writing this, postie`s just turned up with the next commission project so I`m afraid my joy over this clever thread sorting was short-lived - or, to be precise, my enjoyment of it. The poor sampler has hardly resurfaced from the cupboard but thanks to DH`s ingenuity, now at least I know that I`m going to fly with it the next time I pick it up! ;)

a weekend of Kindle covers

This, again, has been a busy week - maybe even more so than usual. Hubby and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on Thursday and two days later it was my birthday - and yes, both strengthened my belief that one cannot have too much chocolate. I also happened to finish all my magazine work for the now so this weekend I finally got round to sewing jobs I`d been putting of for ages. Hubby got some new tee shirts at work that doubled as miniskirts and I`ve been meaning to shorten them for weeks. Yesterday I finally got my sewing machine out and sorted them, then swiftly moved on to my Kindle Fire Cover Project. But first, the inspiration: my Mommy-in-law asked me a couple of weeks ago to make a cover for her Kindle  and the other day I started to knit one (I had this lovely lilac cotton yarn and I thought the colour would be perfect for her). I measured her Kindle the last time we visited her - I hope I got the size right!

I`m glad she mentioned the Kindle cover, by the way, because it got me thinking: we`re going on holiday soon - to Hungary, as usual, but this time in instalments. My Mum`s coming here this Thursday and in ten days` time she`s flying back with Gregory, thus giving us, run-down parents a little breather, plus spending some quality one-on-one time with her grandson. Then, to save her sanity, and because by that time I`ll be having withdrawal symptoms too, a week later I`m flying after my wee boy. Finally, after a few days, work-committed DH is arriving with the car, and in August we`re driving back to Scotland, just before school starts again.

Anyway, back to the Kindle cover. So I realised that if Son wants to take the Kindle Fire on the plane, he`ll need a cover for that, so I got my scrap fabrics out and he chose these two (a brownish flowery one and a red linen one with some embroidered flowers). I made the actual cover padded, in case he bumps or drops the thing, and I made an extra pocket for the charger. I finished both sides with wooden buttons I got as a free gift with a knitting magazine and hand-made button holes, which I tried for the first time and considering that, they turned out quite OK. All in all, I`m pretty chuffed with the result:

I almost forgot: I`m so used to not being able to share photos of my stitching any more, as they tend to be super-secret magazine projects, that I`ve just realised that the commission piece I`m working on just now is for a private person, so I can add WIP photos! Yay! It`s a funky little sampler by Riverdrift House, called Dream a Little Dream. I`m stitching it for an 83-year-old lady whose eyesight is not what it used to be but she`d like to give this as a wedding present to her granddaughter. I`ve only just started it but I know I`m going to have lots of fun with this jazzy sampler! :)