I`m such a winner!

Look what postie`s brought yesterday!

I entered the competitions a few weeks ago and I quite forgot about the whole thing. What a lovely surprise!

Yesterday was a stitchy day through and through: after receiving this kit, I got an email from Twilleys of Stamford (new commission in the post) and with just the odd tea-and-pee break, I stitched for 10 hours non-stop. My deadline for the Cross Stitch Gold cushion is next Wednesday and I`m beginning to have this panicky feeling in my stomach - there`s still quite a lot to do! Sorry, I can`t show you any pictures of it... it`s a shame because it looks gorgeous! And, weirdly, bigger from the computer desk... hmm, maybe I can do this...? OK, back to work! 

sleeping puppy

Hope nobody`s huffing about my tweet-like posts lately - my Mum`s still here and I spend next to no time on the computer these days. Plus, the sun is out (!) so it`s time to take the Wee Man for a walk.

I just wanted to share a quick photo with you of this little pup I started knitting yesterday when my copy of Knit Today (85) arrived, and I finished it just now, in less than 24 hours (my personal best so far). Any suggestions for a name?

my version of a Fashion Cape

The other day, I got fed up - I mean really fed up - with this Arctic spring we`ve been having so far and decided to do something about it. Not the weather in general, but more specifically with the problem that`s been bothering me for a while - namely, that when I sit in my stitchy chair, my shoulders and upper arms are cold. When the knees get a bit chilly, I just put a blanket over my legs but the temperature is getting too warm (in the house, at least) for a thick jumper, and in a thin one my upper arms are still cold. Anyway, long story short, I figured I could do with a cape and I found a pattern in Issue 83 of Knit Today. The original "Fashion Cape" is a lovely, white and navy checked number in pure wool, but I used my recycled pale green cotton yarn because 1. I had loads of it, 2. I didn`t want to concentrate on patterns, and 3. I didn`t bother too much what it looked like (after all, nobody`ll see me in it, except maybe postie if I have to sign for something). I finished it a couple of night ago and I`m happy to report that it`s nice and cosy, albeit resembling a straight jacket but I don`t care. And here`s a photo of it, taken by my Mum, who`s famous for chopping heads off when photographing, but I have to say, this is one of my favourite pictures of myself lately:

No more worries about bad hair days :)

Mum`s Easter chicks

Another quick post as I don`t want to be rude and sit here for hours while the whole house is in Easter fever - I just wanted to share this photo. My Mum might not be a needleworker per se, but she can definitely create all sorts of magic in the kitchen: this morning, for example, she made this breakfast for us! :)

Easter decorations

Today my Mum and I finished the Easter decorations for the table - hurrah! They are uber-expensive styrofoam eggs (a pound for a dozen), over which we - and when I say "we", I mean "she" - stretched the little cross stitched patches I made (I found the patterns in Cross Stitcher 250). Aren`t they cute?

Sorry for the picture quality but professional photographer I ain`t...

a couple of new(ish) publications

Just a quick update this time (I`m still busy with the cushion for Gold plus Easter plus sickness plus my Mum`s here). By the way, she loved the hedgehog and last night she asked me for a wee bag for her camera so I knitted this for her:

I`m pretty chuffed with this: first time I`ve knitted eyelets so my I-cord sits snuggly... all in all, a neat-looking little bag :)

Anyway, I`m just updating here cause I bought issue 221 of Cross Stitch Collection today and I love the tea cosy + tea towel + coaster set they made with my stitching on linen:

Also, although I posted my own pics a few days (weeks?) ago, here`s a link to the official photos of the cheery Easter cards that appeared in the previous issue of Collection. 

If I don`t "see" you before next weekend, Happy Easter everyone!

knitted hedgehog

I have realised something today: hedgehogs are like buses. You don`t see any for ages, then two come along at once. After the Ed Hedgehog I stitched the other week, I couldn`t resist knitting this little critter when I saw the pattern here. 

How sweet is that nose? And the ears? I just love it! Needless to say, Gregory has already claimed it - oh, I almost forgot to mention: he`s home again, this time with a sore ear but luckily the Nurofen is already kicking in, so he feels well enough to watch endless episodes of Garfield (yes, you guessed it, I have to either knit or crochet him one...) and demand `healing` biscuits (???) on a regular basis.

If my updates are a bit less frequent in the next few weeks, it is because model stitching jobs are like buses too: at the moment, I`m working on some Angela Poole cards for Cross Stitch Collection and this morning I got my next assignment for Cross Stitch Gold, a mammoth mandala-type design by Durene Jones, it`s going to be gorgeous, a 180x180 circular cushion cover. Can`t wait to start but first I wanted to finish this hedgehog, plus I`ve got a reindeer to make (have I told you I`ve enrolled in a free Craftsy class? I have 2 days left to learn a bit more about crocheting). I have finished the two Mothers` Day cards for my Mum and Gran - I can`t show you the photos yet but they were WOCS freebies, both from the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady series. Oh, and talking about magazines: on Saturday I picked up about 25 issues of Cross Stitcher from a charity shop for the hefty sum of £2 - yay! So if I have a spare minute (haha!), I have those to go through too. Hope y`all are busy doing your favourite things too, happy stitching!

mastering crochet :)

Another busy day, another late night, another finish and another short post: I had a lovely morning chatting at Jo`s and she liked the bunny - yay! Then I came home, enrolled in a Craftsy class and spent the afternoon learning to crochet: as it turns out, I already knew all the basics, I just kept miscounting, hence the crooked end results. But now, as suggested, I started to use a stitch marker and lo and behold, all my problems are solved (it was really a revelation, can`t believe that a tiny wee thing can make such a big difference!). And the first thing I made? Naturally, the long-awaited angry bird for the Little Man! :))

I found the original pattern here but due to changing the hook halfway through and tweaking with practically every bit, this being sort of a trial run, I could almost call it my own design

Easter bunny

This will be a very quick post - it`s way past my bedtime but I wanted to share this cute little bunny with you. Earlier today I spoke to my friend, Jo, whom I`m going to visit tomorrow morning. A few hours after we spoke, I found out that a payment I`ve been waiting for for a while is not likely to clear in my account before Friday. 

But just when I thought, `Bummer! Now I have to go empty-handed, I can`t even get a pack of biscuits, how embarrassing!`, somebody shared on my FB page a picture tutorial of a little knitted bunny - which, needless to say, I had to make straight away. I made an effort of finding the original site for the pictures so that I can give credit to the creator of the pattern (it`s a Polish blog so thank you, Google Translate - although the photos are quite self-explanatory anyway). You can see the original here.

And here`s my little Fluffy, a wee early Easter present for Jo:

this week`s finishes

I can hardly believe how long this week`s been and that we only reached Sunday just now! I don`t even remember where I left off the Snotty Saga - probably at Wednesday, when my poor, still sick Hubby went back to work, and Gregory and I almost made it to the door of the school but then we had to turn back, he had such a bad coughing fit (lol, first I typed "fitting cough" - I`m a bit distracted, watching Blues Brothers 2000 while I`m writing this). So anyway, I took him to the doctor`s and it turned out he had a chest infection and promptly got the miracle cure, antibiotics. I kept him home for the rest of the week (maybe that`s why it felt extra long?) but I`m happy to report that, judging by the star jumps and break-dancing routine I`m witnessing just now, he`s definitely going to school tomorrow.

I`ve got a few more finishes - so much so that I think very soon I can get back to my abandoned La Scapigliata!! I only have two more cards to make for Mothers` Day (the Hungarian one, which is in May, but I have to finish the cards before my Mum gets here in 3 weeks` time, so she can take them back for herself and my Gran and store them until the first Sunday in May. I`ve had so many things lost in the post that I`d rather give whatever I make to her in person). So those `ll be the gifts I have to make in advance and here`s what I made "looking back"... I have to be cunning here because my Mum sometimes checks this blog and I don`t want her to see any pictures that she`s not supposed to see yet - however, her command of the English language is not great enough to actually read all this blah-blah, so I`ll attach a photo of the magazine I stitched from:

Issue 150 of WOCS

It was her birthday a couple of weeks ago and I just finished stitching Ed Hedgehog and put it in a small white frame so I can give it to her as a belated prezzie when she`s here. 

I also knitted another two hats for the charity appeal:

I went a bit wilder with the colours this time: traffic cone orange with navy blue stripes and a pink one for a little girl

So that`s a grand total of six hats and I think I`ll stop here cause I was thinking, if everybody hands in half-a-dozen hats, the poor woman who organises this thing will end up going with a suitcaseful of hats to Uganda.

Friday afternoon I finally got to some shops but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn`t find Scooby brown yarn anywhere, so that project is still halted. On the other hand, I got some purple potatoes in ASDA - you should have seen the boys` faces when I served up dinner tonight! :))

Now I`m asking you: what`s wrong with my haggis, neeps and tatties? 

little chefs finished!

Good evening from Ward 7 where the only thing warmer than the soup and tea is the nurse`s smile :)

I`ll be the first to admit: I have no idea how it happened in all the commotion (both snotty males are home, no doubt to give the school and work a little respite for a change) but I managed to finish not one... not two... but THREE projects!

OK, first up is the least successful one. I sewed up the Scrappy Doo pieces I`d knitted the other day - well, I don`t know if you remember the cover of the Wendy booklet I showed you earlier, but my Scrappy looks nothing like the model. I don`t know why, I mean I followed the pattern to the letter, and still: my version looks more like the love child of Ratatouille and Wile E. Coyote. Are you ready for a giggle? Here we go:

I think I stuffed the muzzle too much so it`s a wee bit on the large side - not to mention that I mixed up the arms and legs (by that point I just wanted to finish ASAP and get this thing out of my sight) but Gregory seems to like it... well, he very caringly buried it under a pile of toys...

Next one up is a couple of hats I made for the charity appeal: I have to say, I`m much happier with the end result of this knitting escapade!

And, finally, the big reveal, the moment I`ve been waiting for for a couple of months now (due to other engagements) but it`s finally finished - yay!!!

weekend summary

It`s Sunday night, time to sum up the weekend - so here it is in a nutshell: 

The Snotty Young One (SYO) had finished the third box of mansize tissues by 10 o`clock this morning, so I was forced to go to Tesco again, after spending the bulk of my Saturday morning there (spent a fortune and got a trolleyful again, despite the fact I`d only gone in for another 4 boxes of tissues). The Battery-Operated Husband (BOH) had disappeared somewhere around the garage area on Friday afternoon, and only resurfaced a couple of hours ago - my fault entirely: if I hadn`t kept the coffees coming, he would`ve returned to the house much sooner. (Oh, he`s BOH because he had this 24-hour blood pressure monitoring device attached to him Fri-Sat). And me, you ask? I`m fine, thank you - as long as I don`t have a runny nose, I`m OK, I mean I can still stitch (I just try not to cough all over it).

I`ll show you the stitchy pic in a second - after a quick update on the Scooby story... I`ll be short, I promise, as there`s not much to tell. I spent almost two whole days knitting up the bits and pieces, just to run out of the Scooby brown yarn before making the tail and the two ears. I don`t want to cheat and use a different brown for these, and anyway, I wouldn`t gain anything as I still have to sew up all the pieces. I was so disappointed last night that I started to knit Scrappy instead but then I got bored with it, so today I picked up the little chefs again - and here`s the result:

I`ve finished the cross stitches, done a bit more backstitch and started the "floor" with the tent stitches

Little Chefs update

Just a quick note because I think I might have a cold - that`s the bad news but the good news is that I`m not shivering (yet) vehemently enough to be unable to handle a needle, so here`s how much I`ve done since the last update on my Gran`s little chefs:

I started the backstitch too so as not to be lumbered with the whole lot at the end

Scooby Doo

I`m happy to report that the green pig was/is a great success: we took it to the playground yesterday (and I had to push the bloomin` thing on the swing, whilst hoping against all hope that nobody saw me), and after sleeping with it last night, Gregory took it to school with him today for Show-and-Tell. So all in all, he`s quite chuffed with it - although the first thing he said this morning was that now my next knitting project (for him, obviously) should be a Scooby Doo, because "Piggy needs a friend". After failing to persuade him that I could make the red angry bird or the yellow one (Knitterbees also has patterns for those here), I spent about an hour this morning searching for Scooby - and found this:

Found this on the Vintage Knitting Lady`s website here 

Isn`t the Internet a wonderful thing? My son just utters a wish and within an hour, for a mere £1.50 I`m the ecstatic owner of a vintage Scooby - as well as a Scrappy! - knitting pattern. Whether I can make it for him is another question but at least the first step`s been taken.

I feel a bit guilty for inundating my so-called stitchy blog with all this knitting but it (and especially making knitted soft toys) became my hobby away from my hobby, more so since I started to "work" as a model stitcher. However, today I`ve been a good girl and done a bit more on my Gran`s birthday chefs:

Now I`ve got almost a whole dog and at least half a cat

And, finally, a mixed lot: the mohair beanie on the right is last night`s crop (for charity) and yes, you guessed it, I simply couldn`t resist putting up a photo of the black hat I knitted  for Mummy-in-law - this is the one she`ll get for Mothers` Day, together with this card I made a couple of years ago for a fair and never sold it, but I`m all for recycling... and sniggering at the moment cause the phrase `Here`s one I made earlier` reminded me of Vinnie Jones and Stayin` Alive... And now, of course, I`ll be humming it for the rest of the night, argggghhhhh!

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`m finally famous!!!

I wasn`t going to write today but this has just happened and anyway, I might as well celebrate the fact that I have...ta-dah: TWELVE followers! Yes, a dozen! And they`re not all just family any more, lol! Besides, I`ve just spent almost the whole day with my Mummy-in-law and I`ve got a new commission: she saw the hat I`d made yesterday and now she wants one too (before you think there`s something wrong with her taste, no, she didn`t see Gregory`s photo and no, she doesn`t want it in the same vibrant colours, just a plain black beanie). According to my laconic Scotsman of a hubby, she probably needs it for going to funerals - the cheek of him! So, I quickly amended my plans - I meant to stitch the freebie bookmark that came with WOCS?/Crazy last month (?) but 1) we gave her something similar a couple of years ago anyway (not that it matters: she could use a different one in every lovey-dovey she`s got) and 2) I`d rather give her something she really wants or needs. I already started it but as there`s no point in showing a picture of it just yet, I`ve decided to share with you some photos instead which I came across while looking for something completely different:

I forgot to add this on Valentine`s Day - this is the card I got from my wee boy :)

I accidentally found this in the archives, the model I stitched for Bothy Threads, called Sand Castle

Another model for Bothy Threads, a sporty sampler from Kate`s experimental Paddington series

Oh, and I almost forgot: today, in Dundee, I finally found a copy of Cross Stitch Collection 219 (now that 220 is already supposed to be on sale), so I`ve got my little owls where they belong, in my folder (remember? Ticking boxes...) and I`ve seen my Easter cards... OK, they`re actually Lucie Heaton`s, but you know what I mean - so I saw them featured from next month`s issue. Well, I haven`t bought issue 220 yet and if you haven`t either, here`s a sneak peek:

And finally - good job I didn`t mean to write today at all! - another surprise waited for me when we got home from Dundee: my copy of Cross Stitch Crazy 175, with my (well, again, it`s Jenny Barton`s, technically) Baby ABC in it... and for the first time ever, my name is mentioned!!! Yay! I`m going back to knitting MIL`s bank robber hat with the hugest grin on my face!

henna tattoos finished - happy dance!

Well, hello! Today`s a big day for several reasons:

1. I`ve just discovered why I couldn`t format my posts in the past: I was in HTML mode, not Compose - DOH! Well, we shall see the difference now (hopefully).
2. I`ve finished the henna tattoos, YAY! They`ll be in Gold 103, which is the May?/June? issue but until then, here`s a sneak peek:

I hope I`m not breaking any rules here by revealing some big surprise... I just wanted to show how relatively small and "simple" they are - you wouldn`t think that with all the backstitch in one/two strand(s), gold metallic thread, 225 French knots and 136 beads, they each took about 30 hours to stitch. Oh, and from the brownish main colour I`ve used 5 and a half skeins...

However, the main thing is that they`re done now and I`m just back from the post office so they`re on their way to the magazine. Talking about the PO: why is it that when you see something funny, there`s never anyone with you to discuss it with? I, again, ended up giggling by myself like a moron when I saw this: a bunch of 2013 calendars, with this hand-written post-it sign above them, "All calanders buy one get one free". Now, I`m not trying to be cheeky here but once you have the actual word written on every single item you`re selling, wouldn`t it make sense just to copy it? 

Ach, well, sometimes maybe even common sense must take a day off. But not me, oh no! This morning I finished my seventh teddy square, so that`s almost half of my blanket done - now I think I`ll take a break from the teddies and knit some hats before I run out of time for this charity thing... But knitting is only for the evenings when I can hardly see any more: for now, back to Abi`s stitching for Collection (some more teacups, would you have believed it?). Cheerio!

Cross Stitch Collection

I`ve been (literally) snowed under for a week now - although if I`m honest, it could be a lot worse than the couple of inches we`ve had so far: I could be staying in e.g. Ballater and spend my precious time shovelling two feet of snow, instead of sitting in my cozy living-room, furiously stitching. OK, at the moment NOT so furiously, since I`ve had a little mishap. The design I`m working on now is a mandala-type intricacy by Durene Jones for Cross Stitch Gold - actually, it`s more like a henna tattoo, using a lot of DMC 902 (garnet) as the basic colour with some pink, orange and electric blue to accentuate and, of course, a lot of gold (metallic thread and beads as well) to make it sparkle. Unfortunately, I only got one skein of garnet and it looks like I`ll need more like four, and Anne must be on holiday or off sick because it`s very unlike her not to answer my email for days - anyhoo, after running out of the main colour, I did whatever else I could but now I just have to wait for the replenishment (unless Hubby takes me to Kirkcaldy on Saturday - I will NOT drive in the snow! - where I can buy some). In the meantime, I`m itching to get on with my little chefs but I don`t want to get another big project out, in case I get too absorbed in it and then I wouldn`t want to go back to "the job". So as a something-in-between, I started to play with this cross stitch clock I`d picked up a few weeks ago for £3 in a charity shop:

I think I`ll give it to my mother-in-law for her birthday (unless I decide to keep it in the meantime). Of course, I could also use this mini-break to get on with my knitting: I want to make some hats for the Woolly Brew girls` new appeal and my second teddy square, technically, couldn`t even be called a square as it`s only 5 rows so far but last weekend I got a far more important job from The Boss. Gregory came to me with a fully developed picture in his head concerning a little alien that he wanted me to stitch for his gang of teddies to experiment on (?). So I "just" had to follow his instructions and make it the right size (he made me unpick the legs twice because they were too long and too wide!) - so here`s the result:

He even drew the eyes on a piece of paper so I had a template to follow, and he showed me (the little control-freak!) the angle he wanted me to sew them on - as a consequence, my Hubby says it looks more like a little green pig with his blue ears flopped over his eyes, as if playing Peekaboo... Anyway, now that I have the time to write, I thought I`d add some photos of the works I`ve done so far for Cross Stitch Collection (at least the ones that have already come out). As another first, I shall attempt to add a link, rather than a photo, to my blog - starting with the retro Xmas trees that appeared in issue 216. Then there were the thank you cards I stitched for issue 218; and the latest issue (219) has my Mothers` Day owls in it but I couldn`t find a link to this magazine just yet, so here`s a good news-bad news situation: I`ll add my own photos which are much less artistic than the ones taken by a professional photographer... on the other hand, if the links above didn`t work, at least you`ll SEE these, right? OK, I think it`s a nice, long post now so I`d better go and get some work done, not to mention that a picture is worth a thousand words anyway - so here`s another 4000 words` worth:

UPDATE: since this post, I`ve found these too here.

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:

still alive

My goodness gracious! This morning, out of the blue, I`ve decided to check my long-forgotten blog to see if it still existed at all and I`m shocked to see that I`m half a year older than I was when I wrote my last post! So for the benefit of those 3 or 4 people in the world who might read this - what happened in the past 6 months? Well, as my son said the other day to my Mum, `I can sum it up in one word: she`s been STITCHING`. At the end of May 2012 I started to work for both Immediate Publishing and Future Publishing - the first owns magazines like the World of Cross Stitching, Cross Stitch Crazy, Cross Stitch Gold, Cross Stitch Card Shop (as well as Knit Today and hundreds of other titles), and the latter publishes Cross Stitcher and Cross Stitch Collection, among others. All these magazines have featured at least one of my works since last summer and when I have the time+inclination, I`ll add a montage of the photos here. At the same time, I did some model stitching for Bothy Threads and Twilleys of Stamford, plus I knitted 4 jumpers for a local designer - I find knitting relaxing in-between stitch sessions as it exercises other muscles in my hands (not to mention knitting is safer while watching the telly). Anyway, so as not to leave my readers (?) without a picture, here`s one of the Dachshund I managed to finish for my Gran and Uncle`s Christmas present: