I’m nearly there! The first page is all done and I’m well into the second. Maybe a finish before the end of the month? My stitch from stash budget needs it!
Also what an amazing day we had yesterday. ANZAC day at Swanson RSA below.
Category Archives: cross stitch
WIP (very late on) Wednesday
And here I am, beading! I hit my goal to finish the stitching on Mermaids of the Deep Blue and pulled out the beads.
Loving it! I wish you could see the gleam and glitter. And in true stitch from stash fashion, I’m subbing in the gold that I already have, and the big pony beads are also from my stash.
WIP Wednesday
(In my best Winnie the Pooh voice) Helloooo out there!
I hope you are well & dry. Dry is important. Tropical Cyclone Debbie has just departed, and we are forecast to be hit by TC Cook today and tomorrow. Just in time for school holidays and Easter! I am again grateful that our house is sturdy and built on a (mostly) concrete base at the top of a hill…
right now…
where I ended the last rotation
I got my stitchy bug back! I have finished a number of things (which I won’t show now, as that will mean I’d be repeating things when we post our Smalls at the end of the month) and got some decent progress on Mermaids of the Deep Blue. I can see the stitching end in sight! Then of course, comes the 9 or so packs of beads…
I picked up two framed finishes which I am keeping all for myself. Both are older finishes; my first Nora (her sleigh) is now on the office wall at work so I can see it most days, and Stargazer is going up in the lounge at home.
My work piece is the Mill Hill Seagull. Short & easy, I plan to finish & bead this on Earth Day…and Andromeda supplies arrived. I am so tempted to wag work right now!
Take care everyone. Have a wonderful Easter.
Friyay!
Oh, thank goodness it’s Friday. This week has been full-on, with the middle three days devoted to the work conference. I am pleased to report that I didn’t embarrass myself (or my boss) and didn’t call anyone by the wrong name. Not even once. Admittedly this was helped by being in a group with one other with the same name, 3 other support office people, someone I clicked with right away, and another I thought was OK and not a plonker.
And speaking of the plonk, it was pretty low on the scale, so that was only the half glass with dinner. Just enough to pretend that I am an adult.
And my team won the challenge. We rock.
Stitching-wise, nothing but FFO so far. So at least I ticked off some monthly goal between WIPocalypse updates. Toothless in all the variations is going off to Europe in the post today. Hope my partner enjoys!
Zac was involved in the term art exhibition at Waitakere yesterday. It’s cool to see where his talents are evolving to. This is my super sporty, super geeky kid who is exploring his boundaries and taking every opportunity. Love that.
Have a good weekend, everyone! Don’t forget to get some exercise in! (that’s me in the blue – lots and lots of bear crawls make for a really solid sleep!)
March WIPocalypse & Smalls Check In
I feel like a bit of a fraud really. Checking in, when I’ve only touched stitching 15 actual days in March? And not actually finished anything? However – I am still in the black for Stitch From Stash!
| Mar-17 | |
| Budget | $25.00 |
| Clouds Factory HTTYD | -8.00 |
| DMC @ Geoff’s | -40.00 |
| DMC @ Spotlight | -3.38 |
| HTTYD bookmark | 5.00 |
| HTTYD needlebook | 10.00 |
| Rollover | $35.50 |
| Total Available Budget | $24.12 |
This month my intended focus points were:
- Back stitch & fill in the gaps on the top row of Tapestry Cat – maybe 2/3 done?
- Stitch pieces for the #dreamworkscraftswap2017 on Instagram – again, maybe 2/3 done.
Ugh. I have not stitched on anything from a magazine (sorry Heather) nor any of the colour SALs that I made intentions to participate in. I did get out to a stitching meet-up on one night (and had a blast, AND they invited me back J) and I think my bug just got up and left. I have gone to bootcamp & been so ill I was on antibiotics for a week and right now, lack enthusiasm big-time. To get myself back on the horse (so to speak) I’ve set goals a la Rahenna for April:
- FFO the How To Train Your Dragon pieces for the swap & post (bookmark, needle book and small hoop).
- Finish all the stitching on MOTDB and get to the beading potion.
- Start Julie’s RR piece (as that has arrived to me super early).
- Plan what I will do for the #disneycraftswap (waiting for my partner to post her mosaic still).
Stitch MAYnia SALs that I intend to participate in are
- 15th – Diamonds. Beading the clear beads on MOTDB.
- 22nd – Earth Day. Start the Mill Hill Seagull kit.
Question of the month: What stitchy blogs, groups, or flosstubes do you follow and why?
All the blogs I follow can be found in the sidebar. I have to say that the majority of bloggers are migrating, which is a bit of a shame, but I’m guilty here too. Instagram is my stich p*rn; there are so many that I follow over there that I am thinking that I need to cut it back, so that my feed does show who I want to see.
Groups – well, I’m now in a physical group but on FB I’m part of Stitch MAYnia; Mira Mira on the Wall; Mirabilia Nora Corbett Conversions; Upcycle Cross Stitch NZ (admin here); Round Robin Stitchers (& a couple of private groups from that); Stitch From Stash 2017a; Countrystitch Fabrics and a couple of others.
Flosstube – Oh dear, Now we get into the rabbit hole! I stitch and watch around a couple of hours a week normally & prefer to watch/listen to flosstube rather than TV right now. In no particular order I recommend (non-exhaustive list!!)
- Lindystitches
- Stitching Donna
- CoffeeStitcher (Garrett is one of the Stitch MAYnia admins)
- The Crafty Curator
- The Simple Stitcher
- Ms OhSewCrafty (Stephanie is the admin for Stitch From Stash 2017a)
- The Queen of Starts
- Emily C (the BEST vids)
- Aussie Stitcher
- Ginger Gerald Stitcher
- A Stitch Too Far (love her)
- KiwiFlowa (fellow Westie, TW and Nora fan & has adorable cats!)
- The Stash Queen (Katy is the other Stitch MAYnia admin & has a totally ridiculous WIP number, and is unashamed of that. I admire that even as I can’t get above 12!)
Sorry that I haven’t linked to any of these – but if you look in my follow list you can also subscribe to those channels and more – and mine too! Look for “Paula SewScrapMuse” – I possibly hold the record for shortest flosstube ever!
Back to your regularly scheduled programme…
Important bit – none of the links below are affiliate. Deerskin is actually to a review, not the purchase.
It feels so good to be back writing, and reading, and stitching, and (dare I say it) work! I spent a good portion of the last fortnight ill, five work days away from my desk, and it’s only yesterday that the sleep-deprived me felt kind-of-normal.
SO about the above..
- I started & finished Deerskin, by Robin McKinley. I’d not read any of her novels but I got hooked in by the cover. And the price (it was free that day). Now I’m adding Sunshine to the Kindle, as @aragonsgirl72 recommended her on my IG post.
- For those of you that liked my version of Not All Those Who Wander, Emma Congdon has now uploaded this to her etsy site.
- I brought myself the Palace Cinema from Lego. Loving it. Construction kept my mind tired and from being overwhelmed with solo parenting & worry. I finished it and brought the Bank set. I might have started a new obsession…
- Mase “helped” with the construction. Cars are still a little boy favourite. Look how long his fingers are now! I miss the true little boy chubbiness.
- And last night was my first night at a stitch group in far too long. I laughed and really enjoyed myself. It was in Grey Lynn, an older established and PRETTY suburb of Auckland. Love the way the trees grew to form a canopy.
And stitch-wise, I am well into March’s Stitch MAYnia designer SAL, which was Teresa Wentzler. My goal was to back stitch and fill in a lot of the gaps in the top floral border of Tapestry Cat. I’m really happy with the progress.
And as for the other, that’s for an Instagram swap. My partner loves How to Train Your Dragon, so as one of the pieces I am making her a needlebook with the two main characters front and back. Cloudsfactory make such easy, cute designs for this sort of thing.
What have you been up to?
WIP Wednesday or Thursday but hey! It’s nearly Friday!
This month my focus piece is Teresa Wentzler’s Tapestry Cat. I brought the kit waaaaay back in 2005…one lesson I’ve learnt since is to back stitch her pieces as I go!
The goal for this month is to back stitch and fill in the gaps on the top border. I’m getting there despite not stitching on the nights I go to boot camp. I’ll have to sort that somehow.
He is so stinking gorgeous.
WIP Wednesday
It’s March first here in NZ so it’s also time to check in for Stitch From Stash. Let’s do that first because I AM STILL IN THE BLACK! & yeah, quite chuffed with that.
This may not last into April, with Andromeda to come hopefully this month. I’m splitting the cost with hubs tho. That will help.
Last week I put in a few days on Mermaids of the Deep Blue as my #focusonafinish piece. I’d love to have this up on the walls by next summer. A lot would depend on the next few round robin pieces. That PR took ages!
This month’s theme for Stitch MAYnia is Teresa Wentzler (how handy is it tho that for Stitch From Stash it’s M for Mirabilia?) so I pulled out my eldest resting WIP, Tapestry Cat. Since this photo I’ve put in a couple more threads. My goal is to get that top row back stitched and any gaps filled in.
Hope you have a gorgeous stitchy week!
February Smalls & WIPocaylpse
So sorry everyone – I wouldn’t normally post these together but my energy level is really, really low. For links to both SAL’s, please click on the icons to the right.
For Smalls – I completed Emma Congdon’s Home Sweet Home, the GWP (gift with purchase) for a Cross Stitch Crazy 2016 edition. This one isn’t up on her website yet (they often are after a 6 month lag) but you can find similar charts https://www.etsy.com/shop/Stitchrovia?section_id=14750602 SO that one checks off the #monthlymagazineSAL that Heather II runs too…
I also finished stitching and beading Mill Hill Fireflies. This one will be FFO’d this week and be on it’s way to Farrah in TX; just a little something to let her know I’m thinking of her.
My biggest piece this month was the Round Robin. Sorry Jacqui – I just didn’t enjoy stitching her! This is Passione Ricamo’s Into the Darkness, threads as charted (believe it or not). I did play a bit with her lashes; she doesn’t look as witchy as the sample; this is also helped along by not stitching the background. I do think this piece will look amazing when it’s fully done, especially as I can guess as to what Jacqui is planning on the header.
Question of the Month: What is your favourite stitch other than the standard cross stitch? I have a few I like; back stitch doesn’t usually worry me (except that Tattered Teddy I did for a round robin a couple of years back!). I like Algerian eyelets, and chains, and Smyrna crosses…that Stitchsmith course was well worth it and I think I’ll go back for the advanced course next year.
Thanks for reading – I’m off now to complete some real work…
Oh My Gosh
If there was a time that my Stitch From Stash resolution would be broken, now is that time. The new Mirabilia released overnight (NZ time) and sigh…she’s on order. Won’t get to me until March, so I had better get some finishes in.
This isn’t the perfect image (go to http://www.Mirabilia.com or join in the FB SAL for Lori’s shots while model stitching) but this will be the fabric I use.
Nora has charted in her constellation in glow-in-the-dark Kreinik (just like Cassiopeia!!) and that too is perfect.
If you use Stash Cache, I have uploaded the file to that section now. Download, save as .txt and add to your phone/tablet.
(WIKIPEDIA) In Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of the North African kingdom of Aethiopia.
Her mother Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids, the nymph-daughters of the sea god Nereus and often seen accompanying Poseidon. To punish the queen for her arrogance, Poseidon, brother to Zeus and god of the sea, sent a sea monster named Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia including the kingdom of the vain queen. The desperate king consulted the Oracle of Apollo, who announced that no respite would be found until the king sacrificed his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. Stripped naked, she was chained to a rock on the coast.
Perseus was returning from having slain the Gorgon Medusa. After he happened upon the chained Andromeda, he approached Cetus while invisible (for he was wearing Hades’s helm), and killed the sea monster. He set Andromeda free, and married her in spite of her having been previously promised to her uncle Phineus. At the wedding a quarrel took place between the rivals and Phineus was turned to stone by the sight of the Gorgon’s head.[3]
Andromeda followed her husband, first to his native island of Serifos, where he rescued his mother Danaë, and then to Tiryns in Argos. Together, they became the ancestors of the family of the Perseidae through the line of their son Perses. Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons: Perses, Alcaeus, Heleus, Mestor, Sthenelus, Electryon, and Cynurus as well as two daughters, Autochthe and Gorgophone. Their descendants ruled Mycenae from Electryon down to Eurystheus, after whom Atreus attained the kingdom, and would also include the great hero Heracles. According to this mythology, Perseus is the ancestor of the Persians.
At the port city of Jaffa (today part of Tel Aviv) an outcrop of rocks near the harbour has been associated with the place of Andromeda’s chaining and rescue by the traveler Pausanias, the geographer Strabo and the historian of the Jews Josephus.[4]
After Andromeda’s death, as Euripides had promised Athena at the end of his Andromeda, produced in 412 BCE,[5] the goddess placed her among the constellations in the northern sky, near Perseus and Cassiopeia; the constellation Andromeda, so known since antiquity, is named after her.
sewscrapmuse 