Category Archives: cross stitch
WIP Wednesday
Hello you lovely people! How have you been? I’ve had a pretty busy week, all in all.
- Watched the first rugby game of the season (Waitakere beat Avondale college, hooray!)
- Picked up my new toy, a Galaxy S8+. The camera is amazeballs. The moon shot was on auto; imagine if I had taken the time to not have post bootcamp wobbles and had changed to the proper setting!
- Ordered MIL her Pressie Box, which should be ordered today. http://www.thepressiebox.co.nz for some beautiful things and great customer service.
- Watched the first hockey game of the season (I fail, I keep calling the ball a “puck”. And Icing is of course not a thing).
- Survived both Normo’s birthday set (49!) and my own (shared with Lavinia, we had 10 minutes of EMOMs). Not surprisingly, didn’t go to the small session last night!
- Started my portion of Julie’s round robin. Si liked the colours in Emi, so that is the Nora Corbett pixie that I started.
- Made another flosstube video. Mase made a cameo appearance. Look for Paula SewScrapMuse on youtube. Yes, my accent is “cute”. Huh.
- And 3 year anniversary with WordPress. I don’t miss Blogger at all!
April Smalls, Stitch from Stash Update & WIPocalypse
Smalls is hosted by the lovely Heather on her blog, click here for the rules: http://stitchinglotus.ca/2017-sal/
WIPocalypse is hosted by Mel at her blog http://measi.net/measiblog/
And another month draws to a close and I got some stitching in! Mind you, it was a bit of a race for the last portions of beading on Mermaids but – I got a finish!!! My goal for the month was to finish all the stitching, but I could see the finish line and off I went.
April Goals:
- FFO the How to Train Your Dragon pieces for the swap & post (bookmark, needle book and small hoop). COMPLETED – but I kept the small hoop
- Finish all the stitching on MOTDB and get to the beading potion. SMASHED
- Start Julie’s RR piece (as that has arrived to me super early). NOT STARTED
- Plan what I will do for the #disneycraftswap (waiting for my partner to post her mosaic still). PLANS COMPLETE, STITCHING STARTED
- 15th – Diamonds. Beading the clear beads on MOTDB. IGNORED
- 22nd – Earth Day. Start the Mill Hill Seagull kit. COMPLETED
I also worked on a small Easter piece, the freebie Prairie Schooler chart that Kristine sent me. I chose black aida (stash!) and initially stitched it in similar colours to the original…I plan to repeat with different colours to make a basket of mini eggs.
So here’s my pieces for this month:
Question of the Month – What projects are in your UFO pile? There’s not too much in my UFO pile, to be honest. Just the one piece that I have kept the pattern & half-completed project away. I am tempted to re-start it on evenweave as it is on aida & I had become a bit of a snob but maybe I should just pull it out. If I can’t get the threads to match it might be worth a restart…apart from this, I do have Tapestry Cat at 11 years of age but as I am still working on this, I don’t think I can call it a true UFO. Just a resting WIP. And I have a few of those!
- Tapestry Cat, Dec 2006
- Toy Story Birth Sampler, Oct 2013
- Nora Corbett Arezzo, March 2014
- Mirabilia Persephone, May 2015
- Nora Corbett Reindeer, July 2015
- Mirabilia Raven Queen, Jan 2016
- Tamara blackwork, September 2016
- Lavender & Lace Celtic Winter, Dec 2016
My May goals are fairly small. I’m not going to participate in StitchMAYnia, but there are some new starts:
- Disney hoop & needlebook for new swap
- Start Julie’s round robin (if I get a finish, I will start Andromeda!)
- Finish Mill Hill Believe (about ½ done)
Lastly, I’m still in the black for Stitch From Stash. This is more good luck than management but I’ll take the win.
| Apr-17 | |
| Budget | $25.00 |
| Andromeda @ CountryStitch | -41.40 |
| Kreinik @ RR | -27.90 |
| HTTYD hoop FFO | 10.00 |
| PS Easter Folk Egg | 5.00 |
| MH Seagull | 5.00 |
| Mermaids of the Deep Blue | 59.30 |
| Rollover | $2.92 |
| Total Available Budget | $37.92 |
WIP Wednesday
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.
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.
sewscrapmuse 