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.
Tag Archives: mill hill
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…
WIP Wednesday
I’m plodding on thru. Looking at my diary, I’ve not stitched a lot in February so far; more days blank than not.
However, I had a small finish for the #monthlymagazineSAL hosted by Heather. This is Emma Congdon’s Home Sweet Home as kitted by Cross Stitch Crazy. I’m keeping the chart as I haven’t decided if I’ll do this one again.
My
My new work project is Mill Hill Believe, again stitching as charted. I got most of his sack done while waiting at Tag on Friyay.
And the at home project is still the Passione Ricamo round robin. The hair is done and I’m on skin. Those eyes are over one so waiting till I have quiet time.
October WIPocalypse with #passthestash link
Ohh, look at me, posting stitchy stuff almost on time!
WIPocalypse is hosted by Mel over at Measi’s Musings, & is a monthly round-up of all things stitchy.
For October, I’ve been really productive. In my garden, all the summer seeds are sown (including a set of herbs for a girlfriend who’s been the main instigator and supporter of my get healthy kick), the apple tree is now espalier’d along the fence, the citrus are fed, all but one bed is weeded – all this despite being sick for a full week.
Stitching wise, I’ve finished my initial Round Robin piece. This is going out in the post today (payday!) to Melinda in Akron. I’m excitedly waiting to receive Andie’s piece (I’d say go check out her blog but she’s as bad as I am recently!).
I’ve FFO’d 8 Mill Hill pieces, 3 of which I actually started and completed this month. That makes 6 ornaments for the Christmas gifts, and 2 Santa’s. I’m supposed to be swapping a Santa chart & as I sent mine in August, and haven’t got one back, I kind-of doubt that will happen.
And I signed up to Stitch From Stash 2017A, which is hosted by Stephanie & can be found on facebook. Since then I’ve gone on a massive haul spend so that I can start things next year. If I’d started SFS in October, I’d be broke until January!!! Eep. This did result in a new start, Tamara by Liz Almond. It’s working up reasonably quickly – this is after about 4 hours work (the colours are crap in flash photography, sorry – this is black and green threads (310, 561, 562, 563) on 28ct Geyser from Countrystitch:
Question of the Month
What online stitching communities do you enjoy?
Well, I do enjoy watching Flosstube – so much so that I now participate. If you skip back a blog post, you’ll get #5, which has some #passthestash included – but you MUST comment on the video to enter! Entry is worldwide, you must be over 18, blah blah.
I’m back on Facebook, primarily for the Round Robin, Stitch from Stash and Butterbean Motivation groups. I cut back a lot of “friends” and its much more peaceful.
I’m also on Instagram as @sewscrapmuse. Feel free to request there; if you’ve got stitchy posts I will automatically add you.
Harvest Moon WIPocalypse
Mase took these photos last night, as we headed down the North Western motorway to pick up Dad. A cell phone can’t capture the sheer size and the colour – no wonder the American Indians & Maori (among others) called this a Harvest Moon.
My September has been all about my round robin prep. This was a love/hate relationship for sure and I AM NEVER USING DMC SATINS AGAIN. Until next time. However I am finished with the frames & thinking that they do look amazing – even if I had to dig in my ORT jar to finish the top leg of the last 20 or so stitches! Playing thread chicken is not as fun as you might think.
I’ve also finalised my layout, and the lovely Elizabeth has come to my rescue and has ordered Bluebeard’s Princess mermaid for me (www.stitchnz.co.nz) so while I may have to post the intended portion on the FB group, I will have it in time for someone else to stitch. Just not Mel in Australia – but there’s four others for her to choose from. My start is the Queen Mermaid – but I’m thinking about adapting her “purse” to either a treasure box (Atlantis-type) or a shell, like this one I found on Pinterest:
I am looking forward to Christmas 2017 when I should get this one back! First posting isn’t for 3 weeks, so Queenie will be done by then.
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Question of the Month
Tell us a story about the journey you took through one of your completed pieces.
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This is one of my favourites – the first I completed and had framed intending to keep! Which was a Big Deal, as it marked 10 years of stitching history. This is Bran’s birth sampler, the Alma Lynne Noah’s Ark Collector. I still have the chart…but I can’t find it in online stores, sorry, so it must be OOP.
It’s the first that I re-charted portions on – I added personalisation to include Bran’s name, DOB. I used Kreinik for the first time (the lightning bolt) and I gave myself permission to stop angsting over those French knots. Beads all the way! This hangs in our hallway and even at 16, B still appreciates it. There’s true love for you!
Hellooooo July!
Well, I finished Firefly Lane AND the sequel Fly Away. I enjoyed Firefly Lane very much, getting so engrossed in the characters that I had no shame bawling my eyes out while waiting for Zac’s sweet & sour pork the other night. Fly Away not so much, but it had a redemption theme which I do like.
In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.
I have a bestie like this. We’ve been apart for a long time, but as she’s moving to Auckland very soon I hope we can slide straight back into that easy friendship.
Stitching-wise, I haven’t done a lot this week. I woke on Monday feeling quite dissatisfied with things, and decided that I was going to change. So I hauled a$$ & went to the base early to start.
Now, I used to swim competitively. I went to meets all over, and secondary school nationals a couple of times. I thought I’d slide back in – oh no. But I managed 4 lengths (of a 25m pool!) before everything turned to jelly. And once I was back at work, I rang the local Jenny Craig office and got a same-day appointment (no room to chicken out, right?). Turns out that mentally I’m ready for this. Ready to turn around my health spiral. It took 6 months of being out of the yes-I’ll-volunteer cycle to get myself to this point. I wonder if in a few months I’ll be able to give up the headache pills? Look for an activity/weight loss update Monday – if I don’t post it, YELL at me. Please keep me accountable!
So I’ve managed maybe half-a-dozen threads at work, and a couple of hours on Mermaids at home. And as today is the first, I am rotating out from Mermaids to Persephone for a week. My only issue with her is that she is on the big stand so can’t go to league with me tomorrow. But a limited time period might help me get some progress on that skirt – the carrot being that I plan to switch out to Raven Queen next Friday. Then Arezzo, and lastly nine days back on Mermaids – or maybe 7, with the 2 days of the weekend doing something new? We’ll see what happens!
For the Smalls SAL, I finished a Mill Hill kit (Fireflies) and have two Holly ornaments ready for beading, and another two Berry ornaments being stitched. I decided to stitch a second of each of these on Darine 14ct plastic canvas, not only so I have a set to keep, I’m feeling like I get more value for money. These kits are not cheap here in NZ – roughly $18 for fireflies and $14 for the Christmas Jewel series, each! I also finished the Bunny kit from Cross Stitcher magazine – he’s going to stay as is, without the ribbon, and become my massive needle minder.
Hope you all have a fun-filled weekend with your family & friends!
WIP Wednesday
well here we are! I missed last week so I have a wee bit to show.
We celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s birthday this past weekend, so there was an extra day away from the desk. Si has gone to Ohakea on Thursday at oh-dark-oclock as he refereed at an inter-base league tournament. He also came home at an equally it’s-dark-everywhere hour on Monday morning. This idiot had driven him too/fro from the base, so I had to get up reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal early to pick him up. But it was worth it to have him home 12 hours earlier than expected.
With no senior footy, B only had the one game to referee so we had a family quiet weekend planned. The bigger boys studied and played the weekend away, Mase whined. And whined. Then on Monday night he crashed big time. Turns out he had a virus. Someone will turn up and yank away my mother card soon. He’s on the mend now, but has binged watched an awful lot of Netflix.
I finished stitching & beading the Mill Hill fireflies kit (and beaded the back a couple of times, doh), and also stitched up a little piece from the JCS Christmas 2014 issue, but on plastic canvas and not quite as designed. I plan to string this up on a cream ribbon and set it into a frame.
I also put Persephone away for a wee while. I was losing heart with that skirt; so as much as I do love the colours that I’ve converted her to, it was time. My StitchMAYnia goal wasn’t the traditional 15 starts but to stitch every day in May, and I very nearly got there. Persephone alone was stitched 23 days of the month & on 3 days she wasn’t touched, I stitched a Small. I’m pretty happy with that.
On Sunday night I pulled out Mermaids again. I’m nearly at the half-way mark of the chart (one more colour to go) so here’s what they look like, as of 5.30am today:
I also popped up on Instagram my version of parking. Most of the multi-page charts I have used have a greyed-out section, usually the bottom two lines of the chart. I simply DON’T stitch the top leg of the last cross, and then on the next page, I draw a box around the incomplete stitch. I don’t pretend to be an expert at parking, and this probably won’t work for everyone, so no offence if this doesn’t work for you.
WIP Wednesday
The problem with a short week is that Wednesday is supposed to be “hump” day. You know, by lunchtime you can start to anticipate the weekend? Yeah, nah. In a short week I don’t get that until I’m heading home in the evenings. Perhaps it’s not getting enough sleep, trying to cram in heaps of things, or that general “I didn’t get my list done” crap. Not sure, really – how are you feeling?
This month it’s been all about the mid to larger pieces. I realised last week that I hadn’t done a Small this month but on Saturday I realised I didn’t really mind. I got several done in Feb and still none are FFO’s. That’s what I should mind.
Instead I’ve spent time on 3 larger pieces – Afternoon in London, Mermaids of the Deep Blue (I could stitch on the smaller stand while at G’s orchard in between customers) and at home, Persephone ruled the roost. Working out the colour conversion and seeing it all fly together has been really motivating. As of 9.30pm last night, all the stitching & back-stitching on page 1 is completed, and I only have to bead! I have the chart here at work today to make a working copy of the next page. Working copies are essential when doing conversions or stitching while parenting, IMO.
I’ve also brought Stargazer to work. I’ve decided that her hands need to be re-done, and I’m pulling out the Kreinik I used instead of one level of beads and popping in Mill Hill 00557. I’m glad now that I didn’t frame her as I would hate walking past what I now see as errors every day. My internal debate is frogging all her skin (there’s not a lot, honestly) and doing it over one.
Have you ever done anything like that? Sat on something that borders the line of being OK/a mistake, then deciding you need a do-over? How did you decide what to do next?
The Cousins are Over
And if you’re a FB friend, you’ll have seen that we have been very, very busy each evening. Combined with the fiscal year end here at work, I’ve barely had any space to stitch. However, we do have a finish! My second for #16in2016. This is the Mirabilia 2004 Cherub with Tree freebie, with lots of conversions:
The changes are:
| Original | Used | Notes | Original | Used | Notes | |
| 310 | 823 | 500 | 319 | |||
| 356/758 | 1/2 strands | 502 | 320 | |||
| 356/434 | 2/1 strands | 598 | 932 | |||
| 839 | 938 | 926 | 931 | |||
| 3052 | 3022 | 3756/3811 | 3753 | |||
| 3768 | 930 | Kreinik | 009 | 2 strands |
Backstitch: 2 strands 844 for border & wings, 356 for skin & 310 for lashes.
Beads: N in the border 02026 to 03050; O in the border/hair + collar went from 02010 to 00161; tree is all 03050 except the star is 03016; O in the dress is all 02026.
Orewa beachfront
On Saturday we escaped the mugginess of the city and went for a tour north of the city. We did Waiwera pools to relax (I want this place, but Ben says 650-700K and I just about choked, so that’s a no https://www.barfoot.co.nz/562286 ) and ended up at Orewa for dinner. There’s a good takeaways on the edge opposite Hillary Square, and we trudged across the road to the beachfront. We drove home via Riverhead (which is where I wanted to live, but now I’m thinking the village vibe is going to disappear in the new subdivisions that are spreading out).
the boys at Arataki, looking out towards Manukau Heads
Sunday was a bit easier – Sharon’s place, then Arataki, down across town to Devonport (proper lager at the pub, apparently) and home for dinner.
Yesterday was recovery day, so Si & his dad chain-sawed pine trees for the gf & grandma to last them a couple of winters, then BBQ at Grandad’s – and no summer Barbie is complete without a game of cricket. See Mase in the front left, in blue? From that spot he threw the ball to the far wicket and ran Zac out. Amazing arm on that kid.
Today is the first day all three boys are at school – hallelujah! – so of course I’m celebrating this by being at work. Hmm. Something is wrong with this picture. At least I have Rahenna’s piece to stitch on. By default I’ve ended up with Lily of the Valley, which I haven’t stitched before.
Poppy reminds me of Anne, as it was one of her finishes last year. Hey, Anne!
Monday. Yay.
After last week (some work frustrations & a migraine) I wanted to hole up all weekend. So I did. I only went out for the essentials (groceries) and enjoyed that feeling of being left alone. Or as alone as you can be with four males in the house.
I am beginning to think that I made my rotation goals too small. It took only 11 stitching days to get to the RP point for Mermaids of the Deep Blue and 7 for Raven Queen (updated images are on my WIP page). That just doesn’t seem long enough but it does mean I am not disliking any piece when I put it away. I’m not sure yet what I will do with the larger pieces.
I put the 2004 Cherub onto the scrolls on Saturday afternoon and was at that goal by dinner Sunday (to have the LHS background & her hair done, excluding Kreinik & beads) – so I’m going to work on her until finished, or Jaime’s RR piece arrives from Jacqui (whichever comes first). Being a bit more disciplined has meant that this piece has gone from hovering on the border of becoming a UFO to potentially my first finish in 2016. Plus there are a lot of thread conversions going on. If you would like to stitch this chart, you can find it HERE I will post my conversion details later on, once it’s all sorted.
I have plans for the next start already! Something small-ish that’s already in my stash. Something quite different from my usual stuff:
This is Little House Needlework’s Gourmet Garden. I’m going to convert the threads to a mix of DMC blends and have a really good play with it. I have a little baby blue lavender that I will use as a template for the two larger stems, and I’ll use some buttons instead of the white hearts down the centre. And probably re-watch the Branagh version of Much Ado as this design reminds me of the scenery in that film. Which has Keanu Reeves in it for additional scenery bonus. And the script is so so close to the original Shakespeare, even more bonus! TRAILER if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
I will probably give this chart away once I’ve completed it – but that may not be for a few months, depending on how adult I stay. I’ll have to think of a competition question to go with that post!
sewscrapmuse 