Tag Archives: shakespeare’s fairies

WIP Wednesday#274

Posted in cross stitch, family, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash, stitching patterns by

Hello everyone! Sorry for not keeping up with at least the weekly posts but this world? It’s got me hiding under the bed mentally.

Auckland has had another lockdown, due to Covid reappearing in the community after we had 102 days of normality. I’ve taken this hard in some ways, with my anxiety high, sleep is hard to find and frankly, I’d give Grumpy a run for his money.

So this month I have a finish – hooray!! – and a lot of progress beading on Shakespeare’s Fairies by Mirabilia. My finish is When Life is Done, by Dianne from Silver Creek Samplers.

It’s full on a tribute to Carol, with the butterfly instead of a bird, and the script in an autumn thread as we both loved the trees changing, and tulips as Mase chose those for her service. We’re waiting for Homestead to reopen then we’ll chose a frame together.

In the NZ XS group there’s a weekly focus challenge. I’m nearly there with Shakespeare’s Fairies & expect that I’ll have this one complete next week, if I have enough beads… So many beads…

May WIPocalypse

Posted in cross stitch, family, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash, Teresa Wentzler, WIPocalypse by

Hello everyone if you’re still following! I have been deliberately limiting my web activity during the NZ lockdown (I worked thru apart from the one week of bereavement leave, and an afternoon where all I wanted to do was throw this !#$%*$%! laptop out the window) so I cut down on everything else. I read a lot (lots of romance, as I couldn’t follow non-fiction to save myself) and stitched and gardened and Lego. Nearly every cupboard has had a clean out, a lot of maintenance is already done and I’m ready for a long, solitary holiday.

Since I wrote the March WIPocalypse, I’ve had a few finishes. The Antique Celtic Sampler by Elisabeth Designs; Hands on Design covid freebie, Choose Happy; two Sandra Cozzolino Genoa Santas; a mash-up snarky hoop for a friend using a Brooke’s Books Elphaba and lastly, Nora Corbett’s Garden Party Cakes. I haven’t brought much, a Santa from Michelle Bendy that still hasn’t arrived and I spent a whopping buck fifty at the op shop in Paihia this weekend. I’m actually $20.30 in credit, so should finish the first half of the year in the black.

Currently I am beading Shakespeare’s Fairies, and I took Fairy Tales away last weekend. I have been more about finishing all the things rather than starting, although I would have liked it to be about working on 12 Days it’s nearly all Mirabilia. But I’m not beating myself up about goals or haul or tidying up or whatever – simply surviving without a breakdown is the short term goal, and measured daily.  

April’s question was Talk to us about your longest-running WIP or UFO. My oldest WIP is still Tapestry Cat by Teresa Wentzler. It’s still about 75% complete and I don’t think I’ve touched it this year. It’s not something I can focus on as yet…

May’s question was Tell us about a piece that you absolutely loved stitching. For me, this was my first Mirabilia, Stargazer. I adored this piece from when I first saw an image but it would be 10 years before I came across the chart, and I only completed it 4 years ago. She is in my hall so I walk past her daily, and she’s one of the few charts I would consider stitching again.

All the best to you and yours – I’m not sure if I will rejoin as a weekly post yet but I will try to post for June WIPocalypse at the least.

WIP Wednesday #273

Posted in Christmas, cross stitch, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stitch from stash, stitching patterns by

Hello! Week three of the lockdown & I’m starting to get wound up. Back on Twitter, which may be a mistake; it’s raining, altho Easter weekend itself was amazing weather;  and I’ve lost all desire to cook. The hubs is looking at rentals (what the actual?) but on the positive side, school started back today. Remote & online, but it’s back.

Since I last posted, I finished both the Genoa Santa pieces from Mill Hill/Sandra Cozzolino,  and got a huge chunk done on Shakespeare’s Fairies. I’ve had to order beads from 123Stitch but I don’t know when those might be sent.Hope you all have a great week.

WIP Wednesday #260

Posted in Christmas, cross stitch, family, goals, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stitch from stash, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

Hello everyone! This last week has been a bit quieter; the work fiscal month cycles down a notch (plus my boss is away, so there’s less interruption or change to my day). At home Mum has also cycled down a notch, and is now pretty much confined to the hospital bed or the electric Laz-y-boy I brought her last year. I am hoping we will be able to celebrate Christmas together, but expecting that we won’t. Mase decided not to play cricket this summer, and we were too late for summer soccer registration, so he’s doing golf lessons. So cute to watch him carefully line himself up!

Last week’s #magicalstitches homework was a bit savage – ended up being 1400 stitches required, which is a huge leap from month 1 (which was only 300 stitches in some weeks). I am evaluating what I want to do next year, and as I don’t particularly like the books this group is moving onto, I think I will mute for 2020 and do my own thing, getting my WIP count down to something manageable. I set up a project table, thinking that week one of every month would be a Mira, week two a small, week three a Teresa Wentzler and week four/five free choice. I have 26 WIPs right now. Some are terribly small, like a plastic canvas Clouds Factory Rapunzel (15*24 stitches) and some are massive, like Fairy Idyll (247*309 stitches). 26! Huge shock.

Anyways. Each of the prompts related to the Pensive and memories, and required 200 stitches. There was a bonus for a photo relating to prompt 5, collections. Mine of course was my Mira wall that hubs is carefully curating.

  1. Purple – I had nothing to hand, so I started two CF plastic ornaments for the gift box I plan to give Aurora – Rapunzel and Ursula
  2. My Best piece – Shakespeare’s Fairies
  3. A project with a house – new start again, the original Home of a Needleworker.
  4. A project with some food item I could give – this one could be controversial – I chose Prancer!
  5. Something I collect – Shakespeare’s Fairies again
  6. Something cursed – I chose Fairy Idyll, as that over one skin has been awful!
  7. Something I don’t want to end – Shakespeare’s Fairies. I love this design.

Anyway, take care & have a lovely week.

WIP Wednesday #258

Posted in cross stitch, goals, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stitch from stash, Teresa Wentzler by

Hello everyone! Sorry for not posting last week – Wednesday got away from me.

The last calendar week of August had two sets of Magical Stitches homework – 6 days completed Year Five, and we’ve started Year Six, the Half Blood Prince. There were three potential parts of Y5W9 – we had to post 5 WIPs before the Sunday; then from the Monday stitch 500 on whichever was picked (for Gryffindor it was WIP 4, which for me was Un Ricarmo per Rinascere). The last part was bonus; do 200 on each of the other four WIPs to get a total of 13 points. I managed them all – chose all Nora/Mirabilia so that I’d be fully engaged.

Y6 day1 was simple – 100 stitches for 1 point on our latest start. Unfortunately I didn’t pick up a needle during that 24 hour period (it has to start at midnight CST time, which is 5pm my time). Too much going on getting the house ready for the week ahead.

Y6W1 had three parts: 400 stitches in something we’ve made a Vow or promise about (for me, this was Mermaid of Atlantis as I wanted to finish her this year); 300 stitches in a design that starts with a letter in DURSLEY (I did 321 stitches in Un Ricarmo Per Rinascere) & lastly 300 stitches in something that gives us FOMO (the fear of missing out) to note Professor Slughorn’s return to teaching (I did 310 stitches in Fairy Idyll, a design I was so determined to have).

I’m now at the bead stage with MoA!

We’re now in Y6W2, and have to choose which path we will take – Light or Dark? We have to write an explanation, do 600 stitches in our chosen path and 400 in the other. There’s a bonus of 200 stitches in our most blingiest project (which for me would be Mermaid of Atlantis, with her Kreinik & beads) but as we are travelling this weekend, I’m going to use my new start & focus on the week tasks and some monthly EC tasks.

WIP Wednesday #257

Posted in cross stitch, family, friends, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

Hello everyone! We had a full on end of week, with time playing at the museum (find me a little boy who doesn’t like dinosaurs), at the beach and game day on Saturday. The Massey team Mase played in won comfortably, but Sho won opposition player of the day with his beautiful tackles. Great day in our household! Sunday was very odd once we got home from the airport and had an emptier house.

The #magicalstitches homework was in three parts, to celebrate the restoration of Dumbledore to Headmaster of the school. Part one was 300 stitches on the 11th WIP in my list, as 11 Death Eaters were captured…WIP 11 was finished, so I rolled over into WIP 12, The Guardian. Part two was 300 in any colour but pink to celebrate Umbridge leaving the school. I skipped the bonus task to focus on a monthly task and knocked off 500 stitches and beads in my Christmas sleighs.

Have a good week everyone – let me know a little something you’re grateful for. Gratitude shared increases happiness all round J

WIP Wednesday #256

Posted in Christmas, cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stash cache app, stitch from stash, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

Hello everyone! Apologies for not posting last week – we had a lot going on at home. By the time I remembered about the WIP it was Friday… this week we have a Japanese billet with us for the week so it’s been an adventure! Sho is lovely, coming out of his shell & has a good sense of humour. We will miss him on Sunday when we put him on the plane home to his family.

Week 6 involved Professor Umbridge coming into power and we had to stitch on something that we really wanted to quit, like the students wanted to quit Hogwarts. I wanted to quit Coffee Quaker, as I simply got tired of the over-one. In the end, taking it everywhere, I managed 1024 stitches. I didn’t stitch on anything else this week tho.

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Week 7 was O.W.L.S exam week – ick! We had a choice of going for E (exceeds expectations) with 100 stitched on each of the 7 Core/3 Elective subjects for 2pts, or O (outstanding) with 200 stitches giving 5pts. I went overboard again, ignoring the monthly tasks that I hadn’t completed, and worked on getting all O levels. Luckily we had done some “subject” things earlier in the year, so it wasn’t so hard to match up WIPs and subjects.

I picked a Jeannette Douglas design to cover both Astronomy (the quaker star) and History of Magic (words) and got a start & finish with Peace. This is in the 2012 JCS Christmas edition (available on the CD at 123Stitch & other retailers).

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Using the Emma Congdon Austen quote, I covered Herbology (growing Hellebore roses) and Potions (Hellebore is an ingredient in several potions) – not a finish, but over halfway now.

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I used Mirabillia Shakespeare’s Fairies for two other Core subjects – Charms (they summoned fireflies to light their way), & Defence Against the Dark Arts (one wears a diadem, like what Voldemort used as a horcrux).

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The last Core was transfiguration, and as Professor McGonnigal is shown in both her forms in the first chapter of book one, the obvious choice was Tapestry Cat.

Electives – I ignored Arithmancy (would have had to use Coffee Quaker) and Divination (I’m with Hermione, that subject sucks) and chose Ancient Runes (completed all the lettering in Home*Stitch*Ness Four Seasons), Care of Magical Creatures (Mirabilia Mermaid of Atlantis) and Muggle Studies (I stitched the Mary Rose, the Tudor ship that’s in Mermaid of Atlantis as I’d been watching a doco about it while stitching Care).

Hope you all have a lovely week – I’ll be back for next week then it’s WIPoclaypse.

WIP Wednesday #255

Posted in cross stitch, DIY home, goals, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash, stitching patterns by

Hello! It’s early evening for me, & I’m snuggled up, watching TV & stitching on this week’s #magicalstitches homework. The challenge is around Professor Umbridge becoming headmaster of Hogwarts, so we have to stitch on something we wanted to quit. Ouch.

Last week I chose the penalty challenge. We had to link our piece to how we would divert Umbridge & her squad from finding the Room of Requirement and the students who were studying in Hermione’s illegal Defense Against the Dark Arts club, or Dumbledore’s Army, as they became known.

I chose Shakespeare’s Fairies, making up how they were flitting around the castle, winding up Filch, Mrs Norris & encouraging Peeves to add to the chaos. I’ve just been marked so that story worked!

I’m now up to the wings & skin of the last fairy, and into the second page. Hooray!

And on a super cool note, Donovan is SOLD. One more bout of cleaning, lawn & garden maintenance and Si & I are done.

WIP Wednesday #253

Posted in cross stitch, goals, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Smalls SAL, stitch from stash, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

Hey everyone! Hope you’ve had a good week.

Last week’s #magicalstitches revolved around Professor Umbridge. If you could match the options, it was 1000 stitches total or if you chose penalty stitches, 2000. Eep. But 200 stitches a night is usually achievable for me so I tried to match.

  1. The colour Pink – Fairy Idyll’s bedlinens
  2. Tea or Teacups – I found an Emma Congdon/Stitchrovia series of smalls. Originally in Cross Stitch Crazy, they’re now available on her Etsy store.
  3. Kittens – which had to be domestic cats, so Tapestry Cat came back into play.
  4. A pattern name that starts with one of the letters R.U.L.E.S – I chose Shakespeare’s Fairies
  5. A designers’ name that starts with one of the letters S.T.R.I.C.T – here I had a couple of options with Teresa Wentztler (TC or Guardian) or one of the Sandra Cozzolino designed Mill Hill Santas.

Halfway thru the week, it was confirmed that you could use the designer name or the company it was released with, and it suddenly dawned on me that hello, it’s Nora CORBETT and C is in strict. Insert facepalm mode. So as Fairy Idyll was in front of me at the time, I knocked out another block there.

Family wise it’s a bit odd. Out of mum’s day-to-day loop, so it was a shock to find out she’d been so ill she’d been prescribed antibiotics. We had the same conversation three times on Monday night when I took up her morphine allocation. Plus with the SIL constantly going on about money. Its super hard not to bite back, but that would achieve nothing. Our focus has always been to give Mum a good life, to show our gratitude physically as well as verbally e.g. the ramps we built so she could ignore steps & use her Zimmer, altering the height of her ensuite basin so she didn’t have to bend, organise car servicing etc…I couldn’t tell you how much money or time we’ve spent, but hello, it’s Mum.

Sorry for the downer end.

WIP Wednesday #250

Posted in cross stitch, goals, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitch from stash, stitching patterns by

Morning everyone! Look at that, 250 posts in this series! I think that’s about the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything I didn’t give birth to, lol (excepting Si, of course).

Last week’s #magicalstitches homework was:

  1. Harry & Cedric touch the Cup at the same time – 200 on items that are touching. Shakespeare’s Fairies are holding hands… 204 STITCHES
  2. Voldemort attacks – 200 in grey or black. SF#2’s dress is grey… 206 STITCHES
  3. Cedric dies – 100 on a tombstone or graveyard scene. I have nothing here!
  4. Harry parents appear to help him – 200 on a piece you’ve had help with. Again, SF as I needed help to find the OOP chart… 225 STITCHES
  5. Mad Eye Moody & deceit – 200 on an ingredient in Polyjuice potion. SF again, as I used this in the Polyjuice task back in February. 207 STITCHES
  6. Harry donated his winnings to Fred & George for their joke shop – 100 on something that makes you laugh…think I’ll use Cloudsfactory Labyrinth… 113 STITCHES

The odd counts are because I tend not to leave a thread hanging, unless it leads to another page. That’s the half way mark on Shakespeare’s Fairies & I’m pretty excited about that. There is still a lot of Kreinik in the wings and the torso of fairy #2, but as I fold the fabric (when not working on the piece) I’m not going to stitch the sparklies until I’ve finished with the DMC. I’ve learnt my lesson there.

This week sees us move into Year Five – The Order of the Phoenix. Hooray! I’ve been looking forward to this book. It will be interesting to see how the weekly challenges match the book (the monthly are pretty spot on). This week I am working on the actual challenge, rather than the default.

  1. Boring neighbour – 300 on something that can get boring – I’m using Mermaid of Atlantis’ borders
  2. Unapproved Magic – 300 on a project that’s been suspended for 5 months or your oldest WIP – Teresa Wentzler’s Tapestry Cat certainly qualifies, as I started this in Christmas 2006!
  3. Dementor Attack – 300 on a project that has no faces – I thought I could do Four Seasons in NZ then suddenly realised the little sheep have one black stitch each for their head, so that won’t count. So it’s a new start, the Mill Hill Princess Carriage.

Hope you all have a good week!