Category Archives: Finished

Exchanges – More

TWGTG-ornie
As an addendum to yesterday Wednesday’s entry, the mail today brought my half of the Aussie TWBBers ornament exchange. Tannia stitched TWs Intermediate Whitework Ornament for me in great autumnal shades (click for more). Lovely – thanks Tannia 🙂

Edit: Did you see what happened there? I lost an entire day – here I thought I’d blogged yesterday, but it was in fact the day before. Hey! Somebody bring back my lost day!

Exchanges Galore

Way hey – a non-baby post! I have the glories of two exchanges to show off today.
mels-exchange1a

Melanie’s Exchange, much as it wanted for a better name, was an exchange I moderated on the SBEBB. An interesting kind of exchange – the first part entails sending a specialty thread and embellishment of some kind off to somebody. For the second part, you stitch a design using the thread/embellishment you receive in part 1, to send to a different somebody. Um… clear as mud? Anyway, for part 1, I received a Weeks Dye Works floss and some lovely beads from Chiara, with which I stitched this heart (which is part of a freebie by Liberty Street Designs for Thread Gatherer). I made it up into a little treat bag (clickety-click for more details) for Heather. The pics come courtesy of Heather, since it completely slipped my hormonal mind to take any!

mels-exchange5a
Also, yesterday’s mail brought my second package with it. I received my stitched piece from Paula. Paula designed this herself – a lovely needlebook and matching scissor fob (clickety-click to see). I love it! See the inside here, and the extra goodies here.

TW-fob
I also have pictures to share of a scissor fob I sent to Linda in an exchange between the Aussie TWBBers (clickety-click again for the details). I stitched the corner motifs from TW’s Castle Sampler, one on each side of the fob. I really had a hard time parting with this, I must stitch the same for myself one day. It was nice to be stitching something by Teresa again, it’s been a while.

Coming up next on my exchange calendar is the Friendship Exchange. My partner is Leslie, and I’ve come up with something I think/hope is perfect for her. I had to order it in, hopefully it gets here soon and I can make a start. After that, another scissor fob exchange, on the Rotation BB. After that… I need to take a break from ‘obligation’ stitching, because Small will be here, and I’ll be doing my best to rejoin the ranks of humanity!

Like a Machine, I Am!

Or so said OtherHalf last night… and before minds fall into the gutter 😛 , what he actually said was “you’re a cross-stitching machine”! Here’s why:

Friday-Sunday: Elizabeth’s Designs Little Leaf Designs – Butterfly
ED-butterfly
Sunday-Monday: Teresa Wentzler’s Intermediate Whitework Ornament (free on her website)
tw-int-whitework
Monday-Tuesday: Indigo Rose Four Little Hearts freebie
indigo-rose-freebie
Hopefully I’m about to become a dyeing machine again, because as of 8 this morning, I am in possession of a lot of floss 🙂 🙂 🙂

For Laura

And for me

And for all who loved and miss her

Iris-for-Laura

Hot Off the Q-Snaps

celticx
May I present Elizabeth’s Designs’ Celtic Cross, aka “My first finish of 2006, and about darned time” :giggle: I started this Monday night – a new start to celebrate finishing, of course, and finished it just now. I had to really buckle down at the end, I was seriously over that border. I didn’t time this, but I’d estimate there’s about 12-15 hours stitching in it.

Not sure exactly what I’ll stitch on next – I’m planning on joining in the Monday TW SALs, first off by stitching a fob for an exchange in the Aussie GTG group, and thereafter by starting the 12 Days ornaments. But I’m going to restrict those to Mondays, so I may very well treat myself to another new start tomorrow. Or even (shock!) pull out a long-ignored WIP.

Stitchy Eye Candy

Hope you all had a wonderful time doing whatever it is that you do at this time of year:smile:. We spent the last three days traversing Victoria like mad things, and are now trying to sleep it all off. Here’s a bit of an update on things stitchy in my life lately. Clickety-click on the images for more, of course 😉

mdwfsfrm

Item 1: The promised picture of my simply (but expensively) framed Waiting For Ships. She’s currently adorning the floor, while we contemplate potential paint colours and the state of our finances.

ED-LittleLeaf
Item 2: Probably my last finish of 2005 – Lily Pond, by Elizabeth’s Designs. I craved another finish a) before the end of the year, and b) before I go back to finish uni (on Jan 4). Thank goodness for these gorgeous Little Leaf designs, which are always handy for instant gratification! There’s more to this when you click through – the thumbnail is just of the centre of the design.

Chatelaine-Xmas

Item 3: What else I’ve been stitching – Christmas Mandala Garden, by Chatelaine. I started this one in January with last Christmas fresh in my mind. I dragged it out again after I put Petal Fairy away. Truthfully, it probably won’t see the light of day again until next Christmas. Maybe I’ll finish it then!

Alien Child

I was planning to show you our first pic of BabeMkII. But decided I shouldn’t, because frankly, I wouldn’t want to scare you. You might think I was planning to give birth to Alien Child!

Seriously. We got a tragic picture of Finn at the first scan, too. Why are the ultrasound techs (or in this case, the doctor) so uninterested in getting us a good picture? Sigh.

But. We saw fingers (5, on at least the hand we saw. Good sign, right?!), and a heartbeat, and what little else you can see at 11 weeks. It was all rather cute. Apart from the Alien-Child-ness of it all :giggle:

BBJam
So, instead of showing you a work in progress, let me present a HD instead. Ta Da! Blackberry Jam is done, done, done. It was a lot of fun… mostly. Perhaps with the exception of all that backstitching. Which made me stall for a while, but yesterday I finally decided to buckle down and finish. So click through for the whole kaboodle, and enjoy!

Belated HDs

I started my day with a wonderful package from Annette this morning. Poor girl must be quite sick of me – not only was I her partner for a whole year in the Seasonal Exchange, but then by chance she drew my name in the SBEBB Christmas Ornament Exchange as well :giggle: Anyway, the ornament she’s stitched for me is quite lovely, but will have to wait for another day (maybe tomorrow?) when I un-lazy myself for long enough to find the digital camera.

But.

SBEBB_Red1

It did remind me that I have been remiss in posting my own Exchange happy dances. So here we are. First up, here is the cushion I made for Annemiek in the Redwork Exchange. While I adore the design and the effect, I’m not sure I love stitching in one colour, there’s little to relieve the tedium. The fact that I stitched it in silk helped a little though 😉

SBEBB_Xmas2

Nextly, we have the ornament I stitched for Danielle. This is the Prairie Schooler ornament from the 2005 JCS Ornament Issue (thanks again Cathy 🙂 ) I really love the colours in this, and despite some curse words being muttered as I did the finishing (I cut the matboard insert a little bit too large, and a little bit skewiff), it turned out very nicely, if I do say so myself!

See… I do stitch! 😛

Secrets & SBQ

I happy danced today, for the first time in a while. (Actually, I prematurely danced for this piece two days ago on the Rotation BB, but I had some finishing touches to apply.) I’m also very, very close to another HD. Unfortunately, I can’t share either one with you 🙁 So you’ll probably think I’m making it up or something, and that I don’t really actually ever stitch. Not true, not true!

The piece I finished today was a lot of fun to stitch, and very quick. I’d forgotten how much fun little stuff can be. Next year will be the year I finally start a rotation, and I’m definitely including small projects amongst my favoured ginormous ones 🙂

Which brings us to this week’s SBQ:

When you have almost finished a pattern and start thinking about the next one to stitch, how do you select it? (a list, most recent purchase, etc.)

When I’m stitching anything, I always seem to be wanting to stitch something else. This is why a rotation so far hasn’t really worked for me – I’m a screamer! Also, because I mostly stitch large projects, it seems I never finish anything. So while I probably should move on to an existing WIP when I finally have a finish, I usually don’t. I usually like to reward myself with a new start, because there’s nothing in the world like a new start!

My one bit of discipline is I don’t let myself start something similar to a current WIP. So if I already have a large TW, a large Mirabilia, a large Patricia Allison, and a large whatever else design on the go, I won’t let myself start another something large from those designers until I finish the one I’m working on. So lately, if I have a finish, I’ve been looking to start something smallish from my kitted up stash. While I don’t have an enormous backlog of fully kitted projects, I do have a nice selection, and I’ve got a few smaller projects waiting in the wings.

Ultimately though, what dictates what I start is a wallow in my stash. I love that – I go and put away whatever I’ve used for that finished project, and play in all my stuff for a while, and something usually jumps out and shouts “stitch ME” :giggle: Often I want to start something I’ve been given – if purely to prove to the giver that yes, I do actually want to stitch what you gave me 😆 I have a few charts in that category right now, and I of course want to start them all, right now!

Le sigh.

Wish I was stitching…

Break Out The Bubbly

I’m an Aunt! Well, by marriage, anyway, but it’s just as good. OtherHalf’s first nephew was born late last night. Finn’s first cousin on any side of the family, young Aidan reluctantly made his appearance after a torturous list of obstetrical interventions (his mum is looking astonishingly well and active, doesn’t resemble at all the medicated zombie I was for 36 hours after my own caesarian). He’s a lovely baby, with his dad’s nose and his mum’s lips – no eyes to be seen, he was a tired little tacker this evening. I finished off this tonight before we went to visit – with name and birthdate below the house, it looks lovely. I have tentatively picked out a mount colour and some frame moulding, and I’ll be framing it sometime next week, if all goes according to plan.