Category Archives: Finished

Hardanger-y Goodness

With good intentions, I sat down after my last finish to work on an existing WIP – the Wee Beasties dragonfly. I think I managed about three hours or so before I gave in to the temptation to start something new instead :giggle: To be honest, that dragonfly is not fun stitching. It’s full of finicky little fractional stitches and lots of blending filament. I need more concentration to work on it than I usually have in the evening after the kiddos are asleep, so it’s slow going at the moment.

So, I started, and then finished, Teenie Hardanger I by The Sweetheart Tree, instead. Pretty, no? The chart for this was a gift from my Secret Stitcher last year, Allie. She sent me II and III as well (among other wonderful things).

Teenie-Hardanger-I-lg

I’m much happier with my cutting this time. Well. Except for that one bit. That bit where I snipped one thread too many. Whoops! I ended up having to reweave a piece of linen so that I could do the woven bar properly. But all’s well that ends well, hey?

Hardanger-y goodness part two is this:
HardangerExchange-Haze

Haze stitched me this lovely candle wrap and mat for the Hardanger exchange on the Rotation BB. It’s taken a little while to arrive, it’s been on a bit of a world cruise, actually 🙂 Thanks Haze, I love it!

A Wee Finish

Many moons ago, I made the Big List, coming clean about my WIPs. I also planned to start a Rotation in order to get my number of WIPs under 10. Ha! Every time the word ‘rotation’ is mentioned, I seem to run screaming. In fact, I’m convinced it’s what causes stitching slumps (for me)!

Nevertheless, I have managed to finish three from the list since then – Kaitlin, Bumblebee, and just yesterday I put the final stitches in the November Sampler Accent by Periwinkle Promises. See… Fridays the 13th aren’t all bad :giggle:

November Sampler Accent

Annette gifted me with this design in a Seasonal Exchange a while back. I’m so glad I’ve got around to finishing it, it’s lovely. I plan to finish this as described in the instructions – as a little tasselled cushion.

In a little bit of a departure for me, I actually stitched the personalisation details. I changed it a little bit, as I didn’t like the way the year was originally split. I think my way works nicely.

Now… would anybody out there like to have this chart and the leftover silk threads it came with? (The threads are probably not enough to finish the design a second time). Just say the word and I’ll drop it in the mail for you 🙂

Hmmm… what to stitch on next…?

Show & Tell

Far overdue, may I show you in full the hardanger exchange which I stitched for Jenny. You can see it hanging on the wall in her post – here’s a slightly different angle for interest:
Hardanger Exchange

Or, you can get up close and personal with the stitching here. Although I thought finishing it as a ‘wall ornament’ was kind of uninspired (hey, I was really tired!), I was really happy with the quality of my finishing. I have a bag (or, um, three) of finished-but-not-finished projects which I’d really like to start making a dent in – Anne and Karen have started up the Focus on Finishing blog, have you seen it? That should provide me with some inspiration.

The reason I’ve taken so long to post this is because my ‘spare’ time (insert maniacal laugh here) has been taken up with Suz’s UFO for the Round Robin. She sent around Black Swan’s Lily Pond Dreams. Confetti stitching ahoy! It kicked my butt, and once again I didn’t achieve as much as I would have liked. Here are the before ‘n’ afters, clickable for biggering.
UFO-RR-Suz-1UFO-RR-Suz-2

And, just in case you aren’t all pictured out, here are pics of the three pay-it-forward packages that I know have arrived. (Should check up on the other two – Angi, Debbi, are yours there yet?). I dyed a fat 1/8 of linen or evenweave, and some stranded cotton (plus a perle for Jenna) for each person in their colour preferences. So far, so good, everyone seems to like these:

For Jenna
PIF-Jenna
For Tash
PIF-Tash
For Jinger
PIF-Jinger

Phew! I think that’s about it.

Happy Dance #1/07

We’re back! We had a great time, the small people were both (relatively) well behaved, and not even the 4am-faulty-car-horn incident (not our car) on the first night, and the blustery oh-heck-will-those-trees-drop-their-limbs-on-the-tent-? weather on the second night could ruin our happy-camper-spirits. It was nice to be back in a tent – a brand spanking new one, what’s more 🙂 Our next expedition is the Port Fairy folk festival over the long weekend in March. The enjoyment factor of that festival is always heavily dependent on the weather, so all fingers are crossed.

Hardanger-Exchange-tWe spent a couple of nights at my father-in-law’s place after the festival ended, where I was able to (finally) get a move on my Hardanger Exchange piece (an exchange on the Rotation BB). I’ve dilly-dallied over this for so long (mailing date was today), but finally today I had my first HD of 2007. I didn’t quite get it finished into something yet, so it will still be delayed a bit, but hopefully I’ll have it in the mail by Friday. I can’t show you the whole thing yet, obviously, but I wanted to show a sneak preview, simply because this is the first time I’ve done ‘real’ Hardanger – I’ve never done woven bars and Dove’s eyes before, just Kloster blocks and a little bit of cutting. Obviously my cutting needs work to get those little end bits right off, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, nonetheless. The thread and fabric used here are both my hand-dyes (though this fabric turned out almost solid, which is why I used it for this). Can’t wait to show you the whole thing once it reaches its destination.

Meet Kaitlin

Kaitlin
I finally sat down this morning to finish off Miss Kaitlin (while giving Finn some lessons in addition, using poker chips – something about that seems not quite right somehow!) As I backstitched the white design on her dress, I realised why I didn’t finish this off before. That is the most finicky little bit of backstitching I’ve ever done – two strands on 32-count (I think), lots of odd little stitches in an area where there’s already a lot of stitching (and I stitched this in the days when I did ¾ stitches instead of half stitches, so there’s added bulk). Ick. Anyway, she’s done now. I ripped out the ‘Kaitlin’ beneath her. I’ll either stitch ‘Niamh’ later, or nothing at all, depending on what she ends up as.

Buzzzz

The last few mornings, while Finn has been watching a bit of ABCKids, and Niamh has been sleeping (or ‘notsleeping’, as the case sometimes is), I have been doing the dishesfolding the laundrylearning to pole dance… stitching, yay! I finished up my MiraBee this morning:

MiraBee-finished

Also, I wanted to show off my new scissors. I won these in Jenna’s Great Scissor Giveaway 🙂 Aren’t they lovely? They are now elegantly attired in a scissor fob made for me by Ruth (Graciella) in an exchange on the TWBB a couple of years back. Thank you Jenna, that was such a wonderful thing to do!

Scissors + Fob

Hatched at Last

TW-Hatched-3
It feels like so long since I’ve had a happy dance just for me. It’s just a wee one, but here it is – my finished You Were Hatched by Teresa Wentzler. Some of you may recall that Niamh ‘claimed’ this design, by deciding to arrive as I was stitching on it in the beginning. But it’s mine, I think. It’s a birth piece for me, not for her 🙂 I have adored this design since I first saw it, so I’m really pleased to have finished it. I have toyed with the idea of making it into a wall hanging, but I’m not sure yet.

ScissorFobExchange1
In other stitchy news, I have pics to share from the recent Scissor Fob Exchange on the Rotation BB. This first one is the fob I stitched for Allie, who, coincidentally, was my (very generous) Secret Stitcher in the last SS round. I hope to be starting one of the projects she sent me very soon. I can’t for the life of me remember the details of this design – it was a little kit I received from Annette in return for some CSS help I gave her. Those Colonial Knots making up the bee sent me a bit bonkers, but I love the end result.

ScissorFobExchange2b
And this is what I received in the exchange – a gorgeous Sweetheart Tree fob stitched for me by Jenny, plus some fiber-bling in my favourite colours! Thanks Jenny 🙂

Behold

MelaniesExchange2
My first ever proper grown-up needleroll! With hemstitch and a French seam and everything 🙂 Okay, so the hemstitch needs work, and I stuffed up my French seam slightly (even though I know how to do that). But still, it came out pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

I stitched this for Karen after she was let down in “Melanie’s exchange”. It’s stitched with one of my hand-dyes, delica beads to match, and some plain ol’ dmc greens. This is a free design – Victorian Silk Needleroll by Liz Navickas, and you can find it on Kreinik’s site, here. It was loads of fun to stitch. I was so unsure about the colours I chose, but they grew and grew on me as I was stitching… so much that I almost wanted to keep it for myself! I may stitch it again some time.

Two Cats

FshipExchange-CC

I was so caught up in my triumphant night of sleep (which has not been since repeated, and lets not talk about it) the other day that I forgot to post a happy dance – Leslie received her Friendship Exchange from me, so I can now show you a pic. The photo comes courtesy of Leslie, since I forgot to take a picture (for the second time in a row now). This is Calico Crossroads ‘Tale of two Kitties’, dedicated to Leslie’s two lovely black furkids, Zoe and Cooper. Check them out sitting on the windowsill in this post on Leslie’s blog. A perfect match for this design, don’t you think?!

I framed this up into a standard sized frame (without glass, obviously, since it had to travel the world) – I haven’t done any custom framing in ages – long enough that my DIY framing shop has started sending me notices about taking a refresher course. I’d love to have the space and money to set up my own framing equipment, but somehow I don’t think that will happen in the forseeable future. Meanwhile, click on the pic for a closer look – and try and forgive me the carried threads that are visible 😳

Friendship Exchange

Well, I finally posted off my exchange for Leslie this morning… ten days late 😳 I feel a little guilty about that, especially given my recent gripe about non-participating-participators (one disappearing act has turned into two disappearing acts, by the way, but I’m trying to let it go).

Anyway, I digress. I’m excited by the fact that was my first post-Niamh finish (and start)! I’ve also finished the scissor fob for my next exchange, but I have to confess that was a pre-Niamh finish. I hadn’t even received details of my exchangee, but it turns out I picked a great design for the person I’m sending to (based on her wishlist, anyway). Pictures, of course, will have to wait until each gift is received.

fship-exchange2
I also received Leslie’s gift to me, a couple of days ago – click to see what a beautiful job of one of Mirabilia’s cherubs she did for me. Leslie also included The Sweetheart Tree’s Baby Shamrocks Fob with embellishments, and a skein of GAST and one of Kreinik Silk Mori. What a delicious mail day!