Works in progress, a new start and a finish!

Hi everyone, thankyou for your lovely comments on my last post about my sons bithday, time certainly does fly!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year, we visited England and travelled around a bit, we returned on Wednesday this week and we are very glad to be home.

I thought I would start off the new year with photos of my recent framing, I finished these quite a while ago but I am happy to have them framed, and as you can Santa's Village is finally finished, I am so pleased.  

Santa's Village progress and another Father Christmas mug rug finished

Hi everyone, here is my latest progress on Santa's Village, I have started stitching the next house and then I only have two houses after that to finish. I am quite pleased with it, I showed it to my sister the other day and she loved it!

Country Cottage Needlework and Santa's Village

Hi everyone, I have been stitching Santa's Village last week and I managed to stitch the one for August, I have another ready to go but I am stitching on a large Mirabilia project at he moment so it may have to wait until I am in the mood to stitch this again.

Santa's Village update

Hi everyone, here is my update on Santa's Village, I think it is coming along nicely bit still need to speed up a bit as I would like to ensure I can do one each month, I just need to do the 6th cottage for June. 

I am loving the colours on this, I think it will look fabulous when all the cottages are stitched and it is finally framed.  

Until next time - Happy Stitching!

Small Marie Antoinette giveaway, work in progress and gifts from my sister.

Hi everyone, apologies for the delay since my last post, I have been very busy helping my husband landscape the front garden, I have found muscles I did not know I had! We decided to remove a small picket fence and replace it with a pretty hedge, it looks much nicer now but obviously I had no time to spend in my craft room.

Country Cottage Needlework Santa's Village progress.

Hi everyone, here is my latest progress on Country Cottage Needlework Santa's Village, I am hoping to adhere to stitching one cottage a month, however I do seem to keep making mistakes and having to unpick my stitches on this one! I noticed that the bottom scroll had a gap between the first and the second house and I had to re-do the stitches, but I am loving the way it is coming along, the colours are so bright.

I am loving my Photoshop Elements 11 software, I have been designing  another free digital gift tag,  my latest is a corset/floral designed gift tag using old images and recolouring them, these will be available this week on Freebie Friday, so don't forget to pop back to download your freebie!   

Until next time - Happy Stitching! 

Santa's Village cross stitch progress and first pictures of my craft room

Hi everyone, here is an update on Santa's Village, I have just finished the second cottage and have begun to stitch the next one. I have not had chance to do much stitching because I have been overseeing the craft room installation, I was hoping to have finished the third cottage by now, however, it just means I need to stitch the next one a little faster! I love the way it looks on this grey fabric, it is quite soft on the eye.  

Craft room update 

My craft room is now installed, I have had a few plug sockets moved which means I need to paint over the walls in some areas, once I have done that I will be choosing new curtains and a new chair. 

It did not take me long to empty the room because everything was already in boxes, however, it did take me much longer to fill it again and I have still a bit more to do, once everything is in its place and the room has been repainted I should be ready to show photos and, hopefully, a video! That may take some time, so, I have taken photos of the display cupboard with the LED lights inside for you to take a peek at. (photos below)

I have organised all my craft things into their own drawers and cupboards, it is so much easier to access my things now and be able to create in this lovely room.  I have a number of things I am looking forward to designing over the next few weeks and then showing on my blog.     

Stitching news

When I was sorting through all of my craft room boxes I found some unfinished projects that I forgot I had, one design only needs  a few more stitches and quite  a bit of back stitch to finish it. The design is a Noah's Ark scene stitched on Aida over a small count so it looks quite lovely, hopefully I should be showing that soon. 

I also found a fully finished cross stitch that I forget to frame, it is  a Mirabillia Fairy design, I can't believe I actually forgot to get it framed!  

Poinsettia Place by Country Cottage Needlework

Some of these projects were exchange pieces, therefore not everything in the photographs has been stitched by me, if you ever did an exchange with me you just may see it below - can you spot any of your stitching?     

A big welcome to all of my new followers, until next time - Happy Stitching! 

Country Cottage Needlework - Santa's Village

 

 

Hi everyone, look what arrived in the post, one of my favourite pattern designers have created this lovely cross stitch design called Santa's Village.  

I am looking forward to stitching this Country Cottage Needlework , I ordered the full set of these patterns from The Patchwork Rabbit, one will be delivered every month until December 2103.

I ordered the fabric large enough to stitch them all on one piece of fabric, although you can stitch them separately if you wish. DMC threads  are used together with speciality threads and a pretty little button is added to the mix every month. You have no idea what the other designs look like until they arrive, it is a real Christmas Surprise!

 

Please note: I am unable to access my computer until January, therefore I have disabled comments temporarily on the remaining posts for this year, I will resume commenting in 2013, This and other posts are set automatically.     

Comments for this post are now open.

 

 

Happy Stitching - until next time!



LHN Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe work in progress and new stash.

Mmmmm Chocolate is one of my favourite things, especially when it is designed by Little House Needleworks, Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe! I have stitched more on this since I took the photo, so hopefully I will have this finished at the weekend. It has been such a quick stitch but I have really enjoyed stitching it, the colours are lovely. 

I have also been buying some stash, I chose some linen and another selection of Country Cottage and Little House Needleworks patterns. I particularly like the Rosie pattern below, she is just so cute, I think that will be my next project.

Le Boutique and The Flower Shop

And

The Needlework Shop and Bakery

I also needed some new linen, I bought red, black, pale blue and pink, I have some ideas for the black as I am working on a black and white stitched piece at the moment, it has been a work in progress for quite a while, the black linen is to make accessories to match. I bought the Christmas Red as I am planning to make some red pieces for Christmas this year.   

 

 Other stitching news

I have received some photos recently of the projects that some of my readers have stitched using my patterns, I am hoping to show those in my next post.

 Today I was cutting out the pattern for a new dress I am making so I didn't get much cross stitching done but I have been thinking about my third blog anniversary giveaway gift that I am planning for July, hopefully I can rustle up something that you will all like!

Welcome to all of my new followers and thankyou for all of your comments, they are really appreciated!

Until next time, happy stitching!       



My birthday gifts and work in progress on Little House Needleworks.

Hi everyone, it was my birthday yesterday (Saturday 2nd April) and I received these lovely patterns from members of my family, these included  Little House Needleworks, Country Cottage Needleworks and Sue Hillis Designs and I am really looking forward to starting them. I think my favourite is the Chocolate Shoppe,  I may start stitching that one over the next few days.

I loved this pattern, it has been on my wish list blog, my sister very kindly bought me this together with The Cafe pattern - thanks Sis!   

Here is my progress on Little House Neighbourhood, I managed to stitch the border and start the second panel by stitching the tree in the centre and the house roof on the right.

Other stitching news

I was hoping to finish another tutorial this week for my tutorials blog but I got busy with other things, I am hoping to get on with finishing the tutorial over the next week or so.

Welcome to my new followers, thankyou for the lovely comments, I really appreciate them all.

Happy stitching!

Ice Cream Sundae finished!

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well and doing lots of stitching!

Here is my completed Country Cottage Needlework - Ice Cream Sundae finish, it was such an easy stitch, I think I am going to be doing quite a few of these designs as I really enjoyed stitching this.

Don't you think the colours are just yummy?

I have posted quite a few pictures for you to get a good close up view and get a real feel for the design.

   

Gosh, I could just eat some Ice Cream!

Mmmmmm!

You can buy the pattern from Sew and So in England here

and here in America, just scroll down the pages and you will find the pattern.

Stitching news 

It looks like my exchange to Yana has got lost in the post, I am sooooo disappointed. I am going to wait a couple more weeks to see if it finally arrives, if not I shall have to make another one, which is so annoying!

I have started another exchange, but this one is for a lady in England, I do not think I will be as worried when I send that, but I will be using recorded delivery!  

Welcome to all of my new followers this week, I hope you enjoy your visits as much as I enjoy posting the photographs of my cross stitching.

Have a happy stitchy week, thankyou for your visit!

Stitching news and gifts.

Hi everyone, it has been quite a while since my last post as I  have been quite busy over the last few weeks!

Here is my work in progress on Country Cottage Needleworks. I have actually worked on this since I took this picture and it is now nearly finished!    

More pictures below

I have a couple of private exchanges arranged over the next few months which should be fun, I have just received one from my friend Yana in Russia, although I am going to wait until my next post to show the pictures, just wait until you see them, as the gifts Yana sent are  gorgeous!  I sent Yana's exchange three weeks ago and she has not received it yet, but Yana has assured me that sometimes parcels can take 4 weeks from England, fingers crossed that it arrives safely.   

I had a lovely 50th birthday, I received a beautiful gift from Jill at Purple Peacock blog here, Jill is so generous, I was totally amazed at the beautiful goodies Jill sent me, thankyou so much Jill!

Enclosed were some gorgeous silk threads, pins and needles and some tatting thread.

Here are the threads close up, they are lovely colours!

Here is a picture of the beautiful card my friend Diane sent to me, isn't it lovely!

And this is the lovely bouquet of flowers my son sent to me.

My husband bought me a beautiful watch.

Here is a lovely biscornu made by Connie using one of my patterns, it actually is a pattern for a little pillow but Connie had a good idea to make it into a biscornu - it has turned out beautiful don't you think?  

 

This is the back of the biscornu, this part was designed by Connie.

You can find Connies blog here

Until next time, have a lovely stitchy week!

 

Stitching news

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well, it has been a while since my last post as I have been quite busy lately.

Stitching News

Jane sent me this lovely mail art gift to me, it was a total surprise!  

It was full of these lovely threads and a threadwinder, thankyou Jane I shall treasure this!   

I have started stitching this Country Cottage Needlework design that my son bought 

me for Mothers Day. 

Here are some close up pictures.

I have just one more photo to show of a biscornu that my friend Connie has made, but I will show that in my next post.

I am going away for a couple of days to celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary and my 50th birthday, I am quite looking forward to the celebrations, we are going to one of  my favourite parts of the country - Bath.

We are having lunch at the Pump Rooms in Bath where Jane Austen used to visit quite regularly, I will update you on my return, and hopefully I will have some nice photographs to show you all.  

Happy stitching everyone!