Quilted needlebook, pinkeep and strawberry, also winner of giveaway announced.

Hi everyone, I finally managed to get some stitching done  in my craft room and here is what I have been making, a quilted needlebook, matching pinkeep and felt strawberry. I designed the pattern based on the cross stitch sewing machine pattern I designed a while ago. I stitched it on white fabric and then chose this wine coloured fabric with cream polka dots but then realised I should have stitched the design onto cream fabric, but hey, never mind it  will just have to do!

My first design has been published and my latest felt stitching.

Hi everyone, I was going through some of my photos and saw that I had not published this needlework set I made in August, it is made from blue felt and stitched with spider web roses and mill hill beads, it is one of my own designs.

Here is the inside of the needlebook and the reverse side of the pillow

Stitching news.

I was very excited this week when I visited the local book store, I saw that my first design had been published in this months World Of Cross Stitching Magazine, it was on the front cover! This has been in the planning stage for some months but I did not want to say anything until it actually happened.

Unfortunately, my magazine has not yet arrived in the post, it should be arriving any day now, when it does I can show the magazine on my blog and you can see the Christmas design that I stitched, you will have to buy the magazine though if you wish to stitch the pattern.

I designed and stitched a round Christmas Ornament with swarovski crystals attached.  

I am still stitching Rosey Posie from Little House Needleworks, she is looking very cute and I should have a photo for you soon.

Welcome to all of my new followers.

Happy stitching, until next time! 

Paris giveaway winner and look what arrived for me!!!!!!

Hi everyone, apologies for the delay, someone had hacked into my blog and set a divert to another website, this prevented me from announcing my giveaway winner. Thankfully I managed to fix it quickly after searching in my widgets to see if I could find it, sure enough it was there!

I had to do an awful lot of reading on the internet to find out how to solve the problem.

I have a couple of things to tell you about but first up is the winner of my Paris giveaway, I set up the draw using the old fashioned way of folding up tiny bits of paper everytime I recieved a comment.

The winner is ................................

Lynn from Kearnel's Corner blog 

Congratulations Lynn, you get everyting in the photo below!

Please email me your address details and I will send it to you before the end of next week, however, it could be sooner, depends when I manage to get to the post office.   

Thankyou to everyone who entered and a warm welcome to all of my new followers, I did try to reply to everyone, however some of you did not leave me a way to reply to you, but thanks for your lovely comments I really appreciated them all! 

My next giveaway!

My next giveaway will be in the middle of September, it will not be stitch related.

I have been asked by My Memories Suite to host a digital scrapbooking software freebie on this site, I have never used it before until now and all I can say is that it is really easy to use and I now know what all those digital scrapbboking folders were for! lol

I will be showing some photo examples and be giving away one of these Digital Software programmes free to one lucky reader of my blog, so keep your eyes open for that!      

A gift to myself 

Although I love sewing I think sometimes it is nice to have someone else make something for me as a special treat, when I saw this pillow and gift tags (top photo) I decided to do just that!

It arrived a few weeks ago, it was beautifully wrapped and it was like having Christmas in August!

I bought this from a talented blogger who also happens to be called Lynn, she has a beautiful blog at

Teacup Stitches blog here but I bought this from Lynn's Etsy shop here, go check it out, be warned,  Lynn sells her pillows fast!

There is a close up photo of the pillow below, check out the lovely diamante heart, it's so cute!

Thankyou Lynn, it was such a treat to receive this in the post, I know I will order from you again soon!

Talking of pillows, I have made this black and white pillow after taking inspiration from Lynn!

This beautiful lady image was printed on cotton fabric and then embroidered with french knots in lilac and pink to give it some colour, I also put a swarovski crystal on each flower in the corner.

 That's it for this week, happy stitching everyone, until next time! 

Another box finish and accessories to match

Hi everyone, I have finally finished this box and I am quite pleased with the result, inside there are a little collection of accessories of which you can see in the photo's below.

I have also heard from Lisa that she has received my Angel stitching for the Hooked on Exchange Blog, I will show that in my next post but here is the gift all wrapped up. Lisa said she loved the wrapping and could not wait to see what was inside! I must say, I usually like to make a special effort with the wrapping because I think it makes it more exciting for the recipient.    

A note for Angela who left a message asking about the alphabet pattern.  

Angela, you requested the alphabet pattern, however I could not reply to your email because it was set as 'no reply', you also don't appear to have a blog, if you send me your email address I will gladly send you the alphabet pattern, it is a freebie!

I finished the box in silk dupion and stitched the cross stitch in DMC 964. If you would like the pattern it is a freebie here from the Swappons blog, I have shown the cross stitch piece before but not fully finished until now. If you scroll down to the bottom on the swappons page you can click on the red Adobe PDF link on the right hand side and gain access to the freebie pattern. 

I decided to stitch the accessories using small sections of the pattern and then designed and stitched the silk strawberry trimmed with mill hill beads and pink spider web roses. I am hoping to draw the pattern for the strawberry and upload  to my blog for everyone to have access to it...... not sure when though, hopefully sometime soon.  

Here are the other photo's of the box and contents, I do hope you like them!

You can see my tutorial showing how to make a box on my tutorials blog here, it is not exactly the same inside but I have just added a couple of separating panels to the box below.

I trimmed the box with my favourite swarovski crystals.

I added this little embroidered padded section to the inside lid to hold my needles or pins.

Embroidered strawberry - my own design.

I made the butterfly pins after making them for another gift recently, I liked them so much I made some for myself!   

Here is the pinkeep trimmed around the edge with swarovski crystals of course!

I am currently working on my Little House Neighbourhood, hopefully I can show you some progress on my next post.

Welcome to all of my new followers and thankyou for all of your lovely comments!

Happy stitching!

Stitching news, freshly made scones and I won a giveaway!

I have had a busy couple of weeks stitching, my first finish was a box that I made for my tutorial on my tutorials blog, I then designed and stitched this silk dupion strawberry, decorated it with spider web roses and mill hill beads. My third project was a stitch red exchange for the Hooked on Exchanging group, I offered to be an Angel Stitcher for one lady who had not received her gift, obviously I cannot show this yet, however, I send it tomorrow ( Tuesday ) and as soon as it arrives I will show the photo's.

I had some wonderful news today, I won my first ever giveaway from Lydia's Treasure blog here.

Here are the photo's from Lisa's blog, I just loved it as soon as I saw it, I love her face, I think it is cute! 

Thankyou Lisa, I will treasure her.

 Lisa makes some beautiful quilts and lots of other handmade gifts, check out her blog, you will not be disappointed!

Here is the box finish, you can see the tutorials for this on my tutorials blog here

A close up photo of the strawberry I made to go inside the box.

After all of that stitching I decided to make some scones today, I added butter and strawberry jam and made a cup of English afternoon tea - bliss!!!!

Welcome to my new followers, thankyou for all of your lovely comments!

Happy stitching!