Roses in bloom

It may be below freezing outside (still no bloody snow though!) but indoors I have roses in bloom :-)

This Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired design is from an old copy of The World of Cross Stitching magazine. I finished the stitching this lunch time and a little hunt through my stash found co-ordinating fabric (from a charm pack of Origins) and trims.

I ended up not using the trim due to human error technical difficulties :-)

I don't think it is any the worse for the lack of a trim though.
It's just the right size for a pin cushion.
Now, I already have a pin cushion, so how would you like to have it?

Interested? Just let me know.

If more than one person is interested, I'll draw a name out of the hat on sunday evening.

Time to choose what to start stitching next. I love this bit :-) I'll let you know what I choose.

Sadie x

Stash building

Hello :-)

It's very cold here today, but still no sign of any snow. Maybe we'll get some this weekend, fingers crossed!

I have been using up the last of my christmas money to build my stash a little.

Charm packs l-r : Central Park, Terrain x2, Sherbet Pips and Boo to You.

I would love to make a Sherbet Pips quilt this year so I've also started stashing some yardage too.
Pieces vary in size from fat eighth to yard cuts.

Some time ago I won a wonderful giveaway hosted by Katie, the prize was a charm pack of Hideaway and 5 Hideaway FQs. This year I'd also love to make a quilt using these fabrics, with the main colour being the yellow, so I bought the cuts below from Etsy, half yards.
Aren't the deer cute!

Last up for quilting fabrics are some FQ's I bought 'just because'. I have nothing specific in mind for them, apart from the ladybirds, they are for something for DD Caitlin.
Just before christmas, I sold a load of my christmas cross stitch patterns on ebay, I used the money I made to buy some more cross stitch charts :-) :-) :-) :-)

Two Lizzie*Kate charts, both bought for less that £4 in total . . . . . .
. . . . and ABC Halloween also by Lizzie*Kate. I bought the chart and floss together on ebay for less than a third of the retail price :-) happy days indeed, which meant that I had money left over to buy the required fabric and now I'm all set to go.
Now my purse is empty until my birthday in April, but who can be sad when I have all this loveliness to drool over :-)

Stay warm,

Sadie x

Clear and crisp

Today started off crisp and clear with a beautiful sunrise. I took this picture from the wall at the bottom of our garden this morning. I braved the heavy frost in my nightgown, a huge cardigan, thick hiking socks and a pair of cowboy boots. I must have been quite a sight for any neighbours who may have happened to be looking out of their windows!

One thing our day lacked was snow. DS Cameron is desperate for snow. He is beside himself with nervous energy and has developed the habit of looking up the weather forecast at regular intervals during the day in the hopes that they will tell of coming bounties of snow. I hope we do get some soon, he's not the only one who enjoys sledging!

We did have some cross stitched snow though.

Kipper is finished :-)
The backstitching really brings him to life I think. He's now all safely packaged up ready to be posted off to LoveQuiltsUK on monday morning to be made into a quilt for a lovely wee boy called Jack. I hope Jack will love Kipper just as much as I have loved stitching him.

With Kipper done and dusted, it was time for a new start :-) here are the raw materials for my next start.
It's a small design from an old issue of The World of Cross Stitching. The design is inspired by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and will most likely be a pin cushion.

Just time to squeeze in a little more stitching before heading off to bed.

Night night.

Sadie x

Kipper the Dog

Hi everyone :-)

Hope you are all keeping warm and well. It's so cold here today! I've lit the fire and as soon as I'm finished with this blog post I'm off to sit in front of it and stitch :-)

Thanks for all the lovely new year wishes on my last post, they are much appreciated x

I've spent the last week or two working on this adorable little chap.

It's Kipper the Dog and he's from an old issue of Cross Stitch Crazy. I'm stitching him for a little boy called Jack for LoveQuilts UK. There is not too much stitching left to do and then it is onto the backstitching.

I have another couple of cross stitch projects lined up for the coming months, I'm going to try to get them kitted up from my stash this weekend, then I can share some pics :-)

Short and sweet today, the fire is calling my name!

Sadie x

Easing in

Hi peeps :-)

Wishing you all the best for the coming year, may it be filled with happiness, love and joy.

I hope you all had a wonderful christmas, ours was very relaxed and chilled out this year, no huge parties hosted or attended, just quality time with family and friends. And food. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of food! LOL

Was Santa good to you? Did he fill your stocking with lots of stitchy goodness?

Santa AKA the hubs, bought me two books, Craft by Kirstie Allsopp and sew! by Cath Kidston. I have not picked out anything specific to make yet, but I have spent many a happy hour drooling over them contentedly.

He also gave me a bottle of my favourite perfume, a DVD, a(nother) book and a Toblerone, which may or may not have been eaten by 7pm on Christmas day!

Spoiled indeed, I must have been good this year!

I finished the stitching on a few more ornaments at the start of december, but I didn't get them made into actual, hang on the tree, ornaments. Oops. I also finished up an exchange ornament and my first charity square for LoveQuiltsUK. After that, I didn't pick up a needle until a couple of nights ago. No notion whatsoever.

Let's get to the pics shall we :-)

Every year my mum and I look through the ornament issue of JCS and rate/slate all the designs, it's great fun! Then mum picks out her favourite and I stitch it for her. This is the one she picked out for 2011.

I ran out of stitchy steam before I finished it though so mum didn't get her ornament this year. Awwwwww.

I know, I'm a terrible daughter, but on the bright side you'll get two ornaments this year mum :-) Love you! x x x x x x x x x

Also from the JCS christmas issue is Christmas Cat Tree by Brittercup Designs. I stitched this one for our tree, because this is where you can usually find our cat sat at christmas time.
Another one for the home tree is Joyeux Noel from L*K Tiny Tidings XV. I'm not sure if it might be too big for a tree ornament though so it could end up as a flatfold maybe!?!

Next up is my square for LoveQuiltsUK. This little guy is a Margaret Sherry design from CrossStitcher magazine. Isn't he adorable! (you can click on the picture for a better look if you want!)
I've just signed up for my next square :-) If you would like more info about LoveQuiltsUK and the wonderful work they do go here. They are always happy to have new stitchers and quilters to help out, and you can do as little or as much as you want.

Lastly here is the ornament I sent out for Marie P in the Christmas ornament exchange on HoE.
It's a cute little freebie from Sandy over at Stitchin' and Life in a Small Town.

Okay then, how about we leave it there for now. I haven't blogged for two months, better ease in gently, wouldn't want to overtax myself! LOL

Sadie x

Ornament beginnings

It's been awfully quiet around here recently hasn't it. Day to day happenings have kept me away from my blog. Some personal issues have been causing considerable stress on my part and so I have not been able to relax enough to enjoy any form of sewing or crafting for a couple of months. Thankfully, some of those issues have now been resolved and I have the urge to pick up a needle once again.

Disclaimer

Those of a nervous disposition may want to return to this post after Thanksgiving.

It's all christmas, christmas, christmas from here!

In an effort to try to kick start my stitching mojo, I took part in a christmas ornament exchange on HoE.

This is the wonderful ornament I received from Diana. She designed this herself, and it is beautifully stitched and finished. If you hop on over to her blog, Diana has very kindly offered this chart as a freebie, so you can stitch one too :-)

Thank you Diana :-) I love it.

A few weeks back I asked if anyone wanted to do a magazine swap for the JCS Christmas ornament issue. Syd got in touch and offered to send me the magazine, no swap needed. Wasn't that so kind! Thank you Syd :-) as you will see I have been busy!

First up is Winter Squirrel from Victoria Sampler. In our house he has already been named Nutty, after a soft toy DH bought for DD years ago.
I went with beads from my stash rather than having to order buttons and wait.

This next one is Merry Christmas by Country Cottage Needleworks. Those of you with a copy of the magazine will notice that I have not followed the colour scheme on this one. In the magazine, the colours are pastel pink, green and aqua, and although very pretty it would not fit in with my red/gold christmas colour scheme. So I changed it to suit me.

* Edited * I've had quite a few requests for my conversion so here is a list of the colours I used.

DMC 304(red) 319(green) 535(grey) 3045(gold) Blanc(white)

and

Crescent Colours Brandied Pears(brown)

Last up is Deer in a Forest by Niky's Creations. I really like this one, although DS Cameron looked at it and said the bit at the bottom looks like a fire and it looks like it is melting the deers legs!

So now I'm calling it Deer in a Fire!

Sadie x

Everything must go

I'm downsizing my cross stitch stash.

I've listed some christmas themed charts on ebay, my seller id is sadiew2006.

There are some L*K, Prairie Schooler, Bent Creek, Country Cottage Needleworks, Plum Street Samplers, Heart in Hand, JBW Designs, Imaginating and Milady's Needle.

Take a peek and grab yourselves a bargain!

Sadie x

Swap it?

Hi peeps :-) I'm still here :-)

Such a busy time right now, with kids, holidays, brownies, paperwork, cooking, costume making etc, etc, etc.

Hardly any progress at all on crafty fun stuff!

I was wondering if anyone had a copy of the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Issue that they would like to swap with me. I will send the current issue of UK CrossStitcher magazine in return.

Please comment or email me.

Sadie x

Cat fight

I was sitting in the kitchen this morning, sewing my latest SBS block and also making some jam (Susan!) when I heard a whole lot of angry cat noises coming from the garden. I looked out the window and saw this.

The grey cat in the foreground is our cat Travis, obviously defending the boundaries of our (his) garden. His foe is UFC (Unknown Fat Cat) They stayed like this for ages, long enough for me to go and get the camera and take pictures, all the while making very unpleasant noises at each other.

Then I went outside.
And got the evil eye from UFC, who then slunk off, still giving me the evil eye!
I gave Travis lots of fuss and some cat treats for doing such a great job of defending our little kingdom from UFC.

Drama over, or so I thought, it was back to the sewing. This is Ohio Star.
This block was going really well until I got to the last corner (the top right in the pic above) I've had that corner in and out and in and out and in and out, so many times, and it's still not right. Then I noticed that the eyelets on the lighter purple triangles were all pointing in the same direction, apart from two! Can you see how they all go up and down, but two of them go sideways. Not what I was aiming for at all!

I think I will remake this block, but not today. I need a break from it or I might just end up chucking it on the fire!

Instead I am going to concentrate on my jam (Susan!) and see if I can steel myself to tackle the ironing :-)

Sadie x

WIP wednesday No 44

I gave my hexagons a little attention this week, they are now all sewn together.

Next up for this project is to finish the white hexagons for the border and sew them on.

This week I finished up my Tickled Pink crochet baby blanket, weaved in all the ends and blocked it, so it is now officially off the WIP list :-) Sadly no pics, it's so dark here today!

I added a new project to the WIP list, and I also finished it so it came off the list too :-)

Double star cushion.
No progress since last time on the Skill Builder Sampler or the LoveQuiltsUK cross stitch.

This weeks stats:

New projects +1

Completed projects 2

Currently in progress 3

Linking up with Lee

Sadie x