I do all my own stunts

First up, I have some stitchy pics to share :-)
The pillow I stitched for Sheril for the HoE ABC exchange has arrived safely with her :-)
The design is by Prairie Schooler, stitched on 28ct evenweave in a mystery colour with the called for DMC floss.
I also received my part of the exchange this week too. Stitching for me was Annette and here is a pic of the beautiful pin pillow and matching scissor fob she sent me. Thank you very much Annette, I love them :-)

The fob is personalised with Annettes initials and the year on one side and my initials on the other. As you can see from the above picture, Travis the cat decided that he had better come and inspect what was going on (that's the back of his head in the bottom right corner of the picture)

I finished the stitching on L*K Valentine Flip It.

Stitched on 32ct white linen, with a mixture of CC and WDW floss. I didn't have all the called for colours so I just picked out similar ones from my stash. I think this will go into the finishing pile and will be saved for Valentines day next year.
I also finished the stitching on L*K Spring Fab Fob. I'm not 100% decided on how to finish this yet but I am leaning towards a floss tag as I don't have one. It will be quite big but I think it will be okay.

Stitched on 28ct, hand dyed by me, evenweave using the called for CC and DMC floss. The fabric is actually a much brighter IRL.
Now, a cautionary tale! If you are going to attempt to dye your own fabric, please wear gloves.
If you don't then this could happen to you.

Remember folks, I do the stupid stuff so you don't have to I'm a trained professional :-)
Thankfully my hand has now returned to its normal colour, after several days and lots of scrubbing.

Well school finishes for the summer on Thursday and we are packing up the wagon to hit the road for a few days :-) Can't wait!

Have a great week,

Sadie x

Swap?

Does anyone have a copy of the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament preview issue that they would like to swap for a current UK CrossStitcher magazine? Comment or email me :-)
Thanks Heather for swapping with me :-)

DH was rather thrilled with some of the comments about his appearance in my last post. I am having all the doorways in the house widened to allow access for his big head! :-)

As I mentioned last time, we have had a house guest this week in the form of my in-laws dog Jugal. Below is a pic of our cat Travis asserting himself and claiming Jugals bed as his own. It doesn't seem to matter that she is at least 3 times his size.

I stitched L*K Spring Fab Fob earlier in the week and I'm now working on L*K Valentine Flip It. Pics next week. Rather than say I am behind for this year I prefer to say that I am getting ahead for next year!

Have a great weekend,

Sadie x

A weekend in pictures

Friday started off with walking the in-laws dog. She is with us at our house all week, so there will be lots more lovely walks :-) her name is Jugal, which is old scots for dog.
We walked past this old ruin. When I first moved here, about 20 years ago, it still had a roof and plaster on the walls.

This is the view from the ruin. It would make a lovely house, it's about a quarter mile outside the village, so quiet but not isolated.

Friday evening we all went for a picnic to the park at a neighbouring village (Shawhead). The park is actually about a quarter mile outside the village so it's really peaceful and not overlooked by lots of houses. We had the whole park to ourselves. DH met us there when he finished work. We took the camping stove and had sausages on rolls. Doesn't food always taste better when you are outdoors. I climbed up to the top of the slide to take some pics.

The kids didn't keep still for long enough for me to take pictures but I managed to get DH as he was packing things away.

He's smiling because I told him he was going on my blog :-) he thinks I'm joking!

Saturday evening we went fishing at the loch just outside our village.

We didn't catch anything, but that's okay.
Sunday was spent visiting our dads for fathers day, I gave my dad Jean-Luc, and then in the evening we went fishing again.

Still no fish.

I love weekends like this, mostly spent outside, having lots of fun, laughing, running and just being together. I hope our summer is filled with weekends like this one.

Well, no stitching to show here but I think I know what I am going to stitch next. I don't have the colour of fabric I need so I will have to dye some :-)

Have a great week,

Sadie x

Bees and cupcakes

Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments you left on my last post about the scissor pocket I made and also about our garden. Thanks to some beautiful weather this past weekend we were able to enjoy lots of time out in the garden without thinking 'Oh god! Look how much work there is to do out here!' It was so relaxing.
I am currently between projects with my cross stitching. I just can't settle on what to stitch. Saturday afternoon I spent a couple of hours sitting in the garden going through all my cross stitch magazines but nothing shouted 'STITCH ME NOW'. I have one more exchange to work on this week, it's stitched just need to do the finishing, and then we will see what happens.

DD had a fantastic time at Brownie holiday and made friends left, right and centre. I'm so proud of her as she didn't know any of the other girls who were going. She is the only Brownie who went from her group. I think that DS also enjoyed having DH and I all to himself for the weekend.

I recieved the most wonderful scissor keep from Lisa for the scissor keeper exchange run by Becky. Isn't it beautiful!

My scissors are already safely tucked inside :-)

Lisa said that this is her first time making a scissor keep but you can't tell. Her stitching and finishing are perfect as is her attention to detail. The inside is lined with the cutest bee print fabric and the button closure is adorable. Thank you so much Lisa, I love it :-)

Now, just because I haven't been doing much cross stitch this past week, doesn't mean that I have been sitting doing nothing! I stitched up another two tea towels for gifts.

This fabulous little cupcake is one of four designed by Mollie Johanson from Wild Olive exclusively for DMC. The pattern is a freebie and can be found here. One of these is for my mum, it was her birthday last week :-) we had a wonderful mother/daughter day out shopping together. The other is for one of DD's Brownie leaders, Snowy Owl. As DD was the only one going to the Brownie holiday, Snowy said that she would be happy to take DD and bring her home too, saving us a 140 mile round trip. Snowy would not take any money from me to help toward her fuel costs so I hope she will accept this little gift as a mark of our appreciation.

Well, that's all for now. hopefully next time I will be able to tell you all about my new cross stitch start :-)

Have a great week,

Sadie x

Scissor pocket

Another exchange has arrived with its new owner :-)
I stitched this for my partner Melanie for the 'scissor keeper exchange' on Beckys exchange blog. I'm so glad that you like it Melanie. I really loved working on this, the design stitched up very quickly and the construction, although a bit time consuming, was straightforward and hitch free :-)

I love this fabric and thought it was perfect for the backing and interior. And I picked it out all by myself without any help from DH this time :-)

I made the cording to match.

The design calls for an orangy red colour of floss but it didn't fit with the backing fabric so I switched it out for the purple.

Scissor case design from 'Pins and Needles' by Prairie Schooler

28ct cream linen

DMC floss

Cotton backing and lining

Homemade cording using DMC floss

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So finally, I have some pics of the garden :-)

This is the view from the gate as you enter the garden from the entry way.

The flower bed you see on the left is against the end wall of the garage and gets the sun all day (the garden is south facing so we pretty much get the sun all day in the whole garden) so in there I have a honeysuckle and some sweet peas to climb up the wire and some poppies, candytuft and livingston daisies for some low down colour. There is also a squash in there too. For some nom noms.
This next pic is the bottom half of the long flower bed that runs down the whole of the left hand side of the garden. There aren't too many plants in here at the moment as the slugs keep eating them all :-( I'll get them this weekend though, a little beer bath should sort them out. Peeking in the corner is our compost bin. I quite often use the stone wall you see as a backdrop to pictures of my stitchy finishes.

Thanks to the kids and their bikes, scooters, skateboards etc. the grass is very thin this year. I'll sew some more seed in the autumn to thicken it out again. It's pointless doing it now as the kids are out there all the time.

This is the view from the bottom of the garden towards the back of our house. That's the kitchen window you can see.

These are all my herb/veg/flower pots under the kitchen window. From left to right we have tarragon, sunflowers, thyme, rosemary, sage, curry plant,cauliflower, candytuft, lillies (red) new potatoes, mint and more sunflowers.

This last pic is the view from the bench you can see in one of the photos above. Our garden finishes at the wall at the end of the grass.

Well I think that will do for today. DD is off to Brownie camp this weekend so I need to help her pack.

I hope that wherever you are the sun shines for you this weekend.

Sadie x