A slightly different finish

 inspired by a little book I came across as the colour went with the smock on this little cover kit.

I recalled the small purple flower ribbon and thought perfect, however it was too short to go all around. I was re thinking it and having a hunt for something else when I came across the big flowers and bingo!

I am pleased with how the four combined, book,cross stitch, little and big flowers.

They look like they were always meant to be together.

I am rather enjoying embellishing books with stitching as a finishing method.

"update" The book has become a farewell gift to a senior Missionary Sister in June 2024. She oft commented on our garden and given the work she did here I thought it appropriate to add a little verse inside the front cover alongside a teeny line drawing of our Church.

The poem goes:

Kind hearts are the Gardens

Kind thoughts the Roots

Kind words are the Flowers

Kind deeds the Fruits

She was very happy with the book, she did not undo the ribbon and look inside so she did not read/ see the added poem or the inscription. I wonder when she will. 

Sunday Stitching, Christmas Eve

 Given the date you will not be too surprised that the service at Church today was full of Christmas Carols and Christmas related scriptures and stories.

This is my progress for today.

An addition of a darker blue, all of the full stitches in this shade have been completed. It is however one of the shades that will make a second appearance in the half stitch section..

I hope that any blog visitors have had the chance to join in the Advent hop, and that you have a safe, warm and happy Christmas, or seasonal holiday as per your own inclination.

Sunday Stitching and gifted gorgeousness link up..

 

Todays progress, on the kit my BFF gifted to me, two shades of brown and one of blue.

Don't forget to pop on over to Jo at Serendipitous stitching to see the other GG posts.

CLICK HERE

Advent Calendar 2023 Blog hop day 17

 and it is my turn to provide a picture for today, if you came her from  Serendipitous Stitching then you will know what the advent hop is all about, if not CLICK HERE  for a proper introduction but basically  we share a Christmas make and answer a question Jo sets for us.

I was a bit behind on my Christmas Stitching, but here is my advent stitch.

I am quite please with how my interpretation of Durene Jones redwork heart turned out.

And he question this year was about our Santa related traditions. For the first six years of my life  we lived in a house with a coal fire. Letters to Santa were burnt in the fire and the smoke took your wish list off to the North Pole.  Christmas eve the fire was not banked it was left to go out and the little door left open. Then we moved, no fire, central heating and how were we to get out wish list to Santa? Well my grandparents still had a fire at first and the letters were sent from there. Then their home was modernised and no fire there either. But by then without me recalling just how the lac had stopped bothering me.

I hope you all have a happy Christmas and enjoy the rest of the hop.

Click HERE to link back to the host site and for more advent.

Or follow the link to the added later Forestella Song (linked to the image and not to the season) Forestella 포레스텔라 - Lay Silk On My Heart 내 마음에 주단을 깔고 [Color_Coded_Han|Rom|Eng] (youtube.com)

A Seasonal burn

 I bought some little blanks in the shape of Christmas Trees.

They were a nice little project to try out more of  the tips on my new tool.

They will be going into Christmas Cards and  hopefully onto peoples trees. The first one has done just that.

That tree makes it look rather splendid.

BFF SAL Variations on a theme 1: Christmas

 I remarked to my friend that there was a Disney theme for me this week, without actually doing anything Disney!

Why?

Well since last week I have finished the Reindeer, the main design part that is but not the sewing up. So he is still feeling a little flat at the moment.

And the pause is because I am looking for a Bell (or Belle?) yes the former but a bit of word play makes us laugh. I am sure I have a small sleigh bell somewhere, not sure where just at the moment.

And this week..well do you want to build a snowman?

who could tell from this !

You may have noticed that we stayed on the Christmas stitch this week, pop over to my BFF's blog to see why and for her update.

Click Here

BFF SAL Variations on a theme 1 : Christmas

 A change for me and a bit of a visit to the past.

So firstly this is the project and progress for the evening.

with a bonus link to My BFF's 1st week progress on the same pattern in 2022 Click here

You may wonder why I am working on this now when I didn't in 2022? Well because I did not have the kit in 2022 having stopped my subscription to the magazine.

Well I sent in a letter with the four 3D Christmas stitches I have completed so far and it was printed. My BFF spotted it, in WOCS 340. Which just happened to have another 3D kit as the cover kit.

So off to E-bay to find a copy, two bidding attempts failed but on the third success and not just the 340 plus kit but also the kit from 2022 as well.

So for tonight's Christmas Stitch just had to make a start on the oldest of the two kits. We did have a bit of a smile as I have started from the corner and am so far enjoying the stitch, looking back my BFF started in the middle, once more a different approach.

Here is a picture of my letter appearing in the mag, with the original stitches posing alongside the ones to be added although perhaps not this year.

And a back view just for fun.

to see what my BFF got up to tonight Click Here

BFF SAL 14 back to green

 I finished off the colour I was working on for the vase and then as planned moved back to green and the leaves.

oddly  the vase looks less "vase" with more stitches than it did last week with just a few on one side.

My Bff was noting a similar feeling on a different aspect of her project.

Pop over to her blog to see how things are going with her version, Click here

Sunday stitching's a touch of blue

 Most of it a full cross stitch, but the rest is a start of the half stitches the form the upper half of the design.

Today at Church we had two lots of welcome visitors. The first a family, the mother had been a missionary sister in our branch 28 years ago and she was back for a visit. Our building did not feel familiar to her but then we have had an extension and redecoration since she was last here.

The other visitors have not been with us for four years, they spent three of those years as the Mission President couple of the South Adriatic Mission, covering 5 countries and even more languages. It was nice to see them and hear their stories. 

BFF SAL 14 time for a change

 from the flower to the vase.

it makes a difference to the look of the piece, even with just this outline.

Normally this is the point I give you a link so you can see my BFF's progress on the SAL, well here is the link  Click HERE and once you have read her post come back and CLICK HERE for a reminder of why her counter offer had me loosing five minuets stitching time laughing!

A round box

 I started on this box some time ago. I had been gifted a spool of nail foil, you put the varnish on wait for it to get tacky press on the foil wait then peel off the back and have pretty nails.

Nope, not for me, it did not work. So I had the bright idea to varnish a box, wait for it to get tacky and try the nail foil.

It was only fractionally more successful then om my nails. So I only did one strip along the bottom. Then varnished it with a gold tinted varnish. The rest of the sides with normal varnish and back to the gold for the top.

And I waited for it to dry, And then forgot all about it, drying up in the loft.

Of course a trip up to the loft for something else (purple paper which I never did find, must have used it already) got my eye on it and thought need to get the inside of the box sorted.

Had some nice material, bits from some trousers a lady at work gave me (wow that was some years ago) after she had already chopped bits off to line a bag.

It was a shade of purple or maybe you might call it pink with a hem of gold. It was the hem of gold that made me think it might be a good match.

And As the box had a fret work top, the lid needed a double sided piece.

The inside.

The trickiest
thing to get one was the little tassel, getting the ring through the ring on the catch.

Its not fully finished because I don't know who it is for yet, and once I do, well the base might get a touch of pyrography and some varnish or it might just get some green stickyback plastic ( I can't think of that without thinking of Blue Peter makes).

Sunday Stitchings

 A nice block of colour completed today.

all there was to do in that shade.

Fitted Mount

 I have previously shared the finished cross stitch of the modified Durene Jones pattern (its a free one from her Facebook page) when I finished the stitching part.

I had a frame in mind, one from a charity shop that came with a piece of encaustic wax art. Just colours not a specific picture.

I had intended to just use the frame, then I though I might use the waxed card as a normal mount, and then well..I decided to do a shaped mount. 

I traced out around the character and marked it on the back of the card and cut through with a craft knife.

Then back into the frame.

I still like the frame however, I am not at all sure that the way I cut the mount does the character justice. Perhaps I would have been better off  just going with the square mount.

It was well stuck and gifted as is anyway. It did lead to me using that technique much more successfully for a Peter Rabbit framed up at the same time which inspired me to recycle a card as a frame for a Robin both of which you will have seen if you have joined me for past blog hops.

Posting this fully finished waited at first for it to be gifted, and then I sort of forgot that I had not shared it. Then it waited some more for my brother to remember to take a picture for me of himself with the item.

And well by the time he remembered there has been a bit of a change in his grooming .

He looks a bit happier in his hat in the original picture he sent me of him wearing it . And Oh! It had just dawned on me he has changed the frame! That's so funny, I was looking at the picture he sent me for such a long time before that sunk in. I might even get round to asking if that was a décor choice or something befell the original.

BFF SAL 14 in full bloom

 I may not have been filling in the leaves like my BFF but I was rejoicing in filling in the pink this week.

 the lighter pink on the edges is still fading into the background a little but I am sure the backstitch is going to work wonders.

I have a plan for next week to start the vase and work my way down to the bud which looks so nice on my friends version. There are more leaves at the top but I would like to finish the greens all off at the same time.

Click on the link at the top of my post to see how my BFF is progressing. An maybe Later I will presuade her to tell you of her Paint-A-Long with Bob Ross Evening Adventure.

Sunday Stitching

 This is a little odd, I did do some stitching during church last Sunday however it was all white fill which does not make for an interesting update picture.

This week I did no stitching at church, we had a shortened service because it is Remembrance Sunday and that allowed for members to then attend either the local remembrance parade or watch the national one on eth TV.

As we did the latter I took that time for a little bit of work on my current Sunday Stitching piece.

I am still very much enjoying this stitch although at the moment it does not have much visual impact.

BFF SAL 14 a rose by any other name

well its not a rose as such but my grandmother always referred to these flowers as a Peony Rose.

My title is inspired by the Shakespeare quote my BFF used for the title of her blog. I am wondering if our conversation about the 400th Anniversary of  the first portfolio of the Bard's plays(brief as it was and relating more to a certain Dr Who actor being interviewed by the BBC about that most famous of playwrights and not being able to talk about Dr Who as it is now a joint BBC Disney project and the actors strike) was the subliminal influence. 

Oddly we actually talked more about Shakespeare last week and which plays we had either studied or seen.

So tonight's stitching, more hot pink which was very helpful when I came to filling in with the mid pink.

it is looking more like a flower now and less of a splat I think. I still have two shades of pink to add to the flower and more leaves so whilst it is further along it is not quite finished yet.

CLICK HERE to visit my BFF's blog and see how she is progressing.

BFF SAL Variations on a Theme 1 : Christmas

 month three:

And as anticipated nothing was stitched on this project off screen since last month. And had it not been for the SAL goodness knows how long it would have languished before I picked it up and decided how to progress.

There needed to be a little adjustment to the Robins tails due to the stitch out error from last time but at least there is progress and a slightly better chance of some off screen stitching occurring in the month to come.

Click Here to see my BFF's progress...she has quite a bit to share.

An as an update you can see what the next stage was buy Clicking Here as it became the image for my 2023 Advent.

Halloween Trick or Treat Blog Hop 2023

 Here we are again, time for the Halloween Hop, if you have participated before and came here via the hop then just keep going, if you are new to the hop  Click Here to visit the host blog and find out what it is all about.

Here is my stitch for this year, it has to be the smallest Halloween stitch I have done so far, I had left it late this year so small was required. Although small he has a lot of character with just a few lines and two French knots.

It comes from Better Holmes 2001 Cros stitch Designs 

I am going to use a stitch from a previous hop to share the letter for this one. Here it is.

then for the next letter Click HERE to go to the next blog on the hop to collect your next letter. Oh we are not all blogging from the same times zone so if a post/letter is not up yet please pop back later to collect the full set.

Oh and if you would like to see past hops Click here all links should open in new windows and are to other blogs.

And as a little addition (some posts are getting them as I find a song that feels right) here is a little Korean ghost story of a song.

BFF 14 in the pink

 at the start of the night and still in the pink by the end.

I had intended once the second lightest shade of pink was don to add either all of the light shade or all of the Mid shade. However, I got one length of the mid in and just lost my eye for that shade. I was finding it so much easier to "see" the dark pink.

It was a fun night, my BFF was particularly chuffed to spot my missing length of pink thread which was trying to hide by clinging to my top in what was proving to be a blind spot for me.

Mislaid thread or needles or scissors is not something we can generally help each other locate over the internet.

Click HERE to see my BFF's progress on this SAL.

BFF 14 Double Splat

 that is what my project looks like at the moment. Regardless of the lack of definition so far I enjoyed building the pink and look forward to the potential for relaxing fill in the future.

there was also a bit of thread checking following my BFF's adventures in thread this week Click HERE

to see her progress and her thread discovery / challenge.

Sunday Stitchings

 A bit more brown and then a change and some blue....there will will be more of that to come.

still enjoying this and finding it very relaxing. 

BFF SAL 14 Soothing stitching

 mostly till the last little bit where in a funny version of same but different I echoed my BFF in finding a single stitch mistake that had continued on and needed to come back out.

I spotted it when I started to add the pale pink. What pink? Well it is there I promise but the picture is not showing it well. Perhaps as it grows it will be easier to see.

To see my BFF's progress CLICK HERE

Sunday Stitchings

 a new shade started and I am still enjoying this 

got quite a bit added today.

(posting this late as had issues getting the photo to transfer over.

BFF SAL Variations on a Theme 1, Christmas

 and into our second month of our new "themed" week and starting with some update pictures. You may recall that we were not restricting ourselves to our weekly facetime sewing sessions. That we can work on anything within the theme whenever we want.

So my blackwork Christmas themed piece was very much a "want " to sew. Firstly to finish the two strand stitching round the edge of the design, the snowflakes. Then the outline of the tree, and as always with outlines the relief when they join up where they are supposed to.

Then the fill with one strand, and the relaxation of the repeat pattern. There should have been some baubles here, outlined in two strands and with different fills. However I was all about the total fill and just left them off.

As I moved onto the second level of the tree I changed to a pointy needle as the original was worked on evenweave and I had green in 14 count, so a pointy needle was needed to make it work

This reminds me very much of a quilting pattern I hope to try someday. All straight lines that give the illusion of curves.

Once that third fill was completed I moved onto the single strand stitching on the snowflakes and a touch of metallic at the top of the tree.

And then the tree was completed, leaving me to decide how to decorate it given I had deviated from the pattern and left off the intended baubles.

I did have a plan, some time ago, quite a long time ago now I think about it, I bought a bag of mixed sequins in bronze tones. I have used some of them on a Previous Project. It is always nice to incorporate something from the "useful someday" stash into a project.

It is finished for the moment,(there were some French Knots and I considered replacing them with beads but I quite like it as is) the final finishing may wait till the other patterns in the series are complete. (As a reminder they are from issue 123 of Cross Stitch Gold,  Red Work Cards by Durene Jones.

Update on the tree completed what was I actually working on tonight? 

A change to red on white, I had made a start pre stitching session so started the evening like this.

I realised as I worked the top left corner I was a stitch out, too late to correct it so there will be some design deviations that were unintended that may lead to some intended ones.

So this is my end point for the evening. I have some contemplation to do now. I am not sure if that means in the off time I will work on this as much as I did the tree or if it will languish till next month.

To see how my BFF's themed stitching is going Click HERE she has also been stitching "off camera" as she calls it and has quite a bit to show.

Conference Stitching

 ended up being the 3 angels, and adding to the white. 

Still a long way to go with this. But the single colour stitching was very good for focusing on the talks.

New Pyrography Tool

 I bought a new tool, with a temperature display and two pens that I can alternate between. 

The thing to do with a new tool is have a practice, test the new tips (it came with lots of tips) on scrap wood and see what kind of marks they make. 

That would be the smart thing to do. However, I am ever impatient and feel that having made the effort to get the "stuff" out that I should have something to show for it.

When I did the -prague-castle.  for the lady at work she then gave me a bag with a few different styles of boxes from The Works.

One of which is an oval box about 5.5 inches by 3 inches. Which was just big enough to fit on a dragon design I had saved from a magazine. So that is what I did.

I managed to try four different tips, reminding myself how much I enjoy doing this and that I should work out designs to go onto the may a wood item I have collected for that purpose.

I am rather pleased with the way the burn went and am pleased that the tool works for me. I liked being able to set the temperature exactly. I liked the pen rests that safely hold the pen whilst it cools. I liked having a pen cooling whilst I could work with a different nip at the same time. I liked the size of the tool and the grip which stayed comfortable and cool throughout.

I also liked the length of the wire on the plug (no need for an extension cable, as with my other tools) I look forward to investigating the other tips. 

I might have to add a touch of colour on the sphere the dragon is holding to remove the wolf's head effect. (does anyone else see a wolf?)

BFF SAL 14

 We chose a book we both own as the source for this BFF. Two companion designs, I knew which I wanted to do but my BFF was not sure if she would work on the same one or go for the companion design.

The pattern calls for Rustico 14. I am using 14 count but the Natural from Home Bargains, The same material I used for the previous BFF SAL.

After a quick thread check my BFF decided to do the same design as myself. We started in the same place (the middle) and with the same colour.

This is my progress for the evening.

two colours in.

Click Here to see what two colours in from the same starting point looks like for my BFF.

The Cat's Whiskers

 I was not sure what to use for whiskers on my cat, and he needed whiskers.  Then my mother said what's that on the floor? I expected it to be a bit of thread, its often an escaping bit of thread  however it was a bristle (new carpet brush, think it fell out when I was unwrapping it) and it was just what I needed. 

So cat has whiskers, and a collar and tag.

I think I am through meddling with him and can move on to my next felting project. Which I hope to be a progression in my learning and in developing my style, maybe.

Sunday Stitching..another colour completed

 Still growing with subtle shades and still being a great accompaniment to and focus for listening to the talks at Church. Talks reminding me to prepare for Conference next weekend.

I anticipate that my stitching for that will be on one of my angel projects and this one will have a week off.

BFF SAL A Bakers Dozen

 served. We did wonder if the last few cakes and backstitching would be completed by the end of our evening. Possibly not so we had agreed that we would finish them this week in extra time if need be.

Why? Well we thought it would be fun to have our cakes finished before the 2023 Great British Bake Off  airs on Channel Four (Tuesday next week).

A funny thing happened, as soon as we removed the pressure of finishing by a set time (9p.m) the stitching went smoothly and we were both all finished with six minutes  to spare!

Oh the backstitch was fun on this, it makes so much difference turning "should have gone to Specsavers" blobs into cakes and roses.

Click Here to see my BFF's interpretation of the same source pattern "Which Cake" by Durene Jones.

We have a plan for next week from a book we have in common, but more on that next week for BFF 14