Blackwork mirror mirror

 on the wall,

is done, metallic as per the pattern( well almost as I used a different one for the dress to the frame), with a bit of an addition for the glass.

So that is all the metallic as per the pattern done.

from the pattern all that is left is the hair. However, I have not been following the pattern exactly as you may know, I added the wallpaper and have extended the sides by two stitches and the top by twelve so it will fit the mount for the frame that I plan on using. I still feel that the underskirt needs something, what that something should be I have not settled on yet.

I wish that I could think of a way to do the floor that would give it depth.  Maybe something will occur to me soon. No rush this is for me so I have no deadline.

BFF Sal 4 a double dip

 so I did fit in my two extra hours this week, although it was squeezed in as I had a paper watering can to make for the children's group at Church (as a large envelope) which took a little longer than expected.

Anyway delays aside this is where I got to after my extra two hours.

Made a start on the hills in the background and set up a nice area of sea that can just get filled to allow for chatting time during the Skype session.

And indeed there was chatting this week, quite a bit of chatting about quilting oddly enough, and also trying to decide on a term for those stitches that you suddenly can't see on the pattern as you are in the middle of sewing it. That moment when you know it is time to stop. We played with a few but have not settled on any one that said just how we felt.

So tonight's progress 

I thought I would work on the mountains and finish the blue sea, instead I worked on the foreground and finished the sea. 

Now at the end of each Skype session we hold up our project so we can see how each other's piece is progressing.  If you have used Skype you will know that there is a small picture of you in the corner of the larger view of the other person. So as I hold up my project I can see a tiny picture of it on the screen at the same time. Oddly mine looked so much better tiny!

What do you thing..better small? 

I think that will speak to viewing distance when it is finished and framed and finding a place to live.

As for my friends progress, I am once again struck by the impact of the tree and am a bit regretful that there is so little tree in mine. However, not regretful enough to stitch it LOL.

We are continuing with the two hours stitching off Skype time and the two hours on to keep this moving.  My BFF did tentatively ask what would we stitch next ....

Pop on over to my BFF's blog to see how her extra time and Skype time has gone...and admire that tree.

Click here for link

Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 2021

Last year Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching hosted a Stitching Friends are Friends Who Count HOP, as her summer hop. The theme and the process of  finding new blogging friends was so popular it has remained the theme for this years summer hop.

Here is the link to Last Years home page and participants list if you missed it.

So this is how it works, participating bloggers are assigned another blog to read and get to know the blogger and then introduce on their own blog. Then share something that they think their new stitching friend will like, either something previously sewn or something seen in a pattern . With a little added twist that who the post is about won't be revealed till the end, just in case you want to try and guess.

Now I will link to individual posts as I go, so if you do want to play the guessing game leave the links till last.

So on to my introduction, this blogger started blogging in 2014 spurred on by a stitch along of what must rank as her most stitched designer Just Nan. Her first post however was not from that designer but was one of the recurring themes of her blog, a sampler featuring one of the recurring themes of mine, a dragon. And I must admit one of the few samplers that I have ever strongly contemplated doing and from a designer I have sewn.

So I think she might like this one 

Dragon Dreams ICE bucket challenge brr chilly. 

This blogger has the skills to deal with chilly, she knits, wearable clothing type knits. My own knitting is less impressive and considerably slower. I have no recommendations for knitting other than to say don't knit like me.

Her warming skills are not limited to the wearable, as she also quilts, projects large and small, quick and those that have taken just that little bit longer as she mentioned in her contribution to Jo's Tenth Blogaversary . I have been there with some of my quilts but the one that took the longest was also dragon themed. 

Oh and there are cakes of various kinds but most importantly as far as I am concerned there are chocolate cakes. Maybe I will take a closer look at those.

Turning back to the sewing,  she might like this free Durene Jones  biscornu from Durene's  Facebook page.

as this twisty odd mathematically inspired shape is another one of her favourites. She is an enthusiastic participant in Jo's blog hops, in other themed stitch challenges and exchanges (which I note often appear to include chocolate of some sort)  

So if you have not guessed who it is by now her is another clue, something else I am also fond of, the Celtic Knot, and which this blogger loves, or at least the title of her blog would would suggest that is the case, once you have translated it from the language of the country in which she currently resides. 

Now before I reveal my allocated blogger just a reminder if you did not come here from Jo's blog of the link to the home page of the hop for this year pop on over to serendipitous stitching for the links to all the 

And the blogger I have had the delight of introducing ? It is Mary from La Coeur Celtique Click Here to jump to her blog rather than to any individual post, or pop back to the beginning of this post and take the links to individual posts if you have not done so already.

And remember, stitching friends are friends who count.

BFF SAL 4 ....the sound of stitching

 it was a quiet night, even with the filling in stitching there was more concentration than conversation.

The red thread was a bit of a surprise and a bit too vivid till the pink was added to tone it down.

Filling in the blue was nice. We have given ourselves another two hours of non Skype time before next week. I expect that will get us both much closer to a finish.

Check my BFF's progress CLICK HERE

Sunday Stitchings

 after getting the petals done last week I was rather looking forward to completing the middle or maybe the leaves.

However, I did not remember to sort the threads out the evening before so I was left with the threads that came with the book of patterns (some of you may recall not all of the colours came with) so it was a brown and two shades of blue that were included that went into today's progress.

 So nice to see the top start to take place. Now to try and remember to get the threads not on the card ready for next week.  Although I think there is some of the on the card shades still to be sewn so not great disaster if I forget.

BFF SAL 4..extra time

 I took my two hours of extra time in two hour long sessions. I did get some more green fill completed but have set up a nice area that I will be able to just filling pretty much without having to do any counting at our next Skype session.

my BFF has put her extra time to good use Click here to see her progress.

You will be able to see that she will be doing a larger section on the original due to the points she had reached before we decided to minimise, so she will have all of the buildings in hers (yes there are some buildings in there) and whilst I am updating to add the link to my BFF's blog Just a little reminder there is no backstitching in this piece, it was one of the points we were thinking was a positive whilst we struggled with it. But that positive was not sufficiently balancing out the negative vibes we were getting.

We still both like the image that we would have ended up with, just not enough to sew it at this time.

BFF Sal 4

 well still plodding along, there was green filling in a bit to the left and there was a lighter blue filling in a bit to the top right.

And as my BFF has noted CLICK HERE for link it still at times feels like the project has stalled.

and if it were not for taking pictures I might think there had been no progress at all. Now there was a chance that tonight's session via Skype might not have been possible and we had agreed were that the case dispensation was given for two hours of non Skype sewing just to keep things moving. 

So as tonight's session was coming to a close and we were both feeling there was a danger we would stall we decided to have that non Skype (no chatting required) two hours, in any combination of time, before next week to get them moved along.

Maybe we can deal with some of the fiddlier bits separately and leave nice soothing filler bits for our next get together.

Dragon mold

 you may recall the little dragon mould my BFF gifted me CLICK HERE for LINK and I used it for chocolate an noted I would like to find something a little more lasting to do with it. 

I have been meaning for a long time to "do" something with the little slivers of soap that are awkwardly small but my parsimonious nature will not let me threw out. I had found one use for them but that did not take much , and I will come back to that later.

So I watched several methods or recycling soap slivers back into usable soap. Being me I chose a bit of advice from one and bits from another and cobbled them together.

So my method..chop the soap up very small (with a knife not scissors as one person suggested) soak over night with a little water. Boil it up in a pan (I did not used a ban marie) and pour into moulds.

I used six cupcake papers (supported in a tin) and a plastic tray from a microwave meal. And at the last moment I had a thought...dragon mould.

I popped the dragon mould into the fridge hoping it would cool down quickly enough that I could get it out of he mould and onto one of the "cup cake" bars of soap.

It came out reasonably well, not that it is going to last a great length of time but perhaps a bit longer then the chocolate one, at the very least I am not going to eat it.

The soap needs to dry out a bit before it can be used (the soap in the tray I popped in the freezer and that made it come out of the tray very easily, and have cut it into six)

Once dry I will wrap them in a little twist of grease proof paper and will use as needed.

So things I have learned, use less water. The boiling direct in a pan takes a lot less time than the You Tube peoples using the ban marie method said it would. Don't use the patterned cake cups the colour comes off onto the soap (well unless that's what you want to happen) and strangely I find finely chopping soap slivers rather therapeutic.

I am restraining myself at the moment from investigating full blown soap making and hope to restrict myself to the recycling only. 

Sunday stitching...been a long time

 since there was my Sunday stitching, not since January 2020, first there was me with a cold and not going to church so as not to share the cough..then there was the no one going to church to avoid something rather more severe than a cough.

So today, things moving towards the way they once were there was some Sunday stitching. This project has been waiting patiently all this time.

It feels fitting that Tom's flower has all its petals now.

I do hope this is not going to have to wait as long this time before it gets worked on again.

BFF Sal 4 feeling cool

about the new size and focus of this project, although certainly not feeling the heat the same way my BFF has been CLICK HERE to link to her blog to see her progress and temperature.

The change to the amount remaining to stitch meant that I approached this week with enthusiasm which was a nice change.

Some new colours added (and some new design variations) and I am tootling along in the BFF SAL groove once more.

Giving some thought to what to do with it once it is completed and there are a few nebulous thoughts flitting about none of which have settled yet however it is fun now...