Stitching and painting

I have been lazy again! I haven't updated my blog for weeks again. I have done some stitching, but not that much as I re-discovered my love for painting again! I used to draw and paint a lot when I was younger but not for years. Last time I was painting must have been 2004 or 2005. I haven't been drawing much either, little something every now and then.

I accidentally started painting again as I was bored and didn't feel like stitching so I remembered these ATC cards that I made back in 2007/8. So I took my papercraft supplies and made few cards and I did enjoy it. I also found a forum (atcsforall.com) where you can trade your finished pieces. Soon I noticed that lots of people draw/paint their cards and seem to prefer those, too. I was first a bit scared as I wasn't sure if I still know what to do! But I decided to give it a go.

First I used some old watercolours that I found from my craft closet. I painted few animals and one of them got traded within minutes! I got some selfesteem boost from that and went to basement to get my better paints and stuff. Oh, how I missed my paints! :D I have even started buying new stuff too. Pencils by Derwent. I really love their inktense pencils!

If someone is a part of that forum, you can find me there, using the same nickname there, Hely :) Well, here's a link to my gallery. Keep in mind that I am still learning! I am nowhere near perfect or a good painter :)

I have been doing some stitching too. Here's my update on the mermaids.

I haven't been stitching this piece for weeks now as I didn't have a good green for the plants around the mermaids. I have now ordered one and hopefully it will be a good one.

I also got an awesome birthday gift from my fiancé! He bought me a gift voucher to Sew and so! Ooooh happy day! Here's what I bought..

There's a bear kit by RTO, Meerkats (<3) by Heritage and Cupcakes by Bothy Threads. All of those are full kits. Two charts from LHN and big piece of white Jazlyn (28ct) and white and black DMC as those two colours are always missing! yay! Ofcourse I have already started something, hehe..

Here's my start on the Celebration Cupakes. The fabric on the kit was 14ct white aida but as I really, really don't like white aida, I changed it to white Jobelan (28ct) instead.

This is really fun to stitch! :)

He also brought me some stitching magazines that I have asked him to get for me as I can't get them from where I live.

So many nice charts that I wanna start right now! One of my favourites is Jayne Netley Mayhew's wolves of Cross Stitch Collection. I also plan to stitch Joan Elliott's Victorian Lady soon. Soonish..

Now I will make myself a cup of tea and strat reading other people's blogs! I haven't been reading them for ages.. :( Gonna catch up a little now, hopefully!

Amazing mailday :)

Hello everyone!

It was the last mailday this week, before Midsummer. I was expecting to get something but not all of these!

First, I bought two Little House Needleworks-patterns from a Facebook group where people can sell their unwanted stitching stuff (Finnish group). I got them today and whooo, I really love them both! They are "Bookshelf" and "Little House Neighborhood". I need to buy some nice coloured fabric though (or dye myself!) as I don't seem to have anything that would work with these. Or maybe my "bone" Jobelan could work.. Hmm..

I also got my order from Needlecraft Corner. Again some Little House Needleworks-patterns as well as three patterns by Country Cottage Needleworks and Lizzie Kate. LHN patterns are "Music and books" and "Home of a Needleworker". CCN patterns are: "Party Cakes", "Bee Joyful" and "Sheep in the meadonw". Lizzie Kate patterns are "Live Simply", "A bit of March" and "Welcome baby".

I also got my FOM from Sparklies yesterday. Here's a pic of the two fabrics that I got. The blue one is "Before the storm" and the light grey is "BST". I am not huge fan of the light grey one though.. It's kinda nice as it will work with lots of different patterns as it's light coloured. But then again it looks almost white. The blue one is really nice though :)

I got damn nice mail today (and yesterday too) but I also bought the newest Maxxina today. It didn't have as many must stitch-patterns this time, but some nice ones, still.

Oh and my amazing fiancé sent me two magaznes, too! I didn't expect these as I didn't know he had sent them to me <3 I was really happy to get them as we don't have these magazines here in Finland and I do like the Queen :))

I actually started to stitch some Jubilee stitching but as I have problems with my back every now and then (a lot sometimes) I can't always stitch as much as I want or not at all :/ meh..

I am not gonna buy anything else this month! Cause I also bought this today.. *giggles*

Fitfh season of Bones! I haven't seen it yet so I am really excited. I miss Booth and Brennan already, it's been ages since I saw season 4.

I am gonna watch an episode of Bones now, or maybe even two. After that I need to cook and hopefully, I could do some stitching today too! My back feels a bit better now. I also need to go out to have a walk today, my back loves it :)

Have a lovely day everyone *hugs*

Fresh Watermelon - Finished!

I finally finished "Fresh watermelon" by Little House Needleworks! I started to stitch it on January as a part of CrazyJanuaryChallenge. I stitched quite a lot back then and NO idea why I didn't finish it too. It was such a pleasure to stitch, I love the colours on it. Plus Jobelan is my fave fabric. I can imagine me stitching this again :)
I did a mistake though. One of the dark green leaves (the one at the bottom) is one row lower than it should be. But it doesn't bother me really, so I left it like that.

Also.. ahem.. I got more fabric *blush* But but.. these are small pieces! I had never ordered from Polstitches so I decided to buy a grab bag from them to see how the fabrics look like. I got them today.. I LOVE them! I have never ever had fabric that soft! I got two pieces of 28ct Jobelan and one piece of 28ct opal linen. All are 9x13. Those Jobelans are soooo soft! And they all smell damn good too :D I read about the scent but this was obviously the first time I had their fabric and noticed the smell too :) I didn't wanna get linen, so I think they accidentally put one piece of linen there but it's fine as the linen is opal and oooh, so, so beautiful!

From left to right:

Heavens Above, Rain Forest and Sky High. Oooh, pretty!! :))

The Scent of Old Roses

Yesterday I continued stitching one of my old UFOs: "the Scent of Old Roses" by Mirabilia. I started stitching her back in 2006/7 or something. I didn't stitch much anything though as back then I had serious issues stitching something for a long time lol. So, yesterday was time to get few more stitches on her. Sadly I didn't take a picture of her before I started again. But I stitched some of the grey on top and the brown part at the bottom yesterday. The fabric is Silkweaver's "Blueberry delight" on 16ct aida. I love that fabric colour! Might need to change my FOTM list and add that on lugana on it :)

The fabric is not as purple though. It's more blue than purple although it does have some purple on it here and there. Very beautiful fabric :)

While I was stitching her I felt a bit bad that I wasn't stitching any of my CJC-projects. So after a while I changed to "Fresh Watermelon" by Little House Needleworks. You might remember it from January..? I was enjoying stitching it but for some reason I changed to something else and forgot that cute little design :( But now it also got more stitches and I will stitch more after this post!

Fresh watermelon update

I continued stitching "Fresh watermelon" (Little House Needleworks) on tuesday and been stitching it today as well. I had troubles stitching the watermelon under the table. I had to unpick twice and re-check all the time how many stitches and where.. wasn't fun, lol. I noticed that even though I do like green colour a lot, I prefer stitching with brighter colours, such as red (I LOVE red colour).



Jatkoin Little House Needleworksin mallia "Fresh watermelon" tiistaina ja pistelin sitä tänäänkin. Pöydän alla olevaa vesimelonia oli ärsyttävä pistellä. Kahdesti piti purkaa ja koko ajan sai tarkistaa montako pistoa minnekin... ei ollut kivaa :D
Huomasin myös, että vaikka pidän kovasti tuosta vihreästä väristä, pistelen mielummin kirkkaita värejä, kuten punaista (rakastan punaista!).

Day 11 and 12

I'm a bit late with my updates, but here they are!

January 11th I started to stitch "Snowman ´10" by Lizzie Kate. As you can see, I didn't really stitch much at all. All this starting is just making me.. I don't know, not willing so start anything anymore! :D I usually start lots and won't finish anything, but 15 starts in 15 days is much for me! Thank god I changed back to 15 starts instead of 31, haha. I am not sure about the fabric. It is 14 count aida and nicely marbled, but don't know who's fabric it is. It's really nice anyways :)



Day 12 start was "Daisy Lane Cottage" by Little House Needleworks. I started to stitch it on 28ct Jobelan. Colour is Cameo. I really love Jobelan! I changed the colour of the house. It's yellow as I plan to give this to my mum on her birthday in February. And my parents' house is yellow. The fabris looks a bit like grey/blue but its more like cream.



Vähän olen myöhässä päivitysten kanssa. Mutta olen kyllä pistellyt/aloittanut pistelyitä.

Tammikuun 11. päivä aloitin pistelemään Lizzie Katen mallia "Snowman ´10". Kuten kuvasta näkyy, paljoa en pistellyt. Tämä jatkuva aloittaminen ärsyttää kyllä ihan kiitettävästi ja tulee tunne ettei edes huvita aloittaa enää yhtään uutta :D Yleensä minulla on ollut ongelmana, että aloitan uusia ja mitään en saa valmiiksi. Mutta tämä tuntuu olevan kyllä minullekin ihan liikaa. Onneksi palasin alkuperäiseen suunnitelmaan aloittaa 15 uutta, 31 sijaan! Lumiukon kankaasta en ole ihan varma. Se on 14ct aida ja hienosta marmoroitu. Mutta valmistajasta ei ole mitään hajua. Hieno kangas kuitenkin :)

12. päivän aloitus oli Little House Needleworksin "Daisy Lane Cottage". Kankaana on 28ct Jobelan, väri on Cameo. Jobelan on kyllä niiiin ihana kangas! Vaihdoin mökin värin keltaiseksi, sillä aion antaa työn äidilleni helmikuussa. Ja vanhempien talo on siis keltainen. Kangas näyttää kuvassa harmaasiniseltä, mutta on enemmänkin kerman värinen.

Day 6 - Fresh Watermelon

On day 6 I started stitching "Fresh Watermelon" by Little House Needlework. I really love this pattern! Fabric is 28ct Jobelan, colour is bone. I think Jobelan is so far, my favourite fabric. I really enjoyed stitching on it! I didn't have one colour (pink) even though I thought I had so at the moment the watermelon looks like its half eaten :D



Hassutuksen kuudentena päivänä aloin pistellä Little House Needleworkin mallia "Fresh watermelon". Kankaana on 28ct Jobelan, väri on bone. Jobelan tuntuu olevan tällä hetkellä lempparikankaani, sille pistely tuntui kaikista mukavimmalta. Yksi väri puuttui (pinkki), joten tällä hetkellä vesimeloni näyttää puoliksi syödyltä :D