Back again!

First I am so sorry I haven't said a word for ages! That doesn't mean I haven't been stitching though. So this time I do hav few pictures to show you :)

First my "wild animals" round robin. You have already seen it, but without my own part. It is done now. It was actually my first finish of 2013! I chose to stitch a bear. For some reason I love bears now. When I waas younger I was scraed of them! I was always afraid they would attack and kill us all. Why? Well.. my favourite cartoons as a kid were about wild dogs who fought against bears which were real killing machines. I know, sounds stupid, but hey, I was a kid :) And those were good! Maybe not anymore.. but I loved them.

So here's my bear :)

Here's also the whole round robin with my bear.

I was a bit afraid it would be too dark for it as the other animals are not that dark coloured. But I think it is fine. Me likes :)

Next is a birthday gift that I stitcher for another stitcher. On this picture the band is not attached to the towel yet. Forgot to take a picture when it was finished..

I also stitched Pollyanna Pickering's Zebra a bit. I added some more black on it. What bothers me is the fabric, 14ct white aida. Not really huge fan of it..

Here's before and after pics.

I do wanna finish this one day ofcourse, even though I don't like the fabric.

I also managed to put few stitches on the "Joy-ornament" by Dimensions. I didn't find the picture of it though. Maybe I didn't take one. I am still not sure what's wrong with it. As earlier I said it looks a bit messy cause the cross stitches and half stitches are going different directions. I mean the top stitches. On my cross stitches the top stitch goes like this \\\\\ and on my half stitches it goes /////. However, on "Southwest Mesa" I have the half stitches exactly the same way as on the ornament, but there it doesn't look bad at all. So, the problem may be on the fabric/floss. The fabric is 18ct aida and I stitch with two threads as was told in the chart. It looks a bit.. bulky to me. Not sure what I will do, if I just keep stitching or what.. Time will tell :)

Then.. ta daa! More finishes!! Whoooo!!!!

Here's my Joan Elliott's Witch that I started on January 2012 during the CrazyJanuaryChallenge. It's finished, finally, lol! The fabric is actually orange. The picture just doesn't look right and I didn't manage to capture the real colour. It's 28ct linen by Silkweaver, called "Inferno".

I left out some backstitches (swirls and border) that I didn't really like. Eyes are all french knots but I tried to do french knots on the dress too. Oh, what a disaster! They were all different sizes and it just looked really bad.. After I was whining about it on a Facebook group, I was told to try a colonial knot. I tried and I fell in love :) Those are so, so much easier than french knots and I managed to make them all same size too, whooo!! :)

There's another finish coming! It's Lizzie Kate's "Snowman '10" which was also started during the CJC. I think.. It was my laptop project but I noticed it wasn't really getting any stitching time, I decided to stitch it and finish it, asap.

I stitched it using DMC. The fabric is.. not quite sure, I once bought it from a real shop. Its 14ct aida by Zweigarth, that I do know. It is marbled, brown. Buttons (which are soooo cute!!) are by Papermania :)

Ofcourse now that I have finished sooo much ;) I had to make new starts, too!

First start of the year was a Quaker. I bought the pattern from a stitchy friend. I LOVE it. The fabric is Silkweaver's 28ct Lugana "Goldspinner". Here's a pic of the patterna and the fabric and how far (not far) I am at the moment.

The first picture of the fabric is quite accurate. I LOVE the colour. And this is fun to stitch too, but sadly, not getting that much stitching time at the moment :(

Here's another start! I started this yesterday as I got the fabric (Silkweaver's 28ct Jazlyn "Seaside melody") earlier this week and it was calling for a mermaid! I was first planning to stitch a Mirabilia mermaid on it, but I did some research and lots of them have tons of bling bling which makes them pretty expensive. So I skipped them.. Maybe later :) But I realised I do have another mermaid pattern and it's perfect! Here's my "Mermaids" by Country Cottage Needleworks :)

Oh how I love it! And the fabric too. It's Jazlyn and even though it is not my first Jazlyn-piece it is my first time stitching on it. Ohhh, soo sooo soft! I seriously love stitching on it. Might be my new favourite. Plus the colour is nice too. I stitched one of the mermaids yesterday and I plan to stitch another one today. I am not using the colours given on the charts as I don't have them. For the mermaid's tails, the ones that change colours. Instead I am using my DMC variegated thread that I bought years ago and never used them. Found some pretty nice colours :) Here's also a pic how the final result will look.

Isn't that lovely??? :)

Lots of stitching and I do love it. I didn't stitch as much as I wanted last year because of my backproblems. I hope they are gone now and I can really enjoy stitching again :)

Have a lovely Sunday everyone, all the mums in UK: Happy Mother's Day! :)

*hugs*

Silkweaver FOTM arrived

Today I got my second shipment from Silkweavers. It was 28ct Lugana, "Iris Garden". I do love the colours but I am not huge fan of this. I don't like how mottled their fabrics are. I prefer more subtle dyeing. So I sent them email, again, about canceling my FOTM. I hope this time it also works.. lol

Now I need to find another FOTM that I wanna join. It's gonna be either Polstitches or Sparklies. Not sure yet :)

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!

New stash!

Finally on my birthday I received the kit which I ordered on February. It t0ok over a month to get it, however I'm glad I eventually got it on my hands. I saw that kit somewhere couple years ago and since then I've wanted to have it. So here it is, "Little kisses" by JCA.



I also got nice hand dyed fabrics! On my last post I mentioned Sparklies and I was waiting for my order from her. Here's a pic of the two amazing fabrics that I got. Both are Lugana, green one (Sunlit forest) is 32ct and yellow (Lemon and lime) is 28ct. Both looked quite a lot different than in pictures, but I know how difficult it is to take a picture of hand dyed fabrics, so I don't mind they don't look exactly the same. Plus I really love lemon and lime colours, so it's better it's not as light coloured as on the website! Sunlit forest looked more blueish on the website and I wish it would be more blue. Still, I like the green too :)



I joined Silkweaver's FOTM (fabric of the month) again after few years. I received my first package last week. I chose to receive 28ct Lugana only. Size will always be 18x27. My first fabric was Days gone by. It's a really beautiful fabric and I failed to take a good picture of it. But here it is. It's not as dark as it seems to be in the pic. It's more like light sand with some with on it. Now it looks a bit grey which it isn't.



Now I'm waiting for a parcel from Sparklies again. LOL, yes! I won two piece of fabric from her Easter sale on Facebook. Hopefully I'll get them this week. Exciting!

Bones and stitching

I haven't been stitching much lately. I did stitch a bit while watching tv last week but so far, I haven't done a single stitch this week. Might do that today while watching Bones (season 1). I just bought season 1 last week and finally got it yesterday (damn online shops, taking ages lol). I do have 4 seasons so far but I've only seen S1 and S2. I started to watch S3 last week, but as I didn't remember anything from S1 and S2, I decided to start to watch them from the beginning.

I have couple pics to show you. "Always welcome" and "Nefertiti".




Yesterday I bought issue 90 of "Cross stitch gold" cause of the chinese lanterns! I saw them on the previous issue and I knew I want no, I NEED to stitch them. I also got my first subsribed issue of "Cross stitch and needlework" wohoo!! I have some random issues but this was the first magazine that was subscribed :)) I really love that magazine and already found charts I wanna stitch. So the Must stitch-list is getting longer and longer.. lol

Day 15 (and 16, also known as day 13)

Yesterday was the final day of Crazy January Challenge. Kinda.. as now the challenge really starts! I have until December 31th to finish all the designs I started on these two weeks. A bit scary.. hehe. I have NO idea if I am able to finish them all or not. Ofcourse I try my best and I do believe that I can. We will see :)

Yesterday I started stitching DMC's "Kitchen Sampler" from old issue of Quick and easy. I had chosen the fabric and ready to roll.. BUT after two stitches I noticed that the main colour of the pattern, ecru, is almost the same colour as the fabric. You can't see the stitches at all. Right.. well not the end of the world as the fabric was rustico aida which I started to hate after using it on "Autumn in my garden" (btw, gonna replace it, I can't stitch on that fabric, it's scratching my hands a lot, don't like it at all!). So I was in a need of a new fabric, again! :D Lucky me I do have lots of nice fabrics on my stash so I chosed something from Silkweaver again, yay!

Fabric is 32ct linen called "Days gone by" and I LOVE it!



Now the explanation for the weird topic of the day. As I said earlier, I didn't start anything on Friday. I was supposed to start two pieces on Sunday. No, I didn't. I started the last one today, hence the 16th day. I didn't really know what to start. So I decided to look through my kits and I found two nice kits by Lanarte: Nefertiti and Tutankhamon. I bought both of them years ago, no idea why I never stitched them as they are both quite small. I chose Nefertiti for the challenge. I will stitch the other one later, maybe this year too.

The fabric on the kit is linen and really hard. It's just the same as the firts piece of linen I bought: very stiff. Now I don't know if linen is supposed to be like than when not hand dyed. But it surely feels different. Not bad, just.. different. Ofcourse I just had to calculate wrong, so the right area on the pic is one stitch too far. Yay, I can do some unpicking again, cheer with me :P



Eilen oli sitten hassutuksen viimeinen päivä. Tavallaan, sillä nythän se haaste vasta alkaakin! Nyt on sitten joulukuun loppuun asti aikaa saada jokainen aloitettu työ valmiiksi. Aika pelottavaa, hehe. En osaa kyllä yhtään sanoa saanko kaikki valmiiksi vai en. Yritän kyllä parhaani ja uskon että saan kaiken valmiiksi :)

Sunnuntaina aloin pistellä DMC:n "Kitchen sampler"-mallia vanhasta Quick and easy-lehdestä. Kangas oli valmiina ja olin aloittamassa pistelyä.. MUTTA parin piston jälkeen tajusin, ettei työn pääväri, ecru, erotu kankaasta laisinkaan. No, ei onneksi maailmanloppu, koska kangas oli rustico aidaa, jota aloin vihata pistellessäni "Autumn in my garden"-mallia (vaihdan muuten kyseisen mallin kankaan. En yksinkertaisesti voi pistellä tuolle aidalle, se raapii käsiä ihan kamalasti). Olin siis uuden kankaan tarpeessa, taas! Onneksi minulla on kätköissä hienoja kankaita joista valita. Valitsin jälleen Silkweaverin kankaan.

Kangas on 32ct pellavaa ja nimeltään "Days gone by". Aivan IHANA kangas!!


Nyt sitten oudon otsikon selitys. Kuten jo aiemmin sanoin, en pistellyt laisinkaan perjantaina. Suunnittelin aloittavani kaksi työtä sunnuntaina. No enpä aloittanut. Aloitin viimeisen työn tänään maanantaina, siksi siis päivä 16. En tienny mitä pistellä. Katsoin kaikki pakkaukseni läpi ja löysin kaksi hienoa mallia Lanartelta: Nefertiti ja Tutankhamon. Olen ostanut nämä vuosia sitten, enkä osaa sanoa miksen ole näitä aiemmin pistellyt, koska molemmat ovat melko pieniä. Valitsin Nefertitin haasteeseen ja pistelen toisen myöhemmin, ehkä jo tänä vuonna.

Pakkauksen pellava on melko kovaa. Juuri samanlaista kuin ensimmäinen pellavakankaani: erottäin jäykkää. En tiedä onko pellava tällaista ilman käsimvärjäystä. Tuntuu kyllä erilaiselta. Ei pahalta, mutta... erilaiselta. Tottakai minun piti mennä laskemaan väärin, joten oikealla puolella oleva alue on yhden piston verran liian kaukana. Jippii, saan purkaa alueen, nyt hurrataan :P

Day 14

Yes, day 14 not day 13. I didn't start anything on friday 13th. Only cause I really didn't feel like stitching at all. So today, last day of the Crazy January Challenge, I will start two.

I made some changes on my list. I removed "Chocolate cake sampler" from the list because I wanna stitch it on recommended fabric after all. And ofcourse, I don't have the fabric at the moment. I need to buy it and start it later. Same with Green Flip-its. I don't have the fabric. I thought I had! But don't have enough, ugh.. So I have two new ones on the list. The other one I started yesterday...

My 14th choice is Mirabilia's "the Blossom Harvest". I really love that pattern and after seeing some pictures of it on the interenet I just had to add it on my list.

The fabric is 32ct handyed Jobelan from Silkweaver. Colour is "Rose petals". I think Silkweaver is not using Jobelan anymore, only Lugana and Jazlyn? Shame :(


Niin, 14. päivä, ei 13.päivä. Perjantaina en aloittanut yhtään työtä. Minua ei vain yksinkertaisesti huvittanut pistellä laisinkaan. Joten sunnuntaina, hassutuksen viimeisenä päivänä, aloitan kaksi työtä.

Tein muutoksia listaani. "Chocolate cake sampler" poistui listalta, sillä haluan kuitenkin pistellä sen mallissa ehdotetulle kankaalle. Ja sitähän minulla ei siis ole, joten täytyypi se ostaa ja aloittaa malli sitten myöhemmin. Samoin kävi Lizzie Katen Green-malleille. Kangas on, MUTTA sitä ei olekaan tarpeeksi. Joten kaksi uutta mallia tilalle. Toisen aloitin eilen...

14.päivän malli on Mirabilian "the Blossom Harvest". Malli on aivan ihana ja kun vielä netissä näin kuvia valmiista töistä, oli minun ihan pakko aloittaa tämä!

Kangas on Silkweaverin 32ct Jobelan. Väri on "Rose petals". Silkweaver ei vissiin nykyisin enää käytä Jobelania vaan Luganaa ja Jazlyniä? Harmi.. :(

Day 8 - Loved you yesterday

I was stitching a bit yesterday while watching a movie. This time I was watching "Watchmen" which was actually quite bad. But as I started to watch it, I decided to finish it as well. It was three hours long (or so). There was something good in the movie though: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, YAY!!! :) Yes I do like him, even though my heart belongs to Sean Bean ;) hehe

I started to stitch "Loved you yesterday" from Cross Stitch Gold. I used 14ct aida from Silkweaver. Fabric is called "Romance" and fits perfectly with the theme.



Eilen pistelin taas elokuvan tahtiin. Tällä kertaa oli vuorossa "Watchmen" joka oli itse asiassa melko huono. Katsoin sen loppuun asti vain koska aloitin sitä katsomaan, enkä viitsinyt jättää kesken. Toki elokuvassa oli jotain hyvääkin: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Yay!!! Kyllä, pidän hänestä kovasti, vaikkakin sydämeni kuuluu Sean Beanille ;) hehe

Aloitin pistelemään "Loved you yesterday"-mallia Cross Stitch Gold-lehdestä. Kangas on 14 ct aida, Silkweaveriltä. Kankaan nimi on "Romance" ja sopii siis teemaan todella hyvin.

Day 4 - Trick or treat

Yesterday I had problems at choosing what to stitch. I spent at least couple hours just trying to choose my next one! Ofc the funny thing is that it's only a start and I'm gonna start them all sooner or later.. so no idea why it was so hard yesterday. I kinda wanted to start another one (Winter wonderland) but wasn't sure about the fabric after all. It might be a bit too dark, don't know.

Well, finally I was able to make a decision. I decided to start stitching Joan Elliott's "Trick or treat" from "Quick and easy stitch and craft" (issue 157). I had chosen a fabric for it (handyed 14ct aida) but I started to wonder if I should choose a similar colour fabric which is linen. You see, I don't stitch on linen a lot nor evenweave. I have tried them both but stitching on them is a lot slower so I prefer aida. Making that decision took a while, too. I finally decided to try linen as the pattern is quite small so better start with it than with something bigger (then again I do have a bigger one on my list and I planned to stitch that on linen as well). So my fabric is Silkweaver's 28ct Cashel Linen "Inferno".

Stitching on linen.. was damn nice! It IS slower than on aida but the fabric is so nice and soft! Plus I like the colour of the fabric. However I need to unpick some stitching, the orange ones. I started to stitch with orange and I was afraid to pull the thread tight cause didn't wanna cause huge holes on the fabric. So ofc the stitches are now too loose and they look really bad. Oh well, at least it's not much I need to unpick.

I even started to wonder if I should change some fabric choices now. From aida to linen/evenweave. Hehe, we will see. I still do like aida too ofc.

Here's the pic of the witch.




Eilen oli kamalan vaikeaa päättää mitä pistellä seuraavaksi. Meni ainakin pari tuntia pähkäillessä minkä työn aloitan seuraavana! Hassuinta tietenkin on, että aloitan kaiiki työt ennemmin tai myöhemmin. Halusin oikeastaan aloittaa erään toisen työn (Winter wonderland), mutta en ole lainkaan varma kankaasta. Se saattaa olla hieman liian tumma väriltään. Joten jätin sen työn sivuun ja valitsin toisen.

Vihdoin ja viimein onnistuin valitsemaan seuraavan työn. Päätin aloittaa pistelemään Joan Elliottin "Trick or treat" noitaa. Malli on "Quick and easy stitch and craft"-lehdestä, numerosta 157. Olin jo valinnut kauniin käsinvärjätyn kankaan mallille joka on 14ct aida. Aloin kuitenkin miettiä, joskos pitäisikin valita samanvärinen kangas, joka on kuitenkin pellavaa. Minä en pistele pellavalle juuri laisinkaan, sillä sille pistely on todella hidasta. En ole tottunut siihen. Joten pistelen mielummin aidalle. Tämänkin päätöksen tekeminen otti aikansa.. Päätin kuitenkin kokeilla pellavaa, koska työ on melko pieni, joten helpompaa aloittaa pellavalle pistely pienen mallin kanssa (toisaalta, minulla on listassa isompi malli, jonka olen suunnitellu pistelevöni pellavalle..). Kankaaksi siis valikoitui lopulta Silkweaverin 28ct Cashel Linen "Inferno".

Pellavalle pistely.. on huippua! Pistely ON hitaampaa kuin aidalle, mutta kangas on niin ihanan pehmeää! Väri on kans mieleeni. Minun pitää tosin purkaa muutamia pistoja, kaikki oranssit. En alussa uskaltanut kiristää lankaa tarpeeksi, etten vahingossakaan tee kankaaseen reikiä, koska pistot ovat liian kireällä. Tämän takia tapahtui päinvastainen, eli pistot ovat liian löysällä ja näyttävät kamalilta! Onneksi pistoja ei ole kovinkaan paljoa.

Aloin jopa pohtia valitsemieni kankaiden vaihtoa. Siis aidasta pellavaan/evenweave (onko tälle suomenkielistä nimitystä?). Hehe saapa nähdä. Ja pidän siis aidasta edelleen, vaikkakin pellava tuntuu nyt todella mukavalta pistellä.

Ylhäällä kuva noidasta.

House by Lizzie Kate finished

I finally finished the small house by Lizzie Kate. It was a joy to stitch. I really need to get more of their patterns. The reason why I don't have their patterns (or LHN which I also love) is that before I had 2 years break from cross stitching, I mainly bought english magazines and they don't have patterns like that (well I found this house from Cross Stitcher!) so I really didn't have any idea of these lovely patterns before now. Yay, I am happy I found them now as one of the reasons I had a break from stitching was that I didn't really feel like stitching those cute characters from the magazines that I had.

So here's the picture of the finished piece. I love it! Aaand.. what next? :)



Sain viimein valmiiksi Lizzie Katen pikku-talon! Sitä oli kyllä ihana pistellä. Pitää hankkia lisää malleja kyseiseltä puljulta. Ei taida olla kun kaksi tällä hetkellä. Aiemmin ei tullu hankittua heidän mallejaan (tai LHN:n jotka on kans aivan ihania) koska en yksinkertaisesti tiennyt niistä. Ostelin englantilaisia ristipistolehtiä ja nehän nyt on täynnä söpöjä hahmoja. Onneksi löysin Lizzie Katen ja kumppanit nyt! Yksi syy kahden vuoden taukoon pistelyssä muuten oli juuri nämä söpöt hahmot. Lehdet oli niitä pullolaan ja minua ei kiinnostanut ne tippakaan. Joten pistelyhalut olivat hukassa kauan aikaa.

Ja ylhäällä kuva talosta. Ja mitähän sitten seuraavaksi? :)

House by Lizzie Kate

I started to stitch an old pattern that I found from Cross Stitcher (issue 154, Christmas 2004). It's Lizzie Kate's house and I was surprised to find a chart like that from Cross Stitcher. Happy but surprised :) I had most colours, just missing one dark pink which I might replace with another pink. Or I just go and buy the missing one tomorrow, haha.

I started to stitch it while I was watching a movie with my boyfriend. I was able to stitch quite much, considering I was also watching the movie! And talking with my bf ofc. I am not usually too good at multitasking though, haha.

Here's a pic of my stitching and how it should look when finished. Fabric is Silkweaver's 14ct aida. I don't remember the colourname as it didn't have any kind of label anymore.



Löysin vanhasta Cross Stitcheristä Lizzie Katen talo-mallin (CS 154, Christmas 2004). Olin aika yllättynyt, positiivisesti tosin. Yleensä kun CS:ssä mallit on enempi söpöilyyn taipuvaisia, ainakin vanhoissa lehdissä. Kaikki värit löyty, paitsi tummempi pinkki, jonka luultavasti korvaan toisella värillä tai menen huomenna ostamaan sen, haha.

Pistelin taloa illan elokuvan aikana. Pistelin aika paljon, vaikka samalla todellakin katsoin elokuvaa ja juttelin poikaystävän kanssa. Yleensä mä en ole hyvä tekemään kovin montaa asiaa samalla kertaa :D

Ylhäällä kuva omasta pistelystä ja lehdestä. Kangas on Silkweaverin 14ct aida, väriä en muista kun ei ollut lappua missään enää.