The Treehouse

Quick! take a photo...

I've gone slightly off plan with my stitching! In fact, I'm not too sure why I make a plan because as soon as I make one - I go right off plan! The 'plan' with the Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches was to slowly catch up by stitching on it at the weekends. That hasn't happened. No. Not at all. What has happened is that since my last blog post (ages ago!) I have stitched exclusively on Around the World and completely ignored everything else. My excuse? I was enjoying myself! I was enjoying myself so much in fact that I kept on stitching and forgot to take a photo at the end of each section.

So here's where I'm at right now - if you remember from the last post about this piece, when I went back to stitching it I'd not even completed stitching the second heart due to my inability to make a decision on threads colours.

I have that petal shape to complete and two more parts and then I will be up to date although I think we are due the next section very soon. I'm thrilled to have done as much of it as I have though and I love the way it's looking.

Part 2 consisted of the two tulip shapes...

Not brilliant photos I'm sorry to say - the weather is dull here this morning and I ended up using the flash. See the white bits? Well, way back when we started on this project I was tempted to use a different colour of thread because I worried that the white would stick out like a sore thumb. Instead, I think they give the eye a place to rest and I love stitching the white parts now - but then, I love using perle threads.

Part 3 was this four petal design...

Lots of Lazy Daisies on this part - I'm not too friendly with those, they're easy to stitch but tricky to make them look neat. I have been going a little off plan with the colours occasionally too - those lazy daisies should have been stitched in more colours than they are but it looked too busy to me so I didn't do that.

Part 4 was these two funny shapes...

No white stitching in this part but those leaves and the windmill stitches made up for that - I loved stitching those.

Part 5 was another odd shape...

LOVED stitching this part, some really fun stitches here.

Part 6...hmm, the camera rebelled here and told me that the battery wanted charging so I'll have to do a photo of that another day. It was a very fun and very quick part to stitch and there was a good amount of lovely white stitching to do. 

I'm currently part way through part 7...enjoying the white stitching, yum! I took a break at the weekend to stitch an easy little Christmas ornament while we were watching a film. I would show a photo of that but the camera says no!

Half term this week so my couple of hours stitching in the afternoon has gone by the wayside for now. Plus, I'm under pressure from Catherine to finish off her Grinch quilt but...my sewing machine says no! I'll be calling up my Pfaff dealer this morning to see if she can give him a look over to see what the problem is. 

Hopefully I'll be back soon with a photo of the Christmas ornament and some more progress on Around the World :)

Around the World in 80 Stitches

I started this project last year after some encouragement from Carole and a peek at the first part of her project. I struggled to keep up with stitching last year as I wasn't enjoying very good health, there were a couple of months when I think I didn't actually stitch at all and this was one project that got left by the wayside. Well actually, it got put into the naughty corner. It wasn't the project's fault really - it was me, I just couldn't properly decide on thread colours. Anyway, it was on my list of things to sort out during this month and I got everything out a few days ago and had a good old sort out. I had already stitched the first heart and was onto the second. Having forced myself to make some final colour choices and undo the colours that I didn't like I set off toe finish heart number 2.

Heart number 1 - I can't remember what I enjoyed stitching on this one as it's so long now since I stitched it but I do recall having problems with the Berwick Stitch which should have been the stitch beneath the dark pink flowers. I think I resorted to backstitching instead - it looks no different to me.

Sorry for the quality of these photos. I've been waiting for the weather to behave so that I could take some decent pictures. I usually take photos in the conservatory where the light is excellent however, the weather decided to drop another 5 inches of snow on us yesterday so it's rather dark in the conservatory today! The husband and the son are currently trying to dig us a path up to the main road - yes, we live right at the bottom of a steep hill. Anyway, onto more exciting things, here is heart no. 2 - this picture is even worse but at least it gives a general idea...

On this heart, I loved stitching the big flowers - I think these are called Lindisfarne stitches. They were a lot of fun and I love the cute, cushions of the Scotch stitches. Notice that nowhere am I making mention of the Lazy Daisies. No. Keeping quiet about those. I must have stitched a gazillion of them on other projects but I can't seem to make them look pretty on this type of fabric. Humph!

Here's the whole progress so far - I have already stitched the outlines of the tulips for part two so last night I enjoyed doing the Hardanger in each tulip and then I started to do the Mordvinian Star pieces. Unfortunately, it was 10 o'clock and my eyes were saying enough, enough, enough - it's time for a rest. So I had to pack up and leave it to play with today. Those Mordvinian things are a bit fiddly to be honest and I was thinking what a heck of mess I was making of them but when I looked at them in daylight this morning they seem to look okay so I'll plod on with those this afternoon.

Now, Carole is an excellent friend and I am certain this in the past I have tempted her to many a book or sewing purchase. Currently, she is having a good run at tempting me to do stuff. I said last year that I wasn't going to do the Song of the Weather Hardanger SAL. I should have realised at the time that I was fibbing to myself when I know that I've wanted to do some proper Hardanger for a long time. Anyway, Carole persevered with the tempting and it wasn't long before I found myself clicking over to see what the first month's piece looked like. Not long after that I was clicking over the Sew and So to order up the necessary. Oops! Hopefully, this will be a healthier year and I will get more stitching done. I hope so - I've got plenty to do! Below are my supplies - I decided to use the cream fabric with a raspberry pink and a pale pink for the colours. I'm rather excited to get started but will wait until I've finished part 2 of Papillon.

Long Time No Blog - a catch up!

The last couple of months have passed by in a blur of holiday excitement, illness, exams, cricket, more exams, crown green bowling and yet more exams!

There are quite a few photos to follow. In April we took delivery of our new toy - Winnie. 

Here she is on her first night away from home - we took her on a little trip to Castle Howard and York. We had a lovely time and the weather mostly behaved. She is very comfy to sleep in and riding along in her is huge fun!

During April, I didn't achieve a great deal of stitching because of the holidays and because of the aforementioned poorliness which is still ongoing so my stitching progress has slowed considerably. I did however manage to start and finish the first part of SamSarah Designs new monthly stitch which is called The Flock.

I LOVE the colour of the linen - it's called Red Pear. I got all my bits and pieces from Karla at The Patchwork Rabbit and am looking forward to stitching part two when it arrives.

I have also stitched month 2 of Lynette Anderson's new BOM In Full Bloom and have almost finished part 3. Here are the two stitcheries for part 2 - I love the little bumble bees!

 

There was a school bag emergency in April - the handle of Catherine's bag snapped for the second time and I decided it was time to make a new one. I used the All About Anna pattern from Stephanie at Loft Creations to whip up this little cupcake special...

I also made a matching pencil case which turned out to be more of a pencil pouch as it was rather large...not managed to take a photo of that yet. I wasn't allowed to photograph the bag model's head! I did however snap this quick pick of said model up on the roof of Winnie after a kayaking session :grin:

I've been working on stitching together some 2" hexagons on and off over the last couple of months - easy stitching when feeling grotty and it's looking quite pretty. I'm using Kate Spain's Verna with a few extra pinks thrown in - so wish that I had bought more of Verna when she was available, she's so lovely.

Finally for now, I allowed myself to be drawn into stitching the Around the World SAL by Papillion Creations. I knew that Carole was going to stitch this and had decided that I couldn't fit it into my schedule...until I saw it stitched up! I started last weekend and have so far stitched the first heart of part one. It was a pleasure to stitch and I enjoyed it all except for Berwick Stitch which totally defeated me and so I resorted to using my good friend blanket stitch instead :)

You can see in the pic that I am just now stitching the tulips for part two - I thought I might as well while I had the dark green out to stitch the second heart. I spent ages choosing which fabric and threads to use and managed to pick the exact same fabric as Carole is using! It's a 28ct Jobelan and the colour is Bone - it's lovely to work with. Thread colours so far are...

Dark Green  -  Weeks Dye Works Moss in perle no.8 and stranded cotton

Medium Green - DMC 370

Light Green - Gentle Arts Cornhusk

Floral 1 - Crescent Colours Wild Berries (an all time favourite of mine)

Floral 2 - Crescent Colours Clay Pot

Floral 3 -

Floral 4 -

Floral 5 - Gentel Arts Grape Arbor

Floral 6 - DMC 3835

Floral 7 -

Floral 8 -

Metallic - Pink Petite Treasure Braid

Bead 1

Bead 2

I did have a full selection of colours before I started to stitch by I'm tweaking it slightly as I go along which is why I've left some of colour choices blank for now until I make a final decision.

That's about all for now. We're off on another jaunt in Winnie next - I'm really looking forward to it. We're hoping to visit Cragside and maybe one or two other National Trust properties and just generally relax for a few days.