The Treehouse

Overdue Update!

I was all set to post some pictures on Friday morning only to find that the battery was flat in the camera! I've not had quite as much stitching time as usual lately but am still fitting a little in now and again when my arm permits. 

First picture is the finally framed My Little Heart - I gave up trying to find a frame for it and took it to the framing shop last week, I think it turned out rather well.

I finished off the April block for Henrietta Whiskers last week, I really enjoy making these blocks each month.

and finally, an update on the teacups. I've almost finished these - just a few French knots, some beads and a little more backstitching of words and it will be complete. I love how well the colours blend together on this - the pattern is in Cross Stitch Collection magazine.

I think it would benefit from spending a little time with the iron! 

My Little Heart

I was away with my lovely friends over the weekend and took this along to catch up on the October and November blocks. I decided that while the enthusiasm was flowing I would finish off the border as well...it helped to do it in good company as well! I'm quite shocked (and very pleased) that I've actually kept up to date with a couple of things this year - I'm looking forward to seeing this finished, I may just have a suitable frame for it as well. 

I can hardly wait to see what December's picture will be. I've a couple of other things that I want to get finished off soon as well as carrying on with my GFG so I'd better get stitching!

 

A couple of missed finishes...

Just getting the camera ready for going away on holiday tomorrow and realised I had missed posting a couple of finishes. I was doing beautifully with my stitching on Christmas Story, I am almost finished stitching the last but one block (Bethlehem, it's just lovely) and then just have the Star to stitch and I can put it all together - I think that will probably wait until school has started though. Here's the Manger - so cute, I think it would make quite a sweet birth sampler type mini quilt if done in different colours.

 

Also sitting waiting in the camera was a picture of this month's My Little Heart - there was a choice this month of either a beehive or a sunflower. Both the designs were fabulous and although I love sunflowers I chose to go with the beehive.

 

I can't believe that we are 8 months into the year and there are now only 4 spaces left to stitch on this lovely little sampler!

We are jetting off on our holidays in the morning and I'm taking some stitching and reading along with me for the evenings and hoping that the weather will be good enough during the daytime for us to get out and about. It seems to have been raining here since the beginning of July and I've had quite enough of it thank you very much - the plants are all happy, the grass is green and we are soggy, lol! 

Better go and get my bags packed!

 

 

My Little Heart - July

Just back from the chiropractor and having a nice cup of relaxing tea so I thought I would quickly post last night's stitching. I felt in need of a finish last night having slogged away all week on Tail Feathers and just in time, the next part of the My Little Heart SAL was there waiting for me. So, without further ado - and no sporting to attend/arrange last night I decided to sit myself upon the sofa and stitch away. To my surprise I got it all finished just before bedtime :D

 

Yesterday the postman brought beautiful post. I am signed up to stitch Lynette Anderson's My Garden BOM and the parcel with month 1 and the fabric was lying on the doormat when I got in from Thursday Threads. I am stitching along with Simone whose kit arrived last week...we seem to like a lot of the same sorts of thing, we're going to work on Scandinavian Christmas together as well and we're already both working on the Fat Quarter Shop Pennsylvania Dutch BOM! Here's a little picture of the beautiful kit that arrived this morning from Bev at Fobbles

 

The photo really doesn't do justice to the fabric at all. It's called Evening Mist and the colours are beautiful soft pinks/lilacs/greys/browns and a very soft black. It doesn't show the block very well in the photo - this month's block is a little wheelbarrow with a bird sitting on it and the little daisy you see stuck to the front of the pattern is in fact a hand painted wooden button.

Anyway, I must away to my jobs so that I can get started making this block later on. I'm still busily making my way around hexagon flower gardens as well, I got a little behind on that this week as I spent most of Wednesday alternately fiddling with Tail Feathers and trying to find some extra cricketers for Wednesday night's match!

oh p.s. I was reading Mary Kathryn's blog with my early morning cup of tea and she has posted about the Everything Austen Challenge II and I think I may just have to join in with that it sounds like such fun. 

*Carole, if you're reading - you need to go and read this challenge it would fit in with so many other challenges...and one could also include a little Austen inspired cross stitch as well :D *

 

One Flower Wednesday plus a few other bits

Last week I managed to complete my to-do list :D One item was to catch up on the My Little Heart SAL and I had done so by Friday.

 

April

May 

June

This week's to-do list included cutting out all of the fabric for Jenny's Christmas Story quilt - I was bursting to start making this quilt and then was hesitant because I wasn't sure about the fabrics that I'd chosen...I was determined to use only stash fabric and not buy anything new! On Monday I managed cut everything out and also I put together all of the stitchery blocks so that was an excellent start :D

 

Not a brilliant photo...the sun was a little too bright at the time but I'm not grumbling about bright sunshine at all, it's lovely.

I had a good hexagon week this week - I managed to make 3 and I like these ones a lot...I think I'll be combining more of the large patterns with the smaller patterned fabrics. I have 20 blooms in little glassine envelopes ready to stitch. Also this week, I wanted to make sure that my outer fabric choice worked so I decided to stitch the outer hexies onto one of this week's blooms - hadn't realised quite how long that was going to take! It was a good move though as now I'm certain that I like the fabric and I also know that it won't be a good idea to leave this part of the project until all of the flowers are stitched or they may be doomed to UFO-dom :o

 

This week's blooms resting in my lovely peony - it's a massive plant now but only started off as one stalk with one leaf! Poor blooms are so heavy that some of them bend right over to the floor. This is the first year that the rain hasn't destroyed them as soon as they opened so I may get John to give them a little photo shoot :)

I have quite a lot of sheets of clamshells printed out now and am ready to cut and stitch. I've also been washing the fabric that I bought for a Dresden plate quilt and for the Life is Beautiful quilt. Trying to prepare lots of things before the school holidays begin so that I've got plenty of hand stitching to take along when the weather is fine enough to go to the park and on picnics.

 

  

 

Busy Bees

I was going to start out with a photo of all the busy little bees currently working very hard in our garden however - they're so quick that everytime I took a photo they'd zoomed off by the time the camera had done it's thing! I'll have to kidnap John's camera in order to capture them I think, they're far too speedy for my little point and shoot!

I have a list this week of things to accomplish. It's quite long. I don't know that I'll get it all done as once again it's a very busy sporty week - and a very successful sporty week too. So far we've had a fabulous netball win (28-5) and a fabulous cricket win (317-250ish) and Catherine came fourth in javelin at an athletics meeting yesterday. Tonight we shall be sporting in a far more sedate manner - it's crown green bowling night. I've declared myself fit to bowl again following the nasty back incident after Easter which left me unable to walk at all for 2 1/2 weeks so I'm hoping I'll get to play tonight...if not, at least I'm off the injured bench and onto the reserve bench, that's progress!

One of my aims this week was to catch up with the My Little Heart SAL cross stitch and I've made some progress - the Easter bunny is stitched and I finished off all of the brown boxes, only May and June to stitch and I am all up to date with that. Here's the bunny with this week's flower for my garden...another green one, I like the green fabric! My blue arrived for the outer circle so next week I may print up some blue hexagons to see what these flowers look like with their blue petals on.

 

Another thing on my 'list' this week was to sew some more of the blocks for Catherine's quilt. I made 4 or 5 on Monday. They're rather large...16" and I'm thinking that I need a little sashing around the outside edge of them otherwise the pinwheels might disappear. I'm thinking of using white for the sashing.

 

(that bit of blur at the bottom...that's the camera strap! didn't see it until I had the picture open in Photoshop!)

 

Left to do on the list are...

Print, cut and sew some clamshells (I washed the blue fabric for these the other day...goodness me, the amount of die that came out it's a wonder there's any colour left in the fabric at all!)

Sew another section of Mary Wigham's wardrobe.

Sew a little more of my Blackbird SAL.

Looks like I'm going to be busy!