Stitching Bee

I have finished the penultimate part of The Drawn Thread's Sampler of Stitches, V,W, and X!  Here it is . .

 

V is for . . . Vault stitch (top left, in pinks); Vandyke Chain Stitch (top right, rows of 'flowers'), and Vandyke (in 2 rows of greens)

W is for . . . Windmill, Woven Cross (in the greens), wave filling stitch (pulled); and Waffle (in the pinks/reds)

X is for . . . (predictably), "X" stitch, or 'cross' stitch.

I've also received my floss tag as part of the floss-tag exchange on Friendly Stitchers.  This lovely little tag was stitched by Lynda A, who painstakingly stitched this gorgeous little LHN design over one fabric thread on 28ct! 

Isn't it sweet?  I just love it, thank you sooooooooo much, Lynda!  It will be treasured and well-used, I can tell you! Lynda was kind enough to pop in3 skeins of Dragon Floss in bright, summery shades, and a Limited Edition Gloriana Silk (my favourite silk!) in very dark green/blacks, like inky seaweed, gorgeous and unique!  I will love using these!

Like most people in the UK, I have been watching the tennis on Television, as we are into the 2nd week of Wimbledon.  Last night, Andy Murray's match went on until 10.40pm - the latest ever match in the history of Wimbledon.  It was an 'edge of the seat' match . . but nevertheless I still managed to put the finishing touches to Queen Bee, by Little House Needleworks, and here it is . .

  I used all hand-dyed threads for this; the three recommended Crescent Colours, and Gentle Art Sampler Threads in place of the DMC for the rest.  It was pleasant to work on something so simple for a change!   I'm not sure if I will frame this one or make it up into a cushion; it would look lovely as a cushion but GAST and CC are not guarranteed colourfast so I worry that if it needs washing, it would ruin it!

My dear friend Val designed a 'humbug' just for me!  I sat and stitched it last weekend in the sunshine.  Here it is all made up . .

I have also beeen a good girl and worked quite a bit more on Celestial Wings (my UFO) . . . no scan of that, but I have started on the backstitch round the dragon, finished the 'earth' and done more of the border.  It's coming along well.

Finally, here is an update on my A Stitch A Week Sal  . . we are now up to Week 26!  Half-way through already - where has the time gone?

Lots of new stitches have been used - the strawberries were queen stitch, the strawberry flowers were square herringbone.  The Sweet Williams were eyelets and the roses spider-web stitches.  I used long-arm stitch in rows to make the straw bee-skep and tiny smyrna stitches for the bee bodies.

Lots of people have been joining Friendly Stitchers wanting to join in with this SAL, and we love seeing all the different sampler growingbut I must just point out that the charts are PASSWORDED, and only given out to people who make a regular contribution to the group.  FS is a CHAT-group, not a website for freebie charts, and we take  a dim view of being used as such - so please, join us if you'd like to be part of a friendly, chatty group of stitchers from around the world, but not if you intend to download charts and not take part in the group!  

 

 

I have finished a few needlework smalls recently, so I thought I would share them with you!

Here is my first ever floss tag!  This one was for an exchange on Friendly Stitchers, and she is already with her new owner.  Charlene was delighted with her 'Thread Keeper' - which is just as well as I found it quite hard to give her away!

I also finished a 'mini sewing kit' using the Serenity Chart that I designed myself for the 'My Way' competition on Friendly Stitchers.  The idea was to stitch and finish the chart any way you liked; there have been some really wonderful finishes coming in!  This set was for my son, who is off to University later this year and will need somewhere to keep all his spare buttons etc!

I also added a small fob (complete with tassle of hassle ) to the bee-garden accessories set . .

Finally, I had on my 'crafters' hat this week.  My wonderful Dad turned 70, and I decided to make him a card he could keep forever.  He has been a gardening-lover for as long as I can remember, and so it seemed the ideal subject for the card.

Right, that's all for now!  I have some more updates but I will leave those for another post.  In the meantime, happy stitching (or crafting!) everyone!

Buzzing off . . . .
Bee
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 Hi Everyone,

Just a quick entry this time . . . Wow, we really have been enjoying some absolutely stunning weather for the last few days, here in the UK!   I have been sitting out in the garden buzzzzzzzzy with my needle, whilst my two teenage children slog over their revision, poor things (DD is doing GCSEs and DS is doing A-levels!).

I finally settled down to Part 12 of the Papillon Creations mystery sal, How Does Your Garden Grow.   Here it is, all beaded up . .

And here is a photo of the full project, all finished! 

I haven't decided how to finish this one yet - most people seem to have done them as bell-pulls, and it does 'lend' itself to that quite well, but as this piece is on hand-dyed lugana and is all done in hand-dyed silks, it might do better under glass . . that's if I can persuade DH to frame it for me! 

Happy stitching everyone,

Bee

 

It's been absolutely beautiful here in Gloucestershire the last few days! 

I have taken advantage of the gorgeous weather to sit in my greenhouse, or on the swing-bench in the garden, and get busy with my needle!

First, I re-stitched that scissor-case which I ruined a couple of weeks ago.  I decided to do it slightly differently this time; I made the whole thing bigger by adding another row of norwich and scotch stitches across the top, and I changed the front adding a bee-skep and 2 little bees from the needlebook chart.  I needed to add another row to the bee-skep to get the balance right, but I think it works!  I added a bee-shaped button and a button-hole loop, and finished it using craft-vilene - and of course, that flippin' tassle of hassle! 

I also decided I had neglected the Drawn Thread Sampler of Stitches lately.  A lady on my group has recently finished hers; she made it up as a long bell-pull, each of the 'mini' samplers under the one above, rather than in a 9-block as I am doing.   It looked absolutely stunning and spurred me on to the next 2 letters!  Here they are . .

T is for . .

Threaded Herringbone (pink, top left); Three sided Stitch (pulled stitch in cream); Thorn Stitch (on the tree); Triple Rice stitch (gold/grey flower heads); Tete De Boeuf (tiny gold lazy-daisy flowers between the triple rice-stitches - not sure making them very small means they are a different stitch, but there you are ); Trellis Couching (cream block at the bottom).

U is for . . .

Upright Rice Stitch (lighter pink); Upright Cross Stitch (darker pink); Up and Down Buttonhole (cream perle across the bottom); Underline Stitch (greens). . . and, of course, 'umbrella'.  The chart asked for half-cross stitches as the raindrops but I thought I'd use lazy-daisies . . or should that be
'tete-de-boeuf's as they are so tiny???)

Working on this one has reminded me how much I enjoy it - I can't wait for the next part, now!

Finally, here are the next two weeks of the Stitch A Week sal that I designed myself . .

This brings me up to week 22!  Where has the time gone, I wonder?

Right, I am off to start work on the scissor fob to match the scissor case! 
Happy stitching everyone!

Buzzing off . . .
Bee

After that last non-stitchy post, I thought I had better show you that I have actually been buzzzzy with me needle, honest!!!

Firstly, I finally finished the backstitch and beads on Buzzy Days, and DH kindly framed it for me.  Here it is, all completed! :-)

This one was stitched on a hand-dyed 28ct Lugana from Silkweavers.  I added some 'Fuzzy' thread to the centre of the daisies and the bee, and if you look carefully, there's a caterpillar and a ladybird charm in there! :-)

My best mate Mouse (hence the 'Mouse and Bee' theme! ) came down for a few days last weekend, and we had a lovely day out to Malvern Quilt Show.  Mouse has never really done patchwork as she's a dressmaker at heart; but she took one look at all the gorgeous patchwork fabrics on display and was an instant addict!    As you can imagine, we both came home with lots of fat-quarters and half-meters. 

Then we settled down for some 'serious' stitching.  First off was to get up to date on the Friendly Stitchers "A Stitch A Week" sal (we are now up to week 20!).  Here is mine . . 

The clematis ended up being a much darker pink that my 'real' one, as the pale colour barely showed against the fabric.  I used a stump-work technique to make the 3-D stamens on it.  The bluebells were satin stitch, the top of the bullrushes in the frog square were bullion-knots, and finally 'Daisy' the cow is munching on lazy-daisy flowers! 

I had another finish - and also a bit of a disaster.  At the show, I found some sweet gold-thread tassles that just 'begged' to be included to my bee-garden scissor case.  In order to attach it, however, I had to turn the scissor case inside out.  This I did, but on turning it right-sides-out again, the seam split, and the fabric frayed so badly that there was no way to rescue it.  You can imagine how gutted I was!  Thankfully, I have enough of the threads and fabric to make another. 

In the meantime, I set-to and finished the matching needlecase.  Here it is:-

Finally . . Mouse and  I both had the kit for Jane Greenoff's "The Embroideress" in our stash piles, and so we decided we'd make a start on it together.  A good job we did!  There is no key on the chart, only on the rather flimsy pre-sorted thread cards; my cards were so badly printed however, that I had to keep referring to Mouse's to work them out!  I was also missing 2 colours and needed to check that Mouse definitely had them included on hers.

We dug in with our needles, only to realize that there were several discrepencies between the chart, the instructions and the photo of the finished piece!  We had a lot of discussion, trying to work out how a certain part would go, and making a few 'individual' changes ourselves.

Here is my effort so far:-

If you look carefully, you can see I changed the owl to satin-stitch (he was originally in cross-stitch), and I also changed the colour of the backstitch round some of the flowers.  It's made mine look completely different to Mouse's - amazing that such a tiny substitution can make such a huge difference to the look of the piece!  I think we both like the fact that our samplers will be the same, yet unique!

Right, enough of my yacking . .   I will get back to my stitching, and maybe even get round to re-stitching that scissor case (WITH tassle, this time!)

Buzzzzzzzzzzing off . .. 
Bee
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A non-stitchy post, for once!

Yesterday, a beautiful spring Sunday, the family had a day out at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire.  I'd heard a lot about this place, and I saw it had inspired Jane Greenoff of the Cross-Stitch Guild to design a band sampler - so we thought we'd check it out.

Well, what can I say but - WOW!!  What an amazing place!

Isn't this Acer palmatum just incredible?  This is exactly the colour it was in real life - it almost hurt your eyes to look at it!  In fact, the Japanese Maple collection was generally just jaw-dropping, as you can see . .

It just seemed to go on and on . .

We just walked along in a daze, hardly able to believe such a wonderland of nature.

And every where we went, the ground was carpeted with bluebells as far as the eye could see.  When the sun came out, the scent of them rose and it was like walking through the most expensive perfume shop you can imagine!

The place is HUGE - we saw less than a quarter of it.  My legs gave out long before I was ready to say goodbye - but at least that means there is more for me to explore on a future visit.  Well - who wouldn't want to go back to a place as magical as this?

Buzzing off . .
Bee
x

The sun has stayed with us, and I have been spending many happy hours in the greenhouse with my stitching, a glass of something refreshing at my side, the scent of new-growth all around me, my dogs snoozing at my feet . . is there anything more wonderful in the world, I wonder?

I finally got round to finishing the designing for the speciality-stitch version of the centre panel on the ASAW sal for Friendly Stitchers.  The original has an alphabet charted in cross-stitch, but several people said they didn't want an alphabet, and for me, I just HAD to have something with speciality stitches in, of course!  So here it is, all stitched up - with Week 16's Tulip design, so it's now completely up to date!

Hm, should that bit in the middle have read, "In my Greenhouse, I find Joy" ?? 

And finally, because I keep promising (and keep forgetting ) here is a pic of Celestial Wings, my UFOs.  Non-stitchers please note - UFO stands for Un Finished Object, please do not keep writing to me about aliens and space ships!)

This one is being worked on a 28ct Silkweaver solo that has a gold thread running through it, so it looks just like millions of tiny stars shimmering away in the heavens - very appropriate!  The scan doesn't pick this up, nor the fact that the tail fluke and the ridge-scales are in Krienik braid - the whole thing glistens!

We have a UFO day on Friendly Stitchers (no, not for little green men) where we are encouraged to work a little on our UFOs once a week.  I must admit I have been a bit naughty and not strictly adhered to this, partly because my dear friend Alison Joy, who wields the wet noodle (we thought a whip might be a bit cruel ) has been too ill to keep lashing us into action.  I hope if she manages to read this, she will see I haven't entirely neglected it and might spare me a few pasta-swipes!

Right, I'm off to sit in the sun again!  Hey - it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it, right?)

Buzzing off . . . .
Bee

April has arrived, and with it has come glorious sunshine hot enough to make the garden errupt with blossom, tulips, hyacinth, dandelions, daisies, wood anemones, bluebells (just starting!) and of course, new leaves.   As if to remind us all that it's not summer yet, the days of blue skies are interspersed with days of thick blanketing fog, chilly, strong winds and thunder-storms, brrrr!

The wildlife in the forest has begun its annual spring-fest of baby-production - foxes, rabbits, squirrels birds, frogs, mice, even slow-worms, have all been spotted or heard in the garden, busy about the business of either finding a mate, or bringing up babies.

I have been buzy, both with the needle in my hand and the one in my sewing machine!  I decided I wanted to make a quilted tote to carry my stitching bits and bobs about; one that had plenty of pockets, that wasn't too big or too small, and had an open-top to allow bigger Q-snaps to stick out the top if need be.   I finally found the pattern I was looking for; a reversible 'shopper'; one side has long pockets, the other has smaller square ones, and you can turn the bag inside-out or outside-in, depending on what you want to be kept hidden inside, or be quick to hand outside!

Here it is:-

 

With cross-stitch, I have been working some more on Celestial Wings (hm, really must take a photo of that one, it's really starting to take shape, now!), Papillon Creation's How Does Your Garden Grow (I'm on to the last part, yippee!), the A Stitch A Week sal from my Friendly Stitchers group, and Bee Garden accessories.  I finished the scissor sheath for this today; I decided to make it into a 'scissor slider' by adding a twisted cord and attaching it to the pin-keep, so that you can't loose your scissors or your needles, or the case!  Here it is . . 

 

I made this one up differently to how I did the Friendly Stitchers Slider, in that no card was inserted, so it is 'soft' to the touch and squishy!   It also has a backstitch border round it which made the making-up much faster and easier.   Having ironed interfacing to the back of the stitching to stabilize it, I then put each stitched piece right-sides-together with the lining, and machined round three edges (one thread OUTSIDE of the backstitch border), leaving the top open.  I turned this right-side out,  and 'fed' in a piece of quilt-wadding already cut to shape, before closing the top with ladder-stitch (aka 'invisible stitching').  When both sides were done,  I whip-stitched them together through the backstitches (like how you would for a biscornu), remembering to insert the needle-keep after the first side, with the cord hanging out through the gap at the bottom.   I'm quite pleased with the result - a lot less bother and it's just as neat a finish!

We are up to week 16 on the ASAW sal, now.  I haven't got started on the latest design, yet, so this one is only up to last week's.   Anyway, here it is . .

You can see it's really starting to grow, now - and Winter is turning into spring!  I had the little bird button in my stash, but I did actually chart a bird sitting on the bird-house for those who didn't have one!  I am so enjoying seeing what everyone is doing with this project - one lady has changed the Westie to a Dacshund, for example, and another lady changed the primrose-patch that the bunny sits in to dandelions and daisies!  Another lady did bright pink wellington boots, jazzy!

A word about the free-charts on Friendly Stitchers  . . please remember that the charts are now passworded.   Passwords are given out solely at the discretion of the Moderators, and are not available to lurkers.

Happy stitching everyone - stay buzzzzzzzy!

Bee
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It has been a while since I last wrote, so I am sorry if you have all been waiting patiently!  It's mainly because I have had problems with painful hands and I haven't been doing much in the way of stitching.

Instead,  I have made good use of my new Sony PRS 'Reader', and Audible audiobooks on my iPod Nano, watching the birds on the feeder, and seeing Winter slowly changing into spring!

I have done a bit of stitching, though - I have made a couple of prezzies (which I can't say too much about, as they haven't got to their new owners yet!), done a little bit of work on Celestial Wings (hm, must scan that in and show you all where I am with it!), and have completed the cross-stitch on Buzzy Days.

I also decided to have a go making a Q-snap cover.  These are a bit like steering-wheel covers; elasticated loops of fabric that fit around the outside of your Q-snap frame, helping to keep the frame and fabric clean, and enabling you to tuck excess fabric out of the way into the cover.  There are fairly simple to make but you do need a sewing machine really.  I used instructions I found on the internet.  Here is the finished result (with 'Buzzy Days' so far!)

I think I will probably have a go at making covers for the other sizes of Q-snaps that I own, although as this is a 14-inch square one, it should also fit a 17" by 11" frame, too.  I have also seen what are called Q-snap 'Boots', deeper pockets that fit over one side of your frame if you have a large amount of excess fabric to deal with.  This might well be useful for a planned project I have in my stash-draw!

I had a birthday earlier this month, although it was a bit of a quiet day due to a pain-flare .   My DH and my kids got me a DVD player for the little TV in my bedroom, so now I can watch my favourites in bed, nice and cosy!  I also had a gorgeous artist teddy bear called "Eddie" (teddy Eddie!), he has a very sad expression cos he's been through the wars , and has been patched up by someone who doesn't possess a lot of skill with a needle, LOL!  I also had a stunning dragonfly biscornu from Val, some Polstitches perle threads and fabric from Karen, and a Judy Dixon chart from Mouse.  I am also starting to get thread parcels as I am this months 'Calender Girl' on Friendly Stitchers - but I will save them all up and put a photo up once I have them all, promise!

Just a couple of quick messages before I go - Happy Birthdays  to Karen (last Monday) and Val (today)!  And Get Well Soon Wishes  to Alison Joy (who is in bed with pneumonia, poor lass) and Mouse (recovering from abdominal surgery).   Hope all of you find reasons to smile today!  Love ya all!  (((((((hugs))))))))

Buzzzzzzzing off  . . . . . .
Bee
x

Here are the promised photos from DH's 'walk' with the dogs.  I say 'walk' . . for my Westie, Angus, it was more of a 'wade'!   DH said he had to keep under the trees where the snow was less deep, otherwise poor wee Angus disappeared!

And yes, it's STILL snowing! 

It's almsot getting to the point of being scary, rather than fun.  Our food supplies are getting low and more snow is forecast for Sunday.  If we can't get out tomorrow then things could start to become "interesting", as they say!

Stay warm, everyone - and stay safe.
Bee
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