77 - Cross Stitcher mag gift tags

These are from Cross Stitcher mag issue 247, the cover kit.  I won't go into long details about how much this magazine has disappointed me this last year (again!) but they slightly redeemed themselves with these designs by Angela Poole.

76 - Periphaeria Star SAL

The penultimate Happy Dance for 2012 is the Star SAL from Periphaeria.  I became aware of this one about halfway through on Mouse's blog and just had to join in.  I also filched the colour scheme from Mouse, she used purples on another sampler and they looked so good I had to steal!

The fabric is Purpleberry Spludge from Sparklies, gorgeous name for a gorgeous fabric.  It's a 28count evenweave which I stitched over 1.  I've used Purple 333 and Yellow 973 throughout but the purple looks lighter when there's only one row of stitches, on the alphabet and the bottom symbol.

75 - Tralala Cat for Sam

  

This is the Tralala cat I have stitched before, available free from Socreastitch  I used the same DMC 4215 as before.

Dawn from Crafty Kitten found out she was expecting a baby due in January.  As she would be on maternity leave in January I decided to order my fabric just before Christmas so she could dye it over the holiday period.  I got an email on Boxing Day from her hospital bed saying "Baby came early, don't worry about your fabric, hubby is getting it ready to send to you"  That is the sort of customer service you get from Crafty Kitten, beautiful fabrics come Hell, High Water and Newborn Babies!

Anway, Nic, Hannah and myself collaborated on a Round Robin afghan for baby Sam.

Here is the whole piece in all it's glory:

This was a lovely afghan from Sewandso,  reasonably priced and very soft.  It specified "18 count evenweave" on the website so my brain said "that mean 36count which is equivalent to 18count aida".  When it arrived it really was 18count evenweave and a very loose evenweave too.  So the choice was to stitch over 2 and get 9count equivalent or stitch over 1.  Which I did.  Moral - read and believe the website.

Dawn was thrilled to bits with the present which arrived this week.  She sent us a lovely photo of Sam with it, I forgot to ask permission to post it here, so I won't just yet.  But his expression is priceless - he's got his arms stretched out wide going "how big is my blanket?"!!

74 - Little Dragon for Sam

  

Dawn from Crafty Kitten found out she was expecting a baby due in January.  As she would be on maternity leave in January I decided to order my fabric just before Christmas so she could dye it over the holiday period.  I got an email on Boxing Day from her hospital bed saying "Baby came early, don't worry about your fabric, hubby is getting it ready to send to you"  That is the sort of customer service you get from Crafty Kitten, beautiful fabrics come Hell, High Water and Newborn Babies!

Anway, Nic, Hannah and myself collaborated on a Round Robin afghan for baby Sam.  This cute little dragon comes from here - Free Cross Stitch Charts

I changed the colour of the dragon to blue and simplified the colours used ALOT.  There were 26 different colours used originally which I reduced to about 10!

Here is the whole piece in all it's glory:

This was a lovely afghan from Sewandso,  reasonably priced and very soft.  It specified "18 count evenweave" on the website so my brain said "that mean 36count which is equivalent to 18count aida".  When it arrived it really was 18count evenweave and a very loose evenweave too.  So the choice was to stitch over 2 and get 9count equivalent or stitch over 1.  Which I did.  Moral - read and believe the website.

Dawn was thrilled to bits with the present which arrived this week.  She sent us a lovely photo of Sam with it, I forgot to ask permission to post it here, so I won't just yet.  But his expression is priceless - he's got his arms stretched out wide going "how big is my blanket?"!!

73 - Gazette 94 Christmas

Here's a little something I stitched up over Christmas.  It's a new design from Gazette 94 (aka Claire).  She has taken a break from blogging but did gift her followers with two new designs for Christmas.

I used another piece of the tea dyed evenweave and some Christmassy DMC colours chosen by me.  I think the two reds are a little close in colour, maybe I should have used 815 instead of 304 but there you go!

72 - WOCS January Carnation

It was stitched for a Birthday Card Exchange for the Needlecraft Haven.  We received the list of Birthdays on 20th December and the first one was on January 1st!!  So I had to work extra quick to get this one out on time.  It's a method I've used before, just stitch the backstitch then colour in the shading with felt-tipped pens.  The design is from WOCS, part of their Year of Flowers.  I've used aida because it's easy to colour.

The plan is to stitch all 12 designs and send as Birthday cards to stitching friends.

71 - WOCS Guinea Pig card

This is from WOCS, we changed the colours so it looks more like my son's "pet" guinea-pig.

Stitched on pale blue evenweave.

70 - Fireplace card

This is one of my own designs.

It is stitched on some "unevenweave" fabric for my friend Hannah.

69 - Log Cabin Needleworks Noel

Here are my finished Noel and Merry Christmas stitched as part of the Needlecraft Haven Freebie of the Month.   I've done a few months now, Christine chooses a free chart for the month and we stitch it up with a Big Reveal on the final weekend.  These two are by Log Cabin Needleworks.

These are stitched on 28 count evenweave tea-dyed (after my family had drunk the tea I reused the bags!).  I added the border to Noel so they would match, it's my current favourite DMC 115.  I also added beads for the holly berries.

68 - Log Cabin Needleworks Merry Christmas

Here are my finished Noel and Merry Christmas stitched as part of the Needlecraft Haven Freebie of the Month.   I've done a few months now, Christine chooses a free chart for the month and we stitch it up with a Big Reveal on the final weekend.  These two are by Log Cabin Needleworks.

These are stitched on 28 count evenweave tea-dyed (after my family had drunk the tea I reused the bags!).  I added the border to Noel so they would match, it's my current favourite DMC 115.  I also added beads for the holly berries.

67 - Lizzie*Kate Life's a Stitch Travelling Pattern

Finally I have a finish I can show you - the latest Lizzie*Kate Travelling Pattern.  This came to me via Kate and here it is with Madame Muriel.

The card came with the pattern, it's great isn't it?  I decided to stitch the pattern in vaguely Christmassy colours and used variegated DMC 115 (red) and 92 (green).  I changed the flowers to bright red with yellow centres so they were a little like poinsettias.  But not much!

What I want to know is - how come I can do the most complicated TW and Mira's with nary a frog in sight but a simple little simple thing like this and they come along in pairs?  First of all I stitched the entire satin stitch top border 2 threads to the left and had to frog it.  Then I found I had stitched the "L" 2 threads too high so the red border was too high and the side satin stitches were out by 2 threads.  I was not going to frog two whole sides so I jiggled the bottom two corners adding in extra stitches and no-one will know.  Except 159 of you and you're not telling!!

It has travelled well and had visited 8 homes before mine ~ you can check out all the gorgeous finishes at the following blogs:

Hooked On Stitches
Old Ragged Threads

Loretta Stitching Blog
Reflections In The Pond
Erica's Places
My New Perspective
Buttons & Stitches
Kate's Floss Box