53. Joan Elliott June Wizard

This is the June design in the Joan Elliott Diary which was the cover gift with World of Cross Stitching magazine last year.

I made a few changes to the threads, mostly changing plain DMC to the metallics, in the stars, swirls and the orb at the end of his wand.  I also changed the confetti around the swirls to beads.

The fabric is a Crafty Kitten grab bag piece of 28 count linen.  Quite a loose weave so I had to be careful with the beads and metallics not to pull the threads of the linen out of shape.

52. Dragon Dreams Seventh Dragonlet of Christmas

On the Seventh Day of Christmas my True Love sent to me - 

A Dragonlet a'swimming with a swan

The seventh in a series designed by Dragon Dreams exclusively for their Facebook page

Stitched in DMC on 28 count green evenweave.

51. Mary Cherry

The Small Boy loves numbers and counting rhymes, in fact you can track him round the Playgroup Hall by the sound of his Keyworker's voice reciting 1,2,3,4 as she goes!  I found this beautifully illustrated children's Nursery Rhyme book and knew I'd found the inspiration for her end-of-term stitched present.  Here is the illustration that inspired me:

I just sketched her onto graph paper then backstitched onto 28count linen.  I added some little beads for the cherries and now I have to frame her.

50. Birthday Card

This is my block for a secret quilt project we made for Nicola's 50th Birthday.

I took a motif from Scarlet Letter's English Transitional Sampler.

You can see more of the quilt

here

49. JBW Alphabet Cat July

July's cat is stitched in sunny yellow on a piece of Summer Sky 28 count evenweave from Crafty Kitten 

48. Shepherd's Bush Bilberry

I stitched this piece on 32 count Antique White linen.  They didn't have Ivory so originally I tried Antique Ivory but it was far too dark.  This is perfect.  It only took a few days too.  I have framed it in a nice dark wood frame from a chain store (Wilkinsons for the English) which came with a mount.  I looked up "bilberries" on Google Images and found a nice woodcut of bilberries which I copied onto the corner of the mount using felt tip pens.

Companion to Mulberry