14 - Christmas Tree

Christmas Tree for Oldest UFO Challenge.

Designer unknown

Mounted in scrapbook 2016

13 - Maggie's 90th Birthday Card

90th Birthday Card for Maggie.

Stitched and hand-coloured on 16 count aida.

12 - Barbara Ana Moon and Back

Barbara Ana - Love You to the Moon and Back.

Freebie from Cyberstitches.

Stitched on fruit tea dyed 28count evenweave.

11 - Stitching Friends Pillow

Stitching Friends pillow.

Designed by me, stitched with DMC 4030

Sent to Terri as part of the Epiphany Giveaway.

10 - Happiness is Cross Stitching Love Cat

Needlecraft Haven February Challenge.

Two freebies from Lynn B of Happiness is Cross Stitching!

Stitched on fruit tea dyed 28count evenweave.

9 - Just Nan Round Robin

Just Nan Round Robin for Kathy A.

Bands from Burgundy Stocking and Evening Star Sampler.

Stitched on 32count evenweave.

8 - Just Nan Spring Peepers

Just Nan Spring Peepers

Stitched on 28count blue evenweave

7 - Cross Stitcher mag Heart

Cross Stitcher mag Heart

Stitched over 1 on 25count

6 - WOCS February Violet

WOCS February Violet.

Back stitched on 16count aida then hand-coloured.

5 - Margaret Sherry Stitching Mice

Margaret Sherry freebie from Cross Stitcher magazine website.

Stitched on 28count evenweave dyed with fruit tea.

Birthday Card for Mouse.

4 - Chronique de Frimousse Russian Doll

Les Chroniques de Frimousse - stitched on 28count blue evenweave.

Needlecraft Haven January Challenge

3 - Gazette 94 Bonne Annee

Gazette 94 Bonne Annee - stitched on 28 count evenweave. 

2 - Sweetheart Tree Spring Round Robin

This is the second kind-of-finish for 2012.  I never know whether RRs should count as a finish but I think they do!  This one belongs to is Karen (AKA Stitchy Woman) and is all bands from The Sweetheart Tree.  She provided all the threads so I changed to colour scheme on my bands to match the colours provided.  They are all lovely fresh Springlike colours so it was a little strange to be stitching it after all the red and green of Christmas.

The whole thing as it left me:



The finished piece:

1 - Frosted Stitches Ornie

Frosted Stitches Ornie - stitched on 28 count evenweave.

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.