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.

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

66 - Stitching Friends Ornie

Remember way back when I stitched my first Travelling Pattern?  It was Shakespeare's Peddlar's Count Your Blessings and I asked people to tell me who their Stitching Blessing was.  Freddy's Mama (aka Kirsten) told me about her friend Irene and as Kirsten's name was pulled out of the hat I decided to make a little something to thank her "blessing".

The design and stitching was simple.  I like the quote "Stitching Friends are Friends who Count", it's a nice pun and a lovely sentiment.  I laid out the quote on graph paper in an invented font and added the symbols from the Travelling Pattern (anyone know the name for those 8 leaved symbols?).  Then I decided to make it into a padded ornament.  I stitched round three sides inside out then turned it the right way out, so far so good.  I stuffed it and slip stitched the final side.  Now I have two nice corners and two different corners.  So I decided to put cord around the edges, but I should have buried the cord ends inside the ornie before sewing it up.  So I was left with two ends.  Which I sewed together and tried to hide with some gold braid wrapped round them!!

I sent the ornie off to Irene with an explanation that this is my first and probably only ornie!  It arrived yesterday and as I remembered to take a photo before it went off to the USA I can show you all, here it is:

The back is made from one of the fabric samples I got earlier this year.  They make lovely ornament backings so I will include them with any giveaways I do so people who actually like making the things can do so!!  The thread is a variegated DMC.