Threadmania!

My parcel from Tandem Cottage came yesterday containing 37 skeins of Marlitt thread and 16 of Coton à Broder. There are 21 more skeins to come, 20 of one and one of t'other! Looking forward to that too.....

I've been thinking about uses for these thread types. Coton à Broder is quite thick - like 4 strands of regular cotton floss tightly twisted together and is not devisable, so that has less possibilities than some types of thread. I think it will be great for needleweaving and certain surface work that requires a thicker, slightly twisted appearance - perhaps a little like the twisted threads Helen M Stevens uses on her buildings and fields etc, although they're silk and will be somewhat thinner. Well, we shall see what we can come up with there. Could even work well in cross stitch on low count fabrics as well as doing surface work on counted designs/hardanger things.

Marlitt has a lot going for it. It's 4 ply and devisable to single strands so can be used in place of six stranded floss for all manner of things, both surface and counted. It's very shiny and both it and the Coton à Broder are washable and colour fast to 95oC! Very useful as that means both can be used for things that need washing like clothing and soft furnishings. Some of the most delicious threads have limited uses owing to their not being colourfast and you can really only use them in pictures.=(

Another prize!

Got the prize for winning the CSF ('Cross Stitch Forever' - it's a Yahoo newsgroup) trivia quiz again last month. Not that I think I'm much more than a good guesser and lucky that I get so many questions on things I know about (such as language and the Bible), but it's nice - esp. as I won in my own right this time, not just as the lady who really won doesn't take the prize of she comes out first. I've already done an L*K 'Welcome' design, so I'll have to think about this one. I may well be able to change the general colour scheme from the purples (which I love, rats!) to peaches and use it in the living room? Maybe as something to put on the sofa? I've never tried 25ct fabric either, so I'll be interested to see what uses I can put this to. I've seen some hardanger designs done on 25ct, which is a possibility. And beads, mmmm, yum! So, THANKS ANGIE!=)

Fanfare please!

THE HARDANGER CUSHION COVER IS FINALLY COMPLETED AND SEWN UP!

You can see more detail in this photo which I took this of the cover alone, (i.e. not on the cushion), and left it full size so you can see more clearly what it really looks like. It's a Mary Hickmott design called 'Delicate Dreams' and was originally intended to be done with mid-pink flowers and yellow gold beads.

Other news is that I've decided to give up my German classes and officially withdraw. I passionately did not want to do the assessments and the course content is simply not what I need. I need to be able to deal with everyday life and chatter better, not to put the world to rights. Yes, linguistics, climate change and so forth are very interesting to me, but that's not what I want my German for. I need it for personal interaction with my German friends and family, so to be able to get stuck into domestic matters, general interests, what we and they have been doing and so on. I have having wasted the money, but as DH says, put it down to experience and consider more carefully before enrolling on courses! It may be £124 wasted, but I do feel a lot lighter for it! Funnily enough, my baby sis in Germany said that she feels her English is inadequate for chatter. She will have spent the last few years talking about issues and writing academic pieces on them and gets great marks, but lacks some social interaction stuff, so I guess it's par for the course with higher level language classes!

GAST has landed!

Yum! Got 15 skeins of GAST in the post today as an extra from my CSF Secret Sister.
Far too tired to think of anything more interesting to write today as I'm still sleeping very badly and am, frankly, fit to drop. Waaaah!

All done!

Hurrah! All 808 beads are firmly in place, the whole piece has been taken out of the working frame and I'll get the backing and zip tomorrow on the way to work. Will post a photo when the first lot of backing is on and the colour shows through the cutwork. Look out on Thursday, perhaps??

Made 2 Cards

Papercraft cards this time. Stitching two cards within one hour would be either miraculous or not worth looking at the results!!!! I'm not brilliant at papercraft at the mo and I wasn't feeling 'with it' enough to really get into it, so they aren't the best. One's for the engaged couple who will get the cushion cover and the other is for friends' mum who's in hospital after an amputation, poor love!=(

Managed to get a decent night's sleep last night, at long last!

No more beading done as yet, but hope to add about another hundred this evening.

One thing is now crossed off my list of 12 as I did it today and I was able to cross another out too as it's only things that bug me and work in the office etc doesn't bother me at home under normal circs. Hope to delete a few more over the next week or two!

Bead-a-long with me!!

Beads now total 312. That's 39.5%!!! Hope to make it over 50% today and I may get a good start on it as I can't sleep and may as well do some more now. It's 1am. I'm just so wound up these days that sleep has legged it and won't talk to me.=(

Got a DSL Gift Certificate for $25 the other day, so I've just ordered 15 skeins of GAST to re-update my collection with all the new shades that have appeared.

Send me sleep! I'll pay!

Started Beading

Gosh! Thanks for all the lovely comments that you've made! One even came in whilst I was preparing the WIP photo for today's posting, 'Just a mo, I'm about to update....' LOL!!

So, I've started on the beading. There are 788 altogether and I've done 108 of them. It took just about 90 minutes, so that's 13.7% done at an average speed of about 1.2 beads per minute. Should take 11 hours in total, 9½ to go!!!! Bead-o-math!!!!LOL=) Here's a close-up of the mostly beaded corner:

Pleased with Rapid Progress

The cushion cover is coming on well. What do you think so far?

I'm a bit ahead of schedule now, thanks to being able to do a lot yesterday. I couldn't go to work as I was really unwell, (feeling quite a bit better today for the rest, I think, but still under the weather and a sinus headache too, yack!), but managed to be well enough later in the day to finish the back stitch, then do the cutting out and finally to wrap all 4 large diamonds and 13 of the smaller areas. Just 7 of those to go (you can see them at the bottom and bottom right), then square filet filling (also nice and quick), then onto the beading. NOT looking forward to such a lot of beading, but I'll have about a week to do it all in, about 100 per day.....

As always with me, this photo was taken first thing in the morning, so it excludes the day's work which I will start on sooooooon! Just wish I could manage to get nice photos that don't show all those horrid lines on the fabric....=(

Marlitt-a-thon

OK, so it's breaking the challenge rules, buying stash just for the sake of it, but every girl needs to comfort shop here and there! Besides, I admit to feeling not in the least bit guilty about grabbing a selection pack of 20 Marlitt threads for only £8.99, free P&P/S&H! This super deal was from The Happy Cross Stitcher and the order came in double quick time. I ordered Friday morning, it was despatched over the weekend and I got it just this morning. Thus far, I recommend them totally. Must e-mail and see if all the Marlitt bags are the same though as I will probably get another in the fullness of time, (doubtless within the next few weeks!!) and, as you can see, I got rather a lot of greens this time!! Good thing I love natural types of designs and motifs, so that will be great for leaves, stems and so on. Wouldn't mind a few more floral colours etc now though.

Had my 2nd viola lesson today and I'm itiching to get practicing again. If it weren't for the fact that I still have to do all the other stuff in life and I have a short presentation in Chinese to get written today, as well as the fact that my finger ends would protest wildly, I'd practice 4 hours a day! What we did today I found quite challenging, but I also found that last time until I went over it again a few times at home, then it was easy.=)

Got some more of the back stitching on the cushion done last night, (thanks for the comments so far, ladies!), but it's not yet done. I still have 8 more lots to do - basically going around the remaining 2 diamonds. Will post another photo when there's something to really see - probably Thurs or Fri.