Half asleep

But here's the current status on the cushion anyway (and thanks for all the nice comments on the last photo):

It's going so slowly that I sometimes wonder how I ever though hardanger worked up fast! Still, some bits are a bit fiddlier than they look. Hope the next one is a bit speedier.

~mj~ of The Sampler Stitcher kindly gave me this award, which was very nice of her. Yet another to add to the list! I just can't think straight at the mo to pass it on, but you never know, one day I might just do it!!

A bit of colour!

Well, better late than never. I didn't get to update on Thursday for a number of reasons including that I was working, that our Internet connection is frightfully slow much of the time, (engineer coming tomorrow), and that I'd next to nothing to show. Anyway, now I've done a bit more and, although it's not as much as I'd hoped for (this is a slow border to work up), here's something anyway:

Quick 'Hi!'

Oooof! What a busy week! Not got as much done as I wanted cushion-wise, but I have done the first part of the border on the cushion and started the 2nd. Will update with photo on Monday afternoon as we're away until Sunday night now. Hope to get something more done in the evenings over the weekend. The project is 'due' next week, but I fear it will be late...

I had to ask a friend to be a personal referee for me for an employment agencies' requirements. I told him they'd just 'phone him up and check there was no danger of my pilfering hadbags. He replied that there was more danger I'd embroider their bags than steal from them!!!=)

A little progress to report

But only a very little! As I've been recovering from some odd virus over the weekend, I haven't really been up to stitching much, so I've only done the second row of Kloster blocks in the big central diamond, the 4 eyelets in the smaller diamonds and then finished off the piece of #5 pearl cotton I'd been using by starting on some of the inner line of the border work. Anyway, I think I'm free of the bug now, just totally exhasuted, so I'll have to be careful, but can still do stuff. I've set my mobile phone alarm for 10pm every day as a 'Go to bed' reminder!!

New hardanger in progress

Thought I'd just post what I'd done (during the first 2 days' work, whilst I've also still been ill and not able to work on it for very long at any one time) on the current hardanger cushion/pillow project. This is the central diamond. There are some coloured bits to do as well, but I need to do a discreet colour match with a certain sofa, hopefully this evening, so that I can decide which thread to use for best results - I think the terracotta one that came with the kit will be too dark. Also, I've decided to do the leaf elements in green, not cream, to warm the whole thing up a bit and add a splash more colour. Hope to have more to show on Monday when you'll be able to see the weekend's work. Seems to work well posting on Mondays and Thursdays at the mo.

Of course, this now means that I have 3 large WIPs! Eeek! I always limited it to 2 and now I'm at 3. Still, it couldn't be helped under the circumstances. I also got the Caron threads through for the next project and tried to get a photo of them, but the colours didn't come out well and I just couldn't adjust them to show their full glory. I've got 'Iced Lavendar', which is a glorious mix of pale pink and lilac.

Bands 9-13 done, band 8 in progress

Here's the work I did over the weekend on the 'Silver Frost' piece. I've started just above the middle and worked up a bit. The top band here, band 8, took me about 100 minutes to do and there's still about half the work left on it! (I know that as it took the entire of watching a 103 minute film to do!!!!) Don't know how much more of it I'll get done in the immediate future because:


I finally cancelled my order with the ONS who have kept me waiting for over 2 months for my hardanger supplies. I won't say who they are in case there's some serious reason for their neglect, (like the lady who runs it has died etc), but I doubt I'll be shopping there again! I got this great cushion kit instead from Nordic Needlecraft in Scotland. They aren't the cheapest by a long stretch, but their customer service is second to none and I can't recommend them highly enough for that. The colours are precisely what I was looking for and the hardanger fabric included is quite a bit softer than I'd feared. Oslo would have been a little nicer, but this will do just nicely and will soften a little through washing and also working on, even though I'll be using my great big, unwieldy 17" R&R frame!!! Anyway, this piece is needed in about 2 weeks, whereas the 'Silver Frost' isn't wanted until late next month. There is another piece to do in between as well, (which also got held up by the ONS not responding), but I've just ordered those threads too and should be able to get that done OK as well. Hardanger works up quickly - mercifully!

New project almost ready to start

Here's the floss toss for 'Silver Frost'. You might be able to see from the photo that I've changed the blues from the more purply, cool blues, to more greenish, warm shades. It all started as I was looking out the necessary beads and decided I really wanted to use these pale aqua ones in something - like NOW! So, I got other thread shades out instead of the stated ones (converted from DMC to Anchor as is often the case with me). Not sure when I'll be able to make a start on it, but I hope I can over the weekend. The fabric needs pressing first.

Petra kindly made a comment on how clear my WIP photos look. I daresay she's come up against the same troubles I've had in the past with evenweave fabrics looking 'liney' and odd on digital photos. After much trial and error, I've found that there are ways to avoid this, which mostly centre on not reducing the image size yourself. I either take the photo from far enough away so that I don't need to reduce it, just crop to size, or leave it fairly large and let Blogger re-size it. Both of these methods seem to work nicely and produce a good, clear image with the evenweave.

A bit on the goldfinches

Not a lot, admittedly, but it's something. I finished the second seedhead, then started on the next bird's head. Did this on Friday evening and hoped to have some more to show by now, but I just didn't get chance to do any more over the weekend proper. Ooof! And here's me about to apply for a half-time job this week too. Dread to think how much (little!) time I'll have to stitch then.....

An Awarding Post!!

Well, here I am again. Without stitching to display as the project I want and need to get on with is being held up completely by the on-line store I ordered the stuff from not getting it to me. It's been almost 2 months now and I have had answers to only 1 of my 3 e-mails. I'm going to try and 'phone them again today. Even if there's nothing to tell me, I think they should at least answer, I'm really dissatisfied with their level of customer communication! I shall tell them so too and think twice about shopping there again. I'm really very cross about it. Grrrr!

Here's something I have on my list for the next couple of months (photo pinched from the SewandSo site). This will be made into a wide format bell-pull as I don't want a repeat performance of the CoS fiasco making up a cushion cover with a rectangular piece. It's also not very good giving an unfinished up gift, so I'll make it a bell-pull. I have a set of ends that are wide enough, although I'll only put one at the top. That way, you make one set last for two pieces!!!

I've been getting awards over the last couple of days, although seeing how much stitching I haven't got done over the last months really makes me wonder why!! Firstly, Veronica gave me this one, which appears to have originated in the German speaking world:

Then this morning came this one, (seems Italian to me, can anyone say for certain?) from Von:

Thank you both very much for your nominations. I'm supposed to pass the Kreativ one onto 5 people and the Brilliante to 7, but I have a nasty headache etc at the mo and just don't feel like it. To be honest, it usually means that almost everyone gets the award in the end and often several times too. Not that I don't appreciate the thought though, 'cos I do!=)

Home again and the 'Pool' finish

Well, here I am, back from doing about 3500km across Central Europe. I was going to post a picture from each country we went to in this post, but that would take a lot longer than it sounds going through all the photos and choosing one etc!! So, I'll be uploading them to my new Webshots travel album soon and will post the link when it's done. We went to France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria though, which was all great, although I was disappointed that we couldn't drive the way the SatNav first suggested from Germany to the Austrian Tyrol - through Switzerland and Leichtenstein, but there are tolls to pay on many European motorways, so we tried to avoid those as the budget was a bit tight.

Here's the completed Ornamental Pool embroidery. MIL said she would rather have it as a framed picture than as a cushion which might get damaged with all the kids she has charging around her living room. She was toying with the idea of a rectangular frame with glass and put glass over it to see how it looked, but we persuaded her to a square frame with a light mount, wooden frame and no glass as the glass really dulled the sheen on the rayon and metallic threads. So has this photo actually. DH took it in strong light and I'm a bit disappointed with it as the shiny bits have all but vanished from sight and the right hand leaf is so affected by the light that you can't see the stitches anymore, (well, you can now somewhat, after auto focusing several times with Photoshop, but it's not as I'd have liked it). So, don't try taking embroidery photos in too strong a light or you'll miss a lot of the textural effects. Won't be able to get a photo of the framed piece until we next visit there and I don't know when that will be.

One of the things I got in the post when I got back was a flyer for the 2008 Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch show, which will be the first weekend in October up at the Great Yorkshire Showground. They advertised this year's Madeira Embroidery competition, theme being 'Glimpses of China'. Well, I wish I'd known about it before, as now there are only about 6 weeks to get the pieces worked and entered and I'm not sure I'll have the time and umph for it. I haven't finally decided againsgt it, I want to look through all my Taiwan photos etc first to see if there's something that might make a winner, but as I'm not that fussed for the prizes, if I'm honest, I wouldn't hold my breath. I think I'd be most interested in the prestige of winning than the goods!!!! We'll see about that one anyway.

Thinking about developing my language learning through blogging, I'm seriously considering opening parallel stitching blogs in Chinese, German and also one in romance languages - basically Spanish with some parts also 'duplicated' in any or all of Italian, French and Portuguese. Spanish and Portuguese speakers, how can I roughly translate Sew in Love so that it will work in both languages? 'Bordar/labores de amor'?? Any ideas from anyone??