Four Calling Birds – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

 On the fourth day of Christmas my truelove gave to me……..

Four Calling Birds.

and this prompted another letter from Emily to her sweetheart Edward:-

Dec 28
Dearest Edward,
What a surprise! Four calling birds arrived this morning.

They are very sweet, even if they do call rather loudly - they make telephoning almost impossible - but I expect they'll calm down when they get used to their new home.

Anyway, I'm very grateful, of course I am.
Love from Emily.

You'll notice there are some beads on this panel.

I continued to stich on 'Patterned Pretties' again

last week too  ………

and boy is that some intense stitching!

I have one final thing to share and that’s some photos from a day out I had last week........I do love a good day trip!

My cousin and I visited Arundel castle, down by the south coast, near Brighton, for their Tulip Festival and what a beautiful day we had.

We had heard reports about them being very worried about the unpredictable weather we have been having lately,  because the wind and heavy rain flattens the tulips, which are blooming about two earlier this year. 

We were very lucky though and it stayed dry but cold while we were walking around.

Just to be clear, it was very busy and there were loads of people there but with the aid of some AI editing, I was able to remove them from my photos, so please don't think we had the castle and grounds to ourselves, Lol!

 Happy Stitching!

Sue

x

 

12 Days of Christmas

Designed – Bothy Threads - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton, Pearl Cotton and Gold Thread

 

Patterned Pretties #4 - Kit
Designer – Jeanette Douglas
Fabric – 36ct Mystery Linen
Threads –NPI & ColorWorks Silks

Bluebird of Happiness – Cottage Garden Samplings

 When I first discovered Patchwork Rabbit  back in 2018 after a friend sent me a gift voucher, the first thing I did was to sign up for a monthly subscription for ‘The Songbirds Garden’ series from Cottage Garden Samplings.

Over the years I have completed and framed seven of them

and I’ve now pulled out my eighth,  ‘Bluebird of Happiness’ because all those cherry blossom are crying out spring to me.

I’ve only made a small start, but did complete the first of the two birds.

The model on the chart was stitched on darker pink linen but I’ve decided to stitch mine on ‘36ct ‘Powder Puff’, which was one of the colours from the Roxy Floss Co  / Evertote, linen club.

 

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

Chart – Bluebird of Happiness – Songbird’s Garden

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric – 36ct Powder Puff –Roxy Floss Co  / Evertote,

Threads -  Weeks Dye Works

Quick Quaker Stitch-a-Long

So here we are, into April and already a quarter of the way through the year! 

Not only that, we have a 4 day long weekend, so before I go any further I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter.

We had a fun sal start on the 1^st of the month, because Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery is marking  15 years since he started designing with Evertote,  and he has designed the ‘Quick Quaker’ so we can stitch-a-long too and celebrate with him.

I decided to go with a blue/grey theme, so I pulled a piece of 32ct ‘Dune’ hand dyed linen from Chromatic Alchemy from my stash and some Roxy Floss Co threads  that were left over from various holiday countdowns.   Thin Air, Mountain Range, Yonder, & Blue Moon from 2023 and  How Do You Blue from 2024.

Jacob is also doing daily floss tubes, showing his daily stitching and other fun stuff.

My plan is to just keep stitching until it’s done as opposed to just doing the daily amount of stitches, and this is where I am at the moment.

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

Quick Quaker

Designed – Modern Folk Embroidery

Fabric – 32ct Dune Linen from Chromatic Alchemy

Threads – Roxy Floss Co

Christmas Monthly Stitching.

The final wips I worked on during March were the regular Christmas stitching I do on the 25^th & 26^th of each month, but from last month I decided to extend it and continue on until the end of the month.

This does not include ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ from Bothy Threads, which I usually stitch at the start of the month and finish the whole panel, so at the moment I have two other Christmas wips on the go.

‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ from Historische Stickmuster  was originally a free, time restricted sal chart, but it’s now available to purchase on the web site.  I downloaded the chart and then ordered the silk and fabric pack for mine.

This is where I left it at the end of February.

When I picked it up in March, I completed the church, the final house and the snow on the ground,

added more snowflakes and made a small start on Santa’s sleigh.

Not bad progress for 4 days of stitching!

For the final 3 days of the month I pulled out ‘Coffee Shoppe’, the Dimensions kit that I’ve made no secret of the fact it’s not my favourite to stitch on.

This is where it was when I last put it down.

And this is where it is now.

I just have to keep reminding myself that it all worth the effort in the end, because these kits look amazing once all the back stitching is done and they are in their frame.

So as we wave goodbye to March and look forward to brighter and warmer spring days, I wish you all

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Designed – Historische Stickmuster

Fabric – 32ct unbleached Linen

Threads – Soie d’Alge silks

 

Coffee Shoppe

Designed – Dimensions - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton

Francis 1863 – La-D-Da - ‘Some you Win, Some you Lose’!

Having stitched 'Sampler Hare' from La-D-Da, back in April 2024, I decided it was time to stitch the other two charts that were in my collection.

Sampler Hare was stitched on 32ct evenweave, so she was small and quite fiddly to finish, especially as she was to be my first stand-up.  So taking that into consideration, I decided that  I would used 28ct evenweave for the next two, so they would be a little bit bigger and hopefully a little easier to finish.

First up was  ‘Sweet Pea’, stitched on Antique White evenweave, with the called for threads and a substitute for dmc 844, which I was missing. 

 ‘Francis 1863’, came next, again using the same fabric and the called for threads.

It was all going well until I decided to fully finish them and that was things went awry.

I tackled Sweet Pea first and didn’t think she turned out too bad…..or at least that was what I thought at the time.

But sadly, when I got to 'Francis' and turned her the right way out after sewing, I realised I had trimmed the edges too close, the Evenweave had badly frayed in several places and she was beyond saving.

That made me go back to take a closer look at Sweet Pea and sure enough there were also one or two threads that were pulling apart. 

I'm not sure there's anything I can do to rescue her either, so I'm thinking the only thing I can do now is to re-stitch them both and may be use Linen or Aida this time instead of Evenweave.

Oh well, it's so frustrating, but I'll have to put it down to a steep learning curve and next time remember not to trim so close to the stitching!

My next new start was this darling kit 'Patterned Pretties #4 from Jeanette Douglas. 

This was a Christmas gift from my stitchy friend Stasi, over at   Bee-Mused and Bee-Stitching, who knew that Jeanette is my favourite designer, so thanks so much Stasi.

Jeanette loves her specialist stitches and this piece is all done in Bargello with beautiful silk threads.

You've gotta love this colour combination too!

Happy Stitching!

Sue

x