The Girls Are Back In Town!

The final two Celtic Sisters (Celtic Summer and Celtic Winter) are back from the framers and as always   Frames of London  have done a wonderful job.

The previous two I had done in the same style frames, one Silver, one Gold and I had intended to do the same with this pair, but much to my disappointment they have stopped doing the Silver version, so I went with the Gold for them and had the Silver one changed to Gold, so they all match.

Now I have the whole collection – The four Seasons and Celtic Christmas.

Can you spot my mistake?

Somehow I managed to stitch Celtic Autumn on 36ct instead of 32ct, making her smaller than her sisters.

Just as well I’m not planning to hang them all together, but will the Virgo in take over and make me stitch her again……….

Only time will tell!

There was also a little hitch with my Mirabila ‘Crystal Christmas’, which went in to be framed at the same time as the others. 

I had a phone call to say all four of my projects were ready to be collected, but the night before I realized I had miss off a very important thing……...the Crystal Star on the top of the tree. 

My plan now would be to carefully take it out of the frame when I got it home, stitch it on from the front, so as to not have to undo all the stretching threads and then re-seal it into the frame.   

I did mention the fact that I blundered when I got the call, not expecting them to do anything about it, but the lady I spoke to very kindly said to fetch the star and thread with me and they would take it out of the frame for me so I could stitch it on in the shop.

To my amazement, when I got there they had taken it out, and undone all the stretching, making it much easier to stitch the star on.

I collected it a week later, after it had been stretched again and re-framed. 

I can’t praise them enough because they didn’t charge me for their extra work, so please keep them in mind if you are ever looking for someone to frame your precious work, I can recommend them. 
They have been doing mine since 1996 and I can’t fault them.

Frames of London

Happy Crafting!

(Whatever you passion may be)

Sue

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2018 minus One Month - Part 4………..nearly there!

My Mirabilia, Crystal Christmas is now complete and is ready to be taken to the framers along with my last two Celtic Ladies.  Celtic Summer and Winter have been finished for some time but I just never got around to having the framed, so now’s the time.

Since finishing Crystal Christmas I’ve been busy working on my Burcilla ‘White Christmas’ stocking.  

I just love these kits and have made six stockings and a tree skirt but of them all, this has been my favorite to work on.  I did make one little change to the metallic thread which should have been silver.  I changed mine to Gold, to fit in with my Christmas décor.

Happy Crafting!

(Whatever you passion may be)

Sue

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you stop by.  I would love to know how you stumbled upon me and what you were looking at.

2018 minus One Month - Part 3

More knitting………..

This time a little Collage Jersey Ronnie  and Blue Biker Cardie and Hat for Stanley, both from the King Cole Baby Book 7.

My ‘Crystal Christmas’ cross stitch is now nearly finished and then it’s the mammoth task of sewing all the tiny beads onto it.

And while all that has been going on I’ve had lots of new projects drop through the door, to keep me occupied for the rest of the year.

First is another Bucilla Christmas Stocking.  I’ve made five so far, dating back to 1981.

This is White Christmas …….and this one is for me, Yah!

Next is more cross stitch charts.

I was given a very generous gift from the family of a neighbour after she passed away.  They live in Wales and couldn’t get here as often as they would have liked, so to say thank you for keeping an eye out for her (not that I did much) they sent me a voucher for a company called Patchwork Rabbit which has so many unusual charts and kits.  

That was so kind, so thank you Chris and David.

After much deliberation I settled on a kind of stitch-a-long.  

They send out a chart each month for Twelve months and it’s calls ‘The Songbird’s Garden’. I now have three ready and waiting to go when I’ve caught up with everything else.

Then, I really needed more threads!

Considering I already have a cabinet with all the Anchor threads in and many boxes of DMC ones, I decided to also purchased the Weeks Dye Works Threads used for these, which means I’m ready to go when the time comes. The shading in these hand dyed threads is amazing. 

These aren’t all the shades I will need but they will see me through the first three charts and I’ll get the others as I need them.

Happy Crafting!

(Whatever you passion may be)

Sue

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you stop by.  I would love to know how you stumbled upon me and what you were looking at.

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2018 minus One Month - Part 2

I was plodding away nicely with ‘Crystal Christmas’ up until  March / April, when I was finding stitching in 36ct evenweave a little hard going.

 

Under normal circumstances I actually prefer evenweave or linen but I was going through a stressful time, as my eldest brother Keith was told he had terminal cancer.

  

Sadly, he passed away at the end of April, just seven weeks after the diagnosis, so as you can imagine, I was finding it difficult to concentrate on such intricate work.

RIP Keith

Instead, I turned my trusty knitting needles again and started making a little cardigan and although the colour was a little dark, (it looks grey here but it's on olive green) I thought it would be cosy and snug for the Autumn and Winter.

The pattern is King Cole 4647

I also got my King Cole Baby Book 7 out and made her this little cabled cardie with matching cosy hat.

Happy Crafting!

(Whatever you passion may be)

Sue

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you stop by.  I would love to know how you stumbled upon me and what you were looking at.

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2018 minus One Month - Part 1

I started the year promising myself that things would be different in the coming year, and that I would be a much better blogger, but as you will already have noticed, we are already almost at the end of November and I’ve not managed a single update.

My needles, in one form or another, have been busy though and back at the beginning of the year I finally made a start on a cross stitch chart that I’ve had since 1998….yes, I did say 1998.

This is Mirabilia’s, ‘Chrystal Christmas’,  and it sat around all that time because I was having trouble justifying the cost of the materials needed to complete it. 

It uses lots of special threads and what seemed like thousands of Mill Hill beads, but since purchasing it I’ve stitched many wonderfully embellished projects, including all five of the Lavender & Lace, Celtic Ladies, so there was no real excuse anymore.

So, at the beginning of January I made a start, with the hope of having it finished and framed in time for Christmas.

Obviously this was an on-going project  that has kept me occupied throughout the year, and in between my knitting needles have been busy.

I don’t know if you remember, but last year I knitted a cabled sleeping bag for a friends niece.  Well, her other niece was expecting her second child and loved  the sleeping bag I made for her sister so much, she asked if I would knit one for her too, so out came the knitting needles and the Stylecraft Pattern (#8916) again and this was the result.

I’ve since been told that it goes everywhere with little Stanley, all her friends have sleeping bag envy and that I could have lots of orders for them if I want a job………think I’ll pass on that, thanks!

More knitting to follow, but for now

Happy Crafting!

(Whatever you passion may be)

Sue

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you stop by.  I would love to know how you stumbled upon me and what you were looking at.
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