July Gifted Gorgeousness

and only a couple of days late as well.
Gifted gorgeousness is a SAL organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching, where once a month we show off gift related stitchy stuff. I'ts been a busy week here with the village carnival, a week long event culminating in the carnival itself tomorrow, (pictures to follow) and four weddings in eight days so crafty type things have been on the back burner a bit. I did make up these three little coin purses, and the Strawberry Shortcake fabric was a gift from Shroo so that counts right?

Also I received a lovely gift through the post from Mary Anne, of all these fabulous pieces of old lace. I shall have to think of something extra special to use them for, maybe combine them with some of my denim squares in some way...

Cushions and Bunting

When I bought the panel I used for this bag, I couldn't resist buying another design as well. Here it is made up into a cushion complete with super duper orange pompom trim. (Hello, my name is Christine and I am a pompomoholic)

Fabic panel from Cat & Vee.
DH had some less than tactful things to say about how much we didn't need another @#$* cushion.
It now lives on his pillow.
Mine is an evil laugh...


And here is some bunting I knitted (mostly because I'm rubbish at crochet)

Gifted Gorgeousness - The June Edit

The fifteenth of the month. Time for Gifted Gorgeousness as hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching, in which we show off any stitched gifts or gifted stitching.
Recently Hazel from Quietly Stitching very kindly gifted me a Loopylou chart, Tranquility, that she'd finished with, along with the leftover speciality threads, and this is my (meagre) start on it, (recommended threads on mushroom coloured fabric)

I love Hardanger, and I'm enjoying every stitch of this so far. Thank you Hazel :)
The link up post for the SAL is here if you want to see the other posts.

Gone to Pot

Not much crafting going on here lately so I thought I'd share a couple of garden pictures. I love heucheras, I've got several different coloured ones in pots around the garden so I couldn't resist buying this lovely dark one, "Liquorice" when I saw it at the Royal Cornwall Show last week. I've just finished planting it up into this display for by the front door alongside Cosmos "ChocaMocha", the chocolate cosmos, which is almost the same colour and has the added bonus of smelling exactly like chocolate.

I've seen a lot of pictures on Pinterest of "fairy gardens" made from broken terracotta pots, so I had a rummage and found a couple of old pots and some broken bits, and planted them up with some off shoots from my houseleeks, moss and a little bit of Corsican Mint

I'm not at all sure about this at the moment, it's nothing like the picture I had in my head, but I'm hoping it will look better when the little succulents establish themselves.

A Small Challenge Finish

It's reveal day for the Monthly Ornament Challenge at Needlecraft Haven
This month the design was from Ajisai designs (chart here)

I missed off the background blackwork snowflakes from mine as they didn't really show up on the fabric I chose, replaced the backstitch bow with one made from real ribbon and finished it as a mug cosy (you can't see in the photo but it fastens around the handle with a button and ribbon loop)

A Cover Kit and Some Sewing

There was a half decent cover kit on Cross Stitcher magazine this month, so long as you ignored the minor irritation of it telling you to use a loop start and stitch with three strands. Yeah, sure, OK,,,how?  How do I do a loop start with an odd number of strands? Oh, and also, if you want me to use a loop start don't cut the threads to 12" lengths. Just saying...
Anyway other than that it was a nice little kit to make this brooch.

I really enjoy stitching on these wooden blanks. He's a bit bigger than I'd normally wear a brooch, but I think he might look quite good on my denim jacket.
On the sewing front I actually made something for me for a change. This is Simplicity 1612 made up in a nice ponte roma jersey I found on EvilBay.

Some slight tweaks to the pattern, (see my full pattern review here if you're interested) but it made up quite quickly, and I'm thinking of making another in a lighter weight jersey. I particularly like this soft-twist keyhole effect at the back.

Gifted Gorgeousness ~ May

Yes, it's the fifteenth of the month again. Time for Gifted Gorgeousness, the SAL organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching where we show off any work that we have given or received as a gift or made from gifted materials or...well. you get the idea.
I made this tote bag for a friend's birthday.  She maybe almost as much of a fabric addict as I am (almost)

The amazing front panel is from Cat and Vee. Admit it, you just sang that in your head didn't you?
Here is another picture showing the inside,  the back is the same spotty print as the handle

Check out the other Gifted Gorgeousness entries here