Exchanges revealed

All the Christmas exchanges I've taken part in have now been recieved/revealed, so I can share some photos. Many thanks to Julie for the wonderful sampler style pincushion (all stitched over 1!), and to Karen, Rebecca and Gail for the wonderful stitchy gifts. Many thanks also to Claire, Ish and Karen for organising the exchanges at Jayne's Attic.

Now if only someone would gift wrap two extra hours a day for me, I'd find time to do justice to all this lovely stash!

Happy Christmas!

My Mum is arriving today to spend Christmas and the New Year with us and this will be my last blog entry before Christmas, so I wanted to wish everyone a Very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful and Prosperous 2008. The picture is my display of hand stitched ornaments, many of which I have recieved in exchanges from you lovely people in cyberland.

Hope the Man in Red brings you lots of stitchy stuff!

Christmas Decorations 3

I'm excelling myself with original titles for my posts here ;)

Anyway here is my third piece of floral art. I'm really quite proud of this one. The strap like piece arching over the top is a phormium leaf, torn into narrow strips and woven together.

I finished a new sampler today (big happy dance!) but I'm afraid I can't share it yet as it is for a magazine. Watch this space ;)

Christmas Decorations 2

Here is the second of my floral decorations, the photo isn't so great but the "goldfish bowl" has baubles, foliage, and white lilies in it. It smells gorgeous.

Christmas Decorations 1

We are lucky enough to have an excellent florists in the village, and on Saturday I spent a wonderful day at their Christmas Workshop. I made three floral designs and thought I'd share them with you. First up is my door wreath. Hard to believe that this started life as a wire ring and some rather smelly moss! Harder still to believe that I had anything to do with it's transformation.

Thankyou Elaine and Emma, you are truly talented ladies.

Stormy Seas

No stitchy pictures to show today so I thought I'd share a couple of dramatic pictures we took at the beach this afternoon. David was doing his King Cnut bit, standing on a rock taking pictures of the waves breaking. Shortly after the 2nd pic was taken he found himself up to his knees in water!

I've been busy

Eloise (DD1) is away on her "Geek Week" (oops, I mean "Residential Maths Course"), and the place is quiet due to Naomi (DD2) having no-one to fight with, so I've needed to spend less time as a mediator/peacekeeper the last few days (honestly, I think these two girls need their own UN force sometimes), which means more stitching time. Yay!

I have been making these shabby chic style felt tree ornaments to sell at the school Christmas Bazaar. I hope people buy them because, as usual, I've got a bit carried away and made rather a lot of them!

Not much to show at the moment

Most of what I've stitched recently is for exchanges or presents, so I can't post pictures yet, but here is a picture of the children at Camelford Carnival last weekend (they won three first places). Next outing is with the town band when they go round the village playing Christmas Carols.

Halloween

Here are our pumpkins entitled "too many sweets" and "not big enough to go trick or treating", and my two little vampires with the prize they won with them in the village pumpkin competition. They have called him Bernie. I wanted to call him Errol, because I think he looks just like Errol Flynn, but then thats me showing my age again!

Tea Cosy Finished!

I know I said I wanted a tea themed fabric, but I couldn't find one in the right colours and then I saw this sprigged print and it just looked right. It only used 1FQ as well (plus 1FQ in a plain cotton and some wadding and muslin for the lining), with enough left over to back a couple of pinkeeps. And it keeps the tea lovely and toasty too ;)

If you want to find the design click on the link for The Sampler Girl in the side bar.

Look Carefully.............

.........and you'll see the little chap we spotted while we were out for a walk this weekend. There were eight to ten of them altogether, but this one was the least camera shy!

Introducing Humbug!

He's here! This is Humbug! He can also be finished flat as a pinkeep (see 2nd picture).

Another Finish

This time its an early start on the Christmas Stitching (well, technically, it is a late finish on last year's Christmas stitching). The design is from the 2006 JCS Ornament Preview Edition. I just LOVE penguins.

A Flurry of Finishes

I've been on a finishing frenzy the last few days. Unfortunately one or two of them are top secret for the time being, but I can show this one. Its a free design called "Tea with Jane" from The Sampler Girl the quote is from Jane Austen's Emma.I'm hoping to get hold of some cotton with a teacup/teapot print so I can make it up into a tea cosy.

Finally...

...figured out how to get my computer and my new camera to talk to each other, so I thought this blog was overdue for an update!

Here are some more carnival pictures, this time from Bude and Bradworthy.

Today's Craft Project

Not stitching this time, but a sort of rustic windchime made from driftwood, shells, and bits of slate. I would have used sea glass as well, but I can't figure out how to drill through it without breaking it.

A Busy Weekend!

It was the village show this weekend, which, as I am secretary, keeps me pretty busy every year, but this year was even busier than usual as we had to leave early to get to Bude in time for Naomi to enter the Fairy Queens competition at the Carnival.

The first picture is the stitching I completed while I was sitting in the hall till 10 o clock Friday night, stewarding the benching of exhibits. The design was from Cross Stitcher magazine, and I stitched it for my daughter who is a huge fan. I'm not saying who its meant to be, because I hope it is pretty obvious ;).

The second picture is my winning "Top Vase". I was really proud of this. Every year my lilies mock me by blooming either a week too early or a week too late for the show, but this year they miscalculated!

The third picture is my floral art entry, which won in its class, a first for me as I've never done well in floral art before.

The girls did really well too. Eloise won the cup for most points in her age group, and the cup for children's floral art, and Naomi won the prizes for Handwriting and children's photography. The 4th picture is her winning entry.

Oh, and we got two firsts and a second at the Carnival too!

A Small Finish

I've just finished this small picture for my DH as it is our wedding anniversary tomorrow. It is a free design from Reflets de Soie ~ http://refletsdesoie.chez-alice.fr/ ~ called Couer Romantique. It is stitched on a piece of hand dyed pink fabric I recieved in an exchange, using an Oliver Twists cotton. Hope it isn't too pink for him!

Another Saturday, another Carnival!

This time it was Tintagel. The sun came out and a great time was had by all.

The 1st picture shows the float in the parade. As you can see we had a bubble machine running, which was really funny as the re-enacters from The Battle of Camlann were following us in the procession, and were fighting the bubbles with dirty big broadswords!!

The other pictures show the trophies the girls won in the Queen of Queens.

Flower Festival

This weekend sees the village Chapel's annual Flower Festival. This years theme was "Sing it with Colour" (ie a song title with a colour in it). I did the arrangement for the village Horticultural Society (I'm secretary), and chose "Violet" by "Savage Garden" ~ appropriate huh? Anyway here's a picture.

Carnival!

It didn't rain! Here are the girls (and boy!) all together before the carnival and on their float.

For more pictures of the carnival visit www.delabole.org

Naomi's big day

Naomi's "Coronation" took place this evening, and I am proud to present Delabole Fairy Queen 2007/2008. (I'd post pictures of the entire group, but I need to ask the mothers of the other girls for permission first) As you can see she enjoyed herself immensly, and the rain pretty much held off as well. Now looking forward to next Saturday and the Carnival itself.

New Stash and a BIG DAY tommorrow

I have had my eye on this piece (Dans la Foret, by Tournicoton) for some time now, and, having had a stressful week, I decided I deserved a treat, and it arrived today. I love it even more in person. Of course I have absolutely no idea when I'll get around to stitching it ;)
Tommorrow is the crowning of the Carnival Royalty, (if you remember, my younger daughter is going to be Fairy Queen) and I put the last crystal on the last dress at lunchtime. I do love cutting things fine!.
Apparently it is going to throw it down, which is a shame, but we shall have to make the best of it.

How cool is this?

Go here and try it out http://metaatem.net/words.php

Garden Visitor

Look what I found in the garden today! Isn't he beautiful?

His wings were almost gold in the sunlight, but the picture hasn't captured that too well.

Revealed!

The exchange I mentioned in my last post is complete, so I can post the complete picture now. Still looking for a name for this one.

I thought maybe "Tumbling Leaves", but feel free to add any better suggestions.

What I've been stitching lately

Here is a sneaky peek at a new design. I don't want to post the whole thing just yet as the original for this one is for a Stitching Accessory exchange organised through Jayne's Attic and I don't want to spoil the surprise for my recipient.

Owls and more owls

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, it has been a busy few weeks. Naomi has been elected Fairy Queen for the village carnival, so I've had dresses, flowers, a float and goodness knows what else to think about, and I mark exam papers at this time of year anyway, so I haven't been at either the computer or my stitching anywhere near as much as I would have liked.

I do have a couple of small finishes though. Here are my little lace owls. I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out.


Speaking of owls, one of the things we gave Eloise for her birthday was a pair of devices called a Knitwit and a Doodleloom. One of them makes pompoms, the other makes kind of flower shaped rosettes (I can't for the life of me remember which is which), and the other day she figured out how to make these little pompom owls. This is the brood so far, excluding ones she has given away. I suspect they may be breeding! I also keep getting the feeling they are watching me and keep thinking of "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner. So, adorable or slightly creepy? What's the verdict?