The Whole Clan

A few days ago Katherine published a plea on her blog for fellow bloggers to let each other see what they look like instead of using anonymous avatars, and I realised that while this blog has loads of pictures of the girls, its a bit short of pictures of himself or yours truly.
There are two pretty good reasons for that :-

One: the girls are beautiful, and pictures of them are unlikely to scare people of a nervous disposition (unless you count the undead halloween pictures)

Two: I actually take most of the pictures on here, so I don't tend to be in them, and David, being a professional photographer, spends most of his time at the wrong end of the camera too.

However in the interests of "putting a face to the name" here is a picture of the four of us that was taken towards the end of last year.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

What? You're still scrolling down? OK then.

Challenge Review

So, 2011 is well underway, and I've got nothing interesting to blog about. Rien. Nada. Zip.

Weather anyone?

Anyway I noticed some of you have posted "Review of 2010" type posts and, never one to miss the opportunity to steal recognise a good idea, I've created this slideshow of my finishes for the 2010 Monthly Challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with the Monthly Challenge this  is a SAL which runs on the Stitch and Stash board, and now on the new Needlecraft Haven board as well.  Every month a link is posted to a complimentary design available online. Everyone stitches their own version of the design and finishes it into something, then on the last Sunday of the month an album of everyone's finishes is revealed. Its a lot of fun.

Here are my finishes for 2010. Eagle eyed readers may spot that there are only 11 finishes. This is because we only set one challenge for November and December last year

Last blogpost of 2010 - picture heavy

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  I thought you might like to see some of the stash/hand-crafted presents I recieved. The threads are from Clare and Karan, and the beautiful stained glass angel is from Barb (her very talented husband made it)

This wonderful exchange gift came from Suzanne (no blog). The little frog is sitting in my study now, keeping his friends away!

Neither stash nor handcrafted, but so exciting that I had to include it was this gift from the girls. David Tennant. Patrick Stewart. Shakespeare. Whats not to swoon over?

And here is a picture of some of the crafty things I gave as presents, which I couldn't show before Christmas

The scarves are knitted with Rico Pompom, and the sets of coasters are made from upcycled denim and fabric scraps, and were inspired by this tutorial

Finally it only remains for me to wish you all a Very Happy and Healthy New Year

Happy Christmas and a gift for you

Wishing You All a Very Happy Christmas

Here is a little Christmas Rose chart for you. Left Click to save/print.
Enjoy!

Once upon a time ...

...there were three little ornaments.

This little ornament was stitched for me by Julie for our ornament exchange. Isn't he just fabulous? As you may know I love penguins, so this was perfect for me. He's backed with penguin fabric, and he even had a secret pocket on the back with a chocolate in it. He's still got a secret pocket on the back, but its kind of empty now...

This little ornament is the one I sent to Julie.

Its adapted from a design on the Chronicles of Frimousse blog.

And finally this little ornament is a free design from Sue Hillis. I saw a finished version of this on Dani's blog on Monday, and immediately knew that I had to stitch it for Naomi. No sooner the thought than the deed and here he is. He's backed with the fabulous skull and cross bones bandana print he's photographed on, and I added a little coin charm to look like a bit of pirate swag (and not because I hadn't got him quite centred on the ornie. Oh no! Definitely not because of that...)

Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

If you've been reading this blog for a while you will know that our local florist has a fun Christmas floral design class every year. Here is my effort from this years class, gerberas, lysimachia and gloriosa lilies arranged in "Christmas puddings" carved from oasis and wrapped in organza (very nearly at the expense of my sanity I might add)
In case you've ever wondered at the hulking great wooden behemoth in the back of these pictures by the way, its a speaker. 
A very large speaker.
A very large speaker that produces sound below the range of human hearing.
Don't ask, its a guy thing.
On the stitching front, I've finished and sent the ornament I was making for my private exchange with Julie, so I can show that as soon as I hear it has safely arrived. I've also stitched some Christmas gifts for friends, but since some of them read this they'll have to remain under wraps for now.

Still here!

I've been knitting, stitching and sewing up a storm lately, I feel like Santa's little needle-elf! There is a lot I can't show before Christmas, but here are one or two bits.

Here is the extremely pretty orrnament I recieved from Karen J (no blog that I know of) in The Gift Of Stitching Magazine ornament exchange. Karen also very kindly included the lovely calendar of Canadian scenes that you can see in the picture.

 And here is the one I sent to Debbie (also no blog).

A few weeks ago, alone and unloved at the bottom of a plastic laundry basket full of textiles in the charity shop I came across a sad, limp drawn thread table runner, yellow with age and covered in stains. I couldn't bear to see it lying there, all screwed up, so I bought it and fetched it home.

I soaked it in bleach for a while and hung it on the line in the sun for an afternoon and it came up beautifully white, though I had to darn one or two tiny holes in it.

Inspired by a project in CrossStitcher magazine (loving their new look by the way), I used waste canvas to stitch these little heart motifs on it. I think it looks very Scandinavian and Christmassy.