Friendship Bloghop

To mark her milestone 500th follower Jo, from Serendipitous Stitching has organised a Friendship Blog Hop to celebrate the friendships we have found through blogging, where we are each allocated another blogger to whom we should dedicate our post.
My allocated blogger is Pat who blogs at The Southpaw Stitcher
Pat's blog tagline reads "I love it all: embroidery, canvas work, quilting, crochet. So much to do and so little time" and a look through her blog shows that not only does she love many needle related techniques but she does beautiful work in all of them.
I decided this piece, designed by The Victoria Sampler, with its  wide variety of needlework techniques, including Hardanger, ribbon embroidery and Bargello work, and its "special friends" sentiment, would be ideal for this post, tying in with both Pat's love of all needlework and Jo's theme of friendship.
So Pat (and Jo) this one's for you ;)

Now, I wonder who got me...

Catching up with Challenges

Hot on the heels of the June Monthly challenge I have now finished July's. This is Cardinal Heart from Kissy Cross (chart here), although I tweaked mine to make it a Robin Heart.
A bit of an experimental finish, I cut it out about 1/4" away from the stitching, glued it down onto the fabric tag, leaving the edges free, did a quick running stitch around the outside, and frayed it back a bit to the glue/running stitch.
The "tag" is a furnishing fabric swatch from that well known British store where we all buy our underwear. It's "Bowen Chenille" in red if you're interested.
I'm just wondering if it needs a little ribbon bow under the heart. What do you think?

I've been having another bit of a play with paper cutting as well. This one is from a purchased template (from Stacey Sansom - here). It didn't quite fit the frame I had so I've had to improvise a bit but I quite like it.

A Late Challenge and A Pebble

So, I finally finished my June Challenge for the Needlecraft Haven Monthly Ornament Challenge (yes, I do know it's September).

The chart is from Luli, and can be found here. I moved the text across a bit on mine to make the design a little more circular so it would fit in the lid of this gold satin box (part of my Advent Exchange parcel from Becs last year). Fabric is Sparklies "Autumn Glow", which matches the satin beautifully, threads are just what I had lying around.
For a long time I've been admiring all the lovely crochet covered pebbles I've been seeing around the interwebs. Sadly crochet is something I've never quite been able to grasp, I can do a granny square, or simple things like the notorious Mollie Makes apple cosy (here), but I know my limitations and lacy stuff is beyond me, so here is my take on the crochet pebble cover.
A tiny vintage doily stretched and stitched around a varnished pebble. I'm really pleased with how it came out, and may have to make some more.

Here it is in its new home in my collection of beachy treasures, or as David calls it when he walks into it, or knocks something over and breaks one of the glass tanks the sea glass is in (which happens with depressingly monotonous regularity), my pile of old junk.

Summer Postcard Bloghop

I have received a postcard in the Summer Postcard blog hop organised by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.

My lovely postcard comes from Chiara at The Grey Tail

Chiara wrote:-

“ciao Summer Stitcher!

these are pictures of what I’ve been working on this summer. sometimes clearly summer/garden related, sometimes you need to refer to the post I wrote about them in order to see it my way. here is a link: http://thegreytail.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/a-summer-garden-galore/

now, I have a soft spot for gardens, as a matter of fact I plan to work on our family garden this spring so that it will host a variety of flowers and herbs preserved by the Seed Savers Exchange organisation.

I appreciate big big gardens too, one that you can visit nearby where I live is the garden surrounding Villa Pisani, a beautiful place with big gardens, a small wood - and a maze! I blogged about it here if you want to lean more about the place: http://thegreytail.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/getting-lost/

I hope you had a great summer, our wasn’t hot at all and very rainy. the kind I like! 😉

big hugs, chiara”

Visit Chiara's blog for more details about all the beautiful stitching in the photo, and Jo's blog to see all the other blogs taking part in the hop

Showtime and Sharp Objects

I thought you might like to see some photos from the village horticultural show last Saturday. No, I didn't grow any of these fabulous veggies, but I am show secretary so that must count for something right?

As for the sharp objects, I treated myself to the beginners paper cutting kit from the lovely Paper Panda. Oh dear, I needed a new obsession hobby like I needed a hole in the head. Looks like I found one anyway.

I made these two cuts using templates from the starter kit. I even ended up with the same number of fingers as I started out with.

Yes that is a tea ring on the birdy one. The only reason the culprit is still breathing is because I don't actually know which one of them it was...

Anyway, all inspired by doing those I made one of my own.

Words by Page and Plant, cutting by Christine.

The tiny butterflies are a conscious design choice and by no means intended to disguise small mistakes in the cutting.

Off now to cut up some more stuff.

An Exchange Received

You might remember I posted the gift I'd sent out in the VSCyberstitchers exchange in this post.
Well my gift arrived this week. Look what I got!

Donna sent me this beautiful dragon fob in shades of green and purple. You can't really tell from the photo, but in real life it is very sparkly, with dozens of iridescent beads. Thank you Donna, I love it.

Carnival 2014

It was the village Carnival yesterday. Naomi went as Lara Croft

Eloise went as a completely terrifying undead thing...

Ah, how I miss the princess days. Honestly, how authentic do those make-up bruises look? I think the St John's Ambulance people thought all their birthdays had come at once.