Stitching! Stitching! Stitching!

Now, I have been promising you some stitching for a few posts now and today is the day!

Here they all - in no particular order....

Here is my FFO on Joyeux Noel, I am very pleased with the bobble effect although it took me about three evenings to sew it on carefully.

During my Neverending Quest to clean out my Girl's Nest, I found these sweet, nearly finished red bird, heart-shaped scissor keeps or possibly Christmas tree ornaments with a yummy chocolate inside.  All I needed to do was do the red blanket stitch to join the front and backs together.

I have also been working on Silent Night by CCN (the fabric is a lot bluer than is shown below)

I have also been working on One Nation by Bygone Stitches, I was doing really well on this but then I realised that all of the white state names are one row wrong - I will need to frog them all!  Oh no!

.... and, of course, I have been stitching on my Antique Rose Sampler, too - this is coming along very nicely.

This one is Alphabet Stitches by Blackberry Lane Designs - this is probably the smallest (apart from the red bird hearts) piece that I have stitched on the past few months.

The Ice Skaters has been progressing at a great rate...

 .... and  a bit of progress has been made on Thirteen Colonies by LHN....

 Overall, I seem to have been fixated on fairly large pieces over these past few months - not sure why, just seems to be what has tickled my fancy.

So, off to find something to stitch from my pile of UFOs for Friday Frolics.

hugs, 

May Gifted Gorgeousness .... and Smalls SAL ....

.... both a bit very late - my apologies.

I have quite a bit to show you this month for both of these SALs.

Now, if you don't know what I am talking about.

Gifted Gorgeousness (or GG) is a SAL run by the wonderful SAL Mama, Jo from Serendipitous Stitching.  Basically, on the 15th of each month, we post anything which is stitchy gift-related.

AND

What is the Smalls SAL?  It is quite simple, really - it is run by Heather of Silver Lotus (the SAL Mama). Here are the main details:

1. Stitch a small every month. You get to decide what a small is for you. 50×50 stitches? 100×100 stitches? It’s up to you. You just need to be able to get it done by the check-in day. (WIP smalls that you complete in time for the check-in are great too!) You pick your design, I do not provide designs.
2. Post a picture of your completed small (stitching done, but the actual finishing is optional) on the last Thursday of every month, with the exception of November, which will be the last Wednesday.

So here we go, with what I have been doing for both these SALs this month.  Now, there will be a bit of interspersing as, wonderfully, some of the GG pieces are finished Smalls - Happy Dances all around!

First off, is the gorgeous Thirteen Colonies by LHN.  I recently picked this back up after last stitching on it way back in  January, 2012!!!!!! You can read all about it here.

I am certain that Thirteen Colonies was a gift from dear Gracie from Needles, pins and dragonflies and she generous gifted me not only the pattern but the fabric and the floss as well - thank you, dear Gracie.

Here are my progress pics....

 When I  first picked it up again , the stitching was like this....

Then I made some progress ....

Yay! I finished the little grey house - although you may notice that I am frogging the browny colour on the right - I realised that I had used the wrong floss colour, all those years ago - aagghh!

... and some more ..... It is moving along nicely now, I even have a couple of sheep!

.... and I think that I have stitched even more but unfortunately, I cannot quite put my hands on where I have put it, at the moment it is lost in the black hole of my Girl's Nest (which is what TraderVic and I call my sewing room).

Another dear bloggy friend, Barb from Wicked Stitcher kindly sent me this lovely July 4th design to add to my Americana collection to stitch for my Americana SAL. Thank you so much, Barb, I cannot wait to get started on this design. xxxx

I finished my second Nordic ornament from PS Book #191 for the Christmas Ornie SAL May theme of "Reindeer".

Isn't he a proud, handsome fellow?

He is a companion piece to the April theme of "Ornament".

I have been working on the final step of this quilt for my dear friend, Jenny P, this quilt has been a long time coming but is nearly there!  Furio loves this quilt and as soon as I get it out, he magically appears on my lap!

  I also finished my two versions of "All you need is love" by Lynne B of Happiness is Crossstitching.

Furio on the left and Milo on the right.  These will be made into ornies and I will send them to my daughter once she has an address in London (yes, she is leaving Australia and going overseas for a year or two - more on that in another post), so that she has her kittens with her.  I am extremely pleased with how these turned out.

.... and lastly, I am on the home stretch with the baby blanket - I am on track to get this finished by the baby shower on the 18th June.

So, that is all from me for these two SALs this month.

Ooops, no it is not, I nearly forgot my Counting Bats band by Just Nan for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL May theme of spiders.

Now, remember, you can check out all the GG action here and the Smalls SAL action here.

hugs, 

P.S. Phew! I just made the GG link in with 1.5 hours to spare (and I had a cruisey 2 days for the Smalls SAL link in).

P.P.S. You know that I am really sick - see last post "Sick as a dog", when this is what I am having for morning tea!

Latte for the caffeine hit;
Chocolate for the comfort;
and Whiskey to kill the germs
(my sweet Uncle Ron, swears by it as the cure for what ails you!)
(and no, I am not an alcoholic - just desperate to get rid of this virus).

hugs again, a very mellow, Kaye

For want of a better title... A stitchy update....

I have quite a few different projects on the go, as I am sure you all well know by now.  So, I thought it was time for an update....

Let's start with my Mystery SAL ... as usual, and as I love to do, I am drawing a bit of a long bow with my next Tudor Tuesdays SAL project.

I have chosen to stitch the wonderful Nora Corbett Mystery SAL, "Wherefore art thou".

Now, the logic goes like this....

The design for "Wherefore art thou" is Romeo and Juliet, written by Shakespeare, who was an Elizabethan, Elizabeth I was a Tudor monarch - so voila! Tudor Tuesdays!

This is my before pic ...

and my progress pic...

The fabric colour is truer in the second pic.

The colours in this design are truly stunning, so I am really looking forward to working on this one ... and today is Tuesday again, so time to stitch on this again! Look out for an update tomorrow on my Tudor Tuesdays SAL blog.

Next up is my map of Westeros, which is what I am stitching on when I watch Game of Thrones Series 6 (which I first wrote about in this post, here). Each picture represents an episode from the current series.  As you can see, not a lot of progress each viewing - probably because each episode is so gripping that I get too engrossed to stitch - lol!

Still, it is all good fun to stitch on whilst I watch.

Speaking of watching TV my other TV related project is the Outlander Sampler, which you can read about in the same post as above. I am stitching on this as I watch Season 2.

Ist episode:

2nd episode:

I am collecting episodes, so that one of these nights I can have a marathon Outlander stitching session.

... and my last stitchy update for now, is my progress on my UFO, Thirteen Colonies (which I picked up again last Friday after four years!

It is moving along nicely now, I even have a couple of sheep!

So, that is all from me today.

hugs,