A Christmas Finish

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I was actually pretty sick two days before Christmas but on Christmas day, I was feeling well enough to stitch. I'm happy to announce that I have a Christmas finish which unfortunately has nothing to do with Christmas.

Design: Little House Neighborhood

Designer: Little House Needleworks

Fabric: 28 count Picture This Plus Legacy Cashel linen

Fibers: Hand Dyed Fibers silk

Embellishments: JABC Buttons

This was a SAL with the Little House Neighborhood SAL which started in 2008. Boy, have I been behind.

As per my usual habit, I've made quite a number of changes to this design. Can you spot the differences?

Let's take a closer look.

As you can see, I've substituted a few motifs for JABC buttons. Don't you just love the kitty cat?

I opted for a dog and a watering can in place of the squirrel and rooster.

The white star on the house has been replaced with a button too.

My favourite part which coincidentally is right smack in the middle of the entire design.

The wool on the sheeps is stitched with silk chenille. Love how real it makes it look.

Last but not least, I think these hearts are perfect companions for the words.

Stitching the border nearly killed me. I'm no fan of repetitive, boring borders. I was beyond relief when the last stitches were finally put in.

I'm hoping to have one more finish before the year is up. Wish me luck!

Happy Stitching!

A Gift of Snowmen

I'm usually not one for stitching Christmas ornaments since I don't own a tree. However, I couldn't resist when I saw this design.

Design: He's A Flake

Designer: Little House Needleworks

Fabric: 32 count Natural Italian Linen

Fibers: DMC

Instead of making him into an ornament, I decided on something else... A mailart.

It arrived yesterday so now I'm able show it to you.

For the back, I stitched part of Snow in Love by Little House Needleworks. You'd probably recognize the little snowman at the top from my recent Drawn Thread Spot of Winter finish.

I used Colorful Christmas by Minds Eye for Riley Blake Designs fabric to line the inside.

Now, what's an envelope good for without its contents, right? Here's the card I made to go with it.

I've always thought of popup cards like the surprise inside Fabergé eggs. Of course, it's nothing even as remotely grand as those surprises but hopefully you understand my comparison.
Anyway, here's my surprise for this snowman card.

I found this design here if you're interested in making one too.

This gift of snowmen is for Mikey, my longtime friend, my best friend, my boyfriend.

Dearest Mikey,
Thank you for all the times you've been there for me when I needed you and especially when I thought I didn't need you.
Thank you for refusing to leave when I pushed you away and figured you'd be better off without me.
Thank you for loving me still after all the crap I've put you through and even when I'm not the most lovable person in the world.
I love you, too.

My Birthday Exchange

Last Thursday was my birthday. I received the most wonderful present from Jo, my NNC Birthday Exchange partner this year.

Look at what her package contained:

She made me a Sewing Machine Mat and a Thread Catcher. She also gave me a 12" x 18" Olfa Rotary Mat (which I was gonna buy from her), a couple of buttons, sewing threads, DMC floss, plastic bobbins, an extra cut of the same cat fabric she used for the sewing machine mat and thread catcher so that in future, I could make myself a matching sewing machine cover if I wanted to (heck yeah, I want to. LOL!) and a length of plastic strip (no idea what it's called) that she inserted into the thread catcher to retain its opening shape (so I could make myself another thread catcher if I wanted to).

Am I spoilt or am I spoilt? I've been meaning to make myself a sewing machine mat and thread catcher for some time now. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Now, I don't have to anymore. Thanks to Jo :)

Take a look at the thread catcher. Gosh, isn't the fabric she used adorable?

I immediately put them both to good use. I had all my sewing accessories organized in the many pockets too though you could barely see them.

Doesn't my Bernette look gorgeous with her new companions? Now, I can sew in style!
Thank you so much again, Jo.

Come Join Us!

My computer at home decided to stop cooperating. Thus, I guess there won't be much photos to show until I get it fixed. Anyone have any idea what causes a computer to keep freezing shortly after booting up and the screen to flicker ocassionally? I just had it formatted not too long ago when it was giving me the same problems so I know for a fact that it's not a software problem. Sigh!

On to the point of this post. A while ago, I saw Katica's Shopping List. Among the items she had listed were Lizzie*Kate's 6 Fat Man. I've been drooling over this design ever since I saw it. I ended up leaving Kati a comment asking if she would be interested to have an SAL if and when she decides to start it.

Well, one thing led to another and before I knew it, we'd set the tentative start date for 6 Fat Man in March 2012. We haven't worked out any other details other than that but I think it would most likely be a free and easy, work-at-your-own-pace, no demands SAL. What do you think, Kati?

Anyway, my question to all my dear readers is this:

Would you like to join us for Lizzie Kate's 6 Fat Man SAL?

I mean seriously look at it. It's so cute! How could you resist?

I have already ordered my charts. I haven't decided on the fabric yet but I'll be stitching it with (what else?!) Vikki's silk. I'm asking Vikki to help me with the conversion :)

Please do let me know if you're interested. I believe there are already quite a few takers over at Kati's SAL post.

Happy Stitching!

Early ISHW Report

It's ISHW again! How can that be? Time sure has flown.

I've been working on my Little House Neighbourhood as I mentioned in my last post. Been almost a year since I worked on this. Can you tell I'm trying really hard to reduce my WiP list before the year is up? 

Well, I managed to complete the third row.

Now that the forth and final house has been built, it's now time for the borders and words at the bottom.

You might have noticed there are some missing elements still. Not to worry, I've not forgotten about them. I have plans for those which will be revealed soon.

I also have another happy dance. My iStitch Mystery SAL is done!

Design: Sew A Mystery

Designer: iStitch Designs

Fabric: Hand Dyed Fibers 32 count Jackalope linen

Fibers: Hand Dyed Fibers (Examplar Black Iris) silk

Yup, this SAL now has a name... A very fitting one in my opinion. For those of you who missed out and would like to stitch it, Carol now has it on sale here.

Recently, I won another giveaway. This is what I received.

A scissors fob that Melinda made. Ain't that black cat the cutest charm you've ever seen? Don't let the photo fool you. Oh how its eyes sparkle in real life. I love it! Thanx, Melinda.

Happy Stitching!

Happy Dances

Yes, Happy Dances. Plural, with an S. Come celebrate with me. It's a party. First up, here's Spot of Winter.

Design: Spot of Winter

Designer: The Drawn Thread

Fabric: 32 count Cream Italian Linen

Fibers: DMC & Weeks Dye Works

Being the last of the seasonal spot sampler series, you know what that means, don't you? Yup, the entire series is now finish. Another happy dance. Woohoo! (Yes, I'm counting this as another one even though technically it's one and the same :P)

Don't all four of them look great together? I certainly think so. This one has been three years in the making. The first one, Spot of Spring, was finished in September 2008. So glad to see this done.

Now, what's a happy dance without close up pics, right?

All the charms used in this piece were substitutes. I had problem sourcing for the originals when I first bought the used charts off eBay. This was way before The Drawn Thread's webshop was set up.

My favourite part of the entire sampler. Falling leaves in autumn. I think they gave an illusion of motion to the design.

Winter. I had the most fun with the Sprats Head Tree stitch (small Fir Trees at bottom right). Very interesting weave effect.

Along with the spot samplers, I managed to keep up with my November stitching schedule (so far) and finished She Tends Block 3!

Design: She Tends

Designer: Shepherd's Bush

Fabric: R&R Reproductions Alabaster linen 30 count linen

Fibers: Crescent Colours, Weeks Dye Works & Sampler Threads

Embellishments: Shepherd's Bush Silver Leaping Lamb Charm

I know, unbelievable, right? The confetti stitches in this one nearly drove me mad. Fortunately, it's small.

And that, my friends, concludes this party.

Next up, Little House Neighbourhood.

Happy Stitching!

Belated October IHSW

Yes, I know, I'm more than a week late in giving my IHSW update. Bad news, I barely stitched so I didn't have anything to show. Good news, I stitched quite a bit AFTER that weekend and guess what? Romantique Sampler is now finished!

Wait, hold your horses and bear with me. Before I show you the completed project, I just gotta show you Part 16 first.

And then Part 21 ^.^

Okay, I'm done torturing you with the suspense as I could hardly contain my own excitement. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Romantique Sampler!

Design: Romantique Sampler

Designer: Angie Designer

Fabric: 32 count White Belfast Linen

Fibers: Hand Dyed Fibers (Examplar Fleckstone & Velvet Midnight series) silk

I started this is February 2011 which means it was stitched over a period of nine months. Now that it's done, I'll definitely miss stitching on it for sure. Then again, that means I'm allowed to start a new WiP, right? :P

On to the second SAL. Here's my iStitch Mystery SAL to date.

That's a cute willow tree. Still having fun with this SAL :)

One last thing, I recently won Hannah's Holiday Giveaway. The package she sent me has arrived.

Now tell me that isn't the most adorable autumn pillow you've ever seen? It's highly hugable as well and I especially love the felt edging. She also included some WDW threads too. Thank you so much, Hannah, for the lovely gift.

Happy Stitching, everyone!

October Update

This will be a short and sweet update as my October stitching schedule has not been turning out too well so far. Thus, I don't have much to show.

However, I managed to salvage some of it by finishing Part 2 of She Tends by Shepherd's Bush.

Design: She Tends
Designer: Shepherd's Bush

Fabric: R&R Reproductions Alabaster 30 count linen

Fibers: Crescent Colours, Weeks Dye Works & Sampler Threads

Embellishments: Shepherd's Bush Silver Standing Sheep Charm

As you can see, the red floss has bled into the fabric after I washed it. Am not too happy with that. This is why I won't ever buy non colorfast hand-dyed floss again once I finish stitching any ongoing projects that uses them. For the price they're selling for, I'd rather convert them to Vikki's silk to spare myself this frustration. Better value for money and yes, I'm turning into a silk snub ^.^

Anyway, complaints aside, have you seen Part 6 of iStitch Mystery SAL? I'm loving the pair of scissors! Wonder if I could buy an actual pair that looks like that. Anyone knows?

That's all for now. This weekend is IHSW again. What will you be stitching? I'll be working on Romantique Sampler.

Happy Stitching!

Finally An Update

My September stitching schedule was completely unsuccessful. I didn't stitch on Love With A Capital L nor the Mirabilia and Passione Ricamo SALs. In fact, I only managed to finish Part 20 of Romantique Sampler last week. I had wanted to show the photos way before this but my computer went down not long after that.
Finally, after a long, arduous process of troubleshooting and reformatting which I would rather not go into, here's my long overdue post. So glad the computer problem is all behind me. Phew! Let's hope it stays that way for a very, very long time, if not forever ^.^
Here's Part 20 :)

Only one more instalment which will be sent today! I'm so excited to get this done.

Of course, there's also iStitch's Mystery SAL which I finished last weekend.

I recently got an Android phone thanks to a friend in Australia so I've been playing with it too much some. Hence not much stitching done this past week.
I'm currently working on the second block of Shepherd's Bush's She Tends. Now, wanna hear something funny? If you recall, I had a Birthday Giveaway last year which included some Crescent Colours floss? I had completely forgotten that I still need a couple of those for this design. Sigh! This is why Mikey calls me his goofball. Had to reorder them from 123 Stitch so I won't be finishing this anytime soon until my floss arrives. Double sigh!
Dear Anonymous who left a comment on my last post, please do not be embarassed to leave your name and link to your blog. We're all stitchers and there's no such thing as amateurs in my book which I'm sure many other stitchers will agree. I personally would love to have another blog to admire or as Joyce like to say, stallk :P As to answer your question, I usually buy my supplies online, be it linen, floss or charts. You can find the various links to the ONS I frequent, especially for hand-dyed fabrics at the sidebar of my blog. Please do email me if you have anymore questions. I'll be happy to answer them.
Happy Stitching!

My First IHSW

So I finally caved and joined in September's IHSW. However, before I showed you what I've been up to this past weekend, here's Part 3 of iStitch Mystery SAL as promised.

Anyway, last weekend was a long weekend for me as Friday (16 September) was Malaysia Day. Unfortunately, I didn't stitch as much as one would expect. I've yet to put in a single stitch on Garden Verses for the Mirabilia SAL. I hope to rectify that soon.

I worked on Romantique Sampler instead. This time round, Angie has sent three parts rather than of her usual two. I managed to complete two parts so far.

Part 18:

Part 19:

I'm now working on Part 20. Once I get that done, I'll move on to Garden Verses. Luckily, I took Monday and Tuesday off too (Yeah, it's a very long weekend for me :P Five days!). I guess I had overestimated my stitching speed when I allocated five days for Romantique Sampler on my stitching schedule. Then again, that's supposed to act only as guidelines, right? ^.^

On Saturday, Carol sent out Part 4 of her Mystery SAL. It's small so it was done in no time at all.

I hope you've all had a great weekend. Happy Stitching!

Autumn

I've always love the rich palette of autumn. In keeping with my stitching schedule abeit slightly late, I completed Spot of Autumn.

Design: Spot of Autumn

Designer: The Drawn Thread

Fabric: 32 count Cream Italian Linen

Fibers: DMC & Weeks Dye Works

Stitching this has been a work of frustration and trial of patience. Have you ever felt like you did more frogging than actual stitching on a piece? This was one such case. Other than the red flowers on the bottom left, I must have stitched everything at least twice and the pumpkins three times! I'm reminded once again why it nearly became a UFO two years ago.

So has all that fuss been worth it? I certainly hope so. It sure is pretty, isn't it? Only winter left :)
I also managed to complete Part 2 of iStitch Mystery SAL.

I actually finished Part 3 last night as well but have yet to take a picture. Now it's on to Romantique Sampler.

Happy Stitching!

Coffee or Tea?

Which do you prefer? Me, I like both equally. So it comes as no surprise that I fell in love with Little House Needleworks' Coffee and Tea series. Last weekend, I decided to pick up Herbal Tea.

Took me about five days to finish it.

Design: Herbal Tea

Designer: Little House Needleworks

Fabric: Zweigart's Vintage Country Mocha (Marbled) 32 count Belfast linen

Fibers: Crescent Colours Belle Soie

All three of the tea series are finally done.

The Coffee and Tea series has been an ongoing WiP spanning four years. Can you believe that? If you look closely, you'll see that I finished Cappuccino in 2008! I'm glad to finally have all of them done.

I normally don't make plans when it comes to stitching but I really want to have more finishes before the year is out. Sometime last month, I made a schedule for the remaining months. Here it is in table form. I hope it makes sense. What do you think

Dates	September	October	November	December
1st - 3rd	Little House Needleworks - Herbal Tea	Shepherd's Bush - She Tends (Block 2)	Shepherd's Bush - She Tends (Block 3)	Shepherd's Bush - She Tends (Block 4)
6th - 8th	Drawn Thread - Spot of Autumn	Drawn Thread - Spot of Winter	-	-
11th - 15th	Angie Designs - Romantique Sampler (SAL)	Angie Designs - Romantique Sampler (SAL)	Little House Needleworks - Little House Neighbourhood	Little House Needleworks - Little House Neighbourhood
16th - 20th	Mirabilia - Garden Verses (SAL)	Mirabilia - Garden Verses (SAL)	Mirabilia - Garden Verses (SAL)	Mirabilia - Garden Verses (SAL)
21th - 25th	Passione Ricamo - Romantic Stitcher (SAL)	Passione Ricamo - Romantic Stitcher (SAL)	Passione Ricamo - Romantic Stitcher (SAL)	Passione Ricamo - Romantic Stitcher (SAL)
26th - 30th	Papillon Creations - Love With A Capital L	Papillon Creations - Love With A Capital L	Papillon Creations - Love With A Capital L	Papillon Creations - Love With A Capital L

On the dates not listed, I figured I'll stitch on whatever captures my fancy or work on those that I couldn't finish in time. As for iStitch's Mystery SAL, I'll stitch it when new parts are released. I should be able to finish it in between stitching other projects as the parts are pretty small.

So far, it's been successful. Hence Herbal Tea's finish. Guess we'll see how well I'm able to keep that up. Wish me luck :)

By the way, have you heard of Measi's 2012 WiPocalypse? It's an ongoing SAL for the entire year 2012. I mentioned how much I love SALs in my last post and seeing it, Measi suggested I join hers. I'm so in! Do check it out. There are no obligations, just fun. I'll post my list later depending on how many WiPs I can get done by the end of the year. Hope to see you there too.

Happy Stitching!

Stitch A-Longs

I love Stitch A-Longs, aka SALs. I love the community feeling one gets of stitching together with a group of stitchers online yet at the same time, it's all on my own time, at my own pace. No pressure. I find that very motivating.

For the month of August, I've participated in three SALs. First is the Mirabilia & Nora SAL over at Love 4 Stitching from 16th to 20th every month. Some of you might remember that I started Garden Verses back in September 2010. With this SAL, I finally finished her yellow dress.

Next, I signed up for iStitch's Mystery SAL organized by Carol R. Here's the first part. As you can see, I'm stitching it with Vikki's Examplar Black Iris. It's a lovely, subtly variegated black/maroon in real life which unfortunately the photo doesn't really show. The fabric I'm using is Vikki's 32 count linen in Jackalope.

I'm actually late in this SAL as I went to Phuket, Thailand for a three day vacation last week and couldn't complete it in time. Hopefully I'll receive the next part from Carol soon after I send her the picture.

Last but not least is Romantique Sampler again.

Part 15 was finished ages ago. I'm late as usual with the update.

I just put in the last stitch for Part 17 earlier today. At least for once I'm prompt :)

It's really coming along beautifully if I do say so myself.

Hard to believe this SAL is nearing an end. Two more installments. I doubt I'd have gotten this far with this design had it not been an SAL. What about you? What are your thoughts on SALs?