Boxes arrived from Taiwan!

At 5:30 yesterday afternoon the intercom went and 'Parcel Force' was declared to be the culprit. I thought, 'I'm not expecting anything except....' and went to the door. I looked over the balcony-thingy to see a brave postie lugging in 2 white and green Taiwanese postal boxes!=) I've put the language related stuff on the 'Polyglot' blog and just saved the textiles stuff for here, so here goes:

First up we have the fanciest of the fabrics I got out there. These are to be made into little bags/purses like those in this photo, which you might remember I posted whilst I was actually in Taiwan.

Below are the cotton fabrics, both Taiwanese and Japanese.

Here are the trimmings - mostly ribbon-type things to trim up the little bags and zip-pull things and tiny fans and butterflies to put on the zips to make the whole thing more special and oriental looking. When I finally get chance to get some of these made up and ready for sale, they'll be advertised on Etsy with a note saying 'Materials personally sourced in the Far East'!!!

These are the sheer fabrics I also got. I don't know why I bought the red and gold one, but the other 5 are more for stumpwork than any sewing and/or patchwork projects. They're either actually organza, or something very like it.

Made a start

I keep thinking it's Sunday as it's Bank (Public) Holiday here in the UK and we've not been doing normal stuff. Feels like it's still an ordinary weekend day!!

Here's how far I've got on the Pool design. Just done about 2/3 of the leaves in the foreground and I'm glad they came first in the working instructions as they really are the boring bit! I'm hoping to get the whole of the foreground design done by the end of next weekend, then get the middle, landscape part done the following week. That should see me well ahead of schedule and able to get on with the first of the two hardanger cushions.

Of course, the card for dh needs doing pronto too as our anniversary is in two and a half weeks, on 12 June! Not long, so I'd best get on with it even before I get this one finished, huh? Gosh! 9 years already. Doesn't seem like that long though, so it must have been good.=)


We went to a barbecue this afternoon/evening at friends' house. There were 60-odd there, so it was quite bustling. I put that vegan baking book to good use and made two types of buns/cupcakes - lime and coconut and chocolate mint as well as a fruit flan. First time making my own pastry and I must remember to put more sugar in next time I want it for something this sweet. Couldn't resist taking a photo!! It's not often that I get to do fancy baking like this, but I hope to take advantage of many more opportunities in the future!!=)

Plant Life and Pool

This is how far I got on the Goldfinches up to Thursday evening. I had hoped to get the right hand thistle totally done, but those thistle heads are quite 'bitty' and take a lot longer then working on the birds or the leaves. Anyway, it's coming along nicely, but will slow down a fair bit now as I'll be concentrating on the Ornamental Pool design instead. Will still do some here and there on the birds, but I need to get gift stitching done in time and the birds are for us. I also need to get DH's anniversary card done, which should be the blackwork heart design I'd planned for last June. Well, we'll see how that goes. I don't like having too many things on the go at once, although two large-ish projects and one small one isn't exactly a lot, is it? I know some have a dozen or more on the go at one time and rarely, if ever, finish anything. I remember one lady telling me she'd never finished anything in her life! Can't quite see the point in that myself, but, well, each to her own, huh?

I got the fabric, front and back, prepared for the Pool cushion/pillow last night, including tracing on the design, as you can see here. It's too big to work even in my 12" hoop, so I've put it in the 14" R&R Craft Frame and hope that that will work out OK. It's a tough thing deciding if R&R Frames or Q-Snaps are best. As an American lady once rightly said, the British product is better quality (DH said so too, that the Q-Snap wasn't well machined - the edges were rough etc), but I like the fact that the clips on the Q-Snaps are longer and therefore hold a better tension all over the piece than the R&R ones. They're also a bit tighter, I think, but that might just be the ones I have as I've had the R&R ones longer and have used them more. They also have a very handy 14" size, which the Q-Snap doesn't. I've got 8" and 11" Q-Snaps and 9", 11", 14" and 17" R&R Frames as well as 4", 5", 6", 7", 8", 9", 10" and 12" wooden hoops, so no-one could accuse me of being short on working frames!!!! I think they're very important and I hate working anything other than a cross stitch bookmark piece (or something equally small, like one of those Textile Heritage needlecases, like this, this and this) 'in hand'. I find it quite painful after a few minutes as well as harder all round. The frame holds things nicely and I just can't imagine doing a larger piece without using a frame and moving it around, if need be. Not that I can see myself doing one of those 3 metre hardanger tablecloths, like!!!!

Oh, I did go to the marlet yesterday and found a fabric stall, but as I didn't have a sample of fabric to match with me, I couldn't seriously look for COS backing stuff. I did go and look at the outdoor produce stalls though and, how cheap are they? I bought a few thing for just over £5 that would have cost me about £10-11 in the cheaper supermarkets! DH and I have decided to become market shoppers instead and I've just made a note of all the farmers' markets in Leeds as well as that might be even better value - local stuff and cutting out the middle man. We can save about £150 a month, which we can put towards something more interesting!=) No, I really don't need any more stash....

I think I've worked out what made me lose my uumph stitching. It seems to have been mad dash stitching for wedding pressies last year along with the job-related problems that just took away a lot of pleasure in a lot of things. Now that's all history and I have a decent amount of time to do the things I want for this summer, I feel much more like doing it.=)

Goldfinches moving ahead apace!

I've really got myself on a roll with the Goldfinches piece, look at all this progress in just two days! I'm really pleased that it's coming on so well and I expect I'll be able to put in all the rest of the plant life over the next few days. Being home with yet another pesky virus helps a lot to get on with stuff like this!! It has it's advantages, although I really ought to be in bed....=( It's 'my' exam on Friday too, (i.e. the class that I take as part of a whole module has its exam - an hour long Chinese listening test), so I'll have to do as I did yesterday and go out when I ought to be home resting, but at least then that's it for this academic year, (save about an hour helping to mark any resit papers in August). It's been a really awful year too, so I'll be glad to see the back of it!

One good thing about having to be out and about yesterday was that I was able to go to Taylors and get a few things needed for the Ornamental Pool cushion. I got the backing fabric and stocked up on iron-on interfacing (needed for anything other than the lightest of embroidery on relatively delicate fabric, so anything thin or silky) in both black and white as well as got a zip for the finished product and some fabric that may do to back COS, although I'm not sure about that yet. Can't seem to find something I'm happy with! Perhaps I should root around in the market on Friday after work.

Anyway, here's the 'floss toss' for the Pool design (an expression I learned from Veronica's blog) -> As you can see, I've selected mostly Anchor stranded cottons, but there are 4 each of Anchor Marlitt (for the foreground damselfly and fish, to make them really glow) and Pearl Cotton #12 (for the 'rougher' looking parts) plus 2 Kreinik cords. The next move on this piece will be, after getting the fabric pressed and backed, to get the pattern transferred on. This is always a bit of a pain, but this one promises to be a bit challenging as I'm going to gave to stretch it vertically a bit. I need it to be square, and it's ever so slightly wider than it is high. So, I'll elongate the leaves at the side or something. Will probably have to use two pieces of tracing paper put together as well, which will be tricky too. Don't like this bit!

It feels good to be back stitching and really enjoying it again. I can't think why I just lost momentum for a while, but I guess it happens to most of us at some point. I've read other stitchers lamenting about their lack of umph at times!!

The weekend's stitching

Haven't had a lot of stitching time this weekend, but I have made the most of what I did have and here are the results, i.e. progress on Goldfinches. The last post I made that showed this one had much less on the bird's wing and only some of the white stitches on the thistle head, so I have done quite a bit.

So yes, I decided to go with the Helen Stevens 'Ornamental Pool' design and have got the threads out already as well. Just need to get some suitable fabric now as I don't like the polycottons I've got in and there isn't enough of the black anyway. So, I must go and get something new. I fancy a silk effect fabric that's fully washable and that I can also with make a piping for for the edges, or can get something to match easily. Will show that and the threads when I have it to show.

Finished the bluetits - AT LAST!

Just when you thought I was never going to stitch anything again, I finished the bluetits piece! I just need to wash it now as there are a couple of marks on it, one of which would definitely show.

After laundering it can join the Chaffinches, awaiting completion of the Goldfinches and they can all be framed together. The remains of the kit is now in my 'For Sale or Trade' album on my Webshots

I hope to get the backing fabric for the CoS cushion/pillow this coming week and get that finished up and finally done too. Look out for that by the end of this month, all being well.

Back to stitching. It's now time to begin on the first of the 4 big annivesary pressies that I plan to stitch for this July - Sept. I'm thinking of doing this Helen M Stevens design on either black or v dark blue poly-cotton and stitching it in stranded cottons etc and not silks, then making it up as a cushion/pillow cover for DH's mum and step-father for their 20th this July. I could do it as a picture, in which case the sky's the limit with thread types, but they have so many up already that, every time I go to their place, I just can't imagine where they'd fit anything new in!! So, I think an item of soft-furnishing would be best. What do you all think of it? It's from 'Embroidered Gardens' and probably wouldn't take as long it looks like it would. Freestyle is often much faster than cross stitch anyway.=)

Ribbon work 'framed'

I finally made the rose arch ribbon work into a card just a few minutes ago. It's the nearest to stitching I've done in FAR too long, I can tell you! Hope everyone likes it!

Nothing else to show or tell, beyond that I'm in the process of re-creating the Fine Embroidery web-ring elsewhere as Ringsurf have changed their entire system without any notification to members at all and the new stuff seems to be no improvement whatsoever.

High School Art

Not been up to much worth reporting of late. I have been shopping a lot though, so here are some of the things I've been treating myself to.

First off, 3 vegan cookery books. I want to get started on making some of the goodies from the small baking one at the front and will have to get a couple of specialist ingredients from shops in town later on today first. Yesterday's Tesco trip was mostly for baking goodies!! There are 2 excuses to bake as well (normally I can't much as Sir is weight conscious and I tend to get blebbier than I'd like too.....), so I'm looking forward to trying out the coconut lime cakes and the chocolate mint ones as well as some strawberry and/or mandarin orange tarts. Yum!

Been getting art things too. Here are the colour swatches from the pastel/drawing paper pads I've been coveting for a while!! I got the cool shades (blues) a little while ago, before Taiwan, and managed to get the warms and neutrals over the last few days on E-bay. A £5 voucher from E-bay Extra helped get one!=) I've also bought some new paints, but I'll show those off when the last lot arrive.

I got this landscapes book out of the library and loved it, so spent part of a 25% off at Borders voucher on that, (and the vegan cupcake book). The flowers one is a library book, but I know I want that one too. I love her style and the fact that she uses the same media and brands as me, so here are some tips etc on using all those fab pencils I got a few months ago, esp the Inktense and Graphitints, which are relatively new on the art scene and so material on using them is quite scarce.

Looking through old art pads I found some art from high school. Here are the Garfield characters, which I copied from a Garfield book, but didn't trace:

This is a cartoon collection of some of my high school chums:

And this is an old pencil case that I drew. I love this 'flash of colour' idea and the 'Landscapes' book has a couple of pieces in the same style. I'll be having more of a go at that soon. You can see my old name here in the signature and the date - 1987!! More than 20 years ago - eeek!

Here are some sketches that I did in the Department of East Asian studies 3 years ago - you might be able to make out the date there too. I did the pen sketch first and that seemed to work well for me as my pencil sketches are often very hesitant indeed, but with pen you have to 'commit' to your mark-making and that seemed to do me good as I did a decent pencil drawing immediately afterwards!

So, what does this tell me? That I probably can do well with art if I only get on with it. When I was 16, I'd been doing art classes at least once a week since I'd been about 5, so I was in better practise. I think, somewhere in my mum's attic, I may have my display pieces from my GCSE, the art exam I did when I was 16. If I find them when we clear her attic out for her this summer, then I'll showcase a few pieces and start to make a scrapbook out of them. And the post's just arrived with more stuff in: A rotary cutter for when I can start the C&G level 1 Patchwork and Quilting course and some watercolour paints. Will post pics tomorrow or so, this is enough for now!!!

My Blog is Boring!

Ooooof! How dull my blog has been of late! I never seem to have any decent stitching to show these days - dunno what's up with me. Distractions of one sort or another, I suppose. Anyway, thought I'd make a bit of an effort today at least.

Here's the current state of play with the birds. You can see that I've done all the silver seed-heads and just have the thicker, cream ones to do. Then I must wash it as there are two marks on it - a natural consequence of having been hanging around in the frame, poorly protected for about 10 months already!

This is something I picked up in Taiwan last month. As soon as I saw it, I saw needlecraft potential in it. It's just a ruler, but an extendable one with a mini protractor in the middle with each 15 degrees marked. I thought that it had real possibilities and, at only NT$23 (about 40p UK, and maybe US$0.70), a real bargain too.