Out of Hibernation

Remember this?

Over winter it progressed slowly and left me no time for blogging

Piecing it together was very tedious

But finally last week it was all done

....and it fits just perfectly with Little Miss' ocean theme room.

I searched high and low for ocean theme bed linen with no success until finally when I got my sewing machine earlier this year I decided to make my own.

I've decided sewing things that are basically square or rectangular is not that hard after all.

I even made cushion covers and table runners to match.

My son wasn't so keen on all those bright colours so I made this set for his room.

I'm just loving making cushion covers in all shapes and sizes and adding lots of buttons. 

It's so difficult to find extra wide sheeting fabric where we live so I adapted the design by adding panels.

...and then made this final cushion cover last week.

This old box once started out as a munitions box my father used while working for the water board in Melbourne. He carried two of these in his work vehicle with explosives inside which he used to blast up rocks where pipes needed to be laid.

After retiring I inherited the boxes from Dad and repurposed them into toy boxes for my then baby boy.

...and now after a good long spell as a toy box I've reinvented one of them into a box to store my wool stash!

I painted it beige and cut up a cushion cover that matches my chair to glue on top and inside the lid.

It also doubles as a great side table for my cup of tea.

Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon Snack

Sunday Afternoon Cuddle

Sunday Afternoon Nap

Sunday Afternoon Stitching

How was your Sunday Afternoon?

Teacup Pincushion 2

"Needles & Pins"

Designer: Maria Diaz

Stitched on 28ct Off White Cashel Linen

DMC threads

You might remember my Teacup Pincushion here:

My Teacup

which I stitched a few weeks ago. Since then I've already had quite a bit of interest from friends wanting me to stitch one for them. Last week I visited a friend who has just undergone major surgery and I noticed she had lots of lovely teacups in her display cabinet. This one used to belong to her mother. It's the Royal Albert "Moss Rose" design.

Maria Diaz original design worked just perfectly with this teacup and I was able to use all the recommended DMC colours for it.

I'm really enjoying stitching these little teacups. They are so quick and easy to make and the finished product looks just gorgeous. This one took me just three hours to stitch last night.

Stitched on 18ct Black Aida

DMC and Anchor threads assorted.

Design name: Unknown

Designer: Lakkana Jones for The Weekly

Circa: 1960-1970s

This unnamed cross-stitch was one I stitched many many years ago. It's a vintage pattern that I remember finding amongst my mothers sewing things when I was a young girl. I still have the pattern on a very old black and white photocopied piece of paper and all it says is that it was a Handmade Tapestry to stitch. I though turned it into a cross-stitch and chose my own colours. It was stitched on 18ct black Aida and used a variety of DMC and Anchor threads that I had available at the time.

It reminded me today of one of Nurdans' from Nurdan Kanbers' Workshop lovely original pieces. She always designs her own cross-stitch work and I eagerly look forward to reading her blog and seeing what she has been stitching. She never disappoints with her very original designs.  

My Teacup

"Needles & Pins"

Designer: Maria Diaz

Stitched on 28ct Off White Cashel Linen

DMC threads

This was my favourite little teacup that I've had almost as long as we've been married. I accidently dropped it from the drain tray on the kitchen sink a few weeks back and it developed a very fine hairline crack inside - not terribly noticeable but enough that I don't feel safe drinking from it anymore in case it splits while I'm having my hot cup of tea. I was so reluctant to throw it away that it just sat on the kitchen bench for three weeks until I stumbled on a lovely idea to repurpose it.

A new era in cross-stitching for me was when yesterday I downloaded a few different cross-stitch magazines onto my iPad including

Britain's No.1 Cross Stitcher

with it's free sample magazine Issue 243 from September 2011.

As I leafed through all the lovely designs to stitch and contemplating the easability of stitching from a pattern directly from the iPad I was so delighted to find this design on page 9

"Needles & Pins"

The original design is stitched using pinks and blues but I adapted it to suit my own teacup using yellows instead of the blues for the smaller flowers.

Here is Maria Diaz' original design that I worked from.

Where is Sara? Can anyone help?

A very dear friend of mine owns this gorgeous Royal Doulton 'Lady Sara' figurine. She also has a beautiful painting of her. I would love to do Sara in cross stitch for my friend. I recently saw some Royal Doulton cross-stitch designs on Ebay and found Sara but missed out on her. So I know she is out there..... somewhere.....

Here is cross-stitch Sara in Red. I found her on Google images but the link was from 2009 and I can't find anyone who still stocks this pattern. If anyone knows where I could source the pattern and then I could adapt her to the blue/pink colouring I would be really appreciate it.

This lovely lady is Royal Doulton "Take Me Home." This elusive little lady is one I am searching for. I've seen her on Ebay a few times now but have always missed out on winning her.

Any guesses why I would love this one????

Sam and Peeps

Sam and Peeps

"Windy Day"

Genny Haines Collection

Goldleaf Needlework Kit

Stitched on 14ct blue Aida

Finished Sam last night. This one is for our 'Little Miss'. She wants me to make it into a small cushion for her bedroom.

I reframed 'Home of a Needleworker'

I picked up this timber shelf from Bunnings Warehouse and my DH painted it for me to store my button collection jars. At the moment it's sitting on the sewing table but not sure yet if I might want to mount it on the wall so that my work surface isn't cluttered up.

.... or maybe it would look better here next to my WIP box where I sit and do my stitching.

'Oola Lah'

Semco bookmark kit purchased from Spotlight

Lastly for today sharing my Little Miss's latest finish. She is getting faster. Last night she started on her first bigger piece. Ssshhhh I think it's something for me, but don't tell her I told you I know.

Latest Creations

This week I finished my first Little House Needleworks sampler

"Home of a Needleworker Too"

Fabric: 28ct Beige Quaker Cloth

Threads: From my own stash of Semco, Anchor and DMC threads.

I really loved working this piece for several reasons. Firstly, it was quick!!! I finished it over two weekends which is a record for me. I love the colours and found this gorgeous frame which was just the right size. I'm going to hang it over my sewing table.

By the way - don't look too closely at my framing attempt. After taking the photo I realize how awful it looks. It's coming out tomorrow morning to reframe it. I was just too eager and excited to share it with you. I shouldn't do that. A badly framed piece really detracts from all our hard work stitiching it in the first place. I hope you'll forgive me this time. Promise I will fix it and repost a better photo in daylight. In fact I loved stitching this piece so much that I'm going to make another one in a different colour for the house for one of my crafting friends, maybe change the wording to Home of a Crafty Chick and perhaps change the little black bird to an Australian Crimson Rosella instead. What do you think?

So where do you store your WIPs so they are easily accessible to your stitching area? I've tried various different locations and storage containers or sewing bags or baskets over the years. This year I decided to store them in the loungeroom in this lovely cardboard box from the bargain store.

It's big enough to hold all my WIPs, threads, scissors, needles, fabric etc... but tends to get a bit heavy when I'm sitting to just reach in and take out what I need. These are my current WIPs - another LHN design I want to stitch soon - "The Family Sampler"; my "Weekend A Paris" by Gold Collection (which I must admit I am a bit bored with lately. I finished the lovely elegant lady and now all that beige stitching is sort of all over the place and it kind of annoys me when it does that. Having to jump from 3 stitches here of one colour and then 4 of another colour, then back to the first colour etc... Does anyone else suffer from stitching detail boredom at times? I guess that's what I loved about the LHN piece. It's so lovely to work on and easy to follow and count your stitches that it flows so easily and you don't have time to get bored with it.

I also received my "Sam and Peeps" kit in the mail last week. I actually ordered two of them. This one is for my favourite young mans room. Of course when Little Miss saw it she straight away said "Please can you make me one too" - knowing your kids and thinking ahead pays off. I ordered her the other Sam and Peeps design and you'll catch a glimpse of that one further down.

On Friday while out grocery shopping I found this lovely book box for under $10 at the bargain store. It's A4 in size and very light weight. So I decided my immediate WIP will be stored in this one. I can place it on the arm of my stitching chair.

I just loved the colours on it and it looks lovely as a decorative piece on the coffee table or bookshelf when you're not stitching. But, what I really love about it is that it has some sort of hidden magnet just under the lid so it snaps shut and nothing can fall out.

Needles, thread, cross-stitch chart and WIP.

What else do you need on hand right?

This Sam and Peeps design is called

"Windy Day"

Fabric: 14ct Blue Aida cloth

DMC threads included in the kit

This is what I am immediately working on this weekend.

Semco Bookmark

"Seahorse"

Kits available from Spotlight stores.

Lastly I'm sharing my Little Miss's first bookmark finish. I'm very proud of how quickly she has picked up counted cross stitch. I'm also so excited that she enjoys my favourite hobby almost as much as I do.

Marley, Paris and Sewing

Milly from Milly's Stitches kindly shared the link to this lovely design she just completed the other day on her blog. Thanks Milly! I've ordered it for myself.

You can read Milly's post on this little fellow over here:

http://thegentlestitcher.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/sam-is-finished.html

It's from a cross stitch range called

"Sam and Peeps"

Here is the link if any of my Cavalier friends would like to give it a try.

http://www.goldleafneedlework.co.uk/

It reminded me so much of Marley when he first came to live with us at 8 weeks old.

He was soooo cute!

See - he even sits like Sam from "Sam and Peeps".

As I have one little person here who is mad on mice I just had to order this design too.

Jasper caught in the act!

I've been wondering why the back of our lounge was always looking squished down when we got home from going out. I often leave the dogs in the outdoor room now if it looks like it's going to rain. Yesterday we caught Jasper sitting up here sunning himself.

Looking very comfy there Jasper.

Before I got the link for 'Sam' from Milly, I scoured Ebay looking for a Cavalier design cross-stitch and found this one over at Fido Stitch Studio from the UK on Ebay. It was very reasonably priced and it just arrived today. This one will be for me. More of a grown up Marley. Only a small design it might look nice above my desk.

I've been busy setting up my sewing corner lately too and finding new places to store my stitching stash. It used to be in odd bod boxes and folders all over the house. Now that I set up a sewing corner I decided to bring it all together in one place.

These are the little drawer openings under the desk. I found these gorgeous little white boxes at Officeworks. Unfortunately the lids won't fit on them in here, but I found a use for the lids inside the sewing table drawers for loose little items like pins, needles etc...

A box for Ric Rac....

One for zippers.......

....and one for miscellaneous bits and pieces.

I also used the bookshelf in the office to collect together all my cross stitch magazines, books....

patterns......

....scrapbooking items for the kids, fabric for sewing, and a lovely big box for the cross-stitch kits and hoops I scored just last week on Ebay

I saw this bulk lot of cross-stitch items being sold by a lovely New Zealand lady named Judith who has just moved out here. She said she used to own a craft shop in NZ but has now retired and got rid of ALL of her cross-stitch stash and won't be doing cross stitch anymore. I can't imagine ever giving up cross-stitch. She said she had nobody to pass it on to over here and sold it to me for next to nothing. I couldn't believe all the items she gave me in this huge big bag for such a minimal cost. I am so grateful. I also couldn't believe I was the only one bidding on this bulk lot of stuff. She wasn't asking that much and once I had it all sorted out there were over 12 cross-stitch kits, around 20 or so frames and hoops of all different sizes, and over 200 pattern leaflets and magazines as well as the first 8 issues of Sampler and Antique Needlework printed in the early 1990s. They have the most lovely sampler designs in them.

  It's really too much for me to use so I will be listing some of them on Ebay or sending some on to other cross-stitching friends. There are only so many designs one person can do in a lifetime. I think I have more than enough.

I got these boxes at 10 for $20 from Officeworks. They are really strong and sturdy cardboard with reinforced metal edges. They keep my sewing things like velcro and bias binding, my crochet handkerchiefs which I will share with you another time. It's a craft I learnt to do in Austria when I was only 12. the bottom box is for spare odd bits of floss. There are still a few more bigger boxes of kits, fabrics, linens and floss I need to organize.

Here is my current WIP

Weekend A Paris

I'm really enjoying this one.

It's stitched on cream 14ct Aida with 2 threads.

I will share the final result with you when it's done. I'm not as fast as some of you, having two small children I don't get as much time to stitch as I would like.