Wednesday 28 September 2011

Photo montage time!

Hello stunning followers and guests!

It's been a month since my last post but I was out there doing things so I would have something to blog about!

WELCOME!
Welcome to my newest followers Erla, Erin, Lucy, Lori, Keeble and Karen. How cool they came in matching pairs of E's, L's and K's. Thank you for the interest. You guys are my inspiration and my muse - I sew for you! (for the Aussie's out there that last is sung to the tune of Johnny Farnham's "I burn for you"). LOL!

A friend in need!
I have an amazing friend Janine who has been a cross stitcher for a long time. However thanx to Mrs. Dibble and I we have helped to ignite her stitching fire. Janine bought a BAP from Golden Kite of an a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting "Jeunes filles au piano". Which I believe means "Young girls at the piano." Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Anyhoo this picture used to be on Janine's piano teachers piano from when she was une jeune fille herself. She has always loved the pic and it obviously has sentimental value.

But I digress as usual...If anyone has ever worked on a Golden Kite chart it has blended threads as well as solid colours. Which means that you use one strand of 2 different colours at a time for at least half the chart. The symbol count can go up to 180 or more. Pheewww.

Janine was becoming a little discouraged with the lack of progress so I encouraged (also read threatened) her to start a blog to visually document the progress. It helps to step back and compare (as you all know) the difference in the before and after. So she has done just that, however she only has 2 followers and is feeling a little unloved, and as I thought you guys are awesome in your support of me I was wondering if you had a spare moment to pop over to her blog and just give her a little encouragement. Her blog which she updated this morning is http://aunty-nene.blogspot.com/. I greatly and fully appreciate it if you get a chance to pop over and visit her. She's a great girl and an avid animal lover as you'll see with her 2 babies on her blog.

OK back to me!!!!
I have put together a photo montage to show you rather than just waffle on in narrative about my cross stitch endeavours. (Since I appear to have waffled quite a bit so far!) I've decided to post before and after shots so that you, and I for that matter can actually see if I've been productive...or not!
Enjoy!

Guardian Angel - L A Williams - Heaven and Earth Designs


                       
QS Fragile Heart - Hannah Lynn - HAED SAL


Spring to Life - Hannah Lynn - HAED



New Starts!

Faces of Faery 164 - Jasmine Becket- Griffith - HAED


She is my free chart that Michele Sayetta kindly sent to me for participating in the reward program for HAED and completing FOF88.

I couldn't resist starting her and I've named the turtle BOB in honour of Thea's (Gizzimomo's) husband who calls them all BOB, which I think is so cute.

My faery is being worked on 25ct Opalescent white lugana 2 over 1.

I'm giving 2 over 1 on 25ct another go as I will not accept defeat. Somehow it's really nice to work on this time. I think my tension must have loosened or something. I thank my Guardian Angel for this. Ever since he has let himself be known to me I've become alot more relaxed in life. And this new me can't be attributed to extra doses of Chardonnay either. So it MUST be his influence LOL!


Froth and Bubble - Long Dog Sampler
Mrs. Dibble strikes again! She has been infatuated with samplers lately and of course it peaked my interest when I saw one of her finished works. So of COURSE I had to go and get one too...I'm so immature! or just easily influenced...maybe both.

The poem will read -

Question not, but live and labour,
Till yon goal be won,
Helping every feeble neighbour
Seeking help from none,
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own


Aww it's so sweet. In comes in 2 seperate charts which I thought was weird as it wouldn't make sense without the 2 verses together. Well anyway I bought them both. But you already knew that...hee hee!

A few firsts for me as it's my first sampler, first time working on 32ct linen and first time using 2 strands over 2. So a bit of new ground for this Princess.

The fabric is Summer Khaki which I bought from the lovely boys at Sewitall. He was so cute trying to describe the colour over the phone and he was asking me if I knew the colour of specific leaves on specific plants....ahhh no Pete but if you were to describe the colours of labels on South Australian wine bottles then I would have known exactly what colour you were talking about!!!

New Stash and stuff!

Went a bit crazy on the Nordic Needle catalogue so bought a bit of stuff. Please note though that the new charts are teeny tiny compared to the charts I normally buy, so it really doesn't count - much!
Sampler - Alessandro Adelaide

Needle threader

Beautiful butterfly needle and scissors holder


Fiber Hider

Awesome find - it's for when you only have that one or two stitches left to go on that colour and you're thread is stretched to the limit...so you just do the stitches then leave the tail at the back. Using this lil beauty you can then grab the tail and thread under the stitches. So no need to re thread a new strand for just one or two stitches....AWWWESOOOMMMMME!!


Fractal Bookmarks

These are only bookmarks and I only intend on doing one or two...ok maybe three at the most!

And the fav purchase is the finishing card. To record all the details of your finished project. They come in packs of 40...so only got just the one pack for now...although will eventually need to purchase 5 to record all the stash I have...you know when I finish them all. YAY!


WOW that was a long post...maybe I shouldn't leave it so long between in the future. If I still have your attention...

Take care my beautiful friends, be safe, be happy and be yourself!
For those living in the Commonwealth have a great long weekend, good time to get some extra stitchy time in.

Love you xox
Alicia



10 comments:

  1. :D I've missed your posts!!

    Nice progress on your HAED's
    I love your new stash! The Butterfly needle and scissor holder and the Fiber Hider.. Love, love love them! Very pretty.

    Ooo, Fractals! Can't wait to see you stitch them up.

    Those finishing cards are brilliant.

    Happy Stitching! :D

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  2. Hi Awesome progress on all but guardian angel is still my fave!

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  3. Good to see you again! Loving the new stash - the butterfly is gorgeous :-) Another new start?? It's good to know that there is someone else who is as bad as me for them lol Loads of progress on your wips though, particularly liking Spring to Life - great colours!

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  4. Hehehehe! Bob will be chuffed that his idea about turtles is spreading! I'm going to start that Face Of Faery as my next start when Waiting is finished and stitch it for Bob.... my turtle will also be called Bob, for obvious reasons!

    Great work on all your peices and I'm off to have a look at your friends blog right now!

    Thea
    xxxx

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  5. I thought I should explain about why Bob calls all turtles Bob, it's pretty simple really. We went on honeymoon to Zante, an island in Greece where the Loggerhead Turtles lay their eggs and one day we were out on a pedalo just off the beach in Laganas, I think, and we found a turtle swimming round us. Bob decided to spend an HOUR following this turtle around on a pedalo and decided it's name was BOB and every turtle he has ever seen since has also been Bob the Turtle! Strange but true!

    Thea
    xxxx

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  6. hahaha! I like the Bob-story.
    OMG, I can't believe all your WIP's! You have done loads. And they are all so beautiful!
    And I have got to get me a fiber hider as well! Brilliant little thing.

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  7. Great to hear from you again. I already wondered if you were ill or something like that. But I am happy to see/read that you are alright.

    Thanks fpr the link to Janine's Blog. Her work is amazing! I admire all who do a Golden Kite, the designs may be beautiful but they are huge and expensive and all the blended colors...

    At least you seem to have had a lot of time for stitching. You made a monster-progress on Spring to Life, I suppose there is not much left to do ;-)

    Your new FoF-start is adorable and I am so looking forward to see more of that sampler. I somehow never felt like trying samplers, but they are interesting to watch. The poem you mentioned is touching, I love it =)

    By the way, Bob is not only a great name for a turtle. Some of my friends at university call me Bob to emphasize that I sometimes act like a guy =D

    And then all the lovely things you bought... Useful and pretty at once =)
    The bookmarks are wonderful! I just looked them up, oh my God, they are on SALE =D Ah, shame on you for tempting me like this! And ouch, 15$ for shipping to Germany...

    Haha, long blog posts cause long comments!

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  8. Oh my goodness...thanks sooooo much for mentioning me in your blog lovie...you are soooo special (in more ways than one ha ha). You have done soooo much stitching, I don't know how on earth you keep up with all your charts...no wonder you had to go out and buy some more folders. I love your butterfly fiber hider thingy...it is excellent. Can't wait til mine comes in the mail xxx

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  9. NICE WIPs, Alicia! Your Fragile Heart has grown lots. :D

    Admit it, part of the reason your bought summer khaki is cos of the cute boy on the phone..... ;)

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  10. You just made me cry seeing the butterfly :'(
    My Grandad brought me one of them (But a necklace) That looks exactly like it, before he died. I have tried to avoid it because of memories and I just saw this :'(
    Beautiful work though! :)

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Hello Stunner! Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope it made sense as I can rave on lunatic style when left unchecked. Any comment is appreciated and thank you for taking the time and brightening my day! xoxo