~~~~My Baby Blog turns 1 ~~~~

Hello Stunners!

Welcome to 3 new followers Rachel, Elisa and Titti. Thanx for joining in the journey!

Happy First Birthday Crafty Princess!!

Well stunners, I can't believe it but it's been a year since I started this blog. November 15th 2010 was my first post. This blog was started as a way of keeping me in stitches and also to have a visual journal of my craft.

So here it is! My year in STITCHES!  Of course all New starts will only have one pic but charts I had started prior but worked on during the year will have a before and after progress pic. Enjoy!

Crimson Glomour - HAED - Ching Chou Kuik

Originally on 28ct creme evenweave 1 over 1 full cross

Restart on Autumn Fire 28ct 2 over 1 tent stitch.



 Where is my Valentine? - HAED - Jasmine Becket-Griffith

28 ct white Lugana 1 over 1 full crosses

Page 1 & 2 completed

Lost in You - HAED- Rachel Marks

22ct white Hardanger 2 over 1 full crosses

Page 1 completed



Release - HAED - Jessica Galbreth

28ct White Lugana 2 over 1 tent stitch

Emerald Forest - Kustom Krafts - Colin Bogle

14ct Khaki Aida 3 over 1 full crosses

Guardian Angel - HAED - L.A Williams

28ct Antique White Opalescence Hardanger 1 over 1 full crosses

1 and a half pages completed



Fractal 45 - Cross stitch Collectibles

14ct Aida Black 3 over 1 full crosses

Faces of Faery 88 - HAED - Jasmine Becket-Griffith

14ct Purple Haze Aida 3 over 1 full crosses

My first HAED finish!

QS Fragile Heart - HAED - Hannah Lynn

Originally 22ct White Hardanger 2 over 1 full crosses

Restart (due to making a hole in fabby after frogging debacle)

22ct Black Hardanger 2 over 1 full crosses

42 rows completed out of  176

QS Spring to life - HAED - Hannah Lynn

25ct Fairy Forest Lugana 1 over 1 full crosses

4 and 3/4 pages completed.

Faces of Faery 164 - HAED - Jasmine Becket-Griffith

25ct White Opalescence Lugana 2 over 1 full crosses

L sampler letter - Selina Fenech - HAED

3 over 1 full crosses 14ct White Opalescence Aida

Jungle Baby Animals Birth record

2 over 1 full crosses 14ct White Aida

Froth and Bubble Sampler - Long Dog Samplers

32 ct Summer Khaki Linen 2 over 2 full crosses

Golden Wood - HAED - Ruth Sanderson

22 ct White Hardanger 2 over 1 full crosses



Ok so that's me in a year. I least I got one finish in there with 12 new starts LOL!! I'm now off to sort out my craft room and stash.  I will be working hard on Fragile Heart till the end of the year as I have signed up for HAED's freebie SAL 2012 and I really want to have 2011's finished first. Plus will be making a start on Faery 2 by Strelkina (HAED) as she will be my focus piece on 2012 WIPocalypse SAL which I also signed up for with Measi's musings.

Other than that I have promised myself no more new starts and I will be returning to my rotation in the New Year. I won't be participating in any more goal challenges on the HAED BB for 2012 at least, as when I try to keep to them so many of my charts don't see the light of day.

On top of the work as previously shown I also have a Mystic Stitch BAP, Golden Kite BBBAP and a Scarlet Quince BAP that I never picked up once in the year. So back to the weekly rotation for me in the new year!

Thank you everyone that has followed me during the year. I appreciate all your support, comments, advice and suggestions. It's purely due to you and this blog that I have kept up with all my stitching. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Please stay tuned for 2012 as I endeavour to make a massive effort when it comes to my stitching. I have devised a plan that will enable me to complete a BAP in 8 months.....YAY!!

Take care beautiful stunners

Be happy in everything that you do!

xoxo Alicia

Suggestion box is open!

Hello my beautiful stunning followers and guest stars!

A big welcome to Rachel, Elisa and Titti my newest followers. Thank you for the honour of your company.

To stitchy biz - I need some help please please please!

It's my anniversary. The anniversary of being ME! So to celebrate the awesome achievement of being married, we gave each other a gift. I gave Me the beautiful Rachel Anderson's chart "Ruby" (technically not a Ruby anniversary) and uncanningly Me figured that I would also love a HAED chart for a pressie and bought I "Faery 2" as a gift.

But the dilemma is I has White 22ct opalescent (ooh bling) fabric big enough to take on this chart but I was thinking would it look cooler on a blue bling fabric.

So the question is...Should I dye the white blingy fabric some kinda blue or green or another colour. Also thinking of maybe a more vibrant orangy colour to set off her fiery hair!!

Or should I just leave as is and stitch on the white bling 22ct fabric??

Help me beautiful and talented stitchers. You're my only hope as Obi Wan had no idea!!@!!

Here is the chart I am referring to...isn't it beautiful???

 Thanx stunners

Will post wips and progress in a day or so, just needed help on this question so blogged early!

xoxo Alicia

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