Two in one day

Yep I'm on a roll - must be all this sunshine that has been around the last three days. Lucky me eh? I go to work over the w/e and it is meant to get cooler and less sunshine so I have made the most of the sunshine.

Having caught up on my spring cleaning...I think!!! I settled down to work on QV...since the Gp told me last week that I needed to minimise my stress levels seeing that the ole blood pressure is going up even higher than it already was - what better way to not stress <BIG grin> anyway the headaches have been more frequent and I'd chalked it up to being tired and stressed not thinking of other side effects.

So I stitched, and stitched, and stitched, and I finished that big a"^*" motif and a few other really small ones. As a fellow blogger also said earlier this evening...doing a hit and run instead of spending hours on Facebook has done wonders for our stitching and since I seem to be plagued with startitis at the moment I think I need to try and work on a few of the old ones as I also like finishes just as much as putting that first stitch into a pristine piece of fabric

See you in a while...might be a while as there is a long stretch coming up...making up for all these days off that I just enjoyed.
Thanks for coming by my little corner of the world x

A blast from the past

Yep that is what it is. I realized that the last known picture taken of Quaker Virtues was in March 2009...two whole years since I stitched on it and here I thought it was just one. I have made good progress for the last week and half I think, and I hope to progress some more before I have to put it down. It has been my focus when I have been at home the last few days. So without further ado...BEFORE

and this morning

Now, I am off to go work on that big a*^" motif you can just see the beginning of on the right side with the trailing thread. So far I have now done one full and two partial pages, there are twelve pages.

I Scored...

a bunch of threads on Sunday. Having been invited to visit with a nice Lady from the church who used to work with the Royal School of Needle work. She gave me all of these lovely colours, and some vintage threads too...

These are J&P/Coats craft/Anchor colours. You can see the colour families she liked best...lol

A bunch of Pearsalls Filoselle silks...mmm, nice and shiny

This lot is by Cartier & Bresson - took me a fair amount of google time to figure out that this was made by a company that merged with DMC in the early 60's!!! They feel so soft and silky although they are cotton.

Only a few DMC thank god as I already have a ton of it. Of which I don't use heaps of at the moment. Look at the labels on these skeins too, you can see how old some of them are in comparison with others.

Last but not least...you see the labels on some of those skeins!!!!! How old would they be now I wonder, anyone care to enlighten me?
On the personal stitching front, I have spent the last few days stitching on Quaker Virtues which has been sadly neglected for the last year...OMG. Will post update pics in next post.
For this post I will show you my framed pair which I collected from the framers on Sunday, now I need to figure out how to hang them - I already know where they are going :-)

and....

nice eh!!!

Olympia...

Hmmm, for the first time in years I actually went to the Stitch & Craft show at Olympia in London on the first day... I usually go on the last day but since I had the time off and have made plans for Sunday I decided to go today and also the coach that goes to London regularly goes via Windsor and stops in front of Olympia on its way so no need to drive and look for parking space ;-)

I took a few photos, of which I will show you in a little while <grin> First I want you to look at pics of my stitching before you start drooling over the wonderful works I saw there.

This an update of my Thread and Eye Mandala as it stands now. I did a little bit of stitching on the way there and back but was too busy ogling the works of art to take it out there. So front of house....

Back door...;-)

And now, having shown you my crazy idea of stitching here come the pics of some of the things I saw today at Olympia...ENJOY

and a little close up section

A preview of the royal wedding

All of these were knit, stitched, quilted or felted in some form or other or combination thereof and looked absolutely stunning.

I loved the weird and wonderful tea cosies knitted to look like fruits and such

There were a lot of donations to the HERO fund, all on sale to raise money for the help the hero appeal

 

The tribute to the Foundling Museum was very touching with the pages of some of the books on display telling how/who was in the foundling home. One particularly touching one told of the child who came to the home and was christened on the same day his mother was buried.

All of these wonderful achievements made me want to break out the knitting needles immediately, but luckily I came across my saviour in the form of a beautiful red sampler that immediately made me want to sit down and start stitching. I have been umming and ahhing for the past weeks now seeing the Red samplers of the ladies on the HDF forum and wondering which chart to do...no longer do I need to wonder. As soon as I get thread I will start...maybe even before...lol I'm sure I have a spool somewhere that I can start with until I get some more....

She can be found here for anybody interested....enabling going on here!
I hope you had pleasure coming round the stitch show with me, maybe next time I'll take more pictures although I didn't think you would be interested in the throngs of people, unless the exhibitors would interest you...I'm open to suggestions.
Till later xx

Am I losing my ever loving mind???

You could say that when you see the size of my latest stitching...sometimes even I wonder.
You see, last sunday about this time this was the state of play

By the end of the day, this was what it looked like

By Wednesday we were here

by then my days off were over and I had to take a break, right??? Of course not, these were followed by night shifts so I carried on right where I had left off and by this morning...Ta Da

We have some colour. Why, I hear you ask did I say I was losing my mind...I reply with another question...Did you take note of the ruler that was so conspicuously present showing you the size of the piece??? That is one of Tracy fron Ink Circle's Mandalas, which if I was stitching on the recommended ct fabrics would measure from 5 3/4 - 8 inches square...MINE is 3 1/4 " But WHY you ask in bewilderment is it so small...it is this size because in one of those moments I decided I would stitch it on 36ct 1x1.
I love it, it looks so dainty, but I now have to be SOOO careful not to forget those single little stitches that appear to have been swallowed up by the black outline that I was so clever to finish first. Now I need a break and will do a little bit of test stitching for relaxation before I hit the sack.

If you have read this far...thank you for your perseverance. I'm sure by now you are shaking your head at me saying 'crazy woman', well I agree with you...but I am sure this will not be the last time I push the boundaries of my stitching, especially since I appear to LOVE the miniature sizes this produces.
Til then, off I go (giggling maniacally) to the next project!