Christmas suddenly seems to be coming up fast....

and I need to get moving on those stockings and other things I have planned for the family.  It has been annoying me that my counted cross stitch has been in total disorder since the house was packed up for painting.  This is because the menfolk had just tipped any cross stitch they found into various containers when 'helping' to pack up my workroom.  Hmmmm.  I had managed to find a lot of it (still looking for some) and put it into two large 55 Litre plastic tubs but didn't have time to organise much of it again.  When I went away to Toowoomba I took some projects but found that most of them were missing vital bits.  For example, Peter's Christmas stocking had everything I needed - except the threads!  Since it was a kit I couldn't replace them accurately.  So my daughter Kylie and I chose two kits for her two sons, and these are the ones I am doing now.  The number of grandchildren has grown considerably since I began buying stocking kits for them and I needed more so this was a great opportunity.  I still didn't have any cross stitch to do there though!  which didn't matter at all once I got pneumonia lol.  The time I did have for craft I spent on the crochet rug that I showed you just recently when I completed it.

During this week I spent most of a day sorting out as much of one of the tubs as I could.  I am still trying to get the other, lost in the depths of my workroom or somewhere unreachable - we are trying to locate it.  Hopefully once I do I can get the majority of the cross stitch organised and in good order again.  And then I can finish sorting all the stockings and have them all together.  Maybe I'll even get some of those finished projects framed.  And finally finish my mother's long-awaited picture!!

Then I spent another day sorting out cottons for a Christmas stocking for one of my grandsons.  all the threads are put into thread cards, the edges of the Aida cloth is oversewed and the Aida cloth stitched to the stretcher bars.  Peter has assembled my whizz-bang embroidery stand and I am looking forward to using this at last.  It bends in all sorts of ways.  I can tilt it forward so that I can sit in my chair with support for my back and stitch with less strain - a big problem with my other embroidery stand.  The stitching can be rotated to reach the back for finishing off the threads.  The fabric can be rolled on the rollers for access to each part of the design and the rollers allow the fabric to be held without the marks left by circular frames. 

The drawbacks are that I like my fabric to be drum tight and this doesn't happen with the rollers.  And that the side bars tend to pop out very easily from the clamps on the side of the frame - don't know whether this will continue to happen once I start stitching.

Here are the covers of the two kits I have for Cameron and Luke, Kylie's two sons.  they are from The Fox Collection; I have bought many kits from The Fox Collection and receive both an online and paper catalogue from them regularly.

The main problem I have is with the 'Peeking at Santa' stocking.  Like the one that has sat unfinished for several years, that is for Nathan, it comes with navy blue Aida cloth.  Not only is this difficult to stitch because it is hard to see unless you are stitching during the day, but I am not happy with the appearance of the stitches on the cloth once it is sewn.  I am considering using the same natural-coloured Aida that the 'Santa's Toys' stocking is done on.  I know the design will still look nice because it has lots of similarities to the one I did for Kylie I did years ago and that looks great.  I do have to check the colours around the edge though, there is quite a bit of pale yellow in the cover photo - I'll have to compare the threads themselves.




To refresh your memory about those stockings, here again are the photos of the designs that the girls chose for themselves.

This is what Kylie chose.  It isn't in a kit, I bought a chart from a needlework shop in the heart of Sydney.  The ruler beside it gives an idea of it's size.  I changed the hanger from a cord to a cross-stitched one.

We returned to the same shop for Kirsen to choose hers and this was her choice.  It shows the difference in tastes between the girls.  I love them both.  Again, this one has a ruler to give an idea of size.  And again I changed the hanger from a cord to a cross-stitched one.

During the Christmas holidays that year I stitched Kirstie's stocking together in the Children's Hospital, where I ended up staying for 6 weeks with Nathan, who had a rather bad time, suffering peritonitis from an infected shunt).  Finishing it in time for Christmas, I was then looking around for another project and chose a picture using the same designs in a different configuration.  It came in the same chart book as the stocking.  That was in 1995-6 and I still haven't framed it!

So now I have committed to you that I am going to do some counted cross stitch.  I hope that will inspire me to show you the progress I make on it.  After doing so much miniature petit point cross stitch always feels like a lot of work - after all it is double the number of stitches.  I will try to give you a weekly update so please, please encourage me with comments vbg.  I need to find the 'Christmas Countdown' Advent Calender that I have promised my daughter, that is in fact a priority over the stockings but I would like to get one stocking done as well as the Calender.  Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Does that mean that minis have gone on the back burner?  Not at all!  But my life, like yours, has many facets, and this is just one of them.

During the next two weeks I will also be working on a sermon to present at the other church that has asked me to preach.  So that will take priority over everything else apart from visiting my mother.  When I need a break from that, it will be time for cross stitch and minis.

Thursday, 2nd September 2010

Kylie's Christmas Stocking

The first Christmas Stocking I did for my family was this one for Kylie, our oldest daughter.  Just as Kirsten later chose the design she wanted for her stocking, Kylie chose the chart and I did it on (I think) 14 count Aida cloth.  The two stockings are very different and each reflects the taste of the girls.

Looking at the date on the stocking, I did this one in 1993.  It was quite a complex one to do but it's really beautiful.  The colours are really rich - it has come out slightly pale in this photo.

If you haven't seen the one I did for Kirsten, I have already blogged about it - it will have the same label 'Counted Cross Stich' as this one does.

And just to show that it is real life, and not miniature, here it is with a ruler beside it.  This ruler has both inches and centimetres.  So you can see that the stocking is more than 12 inches (30cms) long.  Proof that I do do things other than mini petitpoint lol!

And today I ordered another full-sized stocking for one of the grandchildren.  Either Cameron or Luke.  I already have one for one of the boys,

Before we came away I sorted a lot of my cross stitch and put all the Christmas stockings in one place.  I haven't found all of them yet, they are in another large tub in the storage container so when I go back to Sydney I will rummage through it until I find that one as well.   I really would like to get going on the stockings for all the grandchildren.  The only stocking that had the project, the chart and the threads all in one place was the one for me!  That's what happens when someone else packs things for storage. 

Thursday 27th May, 2010

More forgotten treasures.....

Peter and I were trying to reduce the mess in the house yesterday - we had so much that had been brought in from the storage container and it couldn't be put away until the curtain brackets in the workroom were up!   I spoke about it a couple of days ago: the shelving units had to be moved to put the curtain brackets up.  So nothing could go on the shelving units etc.  Well, thank goodness yesterday it all happened - the brackets are up, the shelving units are back in place.  No the wall plate is not fitted - apparently that will be quite a job, Peter is willing to pull the shelving out later on to do that.  Or so he says at this stage......So I was able to put a certain amount back on the shelves, put containers into the workroom.  It was raining steadily all day so Peter wouldn't bring the new shelves for the other side of the room out of the car, and he certainly couldn't use the router to finish off the edges so there are still lots of things that can't go on the shelves even unpainted.

I was even able to clear off my desk and have a clear work area.

That made quite a difference to the lounge room and the workroom.  So we tackled other bits that we could now get to.  And then it was time to tackle our clothes .........

But among the things I was unpacking in the workroom I came across five more Counted Cross Stitch pieces.  None of these have ever been framed, and I had forgotten all about one of them.  So I laundered all of them and took photos, including the one I found the other day.  And here they are.

This 'House Rules' is a lot of fun.  I am going to frame it and put it in the kitchen.  Normally I don't put glass over cross-stitch, I am of the school that likes to see the texture of the crosses and the linen or the cloth.  But considering that our kitchen is so small and I don't want to have it ruined by grease etc, I will make an exception for this one.  And I hope it will serve as a gentle and humourous reminder to the menfolk in my household that this family does not come with a maid!    Sorry about the appearance of it having an odd shape - unlike my petitpoint, my cross stitch does not distort at all.  It is purely a result of the angle at which I took the photograph.

I love irises, and this piece appealed to me.  I can't remember the designer but I have several of her charts.  This is a little piece, only about 8" x 6" on 32ct linen.  I am looking forward to having it framed.  It is delicate and pretty.  Flowers are my favourite things to cross stitch apart from fun teddy bears and the Lanarte (I'm sure that spelling isn't correct!) pieces I have done which are all of girls: one which I haven't finished of a girl on a bike; and  one of two girls painting on a beach; one of two girls sitting on a grassy verge.

This long one is called 'Christmas Teddies' I think.  Again, it has never been framed.  I had forgotten that I had stitched it.  There are stars here and there, done in gold thread and it hasn't tarnished or anything - hope that's not because it's been packed away.  I think this is another one of the projects I did in 1993.  And again it reflects my love of teddy bears.  I know that it's companion piece 'Teddies on the line' is still in the storage container but I can't get to it at the moment.

This one is the picture form of the Christmas stocking that I did for our youngest daughter Kirsten.  I have mentioned that I did it while staying at the hospital with our son Nathan, over the Christmas-new year of 95-96.  It was about a 6  week stay and we had lots of anxious moments during this time so this was one of the projects I did while watching at his bedside.  When I stayed with him when he was young I didn't go home (except during school terms, when Peter would stay during the day and I would go to work, then I would come back after school and stay overnight then leave for school the next day).  But this of course was over the Christmas holidays (our long summer holidays) and I realised when I walked outside to say goodbye to one of our visitors near the end of the stay that I actually hadn't left the building for over 5 weeks vbg! 

This next one is again a reflection of my love of teddy bears.  I think the date on this one is 1993 as well.  It was a big year for cross stitch!  I also collect teddies and have lots of them.  At some stage I want to have them properly displayed, along with all my cross stitch teddies.  I had hoped to have room in my workroom for it but now that everything is combined in one room it won't be - yet!  The piece is called 'Cross Stitching Teddies' I think.  Again, I  can't check because my charts haven't surfaced yet.  Yes, I keep all my charts, they are filed in a folder along with everything that came with the kit.

This last one, which I found the other day, does have a frame.  It has been hanging in our hallway but came out of the frame and was packed away separately from its frame.  Now I can't get to the frame and the mount to re-do it.  I could at first and thought it was among the things I had retrieved from the container, but when I went to get it yesterday all the boxes have of course been re-arranged after our efforts at getting the clothes boxes out the other day.  So who knows where it is now!  It's such a pretty design, done on 32 ct ecru linen, and I really enjoyed every stitch of it.  I changed the colours in the vase - don't remember why now, of course.  Maybe because at that time we had a blue colour scheme.  When I find the chart I might even consider changing the colour back to the original but I don't think so - I really like the colour that it is.

So there we are - I actually have several more that I hung straight up again in the hallway.  I am going to take them all down again and re-mount them, so photos of them will follow at a later date.  Now if daughter #1 would only send me the promised photo of her Christmas stocking and daughter #2 the promised photo of her 'Dreams' wallhanging!  Of course, I have no record of the rest that I have given away over the years.  And more will emerge as I continue to unpack and sort....

Thursday, 20th May 2010

It's a frame-up

Going through boxes is a bit of a voyage of discovery.  Today I found two cross stitch pictures that I did years ago, and even had frames professionally made for them.  But for some reason I never did get around to hanging them up.  So I have washed the pieces, re-blocked and ironed them and re-framed them.  They are now hanging on the short wall that is actually the end of the built-in wardrobe in my workroom, just beside the doorway as you enter the room.

The frames measure approx 30cm square outside measurement, so the stitching area itself is only about six inches, I guess.  And all those years ago I happened to choose a green that goes perfectly with the green that we have painted our walls now vbg.  It is really easy to frame the work yourself, and you can take the piece off and re-wash it when needed.

It is so long since I did these pieces that I don't remember who did the charts, but they are stitched with DMC thread on Aida cloth.  And yes, they are full-size cross stitch, not mini needlework!

My mini needlework has not been neglected, however.  In the middle of the chaos that has been our life lately, I have been continuing with items for birthday swap items for the SaHMC.  Alas, I had probably better not post photos of them because members of the club follow this blog. 

But I can say I have completed another 12 of the items.  I did five to begin with, earlier in the year and posted the first couple of them off.  Imagine my dismay when I went to post more only to find that at some time the bag in which I kept them had got wet and all sorts of damage had been done.  Mouldy items, damaged chart - you name it.  So unfortunately several people received their swap late.  However now I have done twelve, so I am ahead for a while.  And I will do quite a few more, so that I have plenty to send and also some left over.

And on top of that, the large carpet on silk gauze that I started in 2008 and got half done then (on our Queensland holiday), and nearly completed last year on our round Australia trip, is now finally finshed as well.  It has languished since we arrived back, with just a small amount to go, while I did the birthday swaps and also had periods when I did no stitching at all.  Then I finally got down to it the other night and in just a short time over two evenings it was done.  But I can't show a photo of that yet either, until a little puzzle we are posing on Petitpointers is done.  So keep watching vbg!

Monday 12th April, 2010

Finally got my hands on one of them vbg!

One of the girls' Christmas stockings, that is.  It is Kirsten's, and I did it for her in 1995.  I remember the year because I finished it just before Nathan ended up in hospital on the 4th day of the school holidays with peritonitis from an infected vp shunt.  We spent 6 weeks in the Children's Hospital, he had several operations on his brain and on Christmas Day he threw an allergicic reaction to Vancomyacin, the antibiotic of choice for brain surgery.  It was an interesting time.

While we were in there, I did a picture using the same design as the stocking.  It still isn't framed lol.  That's typical for me, I might say.  The book with the chart in had both variations in it, so it was good value - and I certainly appreciated having all the threads and the chart handy when I had to make that quick trip to the hospital.  The stocking design is called - The Twelve Days of Christmas, as if it isn't obvious!  It is the design that Kirsten chose herself for her stocking.  It is quite a contrast to that chosen by Kylie - and if Kylie ever does get around to emailing a photo of hers I can post that one too!  But this design is typical Kirsten, and I love it.  I haven't been able to decide what design to do for her husband, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I will probably do the same as hers is.

The first photo shows the stocking then just in case you might think it is mini - the second shows my darling husband Peter holding a 12" ruler beside it.  So yes, it is full size.  Hopefully I will be able to share some more of my full-size cross stitch with you soon!