A Gift for Grandma

It is my boyfriend's grandmother's 91st birthday tomorrow and I made this little stitched hand towel for the occasion. She loves a handmade gift and she loves pink, so this seemed like a good choice!
I have been experimenting with Fimo clay a little bit after seeing so many lovely pins and buttons on other blogs. These are my first roses and they happened to match the roses on the towel :) They still need to get leaves before they can be baked, but I still have to buy green clay!

Again, there are a few giveaways! Jan is having a giveaway in celebration of the birth of her granddaughter. You can get the details on her blog, as well as some pics of the baby!

Marie is having a giveaway for her birthday. Check her blog (here) for more details.

Hope everyone has a great week, until next time, happy stitching!

Almost Weekend!

Can you believe page 8 of the Mary Wigham SAL is available already! Only one week to go, but still a lot of stitching to be done. I am making slow progress, but it is better than no progress at all! Since there are so many pages available, I decided to stitch the entire border first and will then fill the rest in. I also prefer to stitch from the bottom to the top, so I will now be able to do that with the rest of the design - I sure hope everything will line up in the end!
I have been seeing a lot about 'Christmas in July' on blogs, so before the month is over, I want to share this piece. I finished the stitching in time for last Christmas, but I never made it into a bell pull! I guess I'll end up having to ask my mom to do the finishing for me :) I stitched it on Millennium Blue linen by Zweigart and the chart is in the gorgeous Mill Hill book, Santa's Holiday.

Hope everyone has a great stitching weekend!

Renae's Christmas in July Giveaway

Just a short post to let everyone know about Renae's Christmas in July Giveaway. Go to her blog to enter and stand a chance to win a box of Christmas goodies! The details are on her July 5th posting and you can enter until the end of the month.

Hummel Work in Progress

It was a slow stitching weekend for me, so I decided to share another WIP with you. This is a Hummel chart called Meeting on the Mountain and is from the Carefree Days booklet.
I stitched this one - Umbrella Girl from the Ready for Rain chart booklet a few years ago - it is one of my favourite stitched pieces to date!

To tell the truth, I have a bit of a problem with Hummel charts! I don't usually go for 'cute' designs, but I absolutely love these! As you can see I have many, many Hummel charts :) I suppose you could call it a collection - that somehow warrants having so many. The worst part is that I have the fabric for all of them too - I'm stitching them on 27ct cream Linda. The fabric is even prepared and labelled and ready to go!

This is probably my favourite chart of the lot with the Apple Tree Girl and the Apple Tree Boy.

I hope to have some Mary Wigham progress pics later in the week. Have a great week!

Jolene's La-D-Da Giveaway

Wow - another giveaway! Jolene is having a giveaway of this lovely Live Laugh Love design by La-D-Da. She is also including threads, linen and needles. There is also going to be a mystery gift for a second winner! You can get all the details on her blog.

Meanwhile it is still very cold here, but the rain has stopped for now. I have started work on page 4 of Mary Wigham, but have not made enough progress to warrant a photo. Until next time, happy stitching!

Mary Wigham Page 7 Available

Page 7 of the Mary Wigham SAL is available for download - only two more pages left! I have made some good progress on page 3 and will now go on to page 4.
I love the colour of this motif, it is a bit tricky to get the colour accurate on the photo, but it actually has a hint of Plum in it and isn't as red as it seems. The DMC color variations give very subtle colour changes, which I love. I predict that I will be using them again in the future :)

Mary made some spectacular mistakes - I have decided not to freak out about them and to enjoy the 'reproduction' part, but it took some constraint to not start fixing some of the mistakes!

From an absolutely freezing Cape Town, happy stitching!

Raining Again!

It is pouring with rain in Cape Town at the moment - perfect winter (and stitching) weather. I thought I would introduce another of my WIPs today.

This is Olde World Map from the Janlynn Platinum Collection. I received the kit as a birthday present a few years ago.

I substituted the Aida included in the kit with evenweave - 28ct Jubilee in antique white. I love 100% cotton evenweaves! This one has a lot of stitching on it and also some quarter stitches, not to mention that big border. I will definitely not be able to stitch it all in one go, even though it is one of my favourite projects - the progress is just too slow.

Here is a close up of the ship at the bottom of the design - you will notice that this design is going to require a lot of backstitching - and I really don't like backstitching! I'm not even going to mention all the finished projects I have that only require backstitching :)

I will try to add some photos of Mary Wigham later in the week. Have a great week!

Patti's BIG Giveaway

Wow! Another giveaway - stitching people are very generous! This giveaway is by Patti of Tapestry of Dreams to celebrate having had over 2000 visitors. She says it is going to be really big, so I'm sure it is going to be wonderful.

I am making slow progress on my Mary Wigham (as usual), but hope to have a progress pic soon.

Violarium Contest

Just a short post to tell you about the contest Violarium are running at the moment. You can go onto their blog and enter into a draw to win this wonderful Cross Stitch Letters Bible - looks like a good one! Have a nice day and happy stitching.

Some Progress on Mary Wigham

Monday again! I have made some progress on Mary Wigham SAL - I have finally completed page two! I always think I'm going to get a lot more done in a certain time frame, but I'm just too slow a stitcher :) I am still really enjoying this project, but I can hear some of my other pieces starting to call for attention.

I am very pleased with how the squirrel turned out - I changed the colouring quite a lot from the original. Page 3 doesn't seem to be too big, I hope to finish it in good time. I still have some of my colours to incorporate, so that is something to look forward to!

I think it is time to start introducing you to some of my WIPs. Be ware - there are very, very many! This project I started this year. It is a free chart by Tracy of Ink Circles and it's called the Book of Ink Circles. I saw it on Margie's blog for the first time and I absolutely loved it! I love celtic designs and I am stitching it in jewel tones - I can't wait to get back to this one - I think it is calling the loudest of all my WIPs!

Almost supper time and then (hopefully) some stitching.