Angelic Stitches

Hello dear stitching friends!  Finally - a post from me!  I hope you have all been keeping well as the year is quickly moving along and the festive season is fast approaching.  Would you believe that there are already Christmas decorations in some stores and that gift wrap and Christmas crackers are lining the shelves?  

I have been getting some stitching done, here is my latest offering:

This beautiful angel is designed by Joan Elliot and was featured in a Cross Stitch Card Shop magazine.  She is stitched in DMC thread and gold braid on a natural 28 count evenweave and trimmed with seed beads.

She is part of a set of four and I would like to stitch a companion piece for her, but I will leave that until next year.  I will probably try to find a frame for her so that she can be on display this Christmas!

I was also the lucky winner of a great giveaway Mary over at Colorado Stitcher had a while ago - I won the latest version of the My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software.  It is going to be great fun playing with this software and processing some of my photos - hopefully I will get more scrapbooking done, but I'm sure some stitching time will be lost!  Thank you Mary for this wonderful prize!

Our Spring has been slow in arriving, with today being one of the first sunshine days of the season.  Here are some pics I took over the weekend, in between rain storms.  Our garden is slowly coming to life - here are some Inca lilies ready to open:

And guess who should be lurking behind the plants!  Lexi loves being in the garden with me, but sometimes she shows the plants too much affection and flowers and buds are lost!

Here are the first roses in bloom:

That is it for now - I have been stitching a few Christmas ornaments, but sadly no finishing has happened!  I hope to share some more stitching (and finishing) soon.

Enjoy the rest of the week and Happy Stitching!

Michelle

A HUGE Finish!

Hello stitching friends!  Well, I have not been blogging, but I have been stitching!  I have finally finished my Historic Countries Sampler from The Gift of Stitching Magazine!  After getting very far with it last year it was packed away and 'resting' until I suddenly decided that I wanted to finish it this year.  It was great fun to stitch and I am very happy with the result:

It is a bit difficult to photograph the entire piece due to the size (this really is a biggie!), so here are a few closer shots:

It is stitched on 28ct antique white Jubilee with the recommended DMC threads.  This is a big one off my ever growing WIP list!

I have also been stitching a few smaller designs and am currently working on an Angel by Joan Elliot, but more on that in the next post.

It seems that Spring is finally arriving - we have had a few sunshine days, but nights are still bitterly cold.  It was a very long, cold and wet winter and it is so good to finally see the sun again!

That's it for now.

Happy Stitching!

Michelle