Merry & Bright

Here's another finish from a few days ago:

Merry & Bright by County Cottage Needleworks, stitched with mostly the recommended threads, 32 count vintage mocha belfast linen.

This was one of my first Stitch maynia 2019 starts so I'm pleased to have it finished.  I just the colours on this design.

See you soon xx

The Stitching Bee & New Goodies

The latest round of the A Little Help from My Stitching Friends Circle, an exclusive club to the Silver Needle, is nearing the end, with only one more kit to come. I have really enjoyed the kits we have received, you can see some of my finishes here and here.  

The latest kit is this cutie by Little House Needleworks and this was one of my Stitchmaynia starts.  

I used the supplied fabric and threads, the finishing fabrics, Lady Dot trim, jute and a Mother of Pearl button were also included in the kit.  I used some mustard/brown fabric from my stash for the back of the pillow.

My very first order from the Fat Quarter shop arrived on Friday - it was quite exciting to get a pink box delivered!

I got the two latest Blackbird Designs booklets, the 2019 Prairie Schooler Santa, and a few threads I was needing.

My favourite part of the order is the Cross Stitch Journal, some Pat's Favorite Needles and this lovely tin, which will be filled in no time I'm sure.

I spent a bit of time on the weekend going back and writing up my StitchMaynia starts and finishes, and this weekend I'll add some little pics of these to the journal. I recently bought an HP Spocket printer so this size of photo is just the perfect size. I'll share about this another time.

See you soon xx

Merry Snippet

Another ornament is done and put away into the gift box. This was one of my Stitchmaynia starts, Merry Snippet by Lizzie Kate.

Stitched on 32 count Vintage Mocha Belfast with mostly the recommended threads, I finished this into a trimmed pillow ornament with a red velvet ribbon.

It was a sunny winter's day yesterday so Hannah and I made the most of the sunshine and went out for a walk for an hour or two in the afternoon.

Of course, there also had to be a stop at our favourite cafe!

See you soon xx

Stitch Maynia 2019 Wrap Up & other news

This past weekend was a three day weekend for us as it was a public holiday on Monday, Queen's Birthday. We had visitors Saturday night, my cousin Donna and her boyfriend Jess came to stay. They haven't been over from Palmerston North to stay with us since September last year, and we'd only seen them at the beach during summer, so it was good to have a catch up and enjoy a meal out at our local Indian restaurant. 

The weather here finally took a turn towards winter this weekend too. We'd been so lucky this autumn, it's been a very mild autumn here.  We woke up Sunday morning to see snow on the ranges to the west of town, giving a real icy chill to the air.  Perfect stitching weather and that's what I did Monday afternoon, sorting out some of the projects I'd started during May for Stitchmaynia 2019 while catching up on some Netflix.

My tally of new starts ended up being 9 new projects, including this last one - Blessed Bee by Brenda Gervais. 

I did take some stitching with me to Australia but only managed one or two hours on the project I had with me, Santa's List by Country Cottage Needleworks.

I've set up bit of a stitching/crochet/knitting plan for June, where I'll try and get some of the Maynia projects finished.

Crochet - I have my Cosy stripe blanket to work on and would really like to have this finished by mid August to give to my Mum for her birthday.

Knitting - Hannah's socks, the baby blanket for my cousin's new baby, and I've started a Rewilding Shawl which is going to be a gift too.

Almost forgot, I have several red work stitchery patterns traced and ready to go to, these will be Christmas gifts.

Nothing like a bit of variety! 

See you soon xx

Stitchmaynia 2019 Week One

Last week I got my Stitchmaynia plans underway. This is my first year participating and I've chosen to work on a mixture of new starts and some of my neglected, but barely started Wips. 

I've picked out quite a few Christmas charts to start, Christmas ornaments too, as now is the perfect opportunity to get a jump start on these. There's also several others that I've been wanting to stitch so they've joined the list too. Next week I'm heading to Sydney, Australia, for a few days so I'm planning to only take one project with me, more about that another time!

So first up, for #santasundayxs, Country Cottage Needlework's Santa's List, a new start:

#merrymondayxs was Little House Needlework's Joy and Peace ornament, also a new start:

A few more stitches on Plum Pudding (wip):

Heart in Hand's Birds and the Bees, a new start:

Some stitching done on Merrily Merrily (wip):

Merry One - Plum Street Samplers (new start)

It was a lot of fun getting organised for Stitch Maynia, sorting out fabrics, threads and project bags!
I only needed to buy one DMC thread, the hand dyed threads and other DMCs needed were in my stash.

It's been great watching on Instagram and You Tube the many projects that Stitchers from around the world have already started this month, very enabling lol.

See you soon xx