Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Stash and Finishing

So it has been a week since I have posted anything.  I was quite sick for awhile and now I have a lovely, lingering cough.  On the bright side, I have finished the second side of the ornament and found the ribbon and piping I am going to use for trim.  Once it is completed I will post pictures of the ornament.  I have also been busy working on finishing a couple other projects, mainly back stitching, something I wish I could enjoy, but I just don't.  Perhaps it's because some of the charts I have are difficult to read and therefore difficult to figure out where to back stitch.  I try to do it free style and sort of see where the stitches should be.  I have a lot more success with the free style method than following all the crazy coloured lines all over the chart! 

I also have some exciting news, I received my stash from Traditional Stitches yesterday!! Once I organize the threads and linens, I will post some pictures online.  I am trying to figure out what design and linen to use to make my mom and mom-in-law's Christmas gifts.  I have an idea of what to do, but need to play around with the colours and linens.  I wish I had more! But alas, I must wait till after Christmas to purchase anything more.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Christmas Blackwork Ornament

All Change by Elizabeth Almond

                                                              Stitched on 14 count Aida
                                                                  DMC Black and 798
                                                                       Freebie link

Not the best picture but it's all I have at the moment.  I still need to stitch the same design for the back of the ornament. 

Spilled Juice!!

Nearly keeled over last night as I spilled juice on my computer last night.  Luckily I was fast acting and managed to get off the majority of the liquid, then turned my laptop over so the remaining drained off.  I was also fast enough to turn off the computer, one of the first things a person should do if they find themselves in the same position I was in last night.  Phewwwww!

So, I am trying to figure out how to add things onto this blog and cannot understand how to add the gidgets?gadgets? to my blog.  I've begun to add some of the blogs I visit but there are many more to come and right now I'm busy transferring over pictures, files and music mp3's to my external hard drive in the event that juice decides to take a trip into my laptop's hard drive.

Yesterday was not all bad. I managed to stitch up a beautiful little blackwork design for a Christmas ornament I'm making for my sister.  I still have the other square to stitch then I can put it together!  I had to find some aida cloth to work on instead of linen.  Still waiting on my order to come in a couple of weeks.

Until then,

toodles!

Annitha

Sunday, September 12, 2010

First musing

Alright, here I am in the blogasphere.  My first time doing this....so a bit baffled at how to do this, but I'll give it a go.  I actually don't feel the need to tell the world about my thoughts and am a bit guarded in regards to privacy, however, I will try to overcome this and try to write something interesting and witty when I feel inspired.  I'm not that inspired at the moment, seeing as I just woke up and the rain is beating down quite heavily.  Well, that's not quite true.  When the rain comes, I often feel the urge to take up reading large and difficult books, War and Peace in particular, as well as start a new cross stitch project.  The book I can do, but the cross stitching I cannot.  I don't have any linen!!  My city, Vancouver, B.C., does not have a single embroidery or cross stitch store anywhere.  We have a Michael's, but their selection is teeny tiny and not inspiring at all.  So I have to resort to looking at online stores and blogs and dream up of my projects, keeping mental notes of all the little pieces I want to stitch up for family and friends.  It's a bit of an obsession, cross stitch that is....and Russian authors....and I wish that I had lots of beautiful linens and stash to work from. 

A little history of me and stitching.

My mother taught me how to cross stitch and embroider at a very young age.  She would buy me little kits to work from and I actually finished a lot of projects as a young girl and teenager.  I took a textiles class in high school and won the award for best student.  I think the teacher loved my enthusiasm and genuine love to work with my hands.  Then I went off to university and stopped stitching for a long time.  Very sad, I know.  I only took up my stitching a couple years ago because I realized how much I missed it.  It's very cathartic for me to stitch and create little pieces. 

I'm not going to ramble on too much longer.  I may post pictures of my pieces (there are not many, most I gave away) and hopefully I will get encouragement from all the amazing ladies out there that have so much expertise and creativity to help me with my WIP's (some of which have been put aside for ten years!).

Toodles

Annitha