Orange you glad for these updates?

🤣🤣🤣 I couldn’t help it, sorry!

I’ve finished all of the orange boxes! The bottom one (week 27) took a bit of concentration haha. I’m now halfway caught up (16 and 2 half boxes out of 34!) if you forget about my temperature SAL…

Next I can either do red, with the really annoying fraying satin thread OR I can do yellow, which you can barely see at night and it makes your eyes go funny. And has a lot of big boxes. Sigh. I’d skip it entirely but you can’t have a rainbow without yellow!

This is the Peppermint Purple stitch-along for 2021 done on 16 ct white aida in my chosen colours.

Feeling green…

All up to date with the green boxes! I think I’ll try to finish the orange boxes next.

This feels like a good time to remind you all that this is the Peppermint Purple Stitch-Along (SAL) for 2021. I’m stitching on 16 count in one strand from stash colours (mostly DMC and Anchor) not the pattern colours. It’s free to join in and there’s a vibrant community over on facebook.

WIP update – ‘greenwork’ sampler

Sorry about the damp spot – there was a bit of washable pen staining I had to get out

So the annoying this about this is that in good lighting (second) you can barely see the middle threads, and they have the best designs! In poor light (first) I think it’s better because the aida isn’t reflecting / making shadows. I will have to try this sort of thing again, maybe with reds and pinks? I’ve got six and a half squares to go so I will finish. It’s just a shame it didn’t work out so well.

WIP progress update – Summer window

Yay I finished the curtain!

So hours later and it doesn’t look like I’ve got much further! The main achievement is that I’ve finished the left-hand curtain! Phew. Took me ages! I’ve also started to add to the window ledge. I’m trying to move left to right here, but there’s a section at the very bottom (about 15 stitches high) that’s on a different page, so I will probably leave that for last. I also finished the flower at bottom; I like having a motif (?) to complete, it gives me a sense of achievement, rather than just doing endless shading all the time. However I realise that if I do all of the pictures and none of the shading I will be stuck with months of shading at the end. With this in mind I’m working on the top of the right-hand window but also the shading around the top of the window. Mixing it up might help keep me going.

Experimenting with chain stitch

These aren’t recent stitchings but I’ve just recently rediscovered them!

So I wanted to ‘draw’ an outline picture and after some googling I thought chain stitch looked the best to go for. I then tried to make something of this new found skill! At the time I was very into an anime series, Kanon! I think my aim was to make a full set, but they ended up hiding in my boxes of UFOs. They’re stitched with unbranded thread on a pair of old trousers 🙂 My big mistake (as I know now) is outlining in pencil. I have learnt from my mistake. If they look a bit tatty it’s because they’re been shoved at the bottom of a box for 2 years or so!

For Makoto I did her hair in 2 strands, and everything else in 1 strand, to mix up the texture a bit. I picked out the colour of her skirt and ribbons by filling them in.

Mai doesn’t have a lot in the way of colour, so instead of filling in I decided to draw her hair using blue thread (because she has blue hair, duh).

I never considered myself an artist so I’m actually quite proud of these. The hardest bit for me was drawing the outline of the figure in the first place!

Having learnt not to use pencil I bought a water soluble pen from Hobbycraft. This is brilliant – not just for outlining embroidery but it helps keep me from making mistakes in cross stitch patterns!

This is an old fashioned Winnie the Pooh on felt. I thought he turned out pretty well! Practice really does help you improve! Maybe I’ll find some orange felt and do Tigger?

New cushion!

I started this over the summer and managed to finish it off this weekend.

It will be an interchangeable cover along with my ‘summer’ one. I hope to do spring and autumn when I find good patterns!

It has a zip and a funky spotted back.