At last, at last, I have got my act together and am posting my great exchange present from my friend Sally from Friendly Stitchers.

We had a Christmas in July exchange and here is the stitched piece that Sally sent me some time ago. 

I love penguins and now have the challenge of actually finishing the piece. The fabric is actually bluer than the photo, and I have shown the embellishments that Sally so kindly sent me. Arent they lovely!!

Sally sorry it took me so long to post! Now to do the finishing!!! Are you asking "Which Christmas"??!! Hopefully the 2024 one  :)

Meanwhile I have just started a new Bedfordshire lace piece. It's quite fine, with pin-holes very close together, so I am taking it slowly. Ive also been stitching on my Miniature Cluny tapestry on 40 count silk gauze, quite a challenge.

February 2024 rotations

I can't believe that I haven't posted here since June 2022! Where has the time gone??

I have kept promising my friends in the Friendly Stitchers that I will show some pictures of what I have been making, so here goes:

The first is a scan of Liz Turner Diehl's Irish garden. This was my first rotation this year and I completed four of the garden beds between the outside hedges and the central part. Only four more of these garden beds to fill in, I was tempted to just keep going, but decided to stick to my rotation and save the last beds for later, after all, I started this one many years ago so not a rush to finish, right? 😉

If you look closely can you see the four cats in the central area?!

The second scan is my second rotation piece this year: Teresa Wentzler's Autumn sampler. I decided to only use floss in my stash, so far I have found that I have only had to substitute one colour, gosh I must have too many threads! There will be drawn thread work between the leaves at the top and the side panels and beads, but these will be added at the end. I'm enjoying the specialty stitches in this sampler. Interestingly the colours are much nicer than the photograph for the charts.

My next rotation will be Yvette Stanton's Karen doily which I started some years ago. 

I'm currently also trying to catch up on this year's Peppermint Purple blackwork SAL. I am using the same colours for the 2024 SAL as for 2023 as I love the blue-green jewel tones.

Next job will be to provide pictures of the last few years PP SAL.

June 2022 updates

I was thrilled to receive a present in the mail from mouse in the UK. What a lovely present, as I am a lacemaker as well as stitcher, mouse made me a needlebook  showing a Lacemakers cottage (how did she know that Ive always wanted a needlebook....have patterns but have never started one...)

Its in my favourite colour, red, and is quite roomy with red felt inside and pockets too, and even a nice fine needle. mouse is a master finisher, I do envy her skill!

I have also been busy stitching, main focus pieces this year are L&T 2020 sampler and Peppermint Purple Blackwork 2022. The latter will have a border but I am following the plan which starts in the middle, once I get to an edge I can start the border. I find it very relaxing to use just one colour, the L&T sampler has a lot of initials between the motifs, I will decide on the initials I use later!

February 2022

 Heres a scan of my progress, just finished February part!

January 2022 Stiching

 Well a few months have gone by without me posting: here are some scans of my progress, sorry they are a bit fuzzy

First is my final Peppermint Purple SAL, this 2021 year long SAL is finished, but I now have to add the border!! And start the 2022 one!

Here is January for the Linen and Threads 2020 sampler, my overseas friends DJ and Sally are going to join me! I love Quakers, I am doing this one over one on 28 count Cashel linen using DMC 498. I also used this fabric and thread for my Long Dogs "The Token", I love the richness of the red. Sometime in the future I will also be doing Long Dogs Moulin Rouge and Renaissance and one of the Opus series.

I am adding the letters later on this sampler...

This was one of my two January 1st starts, the other is a very small kit, my start on this one is only in pale colours so too hard to see against the white background.

Spinning wheel lady!

 OK, here at last is my Spinning wheel lady! Just a bit of the spinning wheel to go.

There was quite a bit of stitching for the actual lady, and am pleased with the progress.

August 2021 post

 Gosh...haven't posted in a long while.

Here is a pic of the progress on Liz Turner Diehl's Irish garden:

I've also been stitching on a silhouette of a lady at her spinning wheel and the Peppermint Purple Blackwork SAL. Will post those pics soon