Happy Christmas and my new craft room!

Happy Christmas everyone, I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas holiday.

I have some good news, the builders have finished the house inside, with the exception of a few little finishing jobs, they finally left on Thursday of this week and we have been cleaning the house ever since, we did not finish getting the house straight until 7pm today, Christmas Day!!!

The good news is that I now have a craft room to show you.  I decided to have the walls painted cream and not pink, however, I am sure that pink will be introduced in the design of the room at some stage!   

The photo makes the room look quite narrow but it is quite a good size for a craft room, it measures about 3 metres by 4 metres. We have put oak flooring down and fitted an oak door to match and although there are two decent  sized windows we have also fitted spot lights in the ceiling to give me plenty of additional lighting.

I absolutely love it and I cannot wait to sort everything out and start choosing the decor, although it may be sometime before we can do that because the room is now full of boxes of stuff that needs sorting through!   

Stitching news

      I have not been able to do much stitching of late, however I did manage to join in a Christmas Ornament exchange from The Hooked on Exchanging group, but I had to make the same ornament as shown in the previous post because I only had access to that pattern, I will show some pictures in my next post.

Hopefully by about February I will have time to start stitching again, in the meantime I will hopefully post some pictures of my craft pressies I have received for Christmas, but until then, happy stitching everyone and happy christmas to you all!      

Prairie Schooler and a fringing tutorial

 Edited: I forgot to show the link to the instructions for the fringing on the pillow, please now see below.

Hi everyone, just a little note to let you know I am still here! 

It was Jills birthday over at the Purple Peacock blog so I decided to send her this birthday gift. I made a little Christmas ornament from a Prairie Schooler pattern (booklet number 133) and I sent her this Little House Needleworks Pattern - The Travelling Stitcher. The pattern included the threads, it is one of my favourite designers and Jill's too. 

The tutorial for the fringing of the pillow can be found on my blog here just scroll down and you will see a Father Christmas Prairie Schooler ornament where I show the instructions.   

I just managed to find enough fabric and threads  to make Jill this small gift. There are more close up photo's below.    

Until next time - Happy Stitching!

Little House Needlework, an exchange and my first hardanger piece.

   Hi everyone, I hope you are all well and doing lots of lovely stitching!

I have been stitching a Little House Needlework design called Daisy Lane Cottage, I am also working on my first piece of Hardanger and I have an exchange to show you that I made for Margaret from A Sampler of Stitches blog here  

Daisy Lane Cottage from Little House Needleworks. 

Here is the exchange I made for Margaret, it is not the exact photo of the one I sent to Margaret, it is the one I made for Yana but I forgot to take photographs, although they are more or less exactly the same except for the polymer clay thread holder.  

Margaret made me an absolutely beautiful exchange that you can see in the previous post. 

Here is my first piece of hardanger, it is a work in progress at the moment, however  I am not too sure I like doing this type of stitching, I find it boring, I prefer to have some colour to work with and I found the stitches a bit repetitive.

Happy Stitching everyone, thanks for your visit!



The winner is...........????? and another exchange to show.

Congratulations to to........................???????

Cole from Something for Cole blog (click here for blog)

Cole please leave me your email address.

I drew the name out of a hat, (sorry but I don't know how to do this electronically) it took me ages but I finally have a winner!

Thankyou so much everyone for entering my giveaway, I do hope you will continue to visit my blog.

Please don't be disappointed if you did not win, I have entered lots of blog giveaways and I have not won anything, ever, maybe one day I will be lucky!

 Stitching news

I have not done much stitching but I have an  exchange to show you, this is the one I made for Staci at 

Snippets and Stash blog here. 

I also have another one to show but I will show that on my next post.

I made this pinkeep with a ladybird design on the back,I then decided to use the fabric as a theme to base my design on. The little bottlecap pincushion is supposed to be a ladybird, this was based on the little bottlecap pincushions that Jenny Segrest makes here  

I decided to just embroider mine with the little daisy pattern to match the pinkeep.

The needlebook is my own design made from felt and blanket stitched around the edge. 

The alphabet is a free design, I can't remember where I got the grid from for the cross stitch, but if anyone would like a copy please leave a comment with your email address and I will send it to you.   

Here is the lovely exchange that Staci made for me. 

Staci made the two lovely pillows and stuffed them with crushed walnuts, I thought this was a lovely idea. I particularly liked the way that Staci trimmed the reverse side of the pillows. Also included were the threads that Staci used in stitching the design and the buttons ribbons and thread will certainly be useful for my forthcoming projects

  

Thankyou Staci, I enjoyed our exchange, I shall treasure these gifts and I will put them in my new craft room when it is finishesd! 

Happy stitching everyone, until next time!

   

Sorry for the delay!

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in announcing the winner of my giveaway, I will not get chance to sort it all out until this weekend. I also  have a couple of exchanges to show you and I have not had the opportunity to take the photographs yet, please bear with me and I will announce the winner sometime over the weekend.

Thankyou for all of the wonderful comments, I am thrilled that you liked my giveaway. I would also like to welcome all of my new followers and thank all of my regular and new readers for leaving comments, you were all so generous to me. I tried to respond to everyone and visit as many blogs as I could, however some of you have your email set as 'no reply' therefore I could not reply personally.

Thanks everyone, I will be in touch over the weekend!

Happy stitching!      

Wow - just take a look at this exchange from Margaret!

More photo's below.

Wow - do I feel spoilt!

Hi everyone, thankyou for all of the lovely comments on my second anniversary giveaway, I am replying to everyone, and I am hoping to visit all of your blogs too. I really appreciate your comments, they are an inspiration to carry on blogging!

There is still time to enter my giveaway, just click on the picture on the right hand side or check out the previous post to this one.

Well, I have had the most wonderful week opening exchanges and I just had to show you this gorgeous exchange  I received from Margaret in Spain, isn't it just absolutely wonderful,  I do feel very spoilt!

Now if you have never visited Margarets blog (click here) then go there now, you will not be disappointed, Margaret makes the most beautiful stitched bags you are ever likely to see, they really are scrumptious, and now I own one yippee!!!! 

Thankyou so much Margaret for a wonderful exchange, you are so generous making me such wonderful gifts, I shall treasure them always. They will also take pride of place in my new craft room when it is finished.  

I have also received a beautiful exchange from Stacy over at Snippets and Stash blog but I have not taken the photo's yet. I will tempt you with those goodies next time. 

My time for exchanging will diminish over the next few months because I have some building works being carried out on my home, however I am hoping to pick up on exchanges nearer to Christmas. I am particularly looking forward to getting my new craft room decorated, and I am sure I will take plenty of photo's to put on my blog to show progress.        

Thankyou once again Margaret for a wonderful exchange, I hope you like mine as much as I like yours!  

Happy stitching and thankyou for the lovely comments, I really appreciate them. 

    

Marie Antoinette gift for my second blog anniversary!

More photographs below.

Hi everyone, I am glad to welcome you back to my little corner of blogland for my second anniversary give away, it was actually on the 31st July but I have only just finished making it!   

I hope you like my Marie Antoinette themed silk box and all its contents, because if you do you may be in with a chance of winning this prize. Everything you see in the photo is the one and only gift for the winner, included are the following:

Handmade silk box designed and created by me.The picture of Marie Antoinette is printed on silk and the corners of the box are trimmed with swarovski crystals.

Pinkeep stitched using DMC colour 3727 floss and trimmed with some vintage lace that I have had in my stash for over 20 years!

Marie Antoinettes bed made into a cute thread holder and trimmed with my hand made polymer clay roses.

The teapot, cakes, plate and the cup and saucer were hand made to match.

How to enter - check out the instructions at the bottom of this post.  Now closed.

   

The Marie Antoinette images are available free at The Graphics Fairy Blog here   

The pattern for the pinkeep can be found here at Corinne Leroy creations blog.

Here is the photo paper that I used to print the image onto, you can use it on any inkjet printer, just print your image and then run it under the cold water tap, the paper dissolves off the silk, you can then iron dry your silk or lay it flat on a towel to dry.  

You can see another box that I made using the same fabric over at my cross stitch finishing blog here

The silk paper is available at any good computer paper supplier over the internet.

HOW TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY

The give away is open until 31st August 2010.

1. 
   
   Leave a message on this post to be entered once in the draw.
2. 
   
   If you are already a follower tell me and I will enter your name again.
3. 
   
   If you decide to become a follower leave a message telling me you are now a follower and I will enter your name again.
4. 
   
   For another chance to win - place the top photograph of the Marie Antoinette giveaway on your blog (the one that gives the closing date) and mention this giveaway!   

Good luck everyone and happy stitching!

A random act of kindness for Andrea

Hi everyone, I hope you are all fine and happy. 

I have recently finished this random act of kindness for Andrea over at The Craft Room blog here  .

Andrea sent me a RAK last year, it was a beautiful pinkeep made in blue and trimmed in gorgeous ribbon. I was so thrilled with such a lovely gift, ever since that day I have always intended to make Andrea a surprise gift too- well here it is!

I designed the box and made it in pink because I knew Andrea liked this colour combination and also liked boxes. I made the little bottle cap pincushion to match, it is trimmed with swarovski crystals - of course!

There are more photos below.

You can see Andreas rak to me(click here,) just scroll down the page.

Stitching news

I have recently finished a couple of exchanges but I cannot show them yet until they have been received by my partners. 

Thanks for stopping by, have a happy, stitchy day!

Random act of kindness

Hi everyone, I am still here, I have just been rather busy lately, no time for doing much stitching.

I have managed to finish a pinkeep as a thankyou to Kate who sent me some lovely tatting materials last year, I always intended to make her a small thankyou gift  and I have only just got around to making something.  I made it in lilac which is one of Kates favourite colours.

The alphabet is a freebie but I cannot remember where I got it from, however if anyone would like a copy of the pattern please leave a message with your email address and I will send you a copy.  

More pictures below.

Stitching news   

I am having some work done on the house over the next few months, we are having an extension that will include a new craft room for me, I am so much looking forward to decorating it and getting all organised with my craft stash. I will be taking photos of the craft room to show you all, so watch this space!

I have just finished an exchange that I will be sending out in a few weeks or so, I will post pictures as soon as my partner receives the gift. I have quite a few exchanges promised, hopefully I will not have too much disruption so that I can get on with stitching them.

Cording made from DMC matching thread

You can see a tutorial on my finishing blog for making the cord here just scroll down on that page and you will see it.

           

DMC Threads stitched 2 over 2 

Thankyou for your visit!

More exchanges!

Hi everyone, I have been doing quite a few exchanges lately, here is the one I sent to Hazel from the

Quietly Stitching blog this week. (The exchange I received from Hazel is shown below) I made the box and covered it with this beautiful fabric from Shabby Fabrics in America, I also made the pinkeeps and little pillow using free patterns from: 

Gazette 94 for the rose pattern, please see previous post for the link to this pattern. 

Amitie pattern is from DesFilles et une Aiguille here

I made the polymer clay roses and the buttons from polymer clay.

Hazel sent me the most gorgeous stitching set below, I am thrilled with it. Hazel made the gorgeous bag and filled it with the lovely matching needlebook and little scissor pillow.

Thanyou Hazel, I shall treasure them always.

Thankyou for all of the lovely comments, I really appreciate them.

Happy stitching!