Sunday 26 May 2019

A good place for a break....

Progress has been made.   The stitching is complete now for the Betsy Morgan Etui box.   I have enjoyed the stitching - both the linen count and the silk floss.   The only substitution I made was for DMC for the squirrel as I just could not get the prescribed overdue thread  to come out looking less than patchy or stripey.  For me a grey squirrel should be a uniform shade of grey so I chose but now am wondering if I did not choose well.   Still it is what it is.
Next weekend is a long weekend here so I will begin the construction then.
The temperature chart is going well too.   We are in to green/blue now as the temperatures drop a little.   Although so far it has been a warm Autumn.
I'm getting that hardanger itch again so will have to go through my stash of charts.   I don't want to make a doily so will be looking for some other project that will scratch the itch and be more useful that the infernal Hardanger Mat.   A bag?  An apron?  One can have too many of those also.   Maybe a notebook cover?  Even in this computer age I use a lot of notebooks.   I do need a new cover for my toaster but Hardanger seems a bit OTT for that:-).

Sunday 12 May 2019

Sometimes life gets in the way of stitching

My secondary career as "carer for the DBEM" sometimes gets in the way of my stitching time and there hasn't been a lot produced over the last little while.
The DBEM has painstakingly knitted a small sweater for the newest great grandchild and I have duly sewn it up, added the buttons, wrapped the parcel and conveyed it to the Post Office.   The final great grandchild in this current batch is due this week and the DBEM is on tenterhooks with excitement!
Apart from cooking, cleaning and general life administration I have completed another Christmas Ornament.
I know I said I wouldn't stitch another ornament over one thread on 32 count linen but I needed to do so to get the appropriate size for the finish I have in mind.   So after some teeth grinding and a few sighs here we are....
And I finished off the Elf - after a long and methodical search for the teeny tiny bell I knew I had somewhere....
And I have now completed the top and the bottom of the box for the Inspirations Etui.   This may be a Betsy Morgan design but the chart is not identical to the photograph in the Inspirations magazine.  And although I am using the specified Gloriana Silk colour floss the School House red is not at all like the variant photographed in the magazine.   I did make a change from the red on the top as it was too "in your face"   I also swapped out the variegated silk specified for the squirrel as he came out stripey and I couldn't abide that - so he's done in a DMC matching the lightest shade of the variegated and I will live with this.
There are supposed to be initials - one on each side of the base of the tree - but I have yet to make my mind up about those so at the moment the 'forest floor' is bare. 
This week promises to be really busy and apart from my daily Temperature Chart I don't anticipate getting any stitching done.   Oh well there's always the next week...