Carnivorous Christmas Finish

I woke early on 23rd December and started doing the last stitches on Carnivorous Cat before I went to work on Friday. As this was a Christmas present for my landlady I had to get it completed that day so I could give it to her yesterday on Christmas Eve before she went away for Christmas.

I've discovered that I hate stitching to deadlines! It's strange, but I never seem to have a problem getting motivated to do round robins, I stitch them as soon as they come through the door. Maybe my lack of motivation came from starting this project over six months ago and putting it to one side cause I figured I'd have loads of stitching time to complete him, but that sadly wasn't the case with all the hassles I've had in the lead up to Christmas.

Carnivorous cat is a Margaret Sherry design which appeared in the original Cattitudes Calender in November 2002. God that seems years ago now. Although I have been stitching all the designs from this calender as part of an ongoing Cattitudes Round Robin I missed out on Stitching Carnivorous Cat as I dropped out of the robin for a few months to try and get my life back together whem I moved down here to Cornwall. Carnivorous cat is stitched on Silkweaver Reflections "Angel Song" 28 count hand -dyed fabric. I tried a bit of an experiment with this design, because I stitched the cage bars with gold metallic thread rather than the traditional black backstitching - do you think it works?

I picked up the Mermaid Queen from the framers this week. She turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. 

Mermaid Queen on the Ocean

She's finished!!!!

I've spent the entire day completing the beading, the odd missing stitch - I had to laugh at myself when I'd forgoten to stitch one of her hands, here I was facing a handless mermaid, lol. - and finally completed all the backstitch about an hour ago.

She's probably the largest and most advanced piece that I've ever attempted, and she's my second Mirabilia design. According to this blog, I started working on her on April 10th. The mermaid is stitched on Silkweaver Reflection's 32 count Ocean.

I wasn't happy after I'd attached the jewels though. The chart just left the area under the jewels blank, but there wasn't complete coverage by the gems and you could see the "holes" in the pattern under the jewels and the blank fabric behind so today I've lifted up the gems and stitched in the background colour. I felt much happier about her when I'd done that. I think the best bit of the design was completing the final gold braiding in her hair. It really brought her into focus for me.

Now... what should I stitch on next? I really want to finish "Above the Clouds" now, but as it was intended for a friend who now is not speaking to me, it probably won't be appreciated at all [in fact, even if I do finish it off and give it to him as a peace offering in the hope of renewing our friendship, I can quite easily see it being binned it in disgust], so I don't know if I have the heart to finish it off now, which is a shame because I was enjoying working on it.

So maybe another Teresa Wenzler instead? I've got her Egyptian Sampler that I've always wanted to work on and also Tapestry Cat. Speaking of Cats, and Egypt I've got a design called "Pharoah's Pet" that I've always wanted to do as it's of an Egyptian Serval. I'll have to have a look though my stash, or should I do the sensible thing and finish off another WIP or UFO?

Skating Santa : Before and After

One of my goals this month was to stitch on my Aunt's old unfinished Skating Santa project.

This is how it looked prior to me working on it:



Today I finished him off:



It's kinda sad in a way now that he is finished because now I only have one of my Aunt's WIPs to go (an Owl) and when that is done it's as if a part of her will be gone forever. It brought back memories of her just by opening the project wallet because the fabric still contained a hint of her cigarette smoke. I remember she started working on this project this time about two years ago, just before she fell ill with cancer. I can remember he frustration at trying to stitch the white of his beard on white glittering fabric and that's why she put him to one side.

In fact I only got around to finishing today because I've had a couple of days off work to cope with the stress and hastle of this and last weekend. Stitching is a wonderfly therapeutic tool in that respect.

Autumnal RR

Cathy's Autumnal RR for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. All finished now and ready for mailing. I stitched the squirrel. He stitched up really fast only a few hours work. It's a little bit strange though, I've never heard of a brown squirrel, they usually just come in red or grey. I think he looks a bit more like a beaver actually, but what would a beaver be doing in a tree with an Acorn? The mind boggles..... still it's complete now.

Crafter's Creations: Happy Dancing

Crafter's Creations: Happy Dancing

Dawn has finished one of the Cats in the Hats on my fabric for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. I'm thrilled, can't wait to see it in the flesh when it finally comes home to me.

I'm glad I got this little lift today, I'm sitting here at my desk sneezing and dripping all over the place. Boo hoo hoo.

Solo is now Complete

This is Kiwi Jo's fabric for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin, which is a 28 count blue Joblean evenweave. The design at the top was stitched by Joanne herself, while my Solo is underneath. I've just completed him and took a picture less than 10 minutes ago and couldn't wait to share my happy dance with all you other bloggers. Here's a larger version of Solo that I uploaded to my Webshots folder.

I'm really glad that I was stitching Solo on Evenweave because basically, the backstitching was a pig. Nearly all the stitches lined up with the middle holes of the evenweave and not the normal holes that you stitch in. This sort of haphazard backstitching would make this design very difficult to stitch on Aida - so anyone tempted by him should be warned now.

I'm pleased with the overall look though. I hope Jo is too. I'm going to be mailing him back across the pond to Dawn, who currently has my Cats in Hats piece.

I stitched this over the weekend. It's a tiny Margaret Sherry Cattitude and I'm going to turn him into a scissor fob for my Cheetah Scissors so I don't lose them.

Tigger Bookmark

I finished this last night, whilst watching the last episode in the series of Dr Who.

Tom Mouse Country Companions Cover Kit

My first finish on Holiday

Venice is Finished!

Contentious Happy Dance

I just finished Contentious Cat for the Cattitudes RR. I stitched this on Nicole's fabric which is 14 count white aida. This is shaping up to be a nice piece of material, there's only two more cats to go, Crazy Cat and Curious Cat.

Instead of stitching the usual Union Jack flag for the UK, I stitched Cornwall's own flag. Before I moved here I didn't even know that Cornwall had it's own flag!

A Fairy Finish

Finished my Flower Fairies Canterbury Bell Fairy today.

I've been working on this since September as my purse project - but I was approaching the point where a couple of hours stitching would see it done, so this morning I went hell for leather and stitched it to completion while I was listening to the commentary on Armageddon.

It was supposed to be stitched in one stand, but I didn't read the instructions to start with and used two. In fact I only realised what I'd done when I started running out of pink. lol. Still one strand on 16 count doesn't provide enough coverage.

This design was a freebie giveaway cover kit on the World of Cross Stitching. I always loved Flower Fairies as a child - I had intricate colouring books full of them. I quite like this design, except the fairies face, fortunately you can't really see the odd expression from this picture.

Cautious Complete

As promised yesterday, I stayed in stitching all day and now Cautious is complete.


I think the next round of the robin is going to get delayed again because at least two people still didn't receive the fabric they were supposed to get at the end of November.

Amalfi Coast Framed

I framed the Amalfi Coast on Christmas Eve. I didn't do a very good job, but getting the circular cut out piece was a bit of a nightmare. I tried using a compass for the curve, then in the end just ended up cutting around a plate with a craft knife.

The Amalfi Coast is one of a series of 4 designs that appeared in Cross Stitch Collection by Sheila Hudson. I already stitched Mount Fuji which was the first of the designs published. I didn't bother with the St Paul's Cathedral design, which was the second published and the last one - which I will probably attempt at some point is of Venice.

I started stitching this in February 2004, just before all the troubles with Sean started which dogged so much of my stitching time this year. This took a long time to complete, partially because for quite a few months I really didn't have the heart to stitch or the time, but I finished it in August this year, just before I went on to finish off my Aunt's Elephants for her.

Jean also started this Amalfi Coast design, I remember going stash shopping for her and buying all the threads and material she would need for it from John Lewis' in Bluewater to while away some of the time she was in hospital undergoing tests. Unfortunately she didn't get to finish this design either - but as I'd already made quite a bit of progress on my own copy - Jean's WIP of Amalfi coast went to her friend Karen - who is also a stitcher.

Merry Christmas to all my Blog Readers.

Jean's Elephants Framed

I got my Elephants back from the framers today. Two weeks early. Yipee.

When I went into the unit to pick it up there was no one around, but the radio was blaring out. I shouted "hello" a couple of times, but there was no answer, so I started to explore around the framing studio to see if there was someone out the back - as I walked around a workbench, I found a guy asleep on the floor behind it!!! lol. He was the framer's assistant, although how he could sleep with the radio blaring was beyond me.