Framing photos

"Thank you" to everybody that left a comment about Carol's beautiful box. I love to read your comments and it makes me feel less self-conscious about sitting here rambling away to myself! LOL

Here are the promised photos of the pieces that I recently collected from the framers. This week I finished La D Da's 'In the Forest' (hurrah!) and I will try and take some photos of that piece later today. Our weather is grey and overcast at the moment, so I am not sure how well the pictures will turn out. I have a million things to do today, most of them fall into the category of 'chores' but the bright spot of the day will be stitching a little something to fit in a pot-lid for Sophies mother-in law, Mary. Mary has a special birthday soon and has graciously invited us to her birthday celebration tomorrow...... (Sophie is my youngest daughter). I have a few ideas, so watch this space...... As we all know, pot lids are very small, so I shouldn't have a problem in starting and finishing this today .

I hope you enjoy the photos, which are clickable, as always..... Enjoy your weekend everybody, I also hope that you manage to get some stitching time in!

Carols box.....

Here, at last, are the photos of the beautiful box which Carol made for my birthday - I just love it! The design is by Blackbird Designs and is one of my favourites!

I am sure that you will agree that Carol has made a fabulous job of the finishing, as well as the stitching.......

She even lined all the inside of the box too - isn't it pretty? I am very lucky, I know :-)

I hope that you are all having a wonderful Easter weekend. Yesterday we went to Crosby to see the art exhibition on the beach. It is called 'Another place' and is by artist Anthony Gormley. If you are not familiar with this exhibition you can find out about it here . When we arrived the tide was in, which meant that the figures started to appear as the tide turned. It was very interesting!

Today I went to the picture Framers to collect 'My Son', have been taking photographs and doing a little stitching on La D Da's 'In the Forest' which I am determined to finish before starting anything else. Watch this space for more photos shortly.......

Somebody cue Stevie Wonder..... :-)

...... Happy birthday, to me.... hap-py birthday......... :-) It was my birthday on Friday and I have had a lovely birthday weekend with lots of visitors and presents and even special birthday rock cakes with candles made by my dad who also came to stay....... aren't my presents pretty too?

I will be back soon with a photo of the box with a stitched lid that Carol made for me; it is just gorgeous!

Thank you all for visiting and a big thank you to all those that leave me messages, I love to read them all!

Hello one and all, I want to start this post by thanking each and every one of you that left me a comment about 'My Son', I really appreciate it! The general concensus was that I should just go ahead and get it framed and that is exactly what I have done! I will post a photo as soon as it comes back from the framers!

In the meantime, I have made this little book for my dad and he seems very pleased with it. Iused some mottled hand-dyed yellow linen and a Gloriana varigated silk to stitch it. I also used a hand made paper to line the book and the design is from 'For the Birds' by Drawn Thread. Very many thanks to Loreta for her wonderful instructions for making these little notebooks. Her blog is an absolute joy to look at and I recommend it very highly to you if you are not already a regular visitor!

Here are some photos for you to enjoy..... :-)

It has only been seven years in the making.......

........... and I finally thought it was done! I have spent about ten hours working on this today, stitching and unpicking and going boss-eyed with all that backstitch. I was fairly pleased with the result, even though the bottom section is not quite what I originally planned to stitch.... I am not very keen on the look of hardanger and the original chart has a lot of hardanger, stitched in the variegated purple thread, hence we opted for green backstitch at the bottom to echo the top of the piece.

I spoke to my friend and stitching buddy Carol this morning to check what I had graphed out for us both to use back in 2002 when we started this piece (and Carol finished hers - yay Carol! :-) ). It turned out that I had already stitched past the point where we had planned to modify it......

So, nothing daunted (much, anyway!), I re-planned and stitched and ripped and tutted a bit.... Finally, ten hours later I was so very happy with the result until I discovered that I have stitched the bottom backstitch in a different green floss to the backstitch at the top!!!!!!! AAAARGH!

To be honest, I could weep now....... I really don't think I will ever restitch it if I rip it out, so I will wait until tomorrow morning when I can see it in daylight and decide what to do next. At the moment I am telling myself that it is okay for it to be two different greens - after all, both greens are in the pattern, but the perfectionist in me is whispering that it will look ridiculous and everybody will notice. The top green is brighter and the bottom is more of a bottle green. I need to see it in daylight, so only time will tell - I would rather have it finished and framed in all it's two-green lovliness than flung in a cupboard forever because I don't want to restitch it...... Carol would restitch it without a seconds hesitation, but she is much more disciplined than me :-). Oh well, tomorrow is another day I suppose...... I hope you enjoy the pictures! The photos are clickable, as always.

My Son - the photos

Here are the photos of my progress on 'My Son', as promised. I really don't have much more to do now, so I should have a finish to share with you before next weekend, I hope! Here is the last progress picture I posted back in September 2008. This piece should really not have taken as long as it has - if I got it out and actually stitched on it more frequently it would have been finished long ago! Never mind, I have enjoyed stitching on it and the Indigo Rose patterns are just wonderful to work with, they are very clear.

Thank you, once agin, to all those who leave comments for me; I love to read them all! Katrina - yes, the framer cut the mount for Little Witch freehand; I am very pleased with it. Brigitte - I plan to have Ghosties and Ghoulies framed just as soon as I can get around to stringing the piece onto a board.

Tomorrow we are on the early train to London to meet up with my daughter and son in law (who actually live in Manchester). The menfolk love single malt whisky and are going to the 'whisky live' exhibition and we girls plan to do a little light shopping and maybe nip into the British Museum for old times sake. We used to visit all the time when the children were little and we lived near London, but I don't think we have been for fifteen years or more now...... I am really looking forward to it! I hope that you all enjoy your weekend too!

'My Son' - The progress continues........

......but slowly, oh so slowly! I decided to try a finish something from my UFO pile before starting anything else. I have made some progress on 'My Son' from Indigo Rose this week, but I haven't got a photo to show you - I will try and remedy that very soon. I promise! I have enjoyed stitching on this piece, but I really need to pay attention when I do. I think I could have it finished over the next few weeks if I put my mind to it. Let's see how it goes, shall we?

As I have no recent photo of My Son to share here is a photo of my framed 'Little Witch' by Shepherds Bush. This was the very first piece that I photographed to show on my blog, so it took a while to get it finished and framed...........

Hearts for Valentine's day

Woohoo - another finish! This tiny piece has been in WIP/UFO pile for a couple of years or more. I have worked on for two or three evenings and it is finished! It is called 'Heart Blooms' and is by Shepherds Bush. It is very pretty and is the usual soft SB colour palette using the silks from the kit. I have just realised that I have sewn the charm onto the wrong heart, so that will have to be sorted out tomorrow...........

The variegated thread is Thread Gatherer 'Pistachio Nut'

Very many thanks to all those that have visited my blog recently and a HUGE thank you to those of you who take the time to actually comment - I love to hear from all of you!