Smalls SAL - September 2018

Hello again!

It's the last Friday of September (well, it was yesterday!) so time for another check-in for the Smalls SAL run by Heather of Stitching Lotus. Continued thanks to our host for running this SAL.

For September I went all tropical and fruity and stitched another cheeky fruit to add to my collection:

Pineapple from Fabulous Fruit
Designed by Jenny Barton in Cross Stitch Crazy magazine issue 192 (I think)

Stitched on 16ct Peach Cobbler over-dyed aida from Sewitall.com 2 over 1

Stitch count 37 wide by 41 high

Started - 1st September 2018

Finished - 4th September 2018

Total stitching time - 4 hours 50 minutes

This one was finished off using spotty orange backing fabric and orange barley twist cord:

I've got one more fruit I am planning to stitch this year and then I'll show them all together.

For October I'm adding to my Parliament and stitching in a colour I rarely get to use.

Take care,
Rachel x

PS I haven't read any blogs for the whole of September so will be doing a bit of catching up soon!

Little Black Cat Tea - finished; all 4 Little Black Cats framed

Hello all!

Another month and another finish to show you from DSDUCFC 2015. This is finish number 32/59 and the final Little Black Cat to accompany the previously-completed Coffee, Cream and Sugar.

At the end of August I still had the bottom third to stitch:

Which has now been completed to look like this:

Little Black Cat - Tea

Heritage Crafts designed by Toni Goffe

Stitched on 32ct Light Blue Murano evenweave 2 over 2

Stitch count 68 wide by 68 high
Started - 23rd February 2015
Finished - 11th September 2018
Total stitching time - 31 hours 15 minutes

Here are all four Little Black cat pieces together:

But that's not all... they have all been framed too! It took a while to find the most aesthetically pleasing arrangement, but may I introduce....

Cream

Cream and Coffee

Cream, Coffee and Sugar

Cream, Coffee, Sugar and Tea

And in their frame:

The frame is from my usual easyframe.co.uk and is a 13mm black paint frame with a black bottom mount, sun red top mount and acrylic anti-reflective glazing. It wasn't easy choosing mount colours for these designs, as creams and blues also looked very effective, but somehow this combination stood out to me as more fun than the other options. I really really like it.

So that also means four less pieces in my Box of Shame, not that Tea actually made it in there since he was finished, ironed and framed almost immediately!

More finishes and framing still to come in the last few months this year...

Take care,
Rachel x

August Progress on 2015/2016 Challenge Pieces

Hello there!

So we're now 2/3rds of the way through the year and I'm slowly but surely keeping up with making progress on some of the pieces I started for Debbie's Challenges back in 2015 and 2016.

During August I finished Summer from The Four Season (posted previously) and made progress on:

Pretty Little Paris by Satsuma Street
started 19th February 2015; last worked on last month
finished Notre Dame, added the trees on the left and started the bridge
(much better representation of fabric colour)

Little Black Cat - Tea by Heritage Crafts
started 23rd February 2015; last worked on in December 2016
filled in some of the background
(much better representation of fabric colour)

In September I plan to finish Tea, make more progress on Pretty Little Paris and bring the final Lizzie Kate Seasonal Alphabet out of its bag for some much needed attention. Fingers crossed.

Take care,

Rachel x