Christmas Variegated Thread Tags

Good morning all!

Wow, wow and triple wow! Thank you all so much for your lovely comments about my framed Owls In Love. I really am overwhelmed by your generous comments. It's pleasing to know I've stitched and framed a piece that so many of you genuinely like!

Getting into the Christmas spirit, I wanted to make a couple of tags using variegated threads. I always use the cut and loop method so saw this as a good opportunity to carry out a little experiment. The top tag has been stitched using that method, the bottom tag using two strands in parallel. You may have to enlarge the photo to see the differences:

 Based on Lizzie Kate's Wait 'Til Dec 25th

Stitched on 16ct Holly Aida with silvering by Sewitall.com 2 over 1

Stitched with - Threadworx 1085 Christmas Time

Total stitching time - 2 hours 10 minutes each

I can't decide which one I prefer. The colours in the top tag looks a little "dirtier" because of the green-red combination yet give a lovely effect close up. The colours in the bottom tag are obviously sharper as that's how the thread is supposed to be used! Perhaps the cut and loop method would work better in other colours? I don't know.

I made them into simple tags using pearlised green card and red tinsel ribbon:

I know that one of the recipients has already opened their presents but the other has duly waited, so my stitching was not all in vain!!

This will be my last post before Christmas (I think) so may I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Holiday or Merry Christmas filled with love, laughter and lots of stitching!

Take care,
Rachel x

Owls In Love - framed!

Hello all,

Christmas has definitely arrived early for me!

Remember Owls In Love? Remember my mum was going to buy me the frame for Christmas? Remember I said I wasn't going to wait until Christmas to frame my piece? Well, I kept my word and spent his morning putting Owls In Love into its frame. And here it is:

And a close up of the corner. If you look carefully you can just about make out the silvering which covers the whole fabric.

I kept to the monochrome palette choosing a 22mm Pedroza Grey distressed frame with a dark grey top mount, bright white bottom mount and anti-reflective glazing. The grey fabric was very difficult to match up - sometimes it has hints of lilac or blue or green depending on which colours are next to it or under which light you are looking at it. So apologies if the colours don't look too good on your screen - I can assure you they are perfect together in real life!

I am absolutely over the moon with this whole piece and once again have to send a big thank-you to ezeframe.co.uk for making the online ordering process of mounts and frames so easy. It really is a dream website to deal with.

The question is..... do you like it? It doesn't bother me if you don't - all tastes are different.

I have two more small framed pieces to show you, but they can wait until my next post.

6 days until Christmas - hope you're not feeling too stressed!
Rachel x

Elemental Dragons - framed

Good morning,

Remember I purchased some frames last week? Well, here's the first frame being used for my four Elemental Dragons by Dragon Dreams Inc. available as free charts here. These were all stitched on 16ct Nebula from The Crafty Kitten as part of Debbie's Crazy January/February 2015 Challenge. I absolutely love these designs and can't believe I waited so long to frame them.

As a reminder, these are the four Dragons of Air, Water, Earth and Fire:

This is the frame I ordered:

Here they are individually mounted:

And this is how they all look together:

I used my usual internet framing service, ezeframe.co.uk, ordering a dark pink top mount, dark grey bottom mount and dark grey frame. The glazing should be anti-reflective acrylic but I received acrylic in error and therefore had a lot of problems taking decent photographs! With hindsight I should have allowed room for more of the lovely fabric to show instead of the mounts being so close to the stitching, but nevermind. Anyway, too much more fabric and the dragons would have looked lost.

I really wanted blue for the bottom mount but, as you can imagine, blue looked awful against the greeny-brown earth and orangey-red fire colours. I then thought about having four different colour bottom mounts to coordinate with each dragon but couldn't be bothered with the detailed measuring! So I finally opted for a dark grey mount as it is the only colour consistent across all four dragons.

What do you think? I'm really pleased with how it's all come together - which is much better in real life than the photograph. Now to hang it with my menagerie of other stitching.

I'll post about the other frames I bought over the next few days. One at a time is enough, especially when I waffle on so much!

Take care everyone,
Rachel x

Lizzie Kate December Flip-It Stamp - finished!

Hello again!

I am going to start by saying a lot of big thank yous.

First, thank you to everybody who left comments regarding my attempt at designing the November poppy. Despite your positivity I'm still not completely happy with it so may re-attempt it next year but under less pressure!

Second, an even bigger thank you to everyone for such lovely comments about Owls In Love. I have been truly overwhelmed with how well it has been received by so many of you. In one personal email a stitcher pointed out that the design and fabric were so different it was a like breath of fresh air. Thank you. I hope you'll think the same once you see the project framed!

Now, back to business. I have finished the final LK monthly stamp. I am pleased to have stitched them all as planned and on schedule but am a little sad to have reached the end. Nevermind, I haven't finish-finished them yet so I still have that to look forward to. Here's the last stamp:

Stitch count 47 wide by 47 high

Stitched on 16ct Rustico Aida 2 over 1

Started - 1st December 2015

Finished - 8th December 2015

Total stitching time - 10 hours 50 minutes

But it's not all doom and gloom on the LK front as I shall be stitching some of her Tiny Tidings next year as my one-a-month and Smalls SAL project.

As for my stitching for the rest of the 2015 - all of my obligations are out of the way so I'm free to stitch on what I want! I might pick up a big project, I might try to finish some more Challenge pieces or I might pick up some of my neglected Challenge pieces. But one thing's for certain - there will definitely be no new starts before 1st January 2016!

I hope all of your plans for the festivities / holiday season are going well. I've still got some decorating and all the wrapping to do but that's about it. Let's hope Santa is busy wrapping lots of stitchy goodies for us all!!

Take care everyone :)
Rachel x

Owls In Love - finished!

Hello all!

It's Happy Dance time!!!

Yep, Owls In Love is finished! In my last post I estimated 5 hours to finish this project. It was in fact 4 hours 55 minutes - not a bad guess then?!

So, without any more yapping, here are a finished Hedwig and Errol, along with all the usual boring details:

Owls In Love

FluffyFuzzyPatterns (etsy)

Stitched on 16ct Cloud Grey Aida with silvering by sewitall.com 2 over 1

Stitch count 250 wide by 152 high

Started - 16th October 2015

Finished - 6th December 2015

Total stitching time - 54 hours 55 minutes

Oh boy, did I enjoy stitching this design and watching the owls take shape! You would have thought that stitching three shades of grey on grey fabric would have been boring but it wasn't. Quite the contrary. It was actually very relaxing. I loved every stitch, LOVE the fabric and would happily stitch the whole piece again, right now! Don't you think browns on brown would look good? Just a thought!

The mounts and frame have already been ordered and should be delivered by the end of the week. I know they are supposed to be a Christmas present but do you honestly think I'm going to wait another two weeks to frame this piece? I think not!! Honestly, this is more exciting than Christmas itself!!!

Oh, and while I was ordering the frame for this piece, a couple more just "happened" to slip into my basket. You know how it is! I'll show you all of the finished-finishes as soon as I have framed them.

My stitching for the rest of 2015 now consists of finishing the LK December Stamp and trying to finish a couple more January/February Challenge pieces. Wonder how I'll do?

In the meantime, thanks for joining me in my blog postings and thanks for all of your comments. I know a few of you have really been waiting to see this project finished - I hope you are not disappointed, although you haven't seen it framed yet!!

Back soon!

Take care one and all,
Rachel x

Owls In Love - 50 hours

Good morning, good morning, good morning!

Just a quick post today to show the next update on this project.

I'm getting really excited as these owls are so close to being finished. I reckon about five more hours to stitch the branch and fill in the final colour on the left owl's tummy and they'll be done. Yippee!

After 40 hours

After 50 hours

I'm definitely going to stay with and finish this project. My mum's offered to buy me a frame for Christmas so there's no way this project is going into my Box of Shame / The Orphanage to collect dust! I'll be back very very soon with a great big Happy Dance!

Happy stitching everyone!
Rachel x

November Progress on DSDUCJFC Pieces

Hello all!

Oh dear - my Challenge pieces were very neglected during November. In fact, I only picked up one piece and that was for just a few hours. Note to self - must do better! But progress is progress. Here are the before and after photos:

Winter from 22nd February

continued with the tree and sky

With me desperate to finish Owls In Love, along with all the preparations for Christmas now in full swing, goodness knows how much stitching I will do on my Challenge pieces in December. I'm not holding out much hope but have got a couple which could be potential finishes. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Take care everyone,
Rachel x