Merry Christmas!

Good morning and...

Merry Christmas 2022 everyone!

Just popped in to say Merry Christmas. I hope you are able to spend the final week of 2022 relaxing with family and friends, and maybe stitching one or two goodies Santa left in your stocking!

Eat, drink, be merry but, above all, stay safe.

Love and hugs

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - December 2022

Hello all!

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

And can you believe that this is already the last one of the year?!!

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

I've got just the one again this month, another Snuffles which I haven't even posted about.

This is Snuffles In Rust, FFOd as usual with co-ordinating fabric and beads. And since he hasn't been mentioned on my blog, you get all the info about him too!

Snuffles In Rust

Stitched on 16ct Tangerine over-dyed aida

Started - 26th September 2022

Finished - 9th October 2022

Total stitching time - 4 hours 15 minutes

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th December.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post, the first of 2023(!), will go live on 10th January at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Glitter

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Glitter.

For me, there are three types of glitter in cross stitch - sparkly/opalescent/metallic fabric, metallic/Etoile threads, and glittery finishes. I was going to cover each one in turn, but discovered I've often used them in various combinations.

Sparkly fabric is a bit of a disheartening subject for me. My favourite fabric store is sewitall.com, and for a little bit extra they can add sparkles to the fabric. The trouble is, because these sparkles are sprayed on, the fabric looks fantastic at the beginning of a project but not so sparkly by the end, especially if the project is not stitched on a frame.

Luckily, Owls In Love was stitched on a frame so a lot of the sparkle remains (the picture doesn't really do the sparkles justice):

Whereas these three Christmas kittens were sewn in hand so, as careful as I was, by the time they'd been FFOd, most of the sparkles had rubbed off:

Opalescent or lurex fabrics, where sparkly metallic thread is woven into the weave, are a much safer option. I've stitched a number of projects on such fabric, such as Blueberry Bear on cream fabric with gold lurex:

And My Treasure on white fabric with gold lurex. I have said many times before that I am not a fan of metallic threads, so use them sparingly, but sometimes they are a wonderful evil to add a bit of sparkle:

Durene Jones' aptly seasonal Christmas cards were also stitched on white fabric with silver lurex and, to rather handily add to this month's theme, were FFOd with the addition of glittery tinsel wool and glittery fabric:

Snowflake The Cactus uses glittery tinsel wool too, along with glittery Etoile thread for the snowflakes:

But glitter isn't just for Christmas; I've also used it for Halloween, in this instance glitter felt used to frame these Spooky Hooties:

And Etoile used in the gates and moon of In The Gloaming:

And I think I'll stop there!

Next month's theme is Designer of 2023. With they way my stitching isn't happening at the moment, I'm not sure how this will pan out, but a girl can dream!

Take care,

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - November 2022

Hello all!

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

I've got just the one this month.

This is Snuffles in yellow, August's Smalls SAL piece, FFOd with some semi-coordinating beads which I'm not all that happy with the colour, but were the best match I had; the yellows just looked wrong.

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th November.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post will go live on 10th December at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Travel

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Travel.

To be honest, I'm not really interested in actually travelling to places - as in seeing the world for myself - but I do like pictures of scenery and special places. I haven't actually stitched much in the way of travel either.

I live close to London so am familiar with all of these sights in Satsuma Street's Pretty Little London:

And I've been to Paris a couple of times, so have visited most of these places in Satsuma Street's Pretty Little Paris too:

I'd like to stitch all of Satsuma Street's Pretty Little City designs but, well, you know!

During the Tokyo Olympics I made a start on all eight of Soda Stitch's A Journey Around The World designs, depicting sights in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Italy, USA, Russia, Korea and Mexico but, again, only made tiny starts on each of them, so here are their pictures instead!

And finally, although I have made lots of train journeys, especially when commuting to work in London, I've never been here...

... to take this train to this rather magical place!

And finally, as is customary, I'll show something I've seen. This is by Teeny Weeny Stitches on etsy and is a set of 63 scenes of America's National Parks (and a bonus one!) Now, there seems to be some debate on the interweb about how many National Parks there actually are, but these seem to cover most of them. Each design is only 40x44 and I think they're really sweet!

That's it for my travelling. Next month's theme is Glitter.

Take care,

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - October 2022

Hello all!

Firstly, huge apologies for not getting this post up on time.

Secondly, I've cheated by back-posting it to when it should have been posted!

Thirdly, I've back-posted the two previous posts too, if you're interested.

Now I'm going to continue as if this was a normal post...

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

This month it's back to one FFO, which is the the January Biscornu.

This was my first attempt at a biscornu, and certainly won't be my last. I think I may have pulled the whip stitching a bit tight, and overstuffed it a bit, but it was a learning curve. Here it is:

I've just realised I really should get a side picture of it; I'll try and do that and add it tomorrow.

Now it's over to you.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th October.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

I look forward to seeing your own contributions this month.

Next month's post will go live on 10th November at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Wild Animals

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Wild Animals.

Back in August 2020, the theme of this SAL was 'Freedom' which I interpreted as being wild animals in their natural habitat, so many of my pieces which I would have included here, such as elephants, dolphins, koalas and pandas, have already been shown.

So, I'm going to think smaller; animals that live in the wild, but aren't particularly 'wild'.

Let's start off with five Harvest Mice, or rather the story of one mouse who likes more than a little bit to eat!

Or how about six little Woodland Folk by DMC. Toby, Ollie, Bert, Frankie, Molly and Sally aren't exactly intimidating, but they're still wild:

As are these Red Foxes from the Young'uns collection by Gloria and Pat. They look so cute, and since urban foxes can be quite 'tame' it's sometimes hard to accept they are actually wild (apart from when they howl or fight outside my house in the middle of the night!)

Finally, I'm going back to big wildlife with an I-wouldn't-touch-this-with-a-bargepole chart... The Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart, available where else but HAED. Like some other similar Aimee Stewart pictures, I might buy this as a print.

Next month's theme is Travel... I quite fancy a trip around the world!

Take care,

Rachel x