Stitching progress

Before knitting came along,  stitching was my main crafty thing. Of late it has fallen by the wayside for a variety of reasons - mainly hand problems and the addictive properties of sock and shawl knitting.  After seeing the Prestonpans tapestry, I had an urge to stitch this past weekend and even finished a few things.

A little hardanger embroidery book mark.  This went much better than my previous attempts at this type of embroidery

A little hedgehog in satin stitch with french knots

And I finished a Shepherds bush scissor fob that I started ages ago.

Here's the front

and the back

I then moved on to some finishing, sewing together the Trick or treat sacoche that I finished a few years ago.

Hopefully this wanting to stitch feeling will stick around for a little longer as I have a lot of projects I would like to stitch.

Weekend update and some shameless begging

This weekend has been lovely and relaxing. The west of Scotland is currently having a little spell of lovely summer weather which is happily happening whilst I'm off work. Today I've spent most of the day at my parents' house sitting in their garden, enjoying the weather.



They have a little garden room thing in their rather small and wild garden, which is absolutely stuffed with plants. At the moment, they also have family of Blue tits in a nesting box in the eaves of their house. The chicks are about to fledge out of the nest and its been lots of fun to watch them sticking their little heads out plus watching their parents try to keep up with their food demands. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of them.

Later we had a barbeque and I did a little outdoor knitting whilst everything got going.



Yesterday I was too tired to do anything very much so I ended up stitching for a few hours on the sofa. Rather than work on anything too challenging, I stitched up a Shepherd's bush kit from my stash - Keeping the bees. I'm thinking of finishing this into a pinkeep.



I'm hoping for a lot more stitching and knitting progress whilst I'm off on holiday and I will of course share pictures of the wall hanging that I talked about in my last post once I've seen the finished article.

You might notice that there is a new thing in my blog sidebar just now. My little sister Nicola is running in the Cancer Research race for life next weekend. She's been training for quite a few months now and has done so well. She started coming to the gym with me around this time last year after she stopped smoking and I'm very proud of her. Cancer has affected her life with her FIL being diagnosed with cancer and nearly dying just before her planned wedding date. Thankfully her FIL is still alive and fighting cancer as is a favourite Uncle of ours who was diagnosed with lung cancer over 5 years ago. Advances in treatment have meant that our Uncle is still alive today to meet his first Great grandchild, who was born last year. This is especially amazing given that he was given 18 months to live at diagnosis. So if you can spare a few pennies, I would really appreciate a donation. I see how cancer changes lives everyday at work so its a cause that is close to my heart. Unfortunately I can't be there in person to see her run but I wish her, and the hundreds of other people who have given up their time to run, lots of luck.

A variety of finishes and some progress pictures

I've been catching up this evening with some of the things I've been making lately. First up, a finish from last month, Violets by Shepherd's bush. I'm not sure as yet how I'm going to finish it.



At the weekend, I made one of my previous finishes into a biscornu. The design is a freebie that I got with a package of Dinky dye fibres from West End embroidery at the Harrogate show a couple of years ago.



A couple of weekends ago, I made my first visit to a new and very lovely bead shop that has opened in Glasgow along with a couple of people from my knitting group. Its a fabulous shop and I'm planning a return visit soon. Whilst I was there, I picked up some purple beads that I've made into elasticated bracelet. You can see two of them below.



Whilst I was there, I also bought a watch face, some glass beads and silver spacers that became this watch and bracelet set. Its a slightly late Mother's day present for my mum which I hope she like. She doesn't read my blog so its safe to share here.



In my goals post, I mentioned that I've made some progress on Autumn watergarden and Japanese Octagon box so I thought I'd share some progress pictures. I'm enjoying my stitching again thankfully.





Not much else going on here. I'm working this weekend on night shift then flipping back on to day shift on Tuesday, which I am very unimpressed about but I'm off work the following week. On Wednesday, I saw my GP and I've got sinusitis, which would account for the facial pain and general washed out feeling I've had lately. I have some antibiotics to take which are making me feel pretty sick but at least they are helping.

Sunday stitching progress and some goals

Lately the title of this blog has been a bit deceptive as there's not been a lot of stitching going on around here. The yarn and knitting projects have been calling pretty loudly. My stitching WIP list is huge though so I've been spending a little time stitching this week.

I managed to finish one of my WIPs, Spooky spots by Shepherds Bush.



I did start another project though - Autumn Watergarden by Chatelaine designs. I moderate two forums on the Chatelaine BB and one of them is for this design so I thought I'd better get cracking with the stitching as I'm already a little behind. I've only managed a little bit so far as I had to buy some threads to go any further.



Finally I've been spending a little time working on another WIP also by Chatelaine designs - Japanese Octagon box. The bit I'm currently working on is the side of the box. I might make this my stitching focus for a while as I really want this finished and on display.



I'm going to try setting myself some goals for this month to see if it will help me make more progress on the things I want to do.

This month I'm hoping to

1. Finish my Central Park Hoodie - I only have a little bit of each sleeve, the hood and the button bands to do so its achievable.

2. Finish one pair of socks currently on the needles - again achievable as I'm on the second sock of one pair

3. Stitch at least the first part of Autumn Watergarden

4. Finish stitching the box side of Japanese Octagon box and make a start on at least one more section.