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Monday 27 June 2016

Not Much to Show for a Busy Weekend

Mostly because I've been concentrating on my Brooke's Book's letter for next Saturday's Alphabet Club post.  Here's a sneak peek:


You can really see the weave of the afghan in that photo.  The natural blocks are actually over three threads but I'm stitching over two.  Which makes counting fun!

I did some more of my Teresa Wentzler dragons, You Were Hatched:

stitched on 28 count lilac evenweave.

I've completed all the blue now and the green is next, four shades of pistachio.

I've also been buzzing on my Just Nan for the evenings, Big Bee, Little Bee:

stitched on 28 count evenwweave

One beehive done, three to go!  You may remember that Kim sent me a bee-themed parcel as part of her Big Birthday RAKs.  Well, since then I have noticed so many bee charts and designs!  Including this new one from La Comtesse, based on a poem by Emily Dickinson:


Talking of freebies, Passione Ricamo always releases a Fairy Silhouette for Fairy Day on 24th June.  This year Laura has put together a celebratory e-book with all the previous designs and the new one for this year.  I've only stitched one of them but I'm itching to stitch another!


I also discovered that Rainbow Gallery have reorganised their freebies into a single document for each year.  You can find them all here.  They do needlepoint freebies too.  Alot of the cross stitch designs are a monthly series.  Christine had another of her brilliant ideas inspired by my Reindeer Cube.  She suggested I do a monthly series and make a dodecahendron out of them.  She truly is an evil genius!  She's even started on her desert lair.

I do need a recommendation from you all.  I want to stitch an alphabet in black and heard someone talk about Weeks Dye Works' Peacoat being a nice variegated black.  It looks more blue in the photo but I know it's hard to take good pictures of colours.  Can anyone recommend a subtle variegated black or confirm that the WDW is a good one?  Thank you!

Pea Coat

Finally, the Small Boy is proving his worth and providing for his family already.  These are potatoes grown at school.  Planted, watered and dug up with his own fair hands.  And his t-shirt from the looks of it!  We had them for tea with some chicken (not provided by the school, they don't do animal husbandry until college!) and they were delicious.


26 comments:

D1-D2 said...

You have more to show than me and I had a long weekend :P It's nice that they have a vegetable garden at their school. I think I would be less squeamish about bugs if I learned to garden at an early age.

Kerryp77 said...

You gave been a busy bee Jo, I'm liking the bee themed designs about at the moment. The dragon is coming along nicely. You seem to have made lots of progress. I did chuckle at Christine's suggestion in your last post. If anyone can do it its you!

Loretta @ Stitching the Night Away said...

You definitely have more to show for the weekend than I do, and yet somehow I'm still exhausted on Monday :-p

Bea said...

Looks like a fair bit of progress to me. Hatched is looking good and nice progress with your bee stitch. I think having a school garden(s?) is a great idea and that's a nice looking harvest.

rebelrosecreations@gmail.com said...

Beautiful stitching! Always look forward to your post. Happy Stitching!
http://christiescrossstitchcreations.blogspot.com/

gracie said...

I know about all the bee stuff...I forgot, but someone else stitched this Just Nan bee pattern...love it! Great potatoes.

rosey175 said...

My weekend involved ignoring the tiny needles in favor of the bigger, knitty kind. What is wrong with me lately! The fairy day freebies are nice and so are the regular freebies! I have seen Passione Ricamo designs before but never knew the name, thank you~ :D

What's taters, precious?! I like that your son has a veggie garden to play with! We only grew a starter seed of some random plant in a little plastic cup haha.

Barb said...

Congratulations to the Small Boy, his potatoes look great! Looks like lots of pretty stitching.

Preeti said...

lovely stitching projects! Your boy got a great harvest, Good job!!

Christine said...

Mine is an evil laugh

Mini said...

If this is what you call not much to show, I'm ashamed to show mine.
Good progress on the 3 WIPs. Sorry can't help much with hand dyed fibre choices.
Thanks for the links to the freebies.
Congrats to Small boy for his first harvest..so much that you can make from Potatoes.

KimM said...

Lol! Happy to know I've ignited your inner "bees" 😃 I've never seen the fairy silhouettes, I'm going to pop over and investigate.
Hugs
xxx

Rhona said...

Great stitching!
The potatoes look great....what a great thing to do in school.

Tiffstitch said...

Beautiful work on everything! Thanks for the updates on the sites as well. I've used Black Crow by TGA I think? and that was a nice subtle variegated black. I might have a spare skein if you want to try it out first.

Linda said...

Nice progress and finish Jo. Great new charts.

Linda

Unknown said...

Those potatoes look incredible. What a great thing to do in school Love those freebies, thanks for sharing.

Sarah in Stitches said...

Lovely stitching! Those potatoes look lovely too :D

Heather said...

Beautiful stitching I don't envy you the afghan counting! Great potatoes :). How old is he? I'm thinking I have some students his age :)

Justine said...

I love that Just Nan piece, and your freebie fairy. Lovely stitching! The taters look delicious!

Leonore Winterer said...

That is what you call not much to show? I call that MUCH to show! Great progress, I think I'd go crazy trying to stitch over 2 threads on 3 thread blocks.
Doing a dodecahendron (learned a new word! Yay!) from a monthly series is what I am planning to do with Magical's ornaments of the month from last year, although I heven't quite found out how to do that yet. But I still have four left to stitch so I'm not in a hurry just yet.
Lastly, on the varingate black, I have used two so far: Carriage Black by Gently Art and Kohl black by WDW. I liked the Kohl a bit better but the both turned out really nice, they have been used on my two Frosted Pumpkin Halloween Samplers :)

Katie said...

Beautiful stitching. The potatoes look yummy indeed.

gominam said...

Beautiful stitching as always. That's a good potato harvest, well done young man:)

Brigitte said...

You were stitching on a lot of things, Jo, which gives you a lot of variety in your stitching. I love that as well, so I never get bored. That afghan fabric looks very interesting., and it's even more interesting that you stitch over two threads on it. You certainly have to pay more attention to stitching on this fabric than on an even weave.
There are so many bee charts out there right now, all sorts of styles. I also have a small folder where I keep some that I found in my stash. But I don't know when I will get to them :)

Julie said...

The growing projects that are happening are so fabulous to get young ones interested in food growing. Our community allotment project has some youngsters involved with it, their thirst for seeing seedlings grow is fabulous.

Stitching Noni said...

Bees and Fairies.... what more do you need!
Well done on the little ones bringing home the potatoes!! :o)
Thanks for the link the ebook!
hugs xx

The Crafty Princess said...

Oh man I really don't know how you use the afghan weave. That would seriously do my head in so I bow to you for managing to stitch on it and so beautifully too. Sorry but I can't help with the WDW question. I haven't used it or anything similar.
xoxo Alicia