Gifted Gorgeousness - December 2022

Hello Dear Readers

Just a little post before Christmas! Probably not the best time to post ….. I know we are all so very busy!

So sorry if I haven’t been able to comment on your post. Blogger changed a little while ago, and I’m not sure if my old blogging friends will all see my posts as Blogger stopped sending notification emails to followers, so I hope you will have found me via my blogging friends Blog Lists. Google now asks one to sign in on some blogs, so, as I am not very computer orientated it makes it impossible for me to comment …..

Anyway, I digress, back to the subject - Gifted Gorgeousness is where we share photos of gifts received and given. See who is joining in, and maybe you’d like to join in too, over at Serendipidous Stitching. 

Firstly, I can show you the completed alphabet letters I sent to Clare of Ametu’s Stitching for her church’s Annual Christmas Tree festival (read about the festival here).  The “B” is stitched on pale green which, sadly, is so hard to photograph, and the “E” on tea dyed fabric. (Clare’s photos are much better than mine!!!)

All of us who sent letters of the alphabet to Clare left them unfinished so she was able to finish them in one style before they went on the tree. I do hope you will pop over to see everyone’s stitching. The Trees all look magnificent. 

-ooo-

Also this month, I finished stitching a second “Bees” by Melisa - forgot to take a photo, if you need a reminder you can see the first one I stitched on this previous GG post and then gifted this month’s “bees” to a friend at my handicraft group along with the yellow check fabric I used for the first finish (as my friend wanted to make “bees” into a gift for a friend of hers). 

-ooo-

I’ve encouraged a few ladies at my handicraft group to try cross stitching this year and one of them gave me this cute card, saying she was thinking of me as she stitched it.  Thank you so much, Peggy, if you’re looking in. 

-ooo-

Another friend at Handicrafts bought in some fabrics she wasn’t going to use, and I thought they might be useful in finishing one of my Christmas decorations:

This same lady decided cross stitch isn’t for her, sadly, and so kindly gave me this kit ….. although stitching with gold is not my favourite, so I will have to see whether I will actually stitch these.  However our club has a big anniversary next March and if I don’t use it it might be a little something for the sales table.  

Anyway, I must go now. I’m off to see whose blogs I can comment on!

I’ll be back before long with my post about tea dying. Oh, and I’m going to try changing my header photo too. I might not be able to because I’m using my iPad mostly now and I’m not sure it will accept my edited photo. 

If I don’t return before Christmas do have a super one and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing your blogs too in the New Year. 

So,

Here’s wishing you a

Very Happy Christmas,

and

A Peaceful 2023

Hugs,

Barbara xxx

GG - Birds and things

 Hello Dear Reader.

Hello my lovely friends, today I'm joining Jo of Serendipitous Stitching for Gifted Gorgeousness where we shoehorn in any stitching that even remotely comes under the title of "gift"!  Read all about it on Jo's blog (Serendipitous Stitching) and to see what everyone else has stitched visit Jo HERE

-oooo-

Aaaaargh! Last post I asked for help with line spacing and the lovely Jo (yes, same Jo as mentioned above) told me how to do it! And what have I done? Only forgotten to put the code before I started typing! Aaargh! Must try and remember next time!

-oooo-

It was only as I started to type this post that I realised there were a few birds involved, and I will start with this Robin!

This is the letter "E" that I tried to stitch for Jo's last Blog Hop ..... but didn't leave enough time to fully finish - now finished, although not Fully Finished Off..

Pattern from CrossStitcher Magazine

( Issue 351 Dec 2019 )

Stitched on: tea dyed aida

And, just because I love the Robin here's a close-up

This is included in Gifted Georgeousness because I am going to send it to Claire of Aimetu's Stitching for the Annual Christmas tree she displays in her church, although it won't be leaving me just yet as I want to stitch a second letter.to accompany it!

-oooo-

Secondly - oh no! I've just realised the photo doesn't show the little bird very well! But anyway the pattern for this was one of the very generous freebies from the lovely Melisa of Pinker & Punkin Quilting.

"A Basket of Spring"

Tea Dyed Aida

Pattern : Melisa of Pinker & Punkin Quilting

At the time of writing this post we had a beautiful pheasant visiting us and I kept trying to take a photo but every time is saw me in the window it flew off!!!!

As you can see, this time was no different!

-oooo-

And lastly, and only because this shows a bird, - here is my "current stitching". coming along slowly.

Oh, and here is another visit from that elusive bird, but why does he have to stand with one foot in the water bowl?????? Funny critta!

And here we are - hiding again!

Oops, and "just because" another project I've been working on lately - until I found I've run out of one of the colours!!!! 

Right, I'm off to visit a few blogs now, and maybe stitch a few stitches later!

Hope you are having a lovely weekend!

Hugs,

Barbara xxx

Gifted Georgeousness - Feb/Mar

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for visiting today.

It was great fun joining in with Jo’s blog hop in my previous post, but I'm sorry I might not have visited/replied to everyone, and consequently I felt too guilty to write another blog post until today!

 This was my stitching, which appeared on Astrid’s blog -  still awaiting FFO'ing. 

Free kit from CrossStitcher magazine

And the beautiful stitching I received, which you saw on my previous post, was from Felicia of Simplicity in Beauty.com.

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Today I'm excited to show you two little projects:

I'm hoping to link to Gifted Gorgeousness - visit Jo of Serendipitous Stitching to read all about it.

The first is one I've had in my Books file for simply ages! I actually never thought I'd stitch it because most of the colours are simply not my style and I had to buy new cottons specially.  So this is Sister Stitcher.  It is a free pattern from Isabella Abbiati of The Primitive Hare. 

I really enjoyed stitching it, such cute little characters! I used all the called for colours (in DMC), fabric from stash -  really old stuff  -  it's something rustic, I think 18hpi.

I was trying to find a good way to show my tiny stitches, although I'm not sure it helped much!

Not quite sure how I'm going to finish it but it is going to be a gift!

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and this little card is a gift I received from Val of www.fabricandcrafts.co.uk @val_fabricandcrafts 

(although I didn't have the pattern and stitched it from the cover photo of the kit).

As it happened it was just right to send
to my mum for Mothers Day  

Before I sealed it into the card for posting!

Well that's all for now, I will be back with some WIPocolypse stitching soon!

Barbara xxx

Oooh, one more thing:

Beautiful little
gift I received from a lovely
stitching friend (not a blogger)

 

WIPocolypse

Hello stitching buddies, old and new!

I've not been here for so long I didn't know how to start up again! 

So ........ I'm just going to jump in and say that I have been stitching lots of cross stitch last year and most of it is over on Instagram - you can find me there as "flashinscissors"

I didn't manage to finish any WIPs last year thanks to my Cancer, and hospital appointments.. I mainly stitched small cross stitch projects that I could carry with me. and for WIPocolypse this year I am going to try to finish a few of those things I started in 2021:

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In the days before my operation I quickly half-made a little bag with the aim of having something with me, to finish in hospital! Although, of course, I wasn't able to do much ...... mostly I slept! But using a big stitch and DMC random thread I was able to stitch the lining in place around the top and finish a row of stitches around the handles. 

I intended stitching some tiny embroideries to decorate the bag.  Crabapple Studios were running a SAL on Instagram at the time I made my bag, with a free download of patterns of tiny embroideries.  I didn't join in at the time because I was mainly stitching the tiny monthly cross stitch calenders from CrossStitcher magazine, for my monthly page markers on Instagram and so this year I aim to stitch those darling little embroideries from Crabapple Studios  

 

Then later last year I started making another larger bag ..... to carry all the paraphenalia I would want with me when I went for my Chemopherapy. Ha ha, of course Chemo has been and gone and the bag is still not finished. There probably isn't much more to do either .....

Then, of course a WIPocolypse post wouldn't be complete without this project I've been stitching for many years, it is getting closer to a finish, ha ha!

Cocoa Sampler

And I have already started a couple of new projects this year!

This will be a scarf/wrap/sweater

Most evenings I've been knitting the scarf/wrap thing as I'd like to finish it while its still chilly weather, but it's slow going.  I need to knit until it's 52" long and I'm about half-way. So I'm investigating different ways of speeding it up - Continental Knitting and ....... oops sorry this is probably too much for today so maybe there will be another post about this soon! (Well OK soonish)

"Snow Place Lke Home"
From CrossStitcher magazine - Jan 2021

 I've even started knitting socks now

Who knows, maybe I'll do better at finishing this year!?!?

Happy 2022 everyone!, 

Hugs,

Barbara xxx! 

Now I'm off to visit some of you. See you soon!!!.