An update.. at last... post, TUSAL, finish and WIP

First I'm going to start with what arrived in the post the day before yesterday - all the lovely stuff you can see in the photo above! I used the 10 USD gift certificate at 123stitch I was given for winning one of the #stitchingpirates competitions to help pay for it so was able to get more for my money.

What I got:

• 2 Mills Hills appliqué beading needles
• Thread Worx overdyed floss (5 yard) in Wild Fires (1107), War Paint (1151), and Dreamscape (1053)
• Caron Watercolours Lexi's Blue (289)
• Kreinik silk Mori milk paint (5.5 yard) Very Dark Hemlock (0416)
• Mill Hills Glass Beads (Size 11/0) Gold
• Weeks Dye Works  (5 yards) Trick or Treat  (4101)
• Kreinik Blending Filament Peacock (085) 
• Kreinik Cord Vatican Gold (102C) 
• Kreinik 1/16" Ribbon  Emerald High Lustre (009HL)
• And behind it all in all it's blazing glory from the sales section:  a 13 x 18" picture this plus solar 16 ct aida

It was wonderful opening it and in the end the biggest disappointment of it all was that it turned out that the weeks dye works thread is not colour fast. I mean seriously - whoever thought that thread you can't wash is a good idea? I wash everything after making it to make sure it's all nice and clean before taking photo's and generally most things I make will end up being something that needs to be able to be washed . If I'd know the thread was this useless to me I'd never have bought it even though the colours is fantastic and looks amazing.

So if you want to wash something do NOT get Weeks Dye Works threads as it will not have a happy ending.

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I am very embarrassed to have to admit that I have yet again let the posting of my TUSAL jars fall by the wayside along with my blog. My last TUSAL post was in February and as of this moment I still don't have any photo's as I keep forgetting to do them while there still is enough light to see them. I will make a proper post about them soon.

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I did manage to have a finish while I was "away" - finished on Saturday the 14th June is the embroidery my bf gave me on May 1st. Normally something this small would be finished much faster but it was a struggle due to my health issues. I also added 3 extra lines of stitching as the frame it came with fit exactly around the sides but not at the top and bottom so looked odd - nothing I did made it fit even after that so the photo was made without the frame.

The pattern is of  Dashwood Mausoleum with the church behind it. It's 78 x 51 stitches 9 1/4 cm x 14 1/4 cm / 3 5/8"x 5 5/8"done on 14 ct white Aida. I can't remember how many colours it has I'm afraid.

Doing the "large" expanses of blue almost did my head in and I only had enough blue to add 1 extra line so I had to get creative and add the other two lines at the bottom using the greens - I think it worked out pretty well as it's hard to see where the pattern left off and my addition starts.

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This is my current WIP - I'm not going to say too much about it right now as it's pretty obvious what it's going to be. I will say that the large background is doing my head in a bit less than the blue of the finish as the colour changes and it's nice to see hoe it looks as the colour change happens.