Mike's Mushrooms - Update 3 & IHSW

As you can see I got a fair bit of progress done since I updated on Sunday, even though it's not complete you can clearly see where it's going now. The bit I was worried about turned out to be the shadowed part of the stalk of the second mushroom, so that's a bit of a relief hehe. Having done all the "large" bits of colour I decided to just start at the top of the list of colours and work my way down so I don't end up with 20 odd colours with just one or two stitches at the end - something I hated with the last section.


About this project:
This is a "large" and complicated cross stitch project based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct coffee dyed Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for!

The incomplete half of this section is what I managed to do during the IHSW ( I extended it a day hehe), not as much as I'd have liked but I have been plagued by wisdom tooth coming through, which broke a tooth... fortunately today is dentist day (at last!) and I can see what he can do to help me with it - anything is better than having to deal with this pain without being able to take painkillers due to my allergies.

Chicken and bacon burgers

I made this last night as I was in the mood for burgers but didn't have any mince (ground beef) to make it with. It was one of my experimental dishes that the kids LOVED so I thought I'd share it with you.

Ingredients:

• 250 grams / 10 oz chicken breast - diced
• 100 grams / 4 oz bacon (either slices or diced)
• 1 large onion - roughly chopped
• 1 egg
• 50 - 75 grams / 3 - 4 oz breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:

1. Put the chicken, bacon and onions into a food processor and whizz till it's finely chopped and looks like mince (ground chicken)
2. Add an egg and 2/3 of the breadcrumbs
3. Season to taste
4. Whizz a bit more to mix it all in, add more breadcrumbs if it's a bit wet still.
5. Make into patties that are about 10 cm / 4 inches across - I got 7 out of this mix but if you make them larger or smaller you will get more or less burgers.
6. Fry for about 15 minutes in a frying pan (skillet) till brown and cooked through.

As you can see in the photo I served mine with mashed potatoes and tinned carrots and peas (not my favourite thing but I had a tin lurking that needed to be used) You can, of course, also make real burgers with them and put them on bread with a sauce and veg to taste.

Tip: If you make your hands wet before handling the meat to make patties the meat won't stick to your hands.

Mike's Mushrooms - Update 2

I finished the first section of the embroidery and spent quite a bit of time cursing the 1 and 2 stitch's I had to do for some colours as I did so. While I could have left them till I needed the colours later on in the project I really want to just do one section completely before moving on to the next. What can be seen in the completed section is how real it looks - even in such a small section. What you can also see is how odd the next section looks right now - almost as if I've completely ruined things. I certainly hope this isn't the case and have put my trust in the pattern.

You may notice that the colour of my lines are different - this is because someone reminded me that pencil isn't all that easy to remove, especially from between lines of stitching so I've changed to the water soluble pen I had forgotten I had.

About this project:
This is a "large" and complicated cross stitch project based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct coffee dyed Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for

Catching up... *again*

I'm so behind with updating some stuff so I'm just going to make another of my catch up blog posts. First of all the Diary cover you see above. This embroidery started with a little red "starfish" shape and then it took a life of it's own as it slowly evolved to become the heavily embroidered piece that it is now. It became a coral reef - full of life and unexpected things - there are starfish, seaweed, a crab and if you look carefully you may even spot the lobster that somehow ended up there. The red wavy bit at the bottom left is only attached at the bottom - the rest is completely free from the background. The long snakelike thing that curves from the bottom to the top of the piece has over 2000 stitches in it and took me several days to do - it's made with the Casalguidi Stitch. I had a lot of fun making this, it was nice trying out loads of new to me stitches and, as it was made free form, even I didn't know what it was going to look like till it was finished.

It's 4 x 3 1/8 inch / 10 x 8 cm, made on 14 ct black Aida using 5 colours of variegated perle (red, green, blue, orange, yellow), 4 colours DMC colour variations, beads and several kinds of ribbon. I used a total of 25 different stitches to create this, many from Sharon b's Dictionary of Stitches for Hand Embroidery and Needlework and some I found in my ancient copy of Enclyclopedia of needlework by TH. de Dillmont.

I made the embroidery into a cover for my far too pink diary, which I'd only got because I LOVE the (not so pink) interior and I knew I'd eventually get round to making a cover for it.

I used the following stitches:
Basque Stitch
Bullion Knot
Bullion stitch
Buttonhole Bar Stitch
Buttonhole Wheel
Casalguidi Stitch
Cast on stitch
Chain stitch
Coral Stitch
Cretan Stitch
Detached Buttonhole Stitch
Detached Chain Stitch
Double Cast On Stitch
Drizzle Stitch
French knot
Feather stitch
Ghiordes Knot
Knotted Cretan Stitch
Renaissance Stitch
Rosette of Thorns
Scroll Stitch
Sorbello Stitch
Whipped Fly Stitch
Whipped Spiders Wheel
Woven Spiders Wheel

One thing that really surprised me is that this was selected as a Daily Deviation over on deviant art!  There are around 35 volunteers there and they each get to choose something from the section they look after as a one day feature and one of the Artisan Crafts volunteers chose this! Thrilled barely covers how I felt about this when I found out hehe.

Although I haven't mentioned the February TUSAL (see sidebar to the left for a link to the project) yet, I did make my monthly jar. You can see threads from the clown I finished in January, the Elemental biscornus and the Soufflé girl Dalek heart.

And this is the not so late Match TUSAL In it are threads from the Coral reef diary cover, the little end bits one keeps from projects from the colours I used for the Dalek heart that I'd not tidied up on time and got a good soaking from a glass of coke that got knocked over. I'd washed ALL the threads on the spools and rewound them on new ones but just couldn't face all the little bits I'd saved so decided to put them in the jar instead. There are also threads from the start of Mike's Mushrooms.

In case anyone has forgotten it's IHSW weekend! So get stitching!!

I was going to add a recipe to this but have decided to write it up as a separate post instead so it's easier to find later on in time.

Mike's Mushrooms & A Cake

Last Thursday I *finally* got started on the new daunting project. Having seen other people mark the grid on the fabric I decided to give it a go too and see if it helped me as my biggest fear was loosing count and getting things in the wrong place. As it turns out that was a great idea and I have made great progress since then.

I drew a 4 x 4 grid of 10 stitches per square on the fabric, first with blue chalk but that line was too thick so I changed to a pencil instead.

Ironically the first few colours I used were my most hated colour: pink and i started to get really worried that it would be too pink as a result but as I worked and used darker and more orangey colours it stopped looking too pink and now that the rust has been added it looks exactly like it ought to.

Today it  looks like this:

I'm working on the background behind the two mushrooms you can see in the picture (the pink/orange things), starting with black so that all the little bits I have in the pattern will be easier to do.

About this project:
This is a "large" and complicated cross stitch project based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct coffee dyed Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for

To celebrate I baked a cake - vanilla raspberry marble cake with royal icing topping and some marzipan raspberries on top. I didn't make as many as I wanted - my hands were complaining after only starting these few and they aren't all the same size but then raspberries normally aren't .

I used my favourite cake mix for this - half vanilla flavoured and half raspberry, and more or less got the marbling right - I tried using a chopstick to stir with this time - not as effective as a spoon but it did work.

Finish it in 2013 project: February overview and WIP update post

It's the beginning of March and time to write my update post. I've copy/pasted the last post and will be adding updates for each item so you can see before and after pictures showing last months picture and a new on for this month :) I didn't get so much done this month - I was still feeling quickly tired at the beginning of the month - then got hit by a flare up of my rheumatism that especially effected my right index finger and I'm right handed so holding a needle was as good as impossible for almost a week.

New Project:

I am also going to start a "large" and complicated new cross stitch project this year based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for!

In February I dyed the fabric for this using coffee.

Update: I have not done anything else for this yet.

New completed project:

 I made a cover for my diary using 25 different embroidery stitches - a new post with this will follow soon as it's worthy of it's own post.

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The Current WIP's:

Sagittarius star sign by Lanarte - central area complete
Update: No progress made on this.

Air and Earth Biscornu - complete

Update: I finished both biscornu. 

  

8th century tile floor embroidery in greens and blues. 

 Update: I have added a bit more to the top border.

Sampler - started
Update: I am a bit behind with the TAST (see side bar).

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The UFO's:

2 sleeping bunnies - a Priscilla babyland embroidery - about half done but I *so* hate doing 1/4 and 3/4 cross stitches.

Dog embroidery (portrait) made from a photo years ago by a company - about 1/5th done.

Dog embroidery (standing) made from a photo years ago by a company - barely started.

Autumn leaves needle book WIP - embroidery is 1/2 finished.

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The Finishes can be found if you click the tab "2013 finishes" at the top of the page.

Doctor Who gifts

I made this for my bf, who is a big Dr who fan, as a valentines gift - I have given it to him a bit early because he's visiting me right now and I wanted to see his reaction in person, so it's now safe to also post here as he watches this blog too :) It's cross stitch of a Dalek - the soufflé girl one - holding a soufflé. It's made with several embroidery stitches I found over on Sharon b's Dictionary of Stitches for Hand Embroidery and Needlework  It's really great and has lovely clear pictures :) As he's not into pincushions I filled it with rice so he can use it as a paperweight or zap it in the microwave and use as a pocket hand warmer.

Stats:
Size of embroidery before being sewn: 3 1/2" x 3" / 8,9 x 7.6 cm
Fabric: 18 ct Aida, dyed with coffee

The Dalek:
Size: 1 1/8" x 1 1/3" / 2.96 x 3.39 cm
Number of colours: 22

The rest:
Colours used: Misc reds both plain and variegated.

Something else I also made for him is this Tardis biscornu. It's also filled with rice. I started it way back in November but didn't finish it in time to send it for Christmas and then I was ill so I kept it till he came here instead.

Stats:
Size of embroidery before being sewn: 3,3" / 8,5 cm square
Size of completed biscornu (corner to corner as seen in the lower images): 2 1/8" / 5,4 cm square
Fabric: 18 ct Aida

The front:
Colours used: 798 (blue) 310 (black) glow in the dark (E940) and florescent yellow (E980)
Total number of cross stitches: 1144
Total number of backstitches: 392

You can find the pattern here

The back:
Colours used: 798 (blue) for the backstitching and variegated red for the bow ties.
Total number of cross stitches: 36
Total number of backstitches: 216

You can find the pattern here

I used glow in the dark to join the sides together to make the biscornu.

Finish it in 2013 project: January overview and WIP update post

It's the beginning of February and high time I made an update on where I am in the Finish it in 2013 project! I've copy/pasted the first post and will be adding updates for each item so you can see before and after pictures :)

New Project:

I am also going to start a "large" and complicated new cross stitch project this year based on a photograph by a really talented Alaskan photographer who was incredibly kind and said I could make a cross stitch of it. The photographer is Mike Gates, go check out his site - his work is amazing!

The pattern was made for me as a prize for winning a competition on dA. It's 10 inches wide  x 14 1/2 inches high = 180 x 261 stitches on 18 ct Aida and it uses 147 colours. I am truly intimidated but I did ask for the pattern to be as close to the photo as possible and didn't limit size or colours and I certainly got what I asked for!

Update: I have dyed the fabric for this using coffee.

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The Current WIP's:

Sagittarius star sign by Lanarte - central area complete
Update: No progress made on this.

Air and Earth Biscornu -  1st colour (of 4) of the air side done. 

Update:  I finished all 4 sides to make 2 biscornu. This is on hold till I have buttons to finish them with.

8th century tile floor embroidery in greens and blues.  
Update: I have managed to complete 2 sides of this now

Sampler - barely started
Update: I decided to use for the TAST SAL(see sidebar for a link to the project blog) and see if I can make some sort of picture with all the different stitches have done the first 3 weeks so far.

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The UFO's:

2 sleeping bunnies - a Priscilla babyland embroidery - about half done but I *so* hate doing 1/4 and 3/4 cross stitches.

Dog embroidery (portrait) made from a photo years ago by a company - about 1/5th done.

Dog embroidery (standing) made from a photo years ago by a company - barely started.

Autumn leaves needle book WIP - embroidery is 1/2 finished.

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The Finishes can be found if you click the tab "2013 finishes" at the top of the page.

IHSW, TAST, and more

I didn't get as much time as I'd hoped to stitch during the IHSW, nor did I have as much energy as I'd like - I'd seriously underestimated how long it takes to recover from pneumonia and how easily I tire still, which is also why this post is so late - I just have not had the energy left after dealing with everything else.

What I did manage to achieve was a start on a bookmark for a special someone, which I finished last night. The completed bookmark is 7" x 1 " / 17,5 x 2,5 cm. the little blue figure is a Lego minifig the recipient chose from their collection for me to use as the inspiration. He said that he thought the minifig looked dead because of the X eyes and the fact that he's lying down which he thought was extra fun - that's kids for you lol. The name is done with red variegated thread, the rest with standard DMC floss. Made on a scrap of 18 ct Aida.

I sewed one of the two Elements biscornu's together - the fire and water one, which I won't include now as it's not yet got the button on, looks exactly the same as the last one and I'll make a separate post with both of them once completed.

I also cut out 2 cloaks from fleece for the kids that I still need to sew together, and, as there isn't much to look at apart from a pile of fleece I won't be showing photo's of them yet either.

This year I'm joining in with the Take A Stitch Tuesday project where every Tuesday (or almost every Tuesday) a wonderful lady shows how different embroidery stitches are done. Since I want to expand my stitch knowledge this seems like a good thing for me to join in with and hopefully it will be fun to do. One of my many UFO's was a partially finished frame that I couldn't remember what I had started it for. I realised that this would make the perfect frame for me to try and do all the TAST stitches in, hopefully also creating a pretty picture in the process.

 I have already done this weeks stitches for this - not much as I don't want to run out of space prematurely and I can always add more later. I am also working on completing the frame of cross stitching.

Elements biscornu's + IHSW

This weekend is IHSW and, although the kids are home this weekend I still hope to mostly complete the two Elements biscornu's (I still need to buy new buttons for the centres but I'll do that when there is less snow on the ground). I may also finally get round to measuring out the fabric needed for my large project of the year and dying the fabric several shades darker to give it a nice background before I start working on it. 

Not embroidery related but still stitching: I need to appliqué the 12 months of Christmas project circle to a background so I can continue that, this will be done by hand so I also consider this stitching. 

A couple of days ago I made this and uploaded it to deviantArt but was too dead afterwards to also make a post here, so here it is after all:

It's freezing cold outside, with snow ankle deep on the ground and, as I've got pneumonia (on the mend though - the antibiotics seem to be helping), it's best I don't go outside unless it's a dire emergency. However we are running out of bread and don't have enough for lunch, so I had to bake something. Times like this I'm not really up to kneading bread so I dug out my favourite spelt bread recipe which requires no kneading at all!

This recipe is one ANYONE can make as long as you have the ingredients and an oven. The first time I made this I didn't include any of the seeds and it worked nicely as well, though I'd suggest adding a bit of extra flour to compensate for no seeds otherwise it will be too wet.

This time I pulled out all the stops and didn't just add sunflower, sesame seed and linseed but also pumpkin (50 gr) and poppy seed (15 gr) and I scattered sunflower and pumpkin seed on top as well.

I'm really happy how this one came out and can't wait to see the kids reactions when they get home for lunch as they LOVE fresh home made bread

 They did in fact LOVE the bread and it had completely disappeared by the next day!

All 4 sides are now complete. I had to do quite a bit of ripping as I'd miscounted the width of the darker blue one and also miscounted the hight of the green one. as I was lazy and didn't count the fire one but used the green and blue ones as guides I ended up with the fire one being one stitch too high AND one stitch too wide. So out it all came and I re-did the sides I'd miscounted. I also had to do a bit more ripping on two of the spokes of the fire one as I'd missed a corner stitch. After I'd taken the photo's I also noticed that I'd missed a single stitch on the dark blue corner spokes but decided that as it wouldn't be noticeable on the completed product I would leave it as is (on the fire ones it would have been noticeable as the backstitching would have been almost touching in places).

All I need to do to complete these is cut them out, stitch them together and stuff them.

For those of you wondering how my health is: The antibiotics have been doing their job and I'm much better - didn't need any naps today and haven't felt totally exhausted just by being awake and pottering around a little.

Air, earth and water biscornus + TUSAL

I did remember to get the green thread I needed to complete the earth biscornu on the way from the doctors to the pharmacy (I literally have to bike past the shop so didn't go out of my way) so was able to finish the earth biscornu side. I am in the middle of doing the water side of the fire and water biscornu - this time in plain embroidery cotton and not silk. The red backstitching is the frame for the fire side.

I've not been all that well for a while now and the visit to the doctor was to see what was up. Turns out my cold wasn't a cold but pneumonia so I've been told to rest lots and have been given horse sized antibiotics tablets that I somehow have to take (Since I can't swallow pills in general these are impossible so they get broken into 2 halves, crushed into smithereens, mixed with the really sour oj I hate and knocked back like I'm drinking shooters). Resting lots means lots of sleeping and reading/embroidering to me so I'll see how much I get done in the coming days.

It being TUSAL time of the month (see the link in the bar on the left hand side for more info) I've made a photo of the jar I started in December. It contains threads from the clown embroidery I finished and the air, earth and water biscornus I have been working on. Not as much as previous months but well.. I also do other stuff hehe.

Air and earth biscornu: Update

Things are progressing on the biscornu front - or at least they were till I ran out of the darkest green (699) that I'm using. You may notice that the X is missing from the top right corner - that's because I just ripped it out due to me forgetting to do the first stitch on the corner, as I'd only removed the stitches in the corner I had to fiddle with the ends to tidy up the ends.

I need to go close to the shop where I can get more thread tomorrow morning so I've decided to wait till then to get more. In the mean time I'll start work on the fire and water #2 as the first will be heading to a certain someone in Alaska soon ;-)

Stats:
Size of embroidery before being sewn : 2 1/4" / 5,75 cm square
Size of completed biscornu will be approx.: 1 1/2" / 4 cm square
Fabric: 18 ct Aida

The Air side:
Colours used: ecru, 3753 (light blue), 932 (slightly darker blue) and 931 (darkest blue)
Total number of cross stitches: 632
Total number of backstitches: 488

The Earth side:
Colours used: 722 (lightest green), 703 (light green), 701 (slightly darker green) and 699 (darkest green)
Total number of cross stitches: 632
Total number of backstitches: 404

12 Months of Christmas

Introduction:

 I can hear you thinking "what on earth is she talking about? Christmas was last month, it doesn't last all year!" and you are entirely correct, it doesn't last all year. What this is, is a new plan of mine that I thought of because I was disappointed that I just didn't find enough time in the run up to Christmas to make some additional Christmas decorations as I had planned. So, I thought to myself, "What can I do to have the additional home made decorations without running out of time?" And the answer was actually quite simple: make something each month during the year. Each month I hope to find time to make something new and I will share the result. If I create the pattern myself I will also share it, otherwise I will direct you to where I got the idea/pattern from, however the plan is to think of each months creation myself. 

Some things I've been thinking of making but never got round to:

• Place mats 
• Additional baubles 
• Wall hanging (this might take more than a month) 
• A new door wreath (can't use real foliage due to allergies) 
• Napkins (Christmas deserves real fabric napkins) 
• Napkin rings/holders

Since I'm all about using what I already have as much as possible I'll certainly delve into the boxes of bits and pieces I've collected over the years, not to mention my rather sizeable fabric, bead and thread stash. I'll be sewing, quilting, embroidering and who knows what else to make these projects and my hope is that I don't need spend a penny on the projects and that I can do them all from my stash.

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The First project:

I had a 16 inch wide x width of fabric striped Christmas fabric that inspired me to start project 1 - what will probably become a tree skirt. I cut it using a 9 degree circle wedge template and cut it in such a way that the pattern continued all the way round the circle - a rather wasteful way of cutting BUT it achieved the pattern I wanted. This is what the fabric looked like while cutting:

I only wish my fabric had been wider - just a few more inches would have meant I could get 10 slices out of the width instead of 8 making it a 1/4 per run of cuts that I got out of the fabric which then in turn would have meant I got a nice complete pattern all the way round. Halfway sewn - you can see how much smaller it gets when the seam allowance is used:

And this is them all sewn together - to make a full circle I'd have needed 40 sections but I only got 38 from the fabric.:

At the moment it's on my bed with different fabrics underneath while I decide what borders to give it as it's a bit too short to cover up the basket my fake tree sits in.

As you can see it's a really effective way of using a striped fabric and really easy too!

Air and Earth Biscornu - Side 1: Air complete.

Today I finally finished the air side of the second biscornu. This one took quite a bit longer to make than the last one - mostly because I didn't do much embroidery over Christmas.

Stats:
Size of embroidery before being sewn : 2 1/4" / 5,75 cm square
Size of completed biscornu will be approx.: 1 1/2" / 4 cm square
Fabric: 18 ct Aida

The Air side:
Colours used: ecru, 3753 (light blue), 932 (slightly darker blue) and 931 (darkest blue)
Total number of cross stitches: 632
Total number of backstitches: 324 +  164 around the edges (still to do)

First Finish of the year: UFO #9 - Clown

This is my first Finish of the year and also the first finish for the Finish It In 2013 Project

It had gone unfinished for 2 reasons:
1. When I was originally working on it I made a mistake in counting and this is probably why I chucked it aside. I had, of course, forgotten this by the time I got round to working on it again so I adjusted the pattern a little to "fix" the issues as I worked on it, as there was no way I was going to rip anything out.
2. I had lost the pattern so thought I couldn't finish it till I had a good look at the cover image of the kit and realised that the picture showed the crosses well enough and, as I still had the threads that went with the kit, I could finish it after all.

It's not perfect but it's done and that to me is the most important bit for this particular project.

The stats:
Size: 3 3/9 inch x 3 6/8 inch / 8,5 x 9,5 cm
Aida: 14 ct / 5 squares per cm
Colours: 14 not sure which though as the packet doesn't say.