Tons of Tiny

I'm a bit late posting this but I didn't want to do 2 posts on the same day. Tons of Tiny is a project to get those tiny projects in your stash done - and then send the pattern (in a usable state) to someone else.

Anyone reading my blog will already have seen my 2 Tons of Tiny entries, they are both my own pattern that I share with anyone who downloads the pattern. I do however have a bunch of older small patterns from kits I have done previously that I am going to be sending out to people. Please note that they were coloured in with pencil as I did the patterns and although I have done my best to remove it, it might show a bit still.

Editing to add:  I found out that my Death of Rats also counts for this so I'm adding him in here too, you can read about him in the next post.

This month I'm offering 3 floral patterns to brighten up the dreary winter days. I don't know abut you but I'm longing for warmer weather and being able to open the back door and leave it open for a while without freezing my toes off.

Lanarte "Life style collection"  Quick and easy - Daffodils. Colour key with DMC threads.
Size:  45 stitches wide by 62 stitches high, 16 colours.
Note: there is the word "Narcissus" in backstitch on the pattern to the right that I did not include here.

Penelope counted cross stitch kit - Floral Urn. Design by Mary Hickmott. Colour key with Anchor threads
Size: 41 stitches wide by 55 stitches high, 7 colours.
Notes: No back stitch. The original pattern calls for pink to be used, due to my aversion to pink I replaced it with yellow in my embroidery.

Permin of Copenhagen "quick kit" - Dog Rose. Colour Key with DMC threads
Size: 30 stitches wide by 45 stitches high.
Note: The edge of the paper is somewhat torn but not on the side of the pattern, I *think* this kit didn't have one of those sorting cards and I may have made holes to keep the thread sorted instead, at which point it may have become torn in one place.

I will be sending one of these to 3 people, just comment with which one you'd like and I'll get in touch with the new homes for snail mail addy's some time next week. Please note that you are only supposed to request one of these if you are planning on making it yourself as part of the Tons of Tiny project, these patterns are not for resale!

If more than one person asks for the same pattern I'll write the names on a bit of paper, drop them in a jar and let one of the kids pull a name.

WIPocalypse - January, new finishes and more

 

I am (of course) running late with this, but then it's still January so it's not *that* late hehe. I'm going to try and do this properly this year, so not just a list of what I've done but also answering the question/doing the topic of the month. This month's topic is: "Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year!"

I go as either Magical or Magical525 online. I am a 45 (yikes) mother of 2 boys, one of which is, at 13, now taller than I am by more than a head with the appetite to match which means I have effectively given up trying to cook enough to have leftovers as, cue to his appetite, there are rarely any leftovers. My youngest son is still 11 and despairs at ever being taller than I am - ha!

I tend to have phases of when I do crafts, currently it's cross stitch and crochet but, as you can tell from my blog name, it is also on occasion quilting, though I do that a lot less at the moment. No matter which craft I do I tend to not only follow patterns but also go my own way and create my own, some patterns you can find on this blog (along with a bunch of recipes) and my latest series of patterns are being hosted over on Nerd Central Command International Headquarters These patterns are part of a SAL and have also led to my first two finishes of the year!

Allow me to take a moment from the WIPocalypse to introduce my SAL: Ornament of the Month Which is a year long stitch along that gives you the pattern of a new ornament every month so that by next Christmas you will have 12 new ornaments for your tree - or a garland, or a wall hanging as I have given a pattern to combine all 12 ornaments into a single wall hanging if you don't want ornaments.

The ornament is made with the border from the wall hanging to make it a little bit different and larger, it's 3" on each side and was made with 3 colours of DMC and craft thread for the hanging loop and tassel.

The garland section you see below was made using the pattern for the ornament, the loops to the side will be used to join the sections together much like how you would loop a thread onto a needle to stop the thread slipping when using metallics. The finished size of the ornament is 2 1/4 "

Both were made on 16ct antique white Aida, the colour difference is due to the top ornament being photographed in artificial light and the bottom one in daylight.

Back to WIPocalypse stuff...

In my last post I wrote a quick list of things I want to work on this year:

• Mike's Mushrooms - it's in dire need of a bit more love and some more being stitched on it.
• TW's Castle Ridge - a new start for the year and I want to finish it this year too.
• My ornament SAL - I want to stitch them up myself too and make examples of how to finish them.
• More TW - not sure what but it will happen.
• The Christmas tree tea cosy - will need to buy thread for that though.
• The cutlery WIP needs finishing.

Now I will take a while to show where they are now and explain more as needed.

Mike's Mushrooms:

I have not worked on this at all since my last post with a photo of it in, which was may 20th of last year. It really needs a bit more work done to it, so my goal for this year is to at least finish the 400 x 400 stitches bit of marked fabric to make this section square. I would however like to get a bit more than just that done.

Teresa Wentzler's Castle Ridge

This was my Christmas present to myself which I started just after midnight on January 1st I did some stitching on it before setting it aside to work on the Ornament of the Month ornaments I made. I bought a kit as I wanted to do this the way Teresa planned. It's 18 ct Antique Aida, 90 x 126 stitches and will be 5" x 7" / 12,7 cm x 17,8 cm when complete. There are only 24 colours of DMC in the kit but Teresa has, as she always does, made that stretch to create 32 colours.

Last night I picked it up again and went from having about 50 stitches done to who knows how many (I'm not a stitch counter - sorry) that you can see in the photo to the left. I had a go at thread gridding - it didn't go entirely to plan as you can tell by the fact that only the bottom left hand corner is marked, but it's even and that's more important.

I have decided to work on the rocks at the bottom first, then move onto the castle.

I hope to complete this embroidery this year.

My ornament SAL

You will have read about my SAL above so I won't repeat myself hehe. My plan is to complete one hanging ornament and one garland ornament a month around the time I post the next pattern. They will all be done on the same fabric using 3 colours of DMC.

The Christmas tree tea cosy

This is a project that I've been wanting to do since I saw it in a magazine in the 80's - this year I WILL make it happen! I have the fabric for it at last (it was discontinued) and all I need to do now is buy thread for the project and make it.

The cutlery sampler

This is a Lanarte kit I got for myself last November
It will be 6 x 7 3/4"/ 15 cm x 20 cm and is made on a 27 ct (according to the packet) cotton evenweave. So far I have done 2 of 6 pieces of cutlerry and then there is a border - it should have "Forks and Spoons" backstitched at the top and bottom but I don't see me doing that - I am probably going to use the side borders at the top and bottom instead.
 
 I hope to complete this embroidery this year.

The jasmine spray

 For some reason I thought I had a lot more to do on this but it appears that "all" I have to do is rip out the backstitching I don't like because it doesn't show at all, which means that the petal lines do not show and it all merges into one, and redo it.

This is also an embroidery I wish to complete this year - this month even if I can make myself do it, as for some reason thought I love the colours and love the photo in the magazine I got this from, I have grown to really dislike this piece.

 

The border of the week sampler

In The Netherlands "randje per week"  has become a bit of a thing. It's a SAL where you are given 2 or more borders a week to add to a long strip of fabric - or a length of edging fabric. It started last year and really took off with a fb group being made and even meets. Last years patterns will be made into a book but for another couple of months you can download the weekly patterns from the blog. They are continuing this SAL this year.

The interesting thing about this SAL is that ALL the borders are taken from old samplers made by people, often school girls, to learn the patterns. I love that they not only give the pattern but, on a second blog, they give all the information of where the pattern came from.

I will be making my version on a larger piece of light brown Jobelan, probably using my Cosmo variegated threads. My plan is to attempt to keep up but I will see how it goes as I am still at the hemming the fabric stage.

Celtic Wolf

The dA group Stitching Pirates is hosting a competition:  TRIBAL AND TOTEMIC CONTEST. For my entry I will be making a Celtic style wolf. This will need to be finished before the end of march so I need to hurry up and decide what fabric to make it on.

More TW

I'm not entirely sure which of the many smaller TW patterns I will do but my plan is to slowly work my way through them.

This is my list for now, hopefully my list will not grow by too much.

A new year - and perhaps a new beginning

It's that time of year when everyone posts about their hopes and dreams and plans for the year to come, I'm no different as I want to make an overview of which SAL's I want to join in with - and also post a bit about the SAL I'm running myself.

A SAL? I hear you ask..

Yes indeed! This year I'm going to host a SAL over on NCC International Headquarters where I will post a new ornament pattern every month - the first one is up already!

 

TUSAL

Although I've not been too good at posting pictures of my jars I've been good and made a new jar every month, some fuller than others but I have kept them all and will continue to do this.

IHSW

Another SAL I've not posted as much about as I should have last year but I certainly made a point of stitching every time and joining in with a hangout chat with some friends so we can chat, stitch, show stuff off and generally behaving as if we are at a stitching bee.

WIPocalypse

I've been kinda doing this for a long time - just not answering the questions asked every month. I hope to be a bit better about joining in with this as well for the coming year.


This SAL needs a bit more space as I want to make a list of things I want to work on the coming year.

• Mikes Mushrooms - it's in dire need of a bit more love and some more being stitched on it.
• TW's Castle Ridge - a new start for the year and I want to finish it this year too.
• My ornament SAL - I want to stitch them up myself too and make examples of how to finish them.
• More TW - not sure what but it will happen.
• The Christmas tree tea cosy - will need to buy thread for that though.
• The cutlery WIP needs finishing.

The Magnificent Year of Teresa Wentzler

Last year I had a blast doing this and this year I have already started on Castle Ridge, in fact it was this project that had the honour of the first stitch of the year! Carla is a great enabler and is keen to egg people on, so I have no doubt that I will finish Castle Ridge and more by the end of the year!

Tons of Tiny

This is another new SAL that I will be joining in with, and it has the added bonus that it fits in nicely with my own SAL as they too are tiny patterns! I shall be sending on some patterns of things I have made in the deep past and still have the patterns for.

D.E.S.I.G.N.

This great little project is meant to help showcase designers all over the world - anyone can jump in and post about a designer they love - and even designers themselves are allowed to write about themselves and their work and share it with the world to see!

Stitch From Stash

It's always easy to go out and buy whatever you want or think you need but it's far better to first go stash shopping instead. There will always be things one really needs to be able to complete a project but if one is careful with money this is more than doable. So with that in mind, along with my stash enhancement activities late last year *gulp* I have decided to curb myself a bit more and try and stick to the 25 dollar budget , though hopefully I will spend far less.

Ornament of the Month - January

It's the first Friday or the month (in the USA at least lol) and here is the first pattern! Garnet is the birthstone of the month of January so I used 3 shades of garnet for the pattern.

Ornament of the Month 2015 SAL

For many years I have been wanting to do something Christmassy every month so that at the end of the year I'd have a lot of lovely things as Christmas decorations. I had so much fun making ornaments for Stitching Pirates that I thought it would be fun to do one a month for the whole year and end up with 12 new decorations for my tree - or someone else's.

More adventures with crochet

 So last Sunday I placed an order for a knook hook and some yarn to knook with, and while I was on the online shop I got side tracked by some other yarn - Spray by Lang Yarns as it looked lovely and soft and I loved the colour but it was 100% wool. I wasn't sure if it would work for me due to my allergies for animals but I decided to risk it as I needed to know and one of my kids might have liked it enough to want it instead. I got 3 balls of 50 grams. It took a few goes as I'd initially made it too wide and I did not have had enough yarn to do more than 1/3 of a scarf at that width. So I pulled it ALL out and started again - part of me wanted to make it a different size so I had to rip out several rows more than a few times but in the end after 2 days of crocheting and ripping I have my lovely soft scarf.

I love how the yarn is not the same width - some places it's fluffy, some skinny and it goes really fast too! It's not my usual length or width but as an autumn scarf it's perfect.

Stats:
Yarn: 3 balls of Spray by Lang Yarns in colour 879.0097
Stitch: Double crochet (US stitch name)
Hook size: 9/N
14 stitches wide x 65 rows
6 1/2" x 54 1/2" / 16.51 cm x 138.43 cm

The Crochet WIP:

I still had several balls of yarn left from doing my Doctor Who scarf and hat so decided to make some slippers using the colours with a full ball of wool left. I chose a pattern from the drops website that used the Paris yarn I have. I didn't have a size 4 crochet hook but the new knook hook I'd ordered was a size 4 so I decided to use that. The Paris yarn normally uses a size 5 hook in case you were wondering how I did the Who scarf without a size 4 hook.

I started by making the 2 granny squares and was planning on doing both at the same time but it was going too slowly for me so i opted to just go back to doing one at a time. I realised while doing the stripes that I had chosen a rather rastafarian colour scheme but that was just a happy accident. This was started before I started the completed scarf above but using a size 4 hook on size 5 yarn is painful after a while and my hands  needed the rest from it.

I have also done some more stitching on my secret cross stitch project.

Doctor who scarf final update + a little more

Last Friday when I posted the image above I was expecting to finish the scarf on Sunday as I'd done about 21 rows a day and still had 59 left, however I was wrong.. very wrong. I finished the scarf Friday night apart from the fringe, which I did Saturday. I entered the berserker mode and did the 59 rows in a single day.

On Saturday I measured and cut 24 lots of 12" lengths of all of the 7 colours in this scarf - don't worry I did it the fast way by holding all 7 colours together and measuring them like that. I then proceeded to add the tassels to the scarf. After that a trip into the garden to photograph the scarf was in order as it was a lovely sunny day.

Here is the scarf in all it's glory being modelled by my mystery apple tree. Please do ignore the weeds, between my hand not working properly and my knee feeling that bending was beneath it getting down to weed was not an option.

As I had stacks of wool left I decided that it would be a good idea to make a matching hat. I used Lion brand's  Free Crochet Pattern: Tip Top Topper (sign up is required to view this - sorry) as I thought that a more eccentric hat suited the 4th Doctor so much more than a beanie and using the same inch pattern as I had done for the Doctor Who scarf itself as the base I made the hat. I started at the same place as you would normally to make the scarf and counted each inch on the pattern as a row for the hat and rounded the partial inches up or down to whatever was closest.

The result is this lovely hat which isn't quite as sturdy as it would have been if it had been done with the suggested yarn instead of 2 x the Drops Paris I had used for the scarf however this way it matches better.

This is the hat from above with the scarf on the table so you can see them together. The photo might be slightly out of focus - it took me a good 15 photo's to get this one with me standing on my tip toes on a chair and holding my arm up as high as I could.


I still have several full balls and some partial balls of wool left and I am plotting what else to use them on.

Doctor who scarf update

 

Last time I blogged about the scarf, a mere two days ago it looked like the photo above and clocked in at a length of  94 1/2 inches after just 6 days work. Something I forgot to mention in the last post was that I had decided to make life difficult for myself and make faux slip stitches as the original scarf had slip stitches at the ends where the colour changes. I achieved this by not finishing the colour and starting the next but by adding the new colour into the loop of the colour I'd just finished and then doing another chain stitch before turning the work and doing the double crochet stitches. This is slightly fiddly to do as if you pull too much the end falls through.

On day 7 I did an additional 25 rows adding 12 1/2 inches to the length of the scarf making it 106 1/2 inches.

Day 8 (yesterday) I managed to add another 23 rows = 11 1/2 inches to the scarf making it 118 inches long (that's almost 3 metres!) I won't be able to take any more photo's of the scarf along the width of my table - it's just too long now, so I'll have to move the Lego and embroidery thread boxes off the end of the table to use the length tomorrow.

Just 59 rows left to do! I should be finished by Sunday at the latest.

My hand dyeing adventure

Note before reading: this post is word heavy at the top and picture heavy at the bottom - I had not originally planned on doing a blog post about this but then decided that I wanted to share a whole load of photo's and this was the best place for it. If you don't want to read the how I did it stuff just skip to the bottom and enjoy the photo's.

Not so long ago I splurged and got myself a king sized wool filled 4 seasons duvet. My old one was also wool and 4 seasons but I'd previously been sold an extra long single person duvet and it's only because I am so short that it was "long enough", when used on it's side, to cover me. I had used this old duvet for years and just got tired of it being so short. A new duvet meant new duvet covers and while I found one that was okish I couldn't find another that I liked enough to buy.

So... A trip to IKEA got me a plain white duvet cover set, sheet and extra pillow cases as the duvet set only had 2 in it and I need 6. Then a trip to the shops got me 4 packs of Dylon dye - 2 in sunflower yellow and 2 in ocean blue. The plan was to tie dye the lot and have splashes of blue, yellow, green and white.  In the past I have always used the dye for the washing machine so doing it by hand was a new adventure. The old tins had always put me off as they were so complicated to use but these "new" packets are a lot more user friendly so I decided to take the plunge.

When I started the actual task of wrapping string around the corner of a pillow case, I soon realised it would take me a gazillion days to do so as my hands didn't like the job and it was also hard on my iffy shoulder. Those of you who don't know me won't know that I am the lucky recipient of palindromic rheumatism, arthritis, a dodgy back and some other joint issues thanks to working too hard so any task that requires repetitive movements is going to hit me hard. I decided that it would be a better idea to dip dye instead - easier on the hands etc. *wink*

After washing out the old baby bath I had lurking in my garage that my oldest had kindly carried up to the bathroom for me, I proceeded to mix up the first lot of dye - the yellow. The dye once mixed with water in the jug was a lovely orange and I was glad I didn't skimp on getting rubber gloves or I'd have had garish yellow/blue hands by the end of this. I then proceeded to ignore the instructions as what I had planned required more water so less dye per litre of water.  I knew in advance that this would result in a lighter colour.

This is why they say to use a bowl or stainless steel sink!

I half filled the baby bath with warm water, added the required salt and then the dye. As I had never dip dyed and I couldn't remember what order I had to do the dipping I decided to put it in to the half way point first and pull a bit out as time went by.  I squished the submerged fabric around for about 5 minutes - about 10 less than you are supposed to do as I didn't want a flat finish but splodges and blodges, just like you'd get with tie dyeing.

I draped the duvet and sheet over a plastic step so it would not lie on the floor. Doing it this way is messy - the dye tends to drip a bit if you don't squeeze any excess dye out first. Don't do it this way if you are not in a tiled area that is easy to clean. Once the last bit had been in the bath for around 45 minutes I took it out and did my best to rinse it out as much as possible, doing the pillow cases was easy but the sheet and duvet were a lot more difficult.

I spread the items on the tiled floor so the white undyed parts wouldn't get in contact with the dyed parts. I then poured the leftover dye into a tub and threw an old white sheet in that looked a bit grubby as it had gone slightly greyish and needed a bit more life added to it - I wasn't sure if this was going to have any effect but I knew that the sheet couldn't get any worse than it was already. I left that sheet to soak for a couple of hours.

Then it was time for the blue dye - even though the yellow dye had been orange seeing the purple that was the result of the packets of blue dye made me rather worried, especially when the first bit of white fabric into the bath turned lilac. I took a deep breath and decided to give it some time thinking that if the worst came to the worst nothing would happen that could not get fixed by a trip to the washing machine with a pack or 2 of black washing machine dye. This time round I was trying it the other way - slowly putting more fabric into the bath as time went by.

Like with the yellow dye I did my best to rinse out the blue dye but by this time my back had decided to play up and it was very painful to do so when the worst was off I decided to see if the washing machine could get the rest out.  I was thrilled with the results so far despite noticing that I'd not pushed the fabric in far enough to get a green area between the yellow and blue. and really hoped that the bright yellow and bright blue I saw would be what I ended up with. I then chucked 2 faded bottle green sheets into the blue dye to give them a little oomph that they were missing. I do like re-using dye, though really one should not as it's mostly stopped working by then.

I carefully carried it all up to the attic and made sure to put the blue dyed area's at the bottom of the machine with the yellow on top. and washed it according to the instructions. I hung up the pillow cases on hangers and the duvet cover and sheet over the banister.

2 days later it was all finally dry and I could get it onto my bed and take photo's

 This is the sheet, as you can see the yellow is not so bright but it's still a very nice yellow and certainly suits the paintwork (not visible in this shot).

 Here it all is on my bed, the 6 pillow cases on the pillows, the duvet cover and the sheet hidden under it - it really brightens the room!

A side shot so you can see the colour changes on the cover.

Here is an attempt at showing the special thing that happens in artificial light - the yellow seems to change to a very light spring green - so wonderful that it changes like that! It's probably due to the excess blue dye when I put it in the washing machine.

All in all I'm happy with the results and I know I'll be using Dylon's hand dye dyes again - just on something smaller next time hehe.

It's been a while.... again...

It's been a while since I last posted, mostly because I just can't share what I'm working on which then puts me off from sharing my TUSAL jars. The past 6 days my index finger has been so swollen I can't stitch, so instead I have embarked on my own Doctor Who scarf, something I've been wanting to do for many years. Seeing Carla's finished one certainly inspired me to get started - anything she can do I can also do - or at least that's what I try to convince myself.

As I cannot knit too well and find it far too slow I decided to crochet it and am using the inches pattern for the Hero scarf from Doctor Who scarf as the basis of my work as it's easier to measure amounts than try to guess rows. I decided to use Carla's yarn amounts as the basis of my own yard order and added 1 ball to each to make up for the fact that I'm doing crochet. I had some trouble finding the right green, brown and purple and decided in the end to use Drops Paris I didn't take the time to check their own site which I linked here as I thought the photo's on the site I bought the yarn from were clear enough. As a result I didn't see that the purple that they have might have been a better match than the "dark old pink" that the site I was on called aubergine (and in honesty it is a more purple than the pinkish colour on the drops site).

Below you will see the daily progress I made over the last 6 days - it's been going really fast, even though the last 2 days I haven't done so much and might not manage much today either.

 This is the yarn I bought - LOTS - better known as 29 balls.

The first day's work didn't start so well - I got muddled and made it too wide... twice! The first time I had made the chain 12 1/2 inches wide when It was supposed to be 11 and didn't notice till I was 9 rows in - aarrgghh! I started again as I didn't want to use more yarn than I already had bought and knew that a wider scarf would use more yarn. Even though the chain was 11 inches the second time it became 12 after adding the first row of stitches so I removed some stitches till I was 11 inches and then fiddled and removed the chains from the "starting" end of the chain - not the official way to do it but well.. it worked hehe. By pure coincidence it turns out that one double stitch = 1/2 inch with this yarn and a size 5 hook. In the end I ended up finishing the first 24 rows = 12 inches on the first day.

The second day I did an additional 36 rows = 18 inches bringing the total to 60 rows = 30 inches.

Day 3 resulted in me having to "squish" the scarf to fit the width of my dining room table, which I've been using as the background for the photo's. I'd done 19 rows - 9 1/2 inches - I'd now done a total of 51 1/2 inches

On the 4th day I managed to do 44 rows = 22 inches, quite a bit more than the other days so far. I had now done 73 1/2 inches

Day 5 it had grown even more and as you can see it's starting to get rather difficult to photograph in it's entirety.
 21 rows done so 10 1/2 inches. I had spent quite a bit of the evening dyeing my sheets/duvet cover and didn't get as much done. Total completed: 84 1/2 inches. I had passed the half way point on this day - so happy it's going this fast!

Yesterday was day 6 and I reached this stage despite it being wash day - so again lots of going up and down stairs and feeling tired. Even so I managed another 20 rows so added another 10 inches to the final result bringing it to 94 1/2 inches complete.

I'm not sure how far I will get today, been taking photo's of the results of my dyeing 2 days ago after wrestling the massive duvet cover on (king sized) and flipping my mattress as it was that time of the month to do that. The next post will be all about the dyeing and the results.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.