SMALL TREASURES AND A- GIVE- AWAY

Small treasures that bring great pleasures

Do you know the winter iris - Iris stylosa ? This year my two clumps have produced a mass of blooms and I have been able to beat the snails for they delight in nibbling them. From these rather untidy plants I have been picking the buds and enjoying watching the petals unfold and for more than a month now have been able to have a vase of them in my Kitchen.

The other small treasures are ones I have been stitching, quite some time ago I started stitching a Husif for Jan, next march will be her 50th birthday and I wanted something very special for the occasion, so I feel the Husif she requested , stitched with the little flowers I have used on so many pieces, including my work box.(see it  in this post ) would be the perfect thing to stitch for her. This piece like other pieces when the eyes became a problem the stitching was put aside, now having started again on it I have decided each Monday to do an update of my progress, my aim is to add one flower type per week, hopefully by planning to keep adding a small amount of stitching I will manage to achieve this each week and to make sure I  do I am committed to showing the progress on my blog. This is what I had stitched before-

and now this week I have added a few violets,there is no chart for my design I am just adding the flowers stitching some by memory and others are a piece taken from another design.
The winter aconite is from February design in the cross stitch book, A Country Diary Collection 2 Over the years I have enjoy again and again looking at the Edith Holden's book The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and the cross stitch book is some of her paintings charted for cross stitch.
The Crocus is a Danish Cross Stitch design and I have mislaid the book so cannot tell you which one.
Violets these I have stitched so often that I now stitch them from memory and there will be more violets added to the design as I go on.

And for my 6th Anniversary Give away Draw.

I wish I could have sent something to everyone but sadly time would only allow me to have one

 name drawn  and here it is

CONGRATULATIONS to Smily in Hungary. 

I went over to her blog and would you believe her latest posting was about the colour for June being RED, well little red robins will certainly fit the red theme. I am stitching the last piece now so hopefully the parcel will be away in the post at the end of the week , so please Smily send me your postal address, and  although I have sent  embroideries to many countries this is a first time I have sent some of my work to Hungary so I am excited. 

WEEKEND PAST

 Yes last weekend was IHSW and because of weather conditions interfering with phone, WiFi and computer I did not get to post pre- weekend my plans. Weather wise we were not hit as badly by the storm and heavy rain as other parts of the country.

It was certainly the weekend for sitting by the fire and stitching  and what I did achieve during the weekend was Saturday I worked on one of the pieces for my anniversary give-away, not a robin at this stage but the quote about the robin from the Secret Garden  as seen here-

 
 Then I picked up again a long neglected piece its my Shepherd's Bush wool gatherer and when I checked back on my blog I found I had to troll all the way back to April last year to find when I stitched it last!! here it is as seen then.

And my progress when  I finished stitching yesterday plan to make a major effort on for the rest of the years IHSW and hopefully finish it by December.

 There is still time to enter my Blog Anniversary give away I will draw it at the end of the month, and now it is back to the fireside and my stitching

IN FOCUS AND ITS MY ANNIVERSARY

It's Sharing the small things in life that make the biggest memories.

Austin Bieda

I'm sure you will all understand my pleasure at being able to see to thread a needle and stitch again !
 I am back working on my Robin's piece this has been a very enjoyable piece to design,  finding all the charts that would bring my idea together, here are a few of them these cute little robins are from a Cross Stitch Crazy magazine's Robin ABC

The quote is from the book The Secret garden and is the inspiration for the piece and I plan to stitch more of these Robins!

BLOG ANNIVERSARY GIVE AWAY

 It is six years since I entered the world of blogging and during those six years I have enjoyed sharing my embroidery with everyone, I have made many new friends and enjoyed the blog writings of  so many talented and wonderful people. Thank you all.   As much as I would love to send something to you all, I must settle for just one gift to go in a draw. I have decided to stitch a few more of the robins and make a collection of  embroidery smalls,( needlework accessories)  six pieces for six years.           If you would like to be in the draw leave a comment on this posting, you must be a follower of my blog to be in the draw.  I will draw the lucky person on June 30th, giving me time to have everything stitched and ready for posting by then.
 For now I am back to the fireside and my stitch.

COUNTING THE DAYS....

 Yes I am counting down the days till  my new glasses come and I can happily stitch again.  It has been a long six weeks, for once I cannot comment how quickly time has gone by for me it has been snail pace.

 Stitching friends challenge was a biscornu, here is the lovely one I received from Lyn.  Don't you just love the beautiful hardanger edge and she has made it very personal with the message on the back cleverly stitched on the diagonal. Thank you Lyn it is such a treasure.

The one below is the one I stitched and sent to Ann, it is an Atalie design, have wanted to stitch it for ages and the challenge was the perfect opportunity, I had all the counted work done before my eye op and have managed to finish it in the last few days as the eyes adjust, however I did struggle with the roses... next time it will be bullion stitch ones that  I can do much better.

A recent email brought surprising news, Thoeria emailed me to thank me for the ornament and commented she loved owls. It took a moment or two to  to work out what owls she was referring to .... and it certainly turned back the clock, at the beginning of December last year I had a give-a-way, and  this was the ornament she was referring to -

posted to her in Johannesburg, South Africa the first week of December last it had finally arrived... 5 months later, I'm sure she felt I had forgotten to post it

 Next week will be my blog anniversary, it will mark six years of blogging do check back to see what I come up with to celebrate.

Good to be back in focus and blogging again