IT'S SNOWING AGAIN

The weather forcast predicted wide spread snow again and that included Stratford again! two snow falls in town in one winter almost unheard of, so yesterday Caitlin between stitching made me a heading photo using one of the photos taken a couple of weeks back.  here is what greeted us when we got up this morning ........

                         truly winter wonderland right at the front door.

and looking out the backdoor.

 

Little hedgehog is burried deep in snow I cant see him this morning.

A very big thank you to all who posted comments when Caitlin put the first photo of her blackwork bird on my blog. stitching the tail feathers were a real struggle and there was a bit of reverse stitching  (unpicking) too. After reading all the comments yesterday morning she was determine to finish so she could blog the results before she had to go home.. Thank you all for the encouragement.



CAITLIN'S BIRD UPDATE

Here is the end of the weekends work. The feet were easy to stich and they came out nicely. The tail of my bird was a competely different story. I found the tail a hard thing to do. I kept on forgetting to go on a angle and so it took a bit longer than I thought it would. The out come of it I think looks lovely. All thats left is to put lichen on his branch and a leaf or two droping down from it. Grandma will post the finshed bird at the end of the month.

Caitlin

BLACKWORK EMBROIDERY 1.

A lot happening with Blackwork here at present although this time I have not done one stitch! The group of Junior stitchers at our guild ages ranging from 8-13 years have now all finished their blackwork owl.  Our main project for the year is a bag with four pockets on the outside we have taken the theme of Owls and each pocket will show the owl using different stitches. Some will finish all four pocket however I can see the slower stitchers will have 2 embroidered pockets and 2 plain. This term  everyone is working on their piece for the coming Regional Embroiderers Exhibition. Four of the children have elected to stitch blackwork for their piece, we had a very busy afternoon with them this week and have till the end of the month for the pieces to be completed.

Grand-daughter Caitlin is spending the weekend with us, so as to have some catch up time with her piece, she is doing one of our native small birds, a South Island Tomtit. It is progressing well, but now up to the tricky part of stitching the tail feathers. I have found it works well  to make a copy of different stages using a photocopier, then let them draw on the picture so they have an idea what they want to stitch.

Comment from Caitlin who has been playing with different settings on the computer and the photo shw took of her of her work.

I have enjoyed stiching this bird. I love the way he is turning out so far. In junors I have two friends who are also working on Blackwork as well . My friend Paige is doing a blackwork Rooster. He is looking lovely. My other friend Nikita is working on a Black work cow. It's little but I think it will turn out looking out lovely in the end. We also have anther little girl in the class called Sarah-Lee, who has only been stching for a couple of years and is at the moment tackling a big blackwork puppy. He is coming along nicely but I don't think it will be made in time to go to the regional exhibition but luckly she made a back up pup done in cross stitch and her big piece will go to next years national exhibition. It is a border collie  called Jackson. It came out amzing and I love it.

Caitlin started  stitching at the age of 5 years and continues to enjoy her embroidery. other piece have been shown on past postings.  Here is a close up of the stitching on her bird.

Till next time when I have more to share on blackwork.

FROM MY WINDOW

My new window allows me to watch the small wax-eyes birds. feeding on the calicarpa berries. Delightful to watch but most difficult to photograph as they move so quickly about the bush and any shadow of a movement will send them flying off.

Do you know the calicarpa berries ? ( think they are called Beauty Berries in America)  they are tiny and a rich purple shade, each year I allow myself to pick some branches to have in the house and also include some it the flower arrangement in the foyer at church so others might enjoy them too, however the rest are left for the enjoyment of the wax-eyes, and as the weather gets colder they strip the bush of the berries.

One year, the guild Challenge was "From my Window".  For my piece I chose to stitch the wax eye birds in the silver birch tree that  I use to watch from the window seat at our Coromandel home.

I stitched each piece separately on calico, it was the first time I had used this method, rather like the slips stitched in Elizabethan times, where pieces were stitched then cut out and added to the main piece, this also meant if one bird did not come up just right I had not ruined the whole piece of my work. These were more needlepainting pieces than stumpwork  I had several reference books showing the birds beside me as I stitched, It is not a good idea to rely on only one source as  colour can vary with different printing methods.For this piece I also had a dead bird to look at, it is amazing the different shading that makes up the feathers, I did not have enough different shades in my embroidery threads.
 Stitched with one thread of stranded thread many different shades and lots of tiny straight stitches. The branch is from the silver birch tree with a coat of varnish to help preserve it  and the tiny leaves once stitched were stiffened before being cut out. I did not buttonhole  the edge as I wanted to give it a natural look and the stiffener, I used  a liquid product "Stiffy"to make them very firm.  

As you can see I have been testing what I can do with the camera and then on the computor.

 Here is a close up shot to show the detail of the stitching on one bird. he is 7cm just under 3 inches 

I have taught this method and those doing the project- a bird of their choice found it was not as hard to do as they imagined. There are more of my birds in  the album on the right, as you can see I really do enjoy stitching them.

               Have a happy dayand hope you can find a quiet time to stitch..

I KNOW IT'S WINTER BUT !!!

I know its winter and there is snow on the mouintain (if I could see it for the clouds) The snow is now down well past what is showing at the top of my blog. This is what greeted us this morning, This is the first time we have had a heavy fall of snow in our part of town !

Pretty to look at but oh so cold !

GIVE-AWAY RECEIVED

I can share with you now what I sent to Lynn B, who was the winner of my blog anniversary give-away draw  I waited till they were posted on Lynn's blog.
 As it was my second anniversary I said it would be two small gifts in the embroidered bag, one item would be stitched in a DMC colour chosen by the winner. Lynn chose DMC 603 pink and the flowers on the notebook cover were stitched in that shade. The second item in the little bag was one of my embroidered hearts with pulled thread work and bullion rosebuds.
I also tucked in the parcel a little pomegranate fob as a special thank you to Lynn for introducing several folk to my blog.
Do look at the photos on Lynns blog.http://happinessiscrossstitching.blogspot.com/ She has said I could copy them but I really think its better if everyone visits her blog, however I have copied the pomegranate I have not been able to show any of the ones I have made, in such a clear close up.
Thank you Lynn.

FINISHES

When I was in Coromandel last month Ann and I had planned a stitching project., we had decided to stitch Kalina's SAL "Winters Tale"" as found here-http://kalina-kalinovivishivanki.blogspot.com/. Unfortunatly  I arrived with a heavy head cold that made stitching impossible so I started my piece after I came home and now that I have finished it am posting it so Ann can see my effort.
It is a really lovely piece to stitch, Ann had done several. it is shown on Kalina's blog in 5 parts with very good graphs and stitch by stitch photos.

This view shows the lovely crystal I have hanging down the centre.

 If you down load the instuctions on any freebie chart do note they are for yourself and if your friends want to stitch them too, give them the link so they can down load it for themselves. There are a few web sites that state their freebies may be used for a for group projects  or newsletter.So always check before sharing charts around among your friends.
 I'm off to start a new project , will share when there is enough to see........

MESSAGE FOR JANE

Message for Jane Mactavcish- Hi Jane I have received all your emails and replied to them on the day I received them, but think there must be a glich in the email system !!!
care to send me an email with your postal address and I will snail mail you the inmformation you want.
Kind regards

GIFT FOR ANN

Ann and I both stitch the same sorts of things , we are always sharing new ideas or bouncing thoughts from one to the other, so when it came to deciding what to stitch for her special birthday, it was hard to find a small item to stitch that she would not have seen. I finally settled for a scissor holder, quite different, I used the basic idea and added my own choice of designs. It was the type of mounting that
appealed to me about this piece.

Living in a small country town means limited embroidery supplies here, I have the full range of DMC but other threads I have to send away for. Sherelyn of Heirlooms in  Napier sent me a selection of silks to choose from, that was hard they were all so lovely.      I chose the Thread Gather silk Thread Dried Roses for the satin stitch diamonds round the edge and  with it DMC 3726 , I would like to use this combination again sometime as I was pleased with the result.
You may recognise the design on the pocket, I have shown it sometime ago stitched on a Thread Tag, I reversed the pattern so it would be facing the correct way to fit on the pocket.

 I am about to go to Junior Embroiderers group, they are all busy working on their pieces for the coming Regional Exhibition. Most of them are doing Blackwork, we did a piece of blackwork earlier in the year and it was great to see how well they coped stitching it. I also have a group of Ladies who travel down from New Plymouth once a month to study with me, mostly count thread work and currently some of them are stitching my blackwork sampler. Will share photos of this soon of that sampler which I am happy to share with others.

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GUILD RETREAT

As promised I would share something of my trip to Coromandel for the Coromandel Embroiderers Guild Retreat. Coromandel from here is about five and a half hours travel.  Paul and I traveled up on the Wednesday before, to be able to have time with Colleen who we were staying with and Ann came over to stay as well so there was extra sharing time. When ever Ann and I manage a short time together we try to fit in a special project, last time it was the pomegranate fobs, and the time before that we did the pincushions.

This time we planned to stitch the delightful little bell  SAL "Winter's Tale"seen on Kalina's blog-
http://kalina-kalinovivishivanki.blogspot.com/ if you want to see the photo visit her blog and you will find it on the right hand side of the page.  Ann started her piece, unfortunately I arrived in Coromandel with a cold and a drippy nose so no stitching for me for the first couple of days. I will however finish it.

 The Guild Retreat started on the Friday night at Tangiaro Kiwi Retreat at Port Charles. Port Charles is an hours drive north from Coromandel and this is the first time the retreat had been held there. we arrive at 5.30pm and as it is winter here, it was getting dark and to add to that it was a cold damp evening, so I was delighted to go in to my lodge to find it lovely and warm with a fire going .

Tangiaro Kiwi Retreat is set in the bush, a lovely peaceful area, we enjoyed not only the very comfortable lodges but the wonderful meals, and for those of us who normal don't eat morning  and afternoon teas- the temptation was too much!. Some of the ladies took advantage after class of the Spa or had a massage.
The damp weather prevent the evening bush walk to see the Kiwis, however one of our guild members who lives near by came in to talk about the work being done in the area to save these very special birds.
If you want to see more visit   http://www.kiwiretreat.co.nz/

Ann and I, as Tutors each had our own lodge, what luxury!  During the day the living area in each of our lodges were used for the classes. My class ended up being very small, but we still had a lot of fun. I was sharing with them how to make one of my pocket bags, Pocket for Titania .


This is the start of Heather's bag she chose Christmas for her theme, I am looking forward to seeing the finished piece.
I took all my little pocket bags up for the workshop to give different ideas and started a new pocket  something quite different I will share this with you in another posting.

I would love to go back up there again sometime and relax in those lovely surroundings. and have been dropping LARGE hints!!

 I'm off now to sit by the fire and stitch.

MY THREAD (FLOSS) TAG

Annie asked how I constructed my fobs I am happy to share and hoope this is of use to someone.

When I stitched the thread tag above, I was presented with a problem in that I had stitched my design using a lovely Sampler thread called Briar Rose, and I could not match it to make a cord , I did however have some silk fabric that was a perfect match. I have mounted it so that the silk shows round the edge, and am pleased with the result.

To make a Thread tag this way you need two pieces of cardboard, first cut one piece of card on which to mount your embroidered piece. Mount this first, using the thin wadding behind the stitching.

  The second piece of card is now cut slightly bigger, and covered with your backing fabric.  mitre the corners, remembering these will be on the front. (Do not pad this piece) 

       

Fold and stitch a small strip of fabric for the loop… ribbon may be used, glue this in place. Now glue your mounted embroidered piece on the front.

                  
Look back at my last posting and take a closer look at the thread tag that Joan sent me.
She used a neat way of making sure she mounted everything straight, by backstitching in a contrasting colour where she wanted to fold in, and leaving it there as part of the design.  Here is the back view of her tag which has a special touch with a border enclosing her message.

Today the mountain looks just like  the photo at the top of my blog.... a good day for sitting by the fire and stitching.

FOLLOWERS TO MY BLOG

Its always fun to open up my blog and find another follower had added herself to my friends list, this time on returning home after a week away I find not one new friend but ten! WOW   not sure how you all found me but welcome I hope you will always find something to enjoy here. As many of my followers do not have blogs where I can visit and get to known you, I invite  you to email me and introduce yourself I would love to hear from my new friends.

 I need to catch up on a few mundane things before I have time to share my weekend with you.. it was just great...... so that will be next time.

Stitching friends exchange this time was a Thread Ring Tag ( Floss ring tag) my exchange partner I was to stitch for was Ann and as we were together at the weekend I did not post it but took it up to her, Its always fun to see peoples faces as they open up parcels. ( I also took up her birthday gift but left that for her to open on the day, so will show you what I stitched after the date)

This lovely design is  from Danybrod creations    http://dany88.canalblog.com/ I printed off the chart  a long time ago and when looking for something to stitch for Ann it seemed just right, now I think I might stitch it again this time for myself. I chose for mounting, the dark red silk that Ann had used when making her pomegranate.

 

I received this delightful rose design thread ring tag from Joan in the same exchange and promptly put it to use. I find these a  most useful needlework accessory  and Paul cuts the cardboard thread holders for me.

Have you ever lost yourself in the middle of stitching a pattern ? I don't know how it happened by when stitching "Little Miss Witch"a freebie from Krienik threads. I did just that so rather than re stitch it a little camouflaging  was needed. I also changed the hair colouring to match Maree's who I made it for. The chart is still available http://www.kreinik.com/index.html look under free Halloween cross stitch patterns.

Back again soon.