Fair and Square

It has been quite a while since my last post and I am so sorry about that. Live is getting really busy over here and I haven't done much stitching at all. The only few things I was stitching on are a couple of Round Robins.
I stitched these three doves sitting in a tree for a friends wedding sampler. It was quite a challenge for me. The fabric is something around 11ct. and it was supposed to be stitched over 2 threads. I haven't done such a rough fabric for nearly 20 years and it took me quite a while to get used to it.
I personally stick to my high ct. fabrics.


I also got notice for Jennifer that she received my squares of the Fair & Square Autumn round. So this is what I stitched for her:

The design is by Brooke's Book and is called Autumn Pantry. I thought it is quite fitting. I am just very sorry about the quality of the pictures. I like to iron my pieces before taken pictures to have a nice and smooth surface, but just right before taking the shots my iron broke. Now how does a woman survive without an iron. I am desperate getting a new one soon.

F & S Autumn Round

I received just a couple of days ago The squares from the Fair & Square Autumn Round. This time I was paired with Jennifer from Sweet Pea Stitches. Take a look at those beautiful squares she stitched for me. The design is by Bent Creek but Jennifer has chosen her own colors for this. Along with the Squares came a skein of her own hand dyed floss called "Autumn Leaves". Aren't the colors amazing? I can't wait to use this thread. Thank you so much Jennifer.

I have been a busy girl

I just haven't done so much cross stitching during the last couple of weeks. I am mainly stitching exchanges at the moment, but because my swap partners haven't received their packages yet, I can't really show any pictures yet.
But I have been busy knitting a lot. And I really mean a lot. I finished 3 1/2 scarves and I am almost done with my first felted bag.
The last couple of days my Mr. and I have taken tons of pictures and just finished editing them about an hour ago. I would like to share a few of them with you. Enjoy!

The parcel arrived!

A couple of days ago arrived the parcel from my aunt. The package included floss of the first 10 columns from the DMC color book. The next 10 columns will arrive soon as well. The colors are almost complet. In this batch are only 3 or 4 colors missing. The plastic boxes came along with the floss and I am really glad about. Why? You can see it in the second picture. That one shows the new floss AND the floss I already had before: 6 boxes full of thread twisted on bobbins and a big pile of double colors. Now I have enough DMC thread for a lifetime stitching.

I also managed to fit the rest of my stash into my craft closet. I reorganized all my boxes. So at least for now I don't have to search for new spaces.

Special Delivery

It is almost unbelievable how fast time is flying by. Also this week I don't have much progress to show. I only did a few stitches on Special Delivery and started to stitch the Autumn Squares for another Fair & Squares Round. Too bad that I can't share any pictures of it yet, but it would spoil the surprise for the lucky receiver. The only thing I can say is, that I love the design so much, I will definitely stitch it one more time for myself.
So here are only my pictures from Special Delivery:

I finished the big blossom and started stitching the upper line of the alphabet. I was thinking of finishing this piece into a cushion, but haven't decided yet what kind of background fabric I am going to use. Something very light colored would be fitting best, I think.

Pla-a-a-a id

It is finally done! I finished the plaid sheep by Casey Buonaugurio after working on it for several month. Yes, month! Isn't it unbelievable? I don't know myself how it could happen that it toke that long.

I thou know how I managed to finally stitch it up. I was already for quite a while very disappointed with my stitching progresses. I just couldn't manage to stitch as much as I wanted even with having so much more spare time than I used to have before. Whenever I sat down to do some stitches on one project I thought: "Oh no, I rather work on the other one", so I started something else and then again: "But that one would be so much more fun now". This basically went on for the whole day and before I noticed daylight was gone I barely placed any crosses.
So I worked out a rotating system. I read about it on a few other blogs and I though, what is working for so many other ladies might work for me too. I started working out my rotation system on Friday and so far it is working. Well let's see how long I can stick to it, but I want to try at least until I worked down my pile of WIPs.

I also managed to finish the 4th part of See the Stars. I like this design more and more.


Oh! One last thing that I almost forgot. I am going to get a parcel with lots of more stash. My aunt send me an email today letting me know that she send a package full of DMC thread. My aunt has an attic half of the size as my apartment packed with Cross Stitching supplies. Most of the things up there belonged already to my Grand mother. There are kits with floss, floss without kits, charts without pictures, pictures without charts and lots and lots of fabrics and threads. A while ago my aunt started to organize everything, but already mentioned that it is time to clean out a little, because my aunt isn't one of the youngest anymore she decided to give most of the stash to me. I just shouldn't tell my Mr. that there are packages already on their ways. I do have quite some stash myself already and we are literally running out of space. My living room nearly looks like a craft store. There are big bags with knitting yarn spread on every single chair and sofa and boxes with fabrics, charts, etc. not to mention all my cross stitching project.

Unusual beautiful Autumn

Normally around this time of the year we are having a lot of rain already, but not this time. This year we are having an unusual beautiful and warm Autumn.
Those of you who are reading my blog for quite a while already, know my passion of taking pictures of nature. And around autumn it always turns out that I am shooting mushrooms. Yes mushroom! So I did also this year. Want to see also last years mushroom pics click here.



Most of the pictures are quite dark, because even the sun was shining very bright, it didn't reach much of the ground. At this part of the forest the trees are standing very close to each other. It gives the forest the feeling of enchantment. I think I love this the most about living in Finland.

Besides shooting mushroom pictures, I also got some cross stitching done. I finished finally the 3rd part of See the Stars.

Just while taking this pictures I recognized that I am stretching out my Autumn love even into my cross stitching projects. I never realized that I am using so many Autumn related colors like this year.

Here is also my progress on Special Delivery. I really love to use the GA threads.


Last but not least are here a few knitting updates and pictures of my new stash. YEAH! I haven't bought the black yarn for my Mr.'s scarf yet but I went shopping for some other yarn. The felting experiment the other day turned out great, so I went ahead and bought nothing less than 1 kg of felting wool. Wuhuu, the bag knitting can start now. I also purchased 6 balls of a very bright lime green Acrylic yarn. It is so super soft. I already started knitting with it. It is the first time that I am knitting a swirled pattern. I always thought it is so difficult, I could never do anything like that, but it turned out to be quite easy and I love the result.