A little bit of this and that...

Unbelievable that is has been almost 2 weeks since my last blog entry. So many things have happen.
First of all I made a little progress on my Mary Wigham Sampler.

It is not as much as I planned to, but we had some disturbances going on last.
My beloved bicycle got stolen from my back yard. It was actually looked but the thief removed the front wheel where it was looked to, than stole another front wheel from the neighbors kid's bike, set everything back together and took off. I had the bike for 13 years and is actually a piece of crap (the tires get flat if not pumped up once a week, the gears are broken so it can only be driven in one gear, the saddle has a whole bunch of holes which can be very uncomfortable when it is raining, it is rusty every here and there and the lights are all missing) but I have to say, I loved that crappy old bike. I bought it when I was 18 from my first job ever. Took me have a year to safe enough money to effort it. I think the main thing that is disturbing me, is not that the big is gone, it is more that I cannot understand why people do such things. I have been raised with strong moral values therefore I can not understand that some people obviously don't have any morals at all. Anyhow, that is the main reason that I haven't worked on Mary Wigham since then.

But to keep myself busy with just something, I stitched up two freebies that have been on my ToDo-list for quite a while. First one is a pattern from prairie schooler called "rain" and the second one is "sweet heart cottage" from Maryse. I thing both turned out great. Especially the sweet heart cottage is most adorable.

I also would like to excuse myself if I am not updating my blog during the next 3 weeks as much as usual. My little sister and her boyfriend are coming on Thursday for a vacation. Since I am living in Finland, I do not see my family more often than once a year. So I like to give them my fully attention on this rare visits.
Happy Stitching to all of you and a beautiful summer (winter in Australia and New Zealand)

Mary Wigham part one

Part one of my Mary Wigham Sampler is ready. I am very pleased with the colors as they look now, but I can tell you the decisions about matching the different colors to the ornaments wasn't easy at all. For the gray flower ornament I had to pull stitches twice. I started of with a brick red but than though that the sampler is getting overall a little bit to red, cause I am using so many different shades. Than I used the light sand color that can be seen now in the initials. That wasn't good either, cause it would have made the bottom part just too light. Finally I desided to go with a plain medium gray. And this is how I like it best for now.

Mary Wigham and a small finish

First of all I'd like to show you my latest finish. I stitched the Checkerboard Bunny from Waxing Moon Designs. When I started stitching it I realized that the white color for the bunny is so not going with the fabric (it was pale yellow before) so I decided to dye it in tea over night. After dyeing then the white was looking great, but non of the other colors where matching anymore. So I basically changed every single pastel color to a much bolder one. I really like how it turned out.


I also made some progress on my Mary Wigham Sampler, thou I haven't even finished the first part yet. But also here I made a few changes. I wrote in a previous post that I would go with the original colors, but my Mr. wasn't to happy with them. So I created a new color pallet for my Mary Wigham. The new colors range from black, over dark gray, brown, salmon, sage green to a rust red. My Mr. is now very happy with the color choses and I have to say I am a lot more pleased too.

I am so lucky!

Renée's squares arrived yesterday morning. Aren't they stunning? I love just everything about it: Colors, design, fabric, just everything!
And I can even here the screaming: " Make a needlebook out of me!"
Thank you so much for these beauties!

Mary Wigham

First of all I want to thank all of you for the nice words about my passed exam. Yes I am very glad it is all over now. Rowyn also ask me, if that means that I have now more time for stitching and yes, it means exactly that. But I also started to read my fellow stitching blogs more seriously. In the past there was just time and patience to look at all the beautiful pictures. I found out, that many of you are stitching the Mary Wigham SAL and posted already the first pictures. It was also Rowyn's blog where I discovered the link to this SAL. Thank you so much for this. Here is now my start of the Mary Wigham Sampler:

I am stitching with the suggested DMC colors, just because I have so much on stash of it that I could start right away. The fabric I have chosen is a raw unevenweave linen from India. The count is something around 39, it's hard to tell because the threads are not all of the same thickniss, as well there are many knots in it. This fabric isn't meant to be used for embroidery. I usually use it for upholstering furniture. But I think it will give the Sampler a nice old touch. Thou it will take a while until I am used to it and I only make slow progress because I have to be so carefully where I poke in the needle.
I love this sampler already now a lot, thou my Mr. isn't really impressed by the design. Maybe in later progress I am able to change his mind.
The Mary Wigham is published by Needleprint. Check out their blog, they have amazingly beautiful Samplers there.

I made it!

I don't know how many times I have bothered you by telling about my upcoming exam. Well, I can promise I will no longer do so. Cause the exam is OVER! It started on Monday and ended finally yesterday afternoon.

For the finals we had to build a "K-tuoli" chair. It is a very old Finnish design chair. I would say, it is one of the easiest chairs to built but it also has some tricky parts. The seat is supposed to be flat and not bumpy, the sides have to be very straight and not coming over the frame more than 5mm otherwise the armrests would push the sides inside and make ugly bumps, thou the front side has to be pulled out over the frame a little it less than an inch. And of course the corner have to be as pointed as possible, they can never ever be round and that isn't as easy to do as it sounds.

I can tell you, there is a lot of stuff to think about and it is tough to focuse on all these things when being under pressure. I have to admide that I also made some really stupid mistakes that costs me presures points in the evaluation. I built the back part of the seat a little bit too high, it is supposed to fall off a bit. But overall I am satisfied with the result. I graduated with a good 4 what would be in American terms a B+
Here are two pictures of my pressures. The chair is upholstered with violet felt. Not my favorite but I am not going to keep the chair for myself. It will probably go to sale.
In the right picture you can also see that the back is leaning to the right side. Well the frames we used have been really old and that is just something I had to ignore.

I guess I should be happy and proud of myself now, but for some reason this feeling isn't really coming yet. I was under so much pressure for the last 4 month, with working 2 jobs, school and the upcoming exam and now everything just stopped from one moment to another. I feel empty! Or course also released, but I think it will need a couple of days until my mind also realized that I finally made it. I am now an upholsterer.

Fair & Square Round 13

I received yesterday an email from Renee, my Fair and Square partner that she has received her squares. She says that she like them very much. Her square for me are also on its way and I am very excited to see what Renee has stitched for me.

These are the squares that I have stitched. It is from the chart "The good neighbor" from The Drawn Thread.