my Needle Art

Fair & Square Exchange

2012-06-02T11:56:00.001+03:00

Besides working on my bus project I haven't done much stitching this week. But I'd like to share pictures of my latest Fair & Square exchange with Ruth.

These are the squares she send to me. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous? I love how she added the Finnish flag to the design. It makes it even more special.

I had to finish the squares straight away into a pin cushion. Usually I use the signature square on the back of the pillow, but this little apricot tree is far to special to hide it there.

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And here are the squares I stitched for Ruth. The design is from Maryse and called the "Sweet heart Cottage". I have stitched this design once before in it's original colours, but for Ruth's squares I changed them.

Just a little something

2012-05-29T07:11:00.000+03:00

Hi everyone! No stitching progress from me today, just a little something I have wanted to share for a while now. But don't you worry, I am still stitching. I put in my first 2 hours into "On Travel with Jane Austen" and I love it.

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But here is now what I wanted to show.

Every now and then, milk cartons get a special designer look here in Finland. And in early spring Valio came out with this design. Ok, it is not exactly cross stitch, but anyway. I think it is pretty cool.

Have a wonderful day!

The Sampler Girl's give away

2012-05-26T09:57:00.000+03:00

Some of you might already know that I won the latest give-away on The Sampler Girl's blog last Sunday. I was so overwhelmed, couldn't really believe that I really won. The chart is called "On Travel with Jane Austen" and it is so beautiful.

Even though that I am on the mission to reduce my WIPs and UFOs and don't want to start any new projects, with this one I am making an exception.

I spend the whole week with selecting fabric and floss. The chart calls for manely CC and WDW floss, but they are rather difficult to get here in Finland and very expensive. And I am on a stash diet anyway. So I decided to over-dye my own floss. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, ever since I read a post on the blog Primitives by the light of the Moon. So with their instructions and a beige coloured fabric dye to give the floss a primitive look I started dyeing for the very first time.

This is the DMC floss that I have chosen to dye for the Jane Austen chart.

I over dyed some more floss to have something in reserve for other projects. Can you see already the difference?

These are a few of my favourite. I love how they turned out.

And here are finally the selected colours for On Travel with Jane Austen. I am using a tad darker shades than the original colours.

I have just started placing the first few crosses and intend to stitch some more during the weekend. So more pictures will follow soon.

Fair & Square pin cushions

2012-05-20T15:18:00.001+03:00

This morning I felt a lot like sewing something. So I decided to finish my remaining Fair & Square pieces into little pin cushions.

Here is an update picture of my Fair & Square basket. It is quite full already and very soon I need to get a bigger basket.

The basket is the center piece of our dinner table and gets a lot of attention whenever we are having guests.

from Linda in 2009

from Milly in 2011

from Pam in 2012 - Pam designed those squares herself.

I am back in business

2012-05-19T17:24:00.002+03:00

After my last post about my lack of stitching motivations Theresa send me a link to an article with a rotation plan. She and a few other stitching pales are following this plan with great satisfaction. I have never been a big fan of rotations (they never worked for me before) but in my desperation I thought it could not harm giving it a try.

I have chosen to rotate five projects and the first one to start with was the Alphabet 1900 or Riesenmustertuch, as we call it in the Sticklounge group.

So I have put in my first 10 hours already. That went much quicker than I thought. 10 hours of stitching time in just two days, not bad at all.

And here is the result.

Almost all the dark brown parts have been stitched in this first round. You might wonder why I stitched in two different colours. That is, because I am changing it all to dark brown. I will have a lot of hours of frogging ahead of me, but I think the brown looks so much better and in the end the effort is well worth it.

The next 10 hours of stitching will go into Lady's Smock Fairy. It's one of my dead line stitching for Quilts 4 Kids.

Something finished....

2012-05-17T12:21:00.001+03:00

I have been struggling lately with my stitching progresses. It seems like I lost all my motivation and many days pass by without placing a single stitch. I am not found by this at all. I have a big pile of UFOs and an even bigger one of projects that are close to become UFOs if I am not getting back into stitching.

So this morning I worked a little on my Alphabet 1900 and I intend to work on it a few more hours during the day. So therefore there is no picture of this one yet.

But I took a few pictures of projects that I finished a little while ago and just haven't had the change of taking good shots of them.

At first there is BOO! I truly love this design. It was so much fun to stitch and I think I will stitch it a few more times on different kind of fabrics.

Design: BOO!

Designer: The Stitcherhood

Fabric: some orange 29ct.

Thread DMC 310

I have also finished the 1999 Christmas Sampler by Carriage House Samplings. I don't know yet how to finish it, but it will be with some shabby dark fabric. It was my first time stitching on black fabric and I really enjoyed it.

Design: 1999 Christmas Sampler

Designer: Carriage House Samplings

Fabric: 18ct black aida

Thread: DMC as recommended

At last I have a little Tantes Zolder design to show you. I have started this one many years ago and just finished it just a few month ago. It is a really small design, just 3.5 x 2 inches big. I have no idea what to use it for. Maybe I'll add some lace and a pale fabric and make a lavender sachet or pincushion out of it.

Tantes Zolder

Fabric: 40 ct. white Newcastle linen

Thread: DMC

I do have one more project that I sewed last night into a cute little pouch, but it is a gift. I will post pictures of it next week after it arrived to it's new home.

Exotic Flower

2012-04-30T13:22:00.000+03:00

So we finally moved to the new place. Living here for already two weeks and so far we like it very much. Of course everything feels still a little strange and we have a lot more work to do before we can call our new apartment a home. But we are getting there.

Because of the moving I haven't had any time and motivation for stitching for at least a month, but last night I finally picked up that stitching needle again and made even a little progress. Some of you might remember that I wrote a review for one of Yiota's cross stitch kits a little while ago. The design I am stitching is "Exotic Flower" and it is one of the charts based on a William Morris Design.

I really love the pale colours in this design. It might not show on the picture but this chart has many different hues of beige.

A crazy shopping Trip

2012-04-01T13:35:00.000+03:00

First of all I'd like to apologize for falling behind on my posts.Things are really busy right now. The Mr. and I are moving back to Helsinki in just a couple of weeks and right now all I'm concerned about is getting all those boxes packed. And believe me there are plenty.

Most troublesome is to box all my crafting supplies. It's almost as much as the regular household stuff. REALLY! It doesn't really help that just yesterday I went to Estonia to buy even more stash.

My knitting group organizes once a year a trip to Tallinn, Estonia to buy yarn, wool, lace, buttons and whatever else the crafter's heart desires. Since I only joined this knitting group last November it was my first shopping trip to Tallinn and I had been officially declared a "shopping virgin". I was kind of laughing about this title until I entered the first shop named Karnaluks. It was more like a use storage facility rather than a shop. Room after room full with shelves and boxes of wool, yarn and fabrics. They even had a separated room just for ribbons and lazy. After spending two hours in this shop we moved on to the next one and the next one and the next one. IT WAS CRAZY!

All together we were a group of 19 women, all armed with big bags and backpacks. Some even brought big empty suitcases to fill them up with goodies. After five hours of shopping and being back on the boat we all unpacked our treasures and counted how much yarn we bought. While I only bought 350 grams of beautiful pure merino wool the entire group made it to a total of more than 23kg of yarn.

Here are a few pictures of my shopping prey

I bough one meter of each of those beautiful fabrics

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I stocked up on missing DMC colours

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two meters each of this beautiful rickrack ribbon (the black one is velvet)

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this is the Merino wool I bought. It is sooooo soft

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of course I also bought some lace ribbons:

black, brown and green

cream and white

red, salmon and pink

and different shades of blue and violet

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I can't wait to finish some of my stitching projects with these beautiful fabrics and laces. But that will have to wait after we moved and settled in into the new apartment.

Liebster award

2012-04-01T13:05:00.000+03:00

In the last two weeks I have been rewarded with two blog awards. Actually it is one award, the Liebster Award, but I received it twice. Once from Rowyn and once from Lorrie. Thank you both so much. I know that I am now supposed to give this award to 5 other blogs, but I don't really pass awards. I am sure there plenty of other bloggers who will receive this award even without me giving it further.

A tiny finish

2012-03-15T13:44:00.000+02:00

For the last week I have been working almost exclusively on The Good Neighbor and made some very nice progress. But to see pictures, you will have to wait for the next post.

Today I'd like to show you a tiny little finish I made. For quite a while already I wanted to make a floss tag. One of those with the nice metal eyelets. But I haven't had the tools nor the eyelets to finish one, until a week or so ago. A complete eyelet set including all necessary tools was on sale and of course I had to buy it. And today I finished my first floss ring tag. I love it!

Design: October from the heart SAL

Designer: KreuzstitchLiebe

Thread: DMC

Fabric: 35ct. fine Floba

Progress on the Good Neighbor

2012-03-08T07:11:00.000+02:00

I've been picking up the Good Neighbor by the Drawn Thread again and made quite a bit progress on it. The outer flower border is almost ready.

This is one of my Crazy January pieces. Some of the other participants are stitching their 15 (31) projects in rotation and I tried that myself, but it just doesn't work for me. I figured that making only one design priority suit me much better. And for now it is this one.

By the number of stitches this is considered to be one of the big projects, but stitching everything over one on 26ct makes it look so small.

This design is stitched partly in cross stitch and tent stitch and both with 2 threads over 1. I had quite some difficulties in the beginning to make the crosses look nice, so I bought this 12" hoop to fit the whole design in it. I thought stretching the fabric might help making the stitches more even and it really works. I have started using hoops also for my other projects and I am much more happy with the stitching results.

another finish

2012-03-04T16:18:00.001+02:00

I have finished today another one of my Crazy January projects. This time it is Volle Fahrt Voraus by KreuzstichLiebe. Sylvia Kuhnert the Designer behind this label is a fairly new Designer from Germany. Besides a few Designs that she offers in her DaWanda shop she is having every now and then a free Design on her blog. Just a short while ago she started a new season SAL which is just too cute.

Kathy commented a few posts back that I have so many designs in different styles. And I think I should give an explanation for that. Personally I love all kind of Sampler, mostly antique reproduction Sampler, French mono-colour designs, mostly white on raw linen and I like primitive designs. I even like many Americana designs.

So you can guess that this sea side picture isn't for myself. I stitched this design for the Australian charity organisation Quilts 4 Kids. Many of my other projects are going to be presents for friends or I stitch them for exchanges. I only keep a small part of my stitching for myself.

A Quick stitch for Easter

2012-02-26T14:38:00.000+02:00

I know I'm a little early with this and maybe I should have saved this post for a later time. But I am so happy to have yet another finished stitching project, I just can't hold it back until Easter.

The last two days, I've been stitching a small freebie from By The Bay Needleart with the intention of finishing it into an Easter Egg decoration.

I am usually not much of a pink lover, but I think in this case it fits perfectly.

The base of this ornament is a Styrofoam egg.

I have stretched and glued the stitched piece and the backing fabric to the egg, secured it with lots of pins and glued this upholstery ribbon all the way around it and finished it with a pink organza bow.

one down, 14 to go

2012-02-23T15:25:00.000+02:00

Just a few moments ago, I finished stitching my first project of the Crazy January Challenge. Hearing from so many other participants how many projects they already finished, I felt already a little discouraged in this Challenge. I also feel, I should have picked much more small projects. The ones I have started are almost all big ones. Anyway, the "Bienen-Emblem" which I started on the 5th day of the Challenge is finally finished. It was always one of my favourites and I am very happy with it's look.

Even thou I am not a big friend of BackStitches I do have to say, that I love the way the honeycomb is set together with BS and full crosses.

Another Finish - Petit Sampler

2012-02-20T09:03:00.001+02:00

I have another finished project to share with you today, and I I thought this one deserves a post on it's own. "Petit Sampler" by gazette94 is finally finished.

I used "Cherry Cola" by Nina's threads for this one and just love how it turned out.

At first I planed to finish this one into a box lid. I thought I could use it for storing my special threads. It has never occurred to me actually framing this piece. After all there is a lot of pink in this sampler and the Mr. doesn't like any girly-girl stuff. But when I showed the finished sampler to him he actually suggested that I should frame it.

I think a nice white antique finished frame would be perfect for this piece.

Fair & Square from Pam and a finish

2012-02-20T08:49:00.002+02:00

First of all I have to apologize if I am writing any nonsense in today's post. I came down with a very nasty flue. I am having a runny nose all the time and can barely breath, but luckily I don't have much fever.

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So last Saturday we had another stitching gathering. This time at Mia's place. I made a little something for her as a thank you gift for hosting the meeting.

The box itself if from white painted metal and the design on the lid is from "la forêt des croix contées"

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I have also received the squares Pam stitched for me, during the last Fair & Square exchange. She designed them completely herself. Aren't they lovely? They will make a beautiful addition to my pin cushion basket.

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At last I have one more finished piece to show you. This design is a freebie from Passione Ricamo and is called Violet Garland. I stitched this one as a gift for a dear friend.

Exotic Flower by Yiota's XStitch

2012-02-10T12:13:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I was contacted by British cross stitch designer Yiota asking me if I like to review one of her cross stitch kits.

Given the free choice of a design, I started immediately browsing through her designs. It took me quite a while, because there are plenty to choose from and one is more beautiful than the other. What really caught my eye are the Victorian designs and the designs based on pictures by William Morris. At the end I chose a kit called "Exotic Flower". The design features a King Protea, my overall favourite flower, so it's just perfect for me.

The package arrived in a sturdy cardboard backed envelope. The kit itself was nicely packed in a clear cellophane bag and in excellent condition.

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Now to the kit itself:

The fabric is a piece of good quality evenweave generously cut, giving plenty of border to finish the design to your liking.

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The kit includes plenty of thread from Madeira, that is already winded around very sturdy cardboard bobbins. If you rather like to use DMC, the charts includes those colour numbers as well.

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The chart for this design is printed on four DinA3 pages with really big and crisps printed symbols.

And an extra DinA4 with clear instruction on stitching basics and how to use this kit is also included.

I could not resist and started stitching the first few crosses last night. And this is how it looks so far.

I am very pleased with this kit. It is a lot of fun to stitch, even though the many colour changes in small stitching sections are quite a challenge. But that's just what makes this design so beautiful.

It's winter!

2012-02-06T16:40:00.000+02:00

I have been away from blogging for a while now. I simply don't have much new stitching progress to show. And to be honest, I have started knitting again. I found a wonderful group of talented knitters in my area, that I am meeting with once a month for chatting, knitting and eating sweet cake.

So for today the only thing to share is a picture of the beautiful snow we have right now here in Finland. I took this picture last week, on my way home from work. At that time it was freezing -20 degrees C

Fair & Square finishes

2012-01-22T15:14:00.001+02:00

Almost two weeks ago, I bought myself a brand new sewing machine. My first one. It's just natural that I was highly motivated to try it out. I couldn't think of any better sewing project than turning my Fair & Square exchange pieces into finished objects. I still have 2 more exchanges that are waiting for finishing, but this is how my Fair & Square display basket looks so far.

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Here are the pictures of all the single pin cushions

These were the very first ones from Gillie back in 2008

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Those squares are from Kim and they are completely stitched 1-o-1

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from Kathy A.

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from Jennifer F. in 2009

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Summer exchange from Malinda in 2009

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from Suzanne in 2009

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from Renée in 2009

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from Marcy in 2011

Crazy January Challenge - Days 8 to 15

2012-01-22T14:38:00.000+02:00

Here are days 8 to 15 of my Crazy January Challenge.

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Day 8 - Merry Christmas Stockings by Blackbird Designs

I started stitching this 1-o-1 until I realized that the design calls for 2-o-2 AND 1-o-1. So how am I going to make the 1-o-1 parts even smaller? I will just have to start it allover again with a a different fabric.

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Day 9 - Monsieur Cockerel by V. Enginger

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Day 10 - Night Time in Olde Towne by Elizabeth's Garden

I am stitching this one on 40ct. white linen

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Day 11 - Old World Santa by Carol Emmer

I'm embarrassed to say, but I haven't yet placed a single stitch to this project.

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Day 12 - Pur vegetal (3rd of 3 French designs from an old German magazine)

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Day 13 - Tante Minna by Kreuzstitch Liebe

Not much done on this project.

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Day 14 - The Good Neighbor by the Drawn Thread

I find this one a rather difficult project. Some parts are stitched in cross stitch and some in tent stitch, but all with 2 strands of floss. Which is fine, but the fabric is a 26ct and I am stitching over one thread. I think I will get myself a hoop before continuing on this project.

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Day 15 - Volle Fahrt voraus by Kreuzstich Liebe

Don't get overwhelmed with this start. It is by far not a start at all. I have been stitching on this project all week long, mostly while taking the bus or train to work. I just love the design. It's from a brand new German Designer.

A special present for a special person

2012-01-08T12:14:00.000+02:00

As I said already in my previous post. I have been really busy assembling a box for my boss's daughter. She is going to art college and is a very talented painted. I have asked her a few weeks ago if she would like to paint the logo to my own cross stitch design label and she did the most wonderful job on that little cloudberry painting.

As my way of saying than you, I have stitched her initials on coffee dyed and baked fabric and finished it into the lid of a box.

I really love how this box turned out. Especially it is my first box finish ever.

Crazy January Challenge continues - Days 3 to 7

2012-01-08T12:04:00.003+02:00

The Crazy January Challenge continues!

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Day 3 - 1999 Christmas Sampler by Carriage House Samplings

I am almost ashamed of showing my day 3 start. These ten crosses is all I got done that day. But I have a really good excuse. I am working on a present for my boss's daughter. She is in art college and a very talented painter. I asked her if she would like to paint the logo for my own cross stitching design label and she did the most wonderful job on the picture. As my way of saying thank you, I am making a box with her initials. But more of that in the next post.

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Day 4 - Atelier de Brodeuse by Passion Bonheur

The chart calls for really bright red floss, but after just a few stitches I've lost my mojo continuing this project. So I frogged those few red stitches and started again with a more antique pink floss. It looks so much better on the Summer khaki linen. Unfortunately I didn't get much done this day either, still working on the box.

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Day 5 - Bienen Emblem (1st of 3 French designs from an old German magazine)

I really enjoyed starting this project. I love designs with bees and this one is especially beautiful. The entire design is stitched in just two colours.

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Day 6 - Bonne mère (2nd of 3 French Designs from an old German magazine)

Just a small start on bonne mère. I finished the box that day and therefore didn't get much stitching done.

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Day 7 - Fruit Wreath from a German magazine

On Saturday, I visited Virpi at her home for a stitching-get-together. We had a wonderful time with tea, English fruitcake, home-baked bread and of course a lot of stitching. This is how much I got done in only a few hours of stitching. I am stitching this design on 14ct aida rustico. I think the colour of the fabric is just perfect to give the wreath a country style look.

Crazy January Challenge - Day 2

2012-01-04T07:18:00.001+02:00

I'm a little bit behind on posting my starts of the Crazy January Challenge. It is already day 4 today, but I have only a picture of day 2 to show.

This is the start of the 1827 Biedermeier reproduction Sampler. I have the chart in my stash for at least 15 years but never really liked the colours in this sampler and therefore never started it. Now that I finally did start, I realized that the picture on the chart got the colours all wrong and that it is actually quite beautiful.

I got a lot of stitching done on the first day, due to my meeting with Niina, Jaana and Virpi in a Helsinki café. We had a great evening with tea and hot chocolate and lots of stitching.

No need to say that we draw a lot of attention to other visitor of the café. Knitting in public is, at least here in Helsinki, quite normal, but stitching, that is a whole different story.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T17:40:00.000+02:00

Finally! Today's the 1st January and the start for the Crazy January Challenge 2012. The day I've been waiting for so long.

I have decided to start my 15 crazy projects in alphabetically order and the first one is "1814 Butterfly collection" by Carriage House Samplings. What I didn't take in consideration is, that the Butterfly Sampler is the most difficult project in my selection. Almost each butterfly has different instructions, lots of parts are stitched 1 over 1 and I am stitching on Indian raw linen which is about a 38ct and extremely uneven.

As many others the Mr. and I celebrated New Year's Eve. We have been invited to a friends party, had good food and drank beer, champagne and Russian vodka (one of the invited friends is from St. Petersburg, Russia that's why there is always vodka included). Now our friend lives on the other side of the town and there was no way of getting home during the night. (I tried to get a taxi for hours without any success) So we got home today around 10am, after having a "Robert's Coffee"-breakfast at the railway station. (Chai Latte and French Croissants)

And with this huge lack of sleep I've started bravely my first butterfly right after a little nap. I took this picture soon after starting to catch the last beam of sunlight, but by now half of the butterfly is ready.

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Just a few days ago, I have also started a new Christmas design. It's called "1999 Christmas Sampler" as well from Carriage House Samplings. I am stitching on 18ct. black aida and to make a confession: It is the first time for me stitching on black fabric, even thou I am stitching for almost 30 years in total already.

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Last but not least, I like to share the Fair & Square Round 27 pieces, that I received from Milly.

Aren't those the most beautiful squares. I love the design and the colour they are stitched in. They will make a great addition to my exchange-pieces display.

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Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

2011-12-25T14:05:00.003+02:00

This years Christmas is really quite for the Mr. and me. Both of our families are living far way and we decided to skip the travelling and just staying at home alone. So beside cooking the dinner, I have nothing else to do, and that gives me plenty of time for stitching.

Yesterday I have started and finished stitching two more Christmas designs.

Design: Mistletoe & Holly

Designer Cloudberry Samplings

32 ct. raw linen

DMC thread

Mistletoe and Holly are both my own Designs. I made them for the Adventkalender of my German stitching group.

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Also, a couple of weeks ago I have finished two Christmas ornaments.

Design: Merry Xmas Design: Weihnachtsvogel

Designer: The little Stitcher Designer: acufactum

26ct. coffee/tea dyed evenweave 1 over 1 26ct. natural evenweave 1 over 1

DMC thread DMC thread