I'm a cheater!

Besides a little progress on my Mary Wigham I have barely stitched anything this week.

Instead I cheated on my stitching needles with my knitting needles. I just can't help myself, but when summer's gone and autumn arrives I always get a lack of stitching motivation.

With the first leaves turning and falling from the trees the only things I can think about are nice, warm and cozy winter scarfs. So this is what I was doing during the last couple of days. I knitted a scarf for my sweetheart, or better to say, I started. Because I run out of yarn and have to go to the wool store before I can finish it.

It is a real delight knitting a simple but beautiful pattern like this. I saw a similar one a couple of weeks ago somewhere in the net and wanted to try it myself. I am not much of a knitter that's why I like the turn out so much. I can only do some basic things but I would so much love to learn knitting socks and lace. Maybe someday I will get there.

I also knitted these few squares. They are only samplers. I knitted them from 100% wool and am going to felt them now. I want to see how the patterns turn out after the felting process and how much they are shrinking. My plan is to knit and felt a few handbags. Christmas is almost here and I like to have a few selfmade gifts on hand.

small stitching progress

After all of my not stitching related posts lately I finally have some progress to share with you. I only stitched a little bit here an there. Usually I am trying to stick to only one project at a time, but this time I wasn't really in the mood for that and stitched a few crosses each on all my WIP.

First of all I like to show you my update on Mary Wigham. It isn't as much as I liked to show you, but I am getting there.


Next one is something I stitched for a Round Robin. The Theme was "Winter" so I decided to stitch some cozy winter warms. The patterns for the gloves and hat are from a very old dutch cross stitch magazine. I got it once from my aunt.


This one is a freebie by Casey Buonaugurio. It is the same designer I stitched the Chocolate Covered Cherries from, which can be seen in an earlier post. I started this one quite a while ago and even thou it is such a small design I still haven't finished it. Shame on me!


Next there is "See the Stars" by Monika Buro. The colors look quite the same than my "other" new cross stitch project, don't they? Well, it is the same project. When starting the 3rd part of the SAL I recognized that I started at the wrong spot. It turned out I didn't leave enough border. So I had to frog everything and started all over again. This time I started with the 3rd part, so this way I am pretty sure that there is enough border left.


Last but not least is here a picture of my brand new project. Special Delivery by Blackbird Designs. I just couldn't wait any longer and had to start this. The picture showes the result of one evening stitching and I am already very happy with it. The fabric I have chosen is the same one I am stitching Mary Wigham on. It is a very rough raw linen from india. If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can actually see how uneven it is. But I love it. I wish I could get more of it.

Mary Wigham update

Hi everybody! I am back to blogging. The time with my sister and her boyfriend was just flying by. We had a lot of fun together and we were very lucky with the weather. Besides a few hours of rain the one or the other day it was very warm and we had a lot of sunshine.

I haven't had much time for stitching during that time so I can only show you a little progress. I continued stitching on my Mary Wigham Sampler and part 2 is almost done.

I love how the squirrel turned out so here is a close up.

I also started stitching the squares for 2 rounds of the Fair & Square Exchange. I'm almost done with both of them and I am trying hard to get them out in time.

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.

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.