Yesterday's stitching meeting

Yesterday my Finnish stitching group had another meeting. This time it took place at Outi's home, which is about a two-hour-drive away from Helsinki. I was very lucky to catch a ride from my stitching friend Virpi who attended the same meeting. We had a lot of fun in the car, especially on the way back, since we rolled on our very last drops of gasoline to the next gas station. I was so worried that we get stuck on the highway.

I made some great progress on my Jane Austen sampler by "The Sampler Girl" and I got lots of compliments for it.

The only picture I have to show is from the early morning, when people where still gathering together. When the actually stitching madness started I completely forgot to take more pictures.

Outi's home is beautifully decorated with all her handmade items, including a lot of stitched pictures and goodies. All together there were about 14 stitchers with some leaving early and some more coming later that day.

For this meeting we decided to  have an Autumn themed exchange. As usual I forgot to take a picture of the package that I set together. And the recipient was the first one to leave. All I can say is that Sari really liked it and maybe you can see a picture of the whole set on her blog soon.

The set that I received was made by Kirsi. Isn't the wreath beautiful?

Here are some close ups.

Kirsi told me that she found the antique tread bobbin from the flea market. I think it is a perfect door wreath for any stitcher.

Sunday progress....

... once again it is Sunday and time to show some stitching progress. I finished today the second part of the "many years ago" sampler that I am stitching as a SAL in my German stitching group.

I just love this colour combination. 

This sampler is part of my 10-hour-stitching-rotation. But since the individual sections are released every two weeks and each section is stitched in much less than 10 hours, it kind of messes up my rotation plan. I decided to squeeze the new parts in as the come.

Beside this sampler I have also worked a little on "On travel with Jane Austen". 

I truly love this sampler. It is so much fun to stitch.

The Sampler Girl's give away

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.