Breaking the long silence!!

Hello dear friends and fellow stitchers, its been such a long while since I posted anything on my blog!  I'm not proud of that by any means, however I’m back to share some of what I have been doing over the past months.  I’ve been doing some cross stitching but still need to do some finishing.  I am also stitching my Christmas ornaments and am pleased to say that I am one month ahead, yeah!!  During my long absence, there was a Spring Exchange with my group from Hooked on Exchanging (HoE).  My partner was Marie P and I choose a motif from Signs of Spring from the Prairie Schooler Book No. 163.  It was a fun stitch and I was pleased with how it turned out considering there was a lot of frustration on my part putting it together.  My sewing machine broke down which meant I had to stitch it by hand.  Marie seems pleased with what I made for her and I breathed a sigh of relief thanking God that she liked it.

Design: Motif from Signs of Spring

Designer: The Prairie Schooler

Finish: Pincushion

Fabric: Creame Jobelan Evenweave

Cotton fabric for backing

Trim: Olive green satin ribbon

I received my exchange from Linda O.  She stitched a sweet “Lizze Kate” design made into an ornament.  Thank you Linda!

With that done, I’m off to start my next exchange – HoE summer 2013 Exchange.  It should be fun stitch again. Along with that I will be doing my Christmas ornaments and hopefully some finishing to show off.

Bye for now and happy stitching!!

Sandrajay

A Prairie Schooler finish

The runaway pancake is back! Yes, that's right I'm back and have something to show for my long absence! As usual, life got in the way of blogging along with the fact that I am having some issues with my laptop. I need more memory and I am getting a hard time finding out what type of memory I need. I took it to the technician and he should come to my rescue hopefully by tomorrow. When my DH bought the computer he didn't think I will needed more than 512 mb but with my cross stitching patterns, photos etc I surely do need more memory. So as a result the laptop is very slow and sometimes unresponsive which is making me very, very frustrated.

Anyhow without much further ado, here is what I stitched in my long absence away from my blog. I love Prairie Schooler designs and hopefully I should be stitching more in the coming months. This design was taken from the Designer Series - Forget-Me-Nots.

A pinkeep was not my first choice for a finish but I couldn't seem to find the right fabric to match the design to make a pillow so I decided to use what I had in my stash at the time and make a pinkeep.

Design: Parrot in Cage
Designer: Prairie Schooler
(From Designer Series: Forget-Me-Nots)
Threads: DMC recommended
Fabric: Creame Evenweave
Trims: Matching ribbon, cording and backing fabric
Finish: Pinkeep

So until the pancake comes by again, here's wishing you happy stitching and thank you for stopping by.

On with the Exchanges!

The next exchange I did with HoE was held in September 2008. This was a Prairie Schooler exchange and I stitched a pincushion from Pins and Needles Book No. 115 for Yasmin. It was my first time sending out an exchange to Malaysia so you could imagine my fear of it being lost but she got it in about two weeks or so which wasn't bad. I enjoyed stitching this for Yasmin.

And I received this wonderful floss ring from Marie. I think this is the second time she got my name last year! But I am not sorry because she does such a great job with her stitching and finishings. I hope some day to turn out project just like her. Here is what she sent. She stitched me Friends Book No. 84.

November saw the exchanging of floss tags! My partner for this one was Joke. I stitched her a motif from "Life is Sweet" designed by Ria Lanser. I tried to be different on this one just for variety. I did not use an eyelet by just a piece of ribbon for the loop. I made my own cording. It didn't turn out as I would have liked but nevertheless Joke liked it. This is the floss she received from me.

I received in this exchange the tiniest floss tag I have seen from Caroline in England! She did it on 40 count fabric one over one and it was her first time stitching one over one. I think she did a wonderful job and I am hoping that she wasn't crossed eyed when she was finished, lol. It is too tiny! I must try that one over one thing some day.

In February, 2009, I started my exchanging with the Valentine's Day exchange for Sadie in the U.K. I stitched a piece called "Valentin" from the website http://feutrieetpetitescroix.fr/.

I also crocheted a doily for Sadie as she is learning to crochet. I hope she found it useful.

Michelle in the U.S stitched me a scissors fob and a sachet bag for my Valentine exchange. "Heart Throb" from the Drawn Thread. I love the way it was finished. I think it is very cute and a "Teeny Tiny Love Bag" from Victoria Sampler. Thank you Michelle.

She also included a sachet bag, bath salts and needles which I am sure will come in handy.

My last exchange so far is one which was done for Arbor Day - with a woodland theme. I chose my piece from Just Cross Stitch Magazine Christmas Ornaments 2004 for my partner Becky K. I wanted to stitch this one for myself but thought that it would go well with the theme. I am glad I stitched this one because Becky loved it. I finished it into a pinkeep/scissors keeper.

And my exchange for Arbor day came from Marie in Sweden. She stitched an oven mitten taken from an English magazine called the "Cross Stitcher. It depicts the chestnut tree.

So that's it for the exchanges. Thanks to all of you who sent me beautiful exchanges. I love every one.
Please note: Sorry but I am not able to get the links to show up so that they can be clicked on. I think that I am doing everything right but they just won't show up! Grrrrrr!
*Edited to say that I finally got the links figured out so the links are clickable now.

Weekend of Finishings

It's been a while since I've made an entry on my blog! I always promise myself to blog a little more often but due to exchange deadlines, housework and my job there is very little time to blog. Time is such a precious commodity and is in no way renewable, I have been trying to find ways of gaining time for my hobby. So, I have decided to dedicated a couple of weekends to stitching and finishings and this is what I have achieved so.

First is a flanged pillow. I stitched this freebie "Blessed Be" from Plumpudding Needleart . I stitched it with the recommended DMC threads. It was my first attempt at a flanged pillow. I hope it won't be my last.
I also managed to finish an altoid tin. There was some experimenting going on here with this one. This is also a freebie called "Jour de fete" from a French designer, Au fil de fee. I like French designs and have a few freebies I wish to stitch later. I found this to be a cute pattern with the pastel colours. I think I made an error with the petals because they should have been done in daisy stitches! Then again my French is not very good so you have to excuse me for that. That reminds me I have to buy me a french dictionary!


I made the cording (first time) and was pleased with my achievement. I have to make some more though, as it was fun to make and it does make you finished work look nice and complete.

Another "first" finish is a scissors pocket. I made this from a Prairie Schooler freebie "S is for Spring". I got the instructions from Beckysc. Thanks Becky. The instructions were well written. I love how this turned out! I thought the backing fabric was just perfect. I found it among some remnants I was about to throw out. Oh, this was stitched on aida fabric (28 count). This was before I ever heard of evenweave and linen! I used the recommended DMC thread for this as well.
I did this pinkeep a few weekends ago. This freebie is from Pelin Tezer which was done on ivory 28 count evenweave. She did not have a name for this particular freebie as a single pattern so we decided to call it "Ring of Roses". Very appropriate, I thought. I finished it was ruched ribbon which was very easy to make. I thought it came out well and the backing fabric really complemented it. I stitched it with DMC threads.

Well, that's it for now. I have some more to share but it is getting late here and I want to go visit some of your blogs. I think you ladies have some wonderful blogs and I do enjoy perusing them after a long hard day at the office or in the kitchen, lol.