Not Much Ado!

Not a lot to post about this week. This is my Delivering Winter pillow finish. I replaced the stitched snowflakes with some buttons and yes my snowman are a little different from the original. I really enjoyed stitching this, it's one design I would definately do again.

I wish I could tell you this beautiful stitched pillow is mine but sadly no it now belongs to June in the UK. This is the lovely Summer Holiday Exchange package that was sent to her from Colleen in the US. If you would like to see the rest of these beautiful Exchanges please pop over to the Summer Holiday Gallery at http://stitchedwithloveexchanges.blogspot.com/2011/09/summer-holiday-exchange-gallery.html

Hope everyone has a great week and don;t forgot to check out my Birthday give-away. Hugs!  

Stitching/Last chance Exchange/Birthday Give-away!

Apologies for the awful picture. I just need to stuff, sew and add some snowflake buttons and this will be finished. If anyone out there has any of the Homespun Elegance Delivering series for Sale or Trade can they please contact me.

Once again I was overwhelmed when I received this gorgeous stitched pin and summer goodies from naughty Teresa. As I wasn;t taking part in the Summer Exchange that I organised she being the angel that she is decided to send me a package so I wasn;t left out. Beautiful fabric, buttons and a sweet little sunshine tissue holder. In the previous package I received she had sent a packet of jelly beans and I told her how my DH just loves these. There quite difficult to find here and expensive he usually has a treat at Christmas and Birthdays. You do get fake ones but he won;t eat those. How happy was he when he saw this huge bag. I think he has them stashed in an armoured box...lol.

Today is the closing date to sign-up for the Fall into Halloween Exchange at Stitched with Love Exchanges. So far we have had 26 who want to come play. If your sitting on the fence, go on pop on over to the blog and join in the fun.

Don't forgot to also join in my Birthday Give-away. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far.

Hope everyone stays safe with the nasty Hurricane in the US. Until next time, hugs!

New Fall/Halloween Exchange/Finishes/Give-away!

Earlier this year I decided to set up a blog for exchanges. The response I have had has been great. The stitched pieces and all the extras that have been sent and received in our last three exchanges have been wonderful. Our new Exchange is called Fall into Autumn. You can choose whether you would prefer to receive a Fall or Halloween themed package and there are 5 weeks between the time you are given your partners details until you need to mail out your package. If you would like to come along and join in the fun visit us on the Stitched with Love Exchange blog.

A little more  progress on Delivering Winter.

I took some time again this week to finish off these two pieces from my stitched but not finished box. They were both stitched some time in the past 5 years. Santa is from the Tiny Tidings VI chart by Lizzie Kate and the Cow design is part of a chart from an old American magazine.

As mentioned in my last post I am having a Birthday Give-away. This is what will be included in the package for the lucky winner.

Cross-stitch Fabric

Quilting, Sewing, Finishing Fabric

Ribbons & Buttons

Threads

Charts

Bug Pillow

Complete Give-away

To have a chance to win:

1. For one entry you must comment on every post I make from now until the Give-away closes on Friday 23rd September.

2. Another two entrys will be given if you are a current follower , one entry for new followers.

3. Posting a link to the Give-away on your blog one more entry (indicate if you have done this on a comment).

4. Please leave your email address if it isn;t already in your profile.

5. The Winner will be announced on the week-end off my Birthday Saturday24th/Sunday25th September.

Good luck!

Sunday Stitches & A Give-away!

I decided to treat myself to a new start yesterday. This is Delivering Winter by Homespun Elegance. As usual my threads, my colours as I have to use what I have in my stash. I;m quite pleased with it so far and it is stitching up quite quickly.

I had another day of finishing this week. This design is Spooky Patch a freebie by Lizzie Kate. I swapped the squares around and replaced the spider and cauldron design with the buttons.

Mr Scarecrow I stitched in 2006 and Mrs Scarecrow 2007 they are both from The Love of Cross-stitch magazines. I knew I would get round to finishing them one day but I didn;t think it would take me four years. Then again there are a number off pieces much older than that in my box waiting to be finished. I shall hopefully get around to doing more soon.

 Nia my lovely stitchy friend celebrated her Birthday last month. She was delighted with her gifts which included the Lizzie-kate cube finish, heart ornament and a little cup-cake I made up with some fabric and pins. Do pop over and say Hi to Nia and see all her crafts and beautiful stitches. Next month it will be my turn to blow out the candles on the cake. I am going to have a give-away to celebrate. The winner will be chosen from the people who take the time to comment on any of my posts from today until my Birthday at the end of September. I will reveal whats in the package in my next post. Good luck to anyone who enters. Until the next time, hugs! 

A bit of this and that!

I just had to start this post with the wonderful surprise I received in the mail this week. Dear sweet Sally sent me this darling Snowman that she knows would just melt my heart. Thank you Sally for such a sweet gift. I know we will both get through the tough road we seem to be travelling just now our love, support, friendship and stitches will see us through.

I know it;s only August but my Snowmen are calling to me so I just had to get started on this years Christmas pieces. This little guy is my definition off Be Warm by Shepherds Bush. Even though I had the buttons for the orginal chart I just felt they were too big for this piece so I stitched the hat, added the nose and lots of extra snowflakes. I just love how this pretty trimming turned out and will definately use it again when I can track down some more.



I have to confess I;ve got a bit behind with my monthly SAL. June;s design was a Skeleton that we were doing on plastic canvas but I ran out of thread and had to put it aside. I didn;t finish this one for July until this week. It;s a wonderful freebie design by Berit at http://jauntyfoxdesignsshop.blogspot.com/  As we head into the second week of August the chart hasn;t quite been decided yet but I keep telling myself you will catch up , you will catch up, if you don;t the naughty chair awaits..lol.

Marly had a wonderful give-away for boxes off fabric on her blog. The lucky winners (which was me, me, me) just had to pay for the p&p for all this wonderful fabric. I was so delighted when mine arrived, Marly as you can see had included all these extra beads and a really pretty Mill Hill Kit. Please go check out her blog and say Hi to such a sweet lady.

I only had 7 entrys for this little chart so I just matched everyone up with a coloured bead and got DH to draw one. Congratulations too Tanya the chart will be in the mail soon.

Our little visitor Ned the Gnome is having a great time visiting us in Scotland as you can see he has recently been doing some baking. He has travelled here from his family home in Pennsylvania where he lives with the lovely Catherine and her family. He has his own blog where you can follow his travels. Coming from a stitchers family he knows how friendly and kind stitchers are so he is hoping that you could take a few minutes to go visit him , follow his blog, say Hi and leave a comment.http://nedgnomesadventure.blogspot.com/

Finally for the fellow garden lovers some more flowers from my garden. In this horrible wet and miserable summer we are having it is so nice to look out and see some colour in the garden. The rain has been torrential again the last few days. I do hope August will bring us some much needed dry sunny weather. Hugs!

Some finishes!

First of all let me thank all those "chanters" out there for sending me some sunshine this week. Sadly though it didn;t last long and we have had more heavy rain and right now there is a thunder storm that wants to join in. I haven;t stepped out the door all week-end but have put my time to good use with some stitching and finishing.

On Saturday I wanted something small to stitch that I didn;t need to concentrate too hard on as  I had parked myself in front off the tv to watch the British Open Golf tournament.  I found this perfect little chart in my stash and was delighted that I managed to get it stitched and finished all in the one day. I won this chart in a give-away so I would like to pass it on to someone now. Just leave me a comment on this post and if there is more than one person I will draw a name.

My dear friend Colleen celebrated her Birthday last week. This is the little package off goodies I sent her. Like me she loves Sheep so I couldn;t resist making this one for her. I was so thrilled how this finish turned out I just love the sheepy ribbon. I really wanted to keep it for myself.



Finally though I do think these have turned out quite pretty I am glad they are finished. Stitching the same chart twice within a few weeks gives me no joy and as usual I got another chapter for my "how not to finish" book. They had to be ready to hand over to my Mum this week-end and I was quite anxious as I was still stitching them Friday morning and the finishing cubes didn;t arrive until the afternoon. My DD gave me a hand to put them together. We did the lemon one first and as Heather was doing the bow I started on the pink one. As I went to put on the fabric I realised that I had used pink fabric around the lemon one. Thankfully as its mostly pins and a little glue we managed to quickly swap them around. We then got the pink one complete. I was pleased with how they looked and Heather was well chuffed on what a great job she had did on the bows. We were sitting at the kitchen table admiring our work when DH arrived home. He is leaning on the kitchen work-top chatting to us and then he starts laughing. He said did you realise one of the girls had the surname Murpy and the other is Murphy. I couldn;t possible post my reply. Once again the same cube as before had to be pulled apart and sorted. I was so relieved when they were finally finished and handed over. If anyone spots any other mistakes ....NO COMMENT!

Until next time when I shall have a new start or maybe even another finish. Happy Stitching!

Exchanges & Gifts!

I recently started a blog for Exchanges and I;m delighted to say that our second Exchange with a Tea-party/Picnic theme has been a great success. Please visit our Gallery  to see all the wonderful packages sent and received by everyone who took part. For anyone interested sign-ups are open until tomorrow on our latest Summer Holiday Exchange.

These wonderful goodies were from my partner Lisa Isn;t my Watermelon pillow so pretty. I just love the Cottage Sampler chart, cute buttons, ribbon, fabrics and as I seem to be on a baking kick just now I;m looking forward to trying out those cute cookie cutters. Thank you so much Lisa for such a fabulous Exchange.

This is my Tea-party package that I made up for my partner Debbie I included some cup-cake napkins,recipe cards, stitched cube, fabric and pin cup-cake, thread cup-cake, button cake, tea-bag, tunnocks biscuit a mug and tea-tray.

I also received this wonderful surprise Tea-party RAK from Teresa My pretty mat is now displayed under my buttons and ribbons jar. My notepad which will be well used (I;ve a thing about making lists..lol) is on my fridge and I off course will have no problem using up those threads and that lovely kit. Thank you so much Teresa it was so kind of you to suprise me with this.

This is the one of the little Birthday gifts I gave you a peek at on my last post. It has now arrived with my dear friend Erna who said she was delighted with it, though I did have to apologise for the scary faces...lol.  As you can see even after many, many years off trying I still can;t do french knots.

Apologise to dear sweet Nia I was tidying out my display basket in the kitchen and I spotted my darling little bunny she made for me and I realised I hadn;t posted him on my blog. Isn;t he cute...ty sweetie. If I ever get any new mindees I;m sure we will be making him a few little friends as it would be a great craft project for the little ones.

Recently I was lucky enough to won a give-away that Edit had on her blog. My photo doesn't do these coasters justice. They are so delicate and pretty. I really don;t want to get them all grubby by using them as coasters. I want them displayed nicely so everyone can see them. These were crocheted by Edits Mum Kati a very talented lady.

Sorry for making this final picture so large but I just wanted to share what a horrible Summer we are having here in Scotland. As I mentioned in my last post we have had a few days of sunshine but on the whole since June we have mainly had weather like this. So this week friends when you are sitting there stabbing your needle through your fabric I want you all to chant  send Lainey sunshine, send Lainey sunshine, send Lainey sunshine. I will let you know on my return if it works..LOL. Happy Stitching!