January Stitch From Stash

Here I am with my very first Stitch from Stash post of 2015. This year, after reading blogs from other SFS participants, I have decided that I'm using £25 for my monthly budget. Stash is quite pricey over here and we don't get much for our money. However this does not mean I am going to allow myself to spend £25 but it's there if I happen to need fabric and threads during one month as it would soon go! My goal this year though is to do even better than I did last year, use as much fabric etc from my stash and get my chart collection down.

So here is my report then I'll get onto my stitching!

Month: January

Spent : £8.91 ( fabric for Classic Collection ornament, hand dyed threads. Not yet received. Possibly lost in post :(  )

Earned: £4 ( For finishing Jenny Bean's Pin Tuffet )

Total to carry over: £20.09

I have started a grand total of 4 charts from my stash and finished 3 of those but only one counts towards my earnings ( a new feature for SFS this year ) as I've had the chart in my stash over 6 months. 

Wednesday was Chris' birthday and I had been stitching away on a gift for her and here it is.

With Thy Needle and Thread Blue Bunting

32 count Vintage Country Mocha Linen

DMC, GAST, WDW.

Birthday Gift for Chris.

This is my first watch fob finish and it certainly won't be my last. Chris loves it too :)

WIPs now and everything is coming along quite nicely even though I say so myself.

My robin is getting a little progress every Saturday evening. It may not be growing very quickly but these things are time consuming! I kept looking down the page thinking oh my God such a lot of confetti where the tree is! It made me want to give up there and then but I know I can do it! 

Barb and I have been carrying on our Halloween SAL so here's my progress on BBD Spell of the Moon. Unfortunately the skein of CC Black Coffee that I found in my stash is not the same shade as the one I'd already been stitching with but hopefully it won't be too noticeable.

My March Cottage should be finished in good time! These lovely little charts are such a joy to stitch :)

No snow here but it's snowing plenty over in the Frosty Forest and Snowgirl's Cottage is growing quite nicely. 

I've managed a teeny bit of progress Beerenherz im Winter. I just love this piece. It looks so pretty so far.

Silly me I totally forgot my progress on August's Poppy. Some frogging needed to be done unfortunately!

Finally Angels with Barb is finished! I did have to frog some as it turned out not only was the centre angel too high she was also too far to the left! Duh! She is still too high but I had to restitch her that way or everything would have been wrong! How can something so simple cause problems! We'll be starting our next one in February.

Country Cottage Needleworks Angels

32 count Lambswool Linen

DMC and Classic Colorworks

Thank you for all your lovely comments and for your congratulations for Jess. She's had a bit of a shaky start this week after the rota got changed and no one let her know or someone ( not Jess! ) got  things mixed up but everything is good now! 

I really must apologise as I still haven't visited all your blogs yet. I will get there as I love to see what you are all working on and I love getting inspiration.

Take care everyone.

With much love.

Sally xxx

Where's My Snow! Lol!

Hello from a rather chilly England! No snow where I live unfortunately but other parts of the country have it. I'm still hoping that we'll get some soon. It's going to be very cold over the next few days so you never know what might happen.  This time two years ago we had lots of  snow. I remember it well as two years ago on 14th my Dad passed away. I still miss him so much. Life has not been the same since.

Anyway let's talk about stitching as that is what you're here for. Barb and I started our second SAL and have now had 2 Fridays stitching on Country cottage Needleworks Angels from the Classic Ornament Collection.  I noticed last night that I'd made a mistake on the vine under the angels which means that my middle angel is higher than it should be but I'm not frogging anything! It will stay as it is as it's not too bad! This is stitched using the recommended fabric and threads as when I signed up for the auto I chose to get the fabric and hand dyes needed. Mainly because I liked the red used on this one!  I plan on finishing it the way Vonna did so I bought the ribbons in Harrogate.

My robin has been getting a little more attention so it's growing slowly but surely. Lisa is stitching up a storm on the piece she's stitching with me and it looks amazing!

Speaking of Lisa it was her birthday yesterday and this is what I stitched for her.

Shakespeare' s Peddler Jenny Bean's Pin Tuffet

40 count Sand linen

DMC

Birthday gift for Lisa.

I am very happy to say that Lisa loves it . I am disappointed in my finishing as there is still red showing on the tin lid . I didn't get the top glued in the right place. One day I will get this right.

After several weeks on hold while I tried to get other stitching out of the way I have finally picked up August's Poppy again. I have loved getting back to this as it's so pretty. Hopefully I'll get another good evening on it tomorrow but Abi has got me addicted to Dragons Rise of Berk game and I have to keep checking my progress!

A little more progress on Spell of the Moon with Barb now. I ran out of CC Black Coffee so asked Karla at The Patchwork Rabbit to add one to my next ornament auto and guess what?! I had a skein in my stash! I didn't like to ask her not to bother and I'm sure, when it arrives, that it'll get used at some point!  

As I'd finished the February cottage last week I started the March one on Tuesday. This is another one that has such pretty colours in it.

Frosty Forest is going quite well. 

Finally a little more progress on my SAL with Chris. She has finished hers and I'm excited to see how she finishes it off. I am slow on it now as  Barb and I have started our SALs and I've gone back to August's Poppy so I just stitch on it on a Thursday evening now but I've had a birthday gift to stitch as well.

Speaking of  birthdays it is with great regret that I'm going to have to cut down on the amount of birthday gifts I send out. I have thought long and hard about it and have realised that I can no longer do so many due to postage costs etc. I will still be sending some but just not as many.

Oooh I almost forgot! CCN Needlework Shop is ready for display! Just have to do The Tearoom next. I think they will hang on my landing.

Apologies for so many photos. I may have a change of the way I work my rotation once Frosty Forest and the Garden Journal are finished so that I'm not stitching on so many. I will see how I feel :).

Great news for Jess this week as on Wednesday she received a phone call from The Card Factory to go for an interview on Thursday. She must have made a good impression during her time there as a temp as she starts next week on a permanent contract. It's a minimum of 8 hours a week. She is really pleased and so are we. 

That's all my news for  now. I've been steadily catching up on blogs but still have a few I haven't visited yet but rest assured I'll be there eventually!

Take care everyone and stay warm.

With much love

Sally xxxx

First Finish of 2015

It's hard to believe we are already a week into 2015! Sigh. Why does time have to go so fast?! Jess had her final shift at her temporary job on Tuesday.  I think we were both hoping they might offer her a permanent job but we will have to see. There may be something in the pipeline but I'm not holding my breath!

I decided not to have my usual New Year's Day new start this year. I figured that I already have enough on the go and I really want to get some of the series finished as soon as  I can. I think I've got a little snowed under of late so my first aim of 2015 is to finish the Frosty Forest series ( 6 down, 1 started, 2 to go ) and the Garden Journal series ( 7 down, 1 started, 4 to go! ). It will take me a few months but I would like to try and give myself a little stitching time during the day at least once a week to get further on with them. Then I will just have the monthly cottages series and the classic ornaments which Barb and I starting tonight.

So the first finish that I can show is this :).

Country Cottage Needleworks February Cottage

32 count Natural Opalescent linen

DMC

.

I just love the colours in this one. March will started next Tuesday :).

Barb and I have restarted our Halloween SAL. You may remember we both stitched Barbara Ana Designs Wicked Since for our first one and we both thought we'd be stitching different ones for the other 11 but no we both chose Blackbird Designs Spell of the Moon! This is my start from Monday. I had looked online before I went to Harrogate for the thread list and wherever I looked must have had it listed wrong as I had one wrong! So I used the DMC listed in the chart instead but it looks dark compared to the picture so not sure whether to pull it out! Think I have too much of it stitched now ( it's the grey ).

I made a little more progress on Snowgirl's Cottage on Wednesday.  I love how this looks. I'm wondering how to finish it when it's all stitched up. Maybe a cushion or something like that as I don't want to get it framed. I'm running out of space!

I haven't stitched much on my SAL with Chris lately so last night I decided to see if I could get page 1 finished. It didn't quite happen but I'm getting there. Chris has almost finished hers although she may have it done now.

Finally my robin. It's funny how you think I'll never get this finished but then you look closer at what you've stitched and what you have left to stitch then you start thinking I can do this! Out of 9 pages there is actually only one full one although some of them are close to being full ones!

I received a lovely belated birthday note and gifts from dear June this week. Isn't it a wonderful package to receive in the bleakness of the aftermath of Christmas? I have hung the heart and angel together :). Thank you so much dear June. 

That's all my stitching news for now. I've been trying to get some finishes sorted to make up. Tea Room and Needlework Shop are half way done as is Snow  Angel which was my New Year's Day start last year.

Until next time.

Take care everyone.

With much love

Sally xxxxx