Guard This Keep - finished!

Am really pleased with the way this has turned out as - I may have mentioned this - I hate rayon & metallic threads and most of this design was made up of them. I may have to re-think my attitude towards them! The pic doesn't really do it justice as it's all shiny and sparkly. Hopefully my mum will love it, I'll be sending it out to her next week. Ynys Haf, the name of their house, means 'Island of Summer' and as far as I know it's a sort of Welsh Avalon.

Before getting back to poor neglected Maggie, I've started on some mini birth records for mum as well as she likes to keep track of her grandchildren. I've chosen the baby shoes design for Tove (meant for a Christening) from a back issue of Cross Stitcher, and also the baby feet design from another of the mags for Catrin, my niece. I'm doing the shoes one for Catrin's mum as well. Will add pics when complete!

Guard this Keep update

Two weeks into 'Guard this Keep' and I've finished the border, the castle and trees and the lettering at the top - very pleased with myself as the border and lettering is all in Kreinik braid and rayon threads. Just got to do the dragon and the name of my parents' house (all charted and ready to go - Craft Creations do brilliant graph paper in different counts for designing) so hopefully I'll get it all finished in time to send it to France very soon.

Think I might have to put Maggie off again while I do a birth sampler - I'm going to be an aunty next week for the first time, very exciting. I hate when people don't know what they're having, it means I can't get a head start...

Greetings fom Brittany!

Writing from my parents' house in France - it's much warmer here than in the UK, although there was snow on the drive down from Calais on Monday. The lagoon next to the canal across the road is frozen and looks like frosted green glass - on a walk yesterday we saw hundreds of gulls floating on the river and being spooked by a buzzard which then wheeled off into the sky, coots chasing each other in the fields and cormorants perched in an old tree. My OH has been taking pictures so I'll post some when we get back to the UK.

I am managing to get some stitching done too, while Granny cuddles Tove and Daisy plays with all the 'holiday' toys! I started 'Guard this Keep' (Dragon Dreams chart) yesterday - requested by my mum to go in her hallway. It's on lurex-flecked aida and uses 4 or 5 different rayon threads which are too slippery for me. I stocked up on that miracle product Thread Heaven - that helps a bit, and I read somewhere that dampening the threads before use also helps. Any more tips would be appreciated. The design calls for Kreinik braids as well as the rayon so this could take a while!

Last week I made some progress on Maggie's BS - will post pics of everything soon....