Mother's Day gift

This pin is themed specifically for my mum! The charms are a Welsh dragon, a Welsh lovespooon, a Green Man, a daisy (my daughter), and Celtic knots. The red stones are garnets as she was born in January, and then I added some glass beads to chunk it out a bit. I did try and fit in a sheep and a Snorkmaiden (for my other daughter, named after the author of the Moomin stories) but that seemed a bit OTT. The ladybird spacers (in between the garnets on the right hand side) mean me....in case she forgets who made it! Next up is one for me, with lots of different ladybirds.

Crafty afternoon!

My lovely other half took Daisy off to his mum's this afternoon and it's amazing how much you can get done without the 'assistance' of a toddler! As well as the ironing I made bara brith - fruit teabread - and microwave fudge, finished the penguin bag and experimented with a kilt pin brooch kit I bought on ebay a couple of months ago. I didn't take a photo of the fudge but here's everything else...

Useful websites

I was having a trawl through cyberspace today in search of design paper and discovered two amazing sites where different grids can be downloaded for free, along with some other useful stitchy tools:

http://stitchpoint.com/eng/tool/grid/_intro_graphpaper.php - under the tools link at the bottom of the page you can also find a fabric calculator and quite the best alphabet generator I've come across.

http://www.cyberstitchers.com/StitchingTools/GridPaper/index.asp?processForm=0 - not only can you download different grids, but you can also upload your own image behind the 'paper' so you can see how it looks. How clever is that???

This week - as well as thinking about sampler design - I'm playing with kilt pins and beads. Will post pic of whatever I come up with. Ribbon scarf is 30cm long so far, and the weather today was positively springlike. Still, winter always comes round again...

No stitching today but...

...I have spent the afternoon making gingerbread teddies and date and banana loaf with my daughter. She has decorated the teddies with jelly tots and smarties, stuck on with lemon glace icing. Both recipes were from Cooking With Daisy, by Josie Klafkowska - a fab book written in memory of her little girl who died suddenly, so not only do you get great food, you raise money for charity too. Buy it here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Daisy-Josie-Klafkowska/dp/1847241603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235412107&sr=1-1!

Have also started a new wrap in Louisa Harding Kimono Ribbon, a really nice pink/purple/black colourway - I'm making it wide and long so that I can have it as a scarf or a wrap, even if I don't manage to finish it till next winter....

Good finishing week

Managed to start and finish 3 baby pics in the last week, so am feeling all pinked out! One is for my new niece, and the others are to add to my mum's Rogues Gallery. Framed them myself today and am quite pleased with the way they've come out. Pics below! The larger sampler is on evenweave and the smaller ones on 14-count aida, and the difference between the shoe pictures is amazing. I've never done the same chart on different fabrics before so it was quite revealing.

My clever sister pointed out today that it's our parents' Ruby Wedding this year - not till September but at least I have plenty of time to work something out. I've found a Historical Sampler Co. kit I like (have done similar ones twice already) and also an Anchor one, but I may design something Welsh for them instead. Will see how inspiration strikes!

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....

Phone sock

This is the phone sock, version one - it seems a bit big so I might re-do it on smaller needles and tighten the top. The sheep button is from the same shop as the penguin one below. Would like to point out that the colours aren't quite this garish in real life, but our camera is a bit funny with reds and pinks.

Happy New Year!

Haven't made any resolutions but if I had...it would be to finish my WIPs. Instead I've spent Christmas knitting a scarf for my mum's birthday (another UFO) and yesterday I started knitting a mobile phone case for my new phone as I can't find a silicone one for it. I adapted a pattern for an ipod case that I've done a couple of times already and am using a Lorna's Laces sock yarn in 'Iris Garden', a pretty pink self-patterned yarn that's coming up lovely. Will add photos when I'm done.

Some lovely people added to my stash with presents at Xmas - a wolf and a Lickle Ted as well as a small DMC kit with the new scented threads - and an even lovelier person gave me a superstitcher.com voucher which I'd managed to spend by Boxing Day on a Bothy Threads kit and a penguin & chicks kit. Will I ever find time to do them all? No.... Do I care? No.....