Feather Fairy Finished!!

My feather fairy is now complete! I finished the stitching on her today and I did a happy dance in front of my dog Matilda :-) who looked at me wondering what I was doing. But she did look at my fairy when I held it up to her. I am so excited to have finished this fairy, she did take me 12 months as I didn't work on her every day. You know things such as work and life in general get in the way of stitching. :-)

So without further ado, here she is....

I stitched her on 28 count evenweave called 'arabian nights' hand dyed by 'stitches and spice' and I used DMC threads and kreinik metallic thread. The beads were Mill Hill antique glass beads.

I really love this fairy and I am proud to now display her on my wall once she's been washed and framed. It will look great when I've stitched halloween fairy too one day, as they will go so well together.

Here are some close up's of some of the details.

The beading on her bodice and hair piece. The hair piece is one of my favourite parts as I think it's so pretty and elegant.

And the metallic thread in her wings, unfortunately the photo doesn't do it much justice as it sparkles alot in real life.

Next project up is to finish off my little cats and start on my baby sampler when it arrives!

Happy Stitching x

Quilt and craft show

I went along to the quilt and craft show yesterday with Gayle and Cassie and had a nice day out. The show wasn't as big as other years so the cross stitch was limited but I still found my favourite stalls which was good. Gayle and I spent alot of time at 'stitches and spice' one of my favourite Australian shops that sell beautiful hand dyed linens, fabrics and thread. They also sell a big range of mirabilia and heaven and earth designs. Unfortunately I couldn't find the baby sampler I was after at any of the stalls but I really wanted to buy some fabric to stitch it on when I do buy it. I wanted a neutral cream colour to suit the baby's room and each gender. And no sparkles just incase it is a boy. :-) But I do really love sparkles!

I wanted to buy the fabric at stitches and spice as I love their dyes so after looking at alot of different dyes I decided on a 28 count jubilee evenweave called 'celtic' and I think it is going to compliment the sampler well. In the sampler kit they have stitched the display picture on cream coloured aida so I knew it would work well with the one I chose.

I also bought the mirabilia 'halloween fairy' which I've always loved and had my eye on to stitch one day. She's one of my favourite mirabilia fairies, I love her clothes and her attitude and it just so happened that stitches and spice had the whole kit for sale at a cheaper price than normal. The kit includes hand dyed threads, fabric, beads and the pattern. So I thought it to be a good opportunity to buy her and even though I won't even pick her up anytime soon she can sit in my to-do cupbored.

If you look closely you can see the swirl up close in the fabric.

That's all I ended up buying that day as nothing else really caught my eye that much and I had spent my budget anyway. Gayle did well with her items and Cassie bought her first cross stitch kit which we will help her make a start on when she is ready.

It was nice spending the day out at a craft show with friends and wandering around together. Unfortunately Cassie wasn't feeling too great, so she sat out most of the day and rested at a table. But at least she did manage to find her first little cross stitch to start. :-)

Happy Stitching x

Is that a cat sitting in my cup of coffee?

Last night I managed to stitch quite a bit on my coffee and cuddles cat while I watched a movie on TV called 'catch and release'. My first cat is now finished which didn't take long to stitch up at all, I think he is very cute. This cat reminds me of my cat Sophie who passed away last year, she was ginger and white and had alot of character. The movie was ok, nothing to rave about but it was a girly romantic comedy and I like those kind of movies of course. It was just nice to sit back and stitch really.

Isn't he cute? I love the little bee he is looking at too.

And I FINALLY got a call on Friday from Morris and Sons letting me know my thread has finally arrived in the Melbourne store, wohoo! I really wanted to pick it up but didn't have much time on Friday so when I finished work today I managed to drive into the city before the shop closed which is a quick ten minute drive from Richmond where I work and I found a carpark really quickly, everything was in my favour. :-) I ran into Morris and Sons and picked up my thread, and double checked it was the right colour since I've taken the wrong colour home before and now I can stitch some more on my fairy tonight. This is the thread I waited four weeks for, what we will do for our love of cross stitch....

Tomorrow is the craft and quilt fair which I am really looking forward to! It's an early start for a Sunday (my choice) but as I am sure many of you will agree, having and taking the time to look at cross stitch is essential. :-)

Happy Stitching x

Baby on the way..

I really want to share my exciting news with everyone, my husband Adrian and I are expecting our first baby!! I am thirteen weeks pregnant and I am due January 25th. It's been hard to keep a secret in the early stages but I am now announcing our wonderful news to everyone. We are very excited, over the moon. It's what I've always wanted.

So since I am a passionate cross stitcher, of course I am on the search for a baby sampler. At the moment I have a humphrey's corner pattern in mind called 'bubble baby' which I think is so adorable, and I've always liked this one. Since we are not finding out the sex I thought it was also a good neutral pattern for either a boy or girl. But my eyes will be open on Sunday when I head to the stitches and craft show with my two friends Gayle and Cassie. We are very excited about going and looking at all the cross stitch stands, filtering through the kits, patterns, threads and fabrics. So I might even see another pattern that catches my eye instead, we will see. I am hoping they have the sampler at the show for a cheaper price than retail.

We are going to get there early before the crowds so we can look around and then have some lunch and talk about what we are going to go back to buy. I can't wait!! I am sure my son or daughter is going to be getting lots of stitched pieces over it's lifetime. :-)

Happy Stitching x

Stitching with friends.

I had my stitchy meet on Sunday which was fun, in the morning I baked my first banana bread with caramel icing. It smelt so fresh and beautiful, the smells coming from the kitchen, I hope the girls liked it, I sure did.

We sat around stitching and playing with Melody's (the girl who hosted) little 9 month old daughter Lily. She is ultra cute!It was a perfect day for stitching, it was cold and rainy outside, and we were having cups of tea and yummy snacks.

As I am still waiting on my metallic thread to arrive which should be here this week, I didn't get to work on feather fairy. Instead I worked on the little piece I took overseas with me but hardly touched. It is a cute pattern by Margaret Sherry called 'cats and cuddles'. I am stitching it on 14 count oatmeal aida. It is a picture of 4 different cats sitting in coffee cups. They are very cute and colourful, and instead of stitching the cats all in a row I've decided to stitch them individually and put each one into a plastic coaster which I can display on our coffee table or dining table, wherever they end up I guess. I bought the coasters a few years ago at a craft show and they have always been stored away. This is what I've stitched so far...

I will continue stitching on this piece tonight, but it will take a back seat when my thread arrives as I really just want to finish my fairy now, she's so close to being completed!!

Happy Stitching xx

Beads,beads and more beads..

I managed to finish all the beading on my feather fairy and I am really happy with how they have come out. I think her hair piece is really pretty, it's something that I would wear, haha. I also love the beading on her bodice and the back of her wings.

I am quite frustrated because I am so close to finishing her but I still can't get the metallic thread I need which mind you I ordered 3 weeks ago. My LNS hasn't contacted me and I've called her a few times to see if it has come in yet but it never has. So the wait on the thread is what's stopping me from finishing her. I would have finished her ages ago otherwise.

I've tried finding the thread elsewhere but of course it's never in the shops so I called Sydney's morris and sons shop during the week as the Melbourne shop said Sydney have the colour I want and they are sending the spool to their Melbourne shop for me. It will be coming in next week which will be ok, I just wish it was here for this weekend as I am going to a stitchy meeting this Sunday.

I am excited about Sunday, as 4 of us girls are going to our friend Melody's house for our monthly stitchy meeting which we try and hold once a month although this year it's been more like every 6 months as there were 3 weddings (including mine) between us girls and 3 honeymoons so it's been hard to get together. Two of the girls can't come unfortunately as Bek is on her honeymoon and Natalie is working,but we really need to get together or else it won't happen. So it's just me, Gayle, Cassie and Melody on Sunday. We all take a snack, and I am still trying to work out what I can bake and we sit and chat, stitch and eat yummy food. :-) What a way to spend an afternoon....

Happy Stitching x

Has it really been that long since I have written in my journal? 3 months! I've been reading everyone else's journals but havn't posted on my own.

I have a few things to update and tell you about, I also was a little sick of the look of my blog so I decided to play around with it a bit and add some prettiness to it.

My husband and I got back from our honeymoon on the 20th of May, and we had a wonderful time. We couldn't believe our bad luck getting delayed with that volcano that erupted in Iceland, but we got there in the end, we were delayed for 11 days. I have to acknowledge that at least we weren't stuck in an airport somewhere with nowhere to go, there were people much worse off then us. It still put a dampner on the start of our honeymoon though. Anyway, at least I had 11 days of lots of stitching.

Europe is so beautiful, I really loved every city we went to which included Paris,Venice,Austria,Prague and Poland. We saw alot in 3 weeks, and I even managed to find a little cross stitch shop in Paris. I had to bring a souvenier home of course. Europe has so much more history than Australia does, so it was nice to see the other side of the world. The plane trip wasn't all that fun, but what can you do when you can't afford first class tickets? :-)

After we got back from overseas we settled into work and homelife quite quickly and the jet lag wasn't too bad.

I've been stitching feather fairy ever since I got home as I want to finish her really soon. I am really happy with how she has turned out, I think she is very pretty. I ran out of metallic thread which I am waiting on my LNS to get in. It is so annoying when they don't have the colour you need, I could have finished her ages ago. I have started beading her now, and I am really enjoying it. The beads really add some sparkle to her outfit. I have some photos to share.

You can't see that well but if you look closely you can see where I have started on the beading on her skirt. I will post more pics when I've stitched some more on her. I hope that metallic thread comes in soon.

Now that it's freezing and right in the middle of Winter here I've been cooking comfort food and baking alot. I baked my first apple pie which I was very proud of since it was my first time at making my own pastry. I loved how it came out and it was really tasty! Mmm apple pie.

Happy Stitching everyone xx