Giveaway Winner!!

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a enjoyable and creative weekend. I managed to get some finishing work done and will have a few posts on that in the future. This is a post that I have been meaning to write for a while, the lovely blogger over at Southpaw Stitcher had a giveaway a few weeks ago and I was one of the very lucky winners. Make sure you go check out her blog if you haven't before.

Awesome happy mail from Southpaw Stitcher

What a super lucky stitcher am I? I was so excited to receive this amazing package. I'm really looking forward to trying these out as they have lots of new techniques that I have not tried before. I really want to stitch the Rose Motif Sampler on some hand dyed fabric and with variegated thread, I think it would look amazing!!

These pattern booklets are quite substantial and a bit intimidating but the instructions look like they are clear and complete. I'm pretty sure I will make more than a few mistakes but that's to be expected with anything unfamiliar.

I haven't made much progress on my cross stitching WIP's but hopefully will get some more crafty time soon. In the meanwhile, have a picture of our fluffy kitty who was keeping me company during a photo session recently. I'm really happy with how this picture turned out, hopefully it's a sign my photography is improving. I just adore how bright and large his eyes came out in this.

That's all for now, see you soon.

Hand Spun Merino Roving in Lemon Popsicle - Delicious!

Hey there everyone. Today I'm taking a break from cross stitching posts to bring you some spinning I have been doing. I recently managed to find some beautiful merino rovings from a company called woolyknit, link here, at very reasonable prices so I picked up a few different colours and made a start on spinning up one called Lemon Popsicle.

Partial Spun 50g Merino Roving from Woolyknits in Lemon Popsicle

When I first started spinning I knew there was no way that I could justify the expense of a wheel when I wasn't even sure I would like it as a hobby. While I now really enjoy it, it did take a while. This is one of those things that takes practise, however once I spent some time with my drop spindle I eventually became better but I'm still learning.

Full 50g Merino Roving from Woolyknit in Lemon Popsicle

One of the big problems I have with spinning on a drop spindle is that I stand while using them, as that is how they work. This can get quite tiring after a while, as I'm sure you can imagine, so I tend to do a short period, then rest, then another short period. The second problem I have is that realistically I can only manage to get about 50g of roving spun before the weight on the spindle makes it too difficult to manage. I'm sure there are more experienced spinners out there laughing at that right now but that is what I have found to be the case for me. If you have any tips or tricks please do let me know. Now that I know this is something I have fun doing I will be looking to invest in a spinning wheel in the future but the spindles are still great for their portability and space saving.

Full Drop Spindle of Single Yarn with Woolyknit Roving Stash

I got about 233yrds of single yarn out of this 50g piece of roving. The plan is to ply it on the spindle, which can be tricky but is doable. I have no idea what I will do with it once it's done though. I really like how it has turned out so far and love the blend of colours. I'm excited to see how it looks once plied. In the above pictures you can see some of the other colour rovings I bought, some aren't included here.

I will post this again once it is plied together. Are there any other spinners out there reading? I would love to hear you thoughts. Anyone who thinks they would like to give spinning a go to see what it like? Please do leave a comment below on what you guys think of this.

Bye for now!

June SFS

I, like many others, can not believe it is the end of June already! This month really did just seem to fly past. Hope everyone is enjoying whichever season you are currently in :)

Anyway onto the interesting stuff. It is Stitch From Stash time again, the explanation for this is really all in the name but if you want to know more just head over to Epic Stitching.

So how did I do in SFS this month:

Amount Spent: $0.00

New Starts from Stash: Somebunny to Love - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 179

WIPs or UFOs worked on: Dimensions Gold Elegance of the Orient, HAED QS Clara & HAED Autumn.

I did purchase a RAK for another stitcher and I am not sure if that counts toward my budget. If anyone knows, could they tell me and I can add it into next months budget instead, if that is ok with everyone. It was under the $25 limit.

Some piccies:

I also did a couple of finishes, which I will add piccies of here as well, although they have already appeared on my blog.

Somebunny to Love update

Hey all, due to the recent technical difficulties suffered by Blogger I am behind on reading and commenting on blogs. I will do my best to try and catch up with you all in the next few days. I have a couple things to talk about today. First up is, I am having a craft stash clear out at the moment. I have some of it up on eBay already and hopefully will be posting more over the next few weeks.

CLICK HERE to get to my eBay page. I also have a mixed lot of  approx 160-170 Anchor threads, unused and some other items that I will be putting up so if your interested keep an eye out or email me :)

Next on the list is my progress on Somebunny to Love. I managed to get some time in on this one and as it has a deadline, so I think I am going to have to concentrate on this and try and finish it so I'm not panicking later on.

Somebunny to love - The World of Cross Stitching Issue 179

I think this is coming along nicely and I am delighted with my choice of fabby as it matches this piece wonderfully.

I will do my Stitch from Stash update in a separate post.

I just had to

I have been on a complete stash buying embargo lately. I am trying to stop buying so much and start saving so I haven't been making purchases of late. However when I saw these I just couldn't resist, and it was during the Easter sale so I doubly couldn't resist.

Alice Series HAED

This is the Alice Series by Hannah Lynn. It is so weird when I first started stitching HAED I wasn't a huge fan of this style but now I absolutely love her work and  have a shameful number of her charts now :D  The stitched mock up of the Mad Hatter and Alice on the HAED website are a little lighter than the image linked above but they still look amazing. I absolutely love this series but I'm a little unsure if I will stitch the white rabbit one. The hands kind of freak me out :)

Have a great day :)

New stash - cardmaking

This is some stash I got yesterday. It includes a set of House Mouse unmounted stamps, 2 sets of Faye Whittaker, All Our Yesterdays Designs and 2 sets of Giordano Forest Friends.

Joanna Sheen Goodies

The Special Offers section of Joanna Sheen's website is a dangerous place for my credit card. They regularly change the offers and they are always going on. Also they give free Worldwide P&P. Over the last while I have picked up about 80 sets of unmounted stamps. The quality of the impression is excellent unlike some other brands I have tried.

I use EZ mount foam for all my unmounted stamps. This means that I don't have to put glue on the stamps every time I want to use them and the foam give them a nice cushion to get a better impression.