Boos Mummy

 Take a Stitch Tuesday this month has some well known stitches in it. I've used some of them over the years as border stitches and over joins on crazy quilting. The weather in March has been very unusual. We started off the month with dreary skies and heavy winds before it suddenly changed to wonderful blue skies, the sun shining and the flowers starting to pop through the ground. Yesterday on the last day in March we even hit 21° it felt absolutely wonderful...of course today being the 1st April and a bank holiday weekend here in the UK we're back to grey skies and drizzle 🙄 So here is my slice of pie for March.... Week 9 - Couching Week 10 - Chevron Stitch Week 11 - French Knots Week 12 - Cretan Stitch

 The stitches for this months Take a Stitch Tuesday had a couple of my old favourites... Feather Stitch and Herringbone.  The herringbone I've used a lot over the years in things like leaves, it just fits so well into the shapes and contours. Feather stitch is great for crazy quilting, it goes over the 2 pieces of fabric amazingly and also looks wonderful as greenery in scenic pieces or as seaweed, sea grass in ocean projects. However the weather for February has definitely been either very wet or snow and ice. To put that into my TAST I wanted colours that represented the mud, the snow, the wet fields and paths that I've trodden as I take my allowed daily walk whilst in lockdown. After coming home one morning and taking off my very muddy wellington boots I dug out my threads. Seeing the tracks from the tractor and peoples footprints in the very muddy field had given me an idea for the Feather Stitch.  I decided that I had to have a representation of that for this month. ...

On Friday 1st July 2011 I started a design called Castles in the Air by Papillion Creations, we're now in 2018 and I've finally finished...whew!  As much as I have loved this project I am so glad to finally put the last stitches in and cross it off my UFO pile. I've taken lots of photos of it all done, the beads haven't come up as clearly as they should but the great British weather being it's usual contrary self means today we have dull grey skies and rain, would you believe this time last week we were in a heatwave!! Anyway here is my version of Castles in the Air, now I've just got to save up to have it professionally framed and it's going to hang somewhere very prominent in the house.

This weeks TAST stitch is the Buttonhole. Sharon has a great page on how to work this wonderful stitch just click here .  I'm sure a lot of us have used buttonhole for many things over the years. It was one of the first stitches I learnt as a child making a table runner on 11ct Binca fabric aged 7 using wool. Nowadays I use it a lot to stop fraying on the edges of fabric and as a cute stitch for some of the quilt squares. It's great as grass on samplers as you can vary the length easily whilst still having the ground. Here's what I've done with my buttonhole this week: Sunbonnet Sue is back but with a buttonhole ribbon on her bonnet and apron. I've used the stitch to hold down the bottom of the ribbon from last weeks stitch and also using 2 shades of brown to form the bottom of a muddy field.

It doesn't seem two minutes since it was the end of 2016 and I was looking at what I'd been stitching all year. Now as 2017 comes to a close I've discovered that I've not stitched most of the projects I'd hoped to start but I have had some good finishes.   I've got my next HAED all kitted up and ready to go come 1st January, this one is called Autumns Promise.  Then I'm working on the Peace in my Heart SAL, slow going as I wanted to finish DD's penguins. It's a joy to stitch on using fabric from Sparklies, hopefully over the Christmas break I can work on it a bit. From all of us here in Yorkshire have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. To all my fellow stitchers may you enjoy your stitching and may the frog stay away.

Last week I finally sat and stitched the last part in my Seasons SAL . This is the project that I took with me on holiday to Northumberland and worked on quite a lot in the evenings. It's stitched mainly in DMC but I did have a few silks, Weeks Dye Works and a Crescent Colour thrown in. The colours are mainly the same few but for a couple of motifs I switched out to something different just to make it more personalised. I've loved stitching this, it worked up really fast once I actually got time to stitch and I love how the finished project has turned out. The photographs don't show it to it's true justice but it was the only camera I had on hand at the time. My daughter Darcy loves the bunnies and the snowman :-) Now it's onto finishing my HAED and working hard at my CITA again. I am doing the new SAL which is called Peace in my Heart but waiting on fabric from Sparklies so I can choose threads.

Can you believe we're nearly at the end of the school year already?  Doesn't seem that long ago that Peter moved to Y8 (2nd year seniors for some of us!), Lukie went into Y6 and Darcy into Y4. It's been a very eventful school year, some good and some not so good but the kids enjoy school so they're happy. On the stitching front I've not done too bad. Finished a couple of pages on my HAED's , kitted up one more and half kitted up a second.  Worked hard on my CITA, getting close to finishing it now.  I had caught up on my Seasons SAL but then have fallen behind again as I secretly stitched Lukie a mini as he's mad on them.  Here are the photos... Seasons SAL by Bee's Needleworks Stitched on 28ct Strength by Heaven and Earth Designs Stitched on 25ct 1x1 Courage by Heaven and Earth Designs Stitched on 25ct 1x1 This is how my CITA looked after I finally finished another part. So close to finishing it now, I've started on t...

Well last year definitely finished with a fizzle rather than a bang. As our daughter Darcy was taken in to Sheffield Childrens Hospital on 30th September and spent weeks there only to be allowed out as long as she visited between 3-5 days a week until December I didn't get time to do much of anything. I did however finally finish DH's Cruising the Information Highway by Randal Spangler...yes you read that right, he's finally finished after nearly 2 years. Cruising the Information Highway by Randal Spangler 25ct 1 x 1 I did try and put some stitches into my HAED Storykeep called Courage which is for Peter, didn't end up doing a lot though but here it is so far. My next big  HAED project is called Smiles in my Cup and was all kitted up by the middle of December ready for starting at the beginning of January.  I just couldn't resist it when I saw it on the HAED site! I did put a few stitches in on my Kings and Queens but not as many as I'd hop...