Happy New Year!

There's bit over 3 hours left of the old year, so I'd better hurry and show the rest of the finishes of 2008.

I finished the Damier at the end of November. Yay! It turned out so beautiful. The design was published by Les Grilles de Maryse throughout 2008. It is stitched on Silkweaver's 32ct Spanish Moss Belfast linen with DMC floss. I'm planning to finish it as a cushion, hopefully sooner than later :-)


Then I finished Chatelaine's Christmas Mystery V. I took it to framer's right away and got it back just for Christmas. I love how it turned out! The lovely fabric is 28ct English Rose Jazlyn. But it doesn't photograph too well, I'm afraid.

And here's a close-up photo to show the frame better:


After Christmas I finished part 6 of Chatelaine's Mystery XI and moved on to part 7. Hope to share a progress picture of that part soon.


And then some older finishes... I stitched this ornament for a birthday card. It's from Tantes Zolder and stitched using Needle Necessities floss.


During my summer holidays I stitched this summer bag. The bag itself is from Violarium and the model, by Margaret Sherry, from Cross Stitcher magazine, issue 201. It was a lovely project, the materials were easy to carry anywhere I went... :-)


This card was for a cousin's wedding in autumn. The letters are from The World of Cross Stitching magazine, issue 141.


With this, I'm wrapping up 2008 and wish everyone a Happy 2009!

More exchanges and WIPs

In the scissor fob exchange, I received this really cute fob from Marja. She also sent me a lovely needle book. Thank you, Marja, these will be treasured (and put to use)!


On the WIP front, I have two new progress pictures to share. I finished part 2 of Mystery XI on Friday and part 6 of Damier yesterday:

Exchange

My scissor fob exchange has made it's way to Anne, so I can now share the photos:



The design is from Tantes Zolder blog, stitched on cream 32ct Belfast with Needle Necessities floss. Inside there's an old Belgian coin (5 francs from 1993) to give more weight to the fob. The scissors (Kelmscott Seaton Scissors) in the photos are purely for prop and not included in the exchange ;-) Anne likes autumnal colours, so deciding on the floss colour was quite easy. I'm happy to hear that she really likes the fob. So do I!

I've made progress on some of my cross stitch WIPs. First photo is of the 5th part of Damier, the next one the 5th part of Christmas Mystery V and last one the 1st part of Mystery XI:

WIPs, and a start and a finish...

Here's the current progress on the WIPs I've been working on recently. There's also a finish, and another start, too...

Deepest Love, at the end of March, after about 47 hours:


Here's Damier, part 4. This is such a lovely design and I really enjoy stitching it:


Today I finished part 4 of Chatelaine's fifth Christmas Mystery:


And then I started, finally, Chatelaine's big mystery for this year, the Celtic Mystery, and here's the very first WIP pic :-)


After a long while, I also did some knitting. This lovely Möbius-scarf was easy and quick to knit. The yarn is Kitten Mohair (by SandnesGarn). The design has been published in the Finnish online knitting magazine Ulla:


Now I need to start packing, as I'll be heading to the land of the Pharaohs next week (yay!). See you later!

January Starts

Better late than never, right? :-)

I had several new starts in January, participating thus in the Guilt Free January. It actually happened by chance. First new start was Chatelaine’s White Nights in St. Peterburg on New Year’s Day (stitched on Sugar Maple Fabrics' Angel Kisses):

After finishing the first part, I started Damier, the freebie that Maryse will release over the course of the year. The fabric is Silkweaver’s Spanish Moss:

And when the first part was finished, I started Chatelaine’s Sweete Bag. I stitch it on black Belfast, and after finishing part 1, I decided to take a break, as the black fabric is very demanding on my eyes.

I then started a clock with a Provencal theme. By that time I realized that I had already made several new starts and decided that January really should be Guilt Free January. So I decided to finish the numbers and what comes inside the numbers (stitched on 36ct linen):

After that I started Chatelaine’s Christmas Mystery V. I found English Rose Jazlyn (28ct) in my stash and it was perfect for this:

Second to last new start was The Fortunate Traveler (on 32ct Belfast).

No more progress on the Traveler, as I needed to start Deepest Love, on the last day of January. This is the first progress pic after the first day and first hour of stitching :) The fabric is, if memory serves correctly, Silkweaver's Ocean Fantasy:

I really enjoyed starting all these. Some of them have been waiting a long time to make it on my WIP list. I'll share more progress pics on Christmas Mystery V, Damier and Deepest Love later.