Olympic Results

As I expected, I wasn't able to reach my goals on the Chatelaine Stitching Olympics. Actually, I only finished three... I will explain why in another post :-)

What I did finish were parts 7 and 8 of the Christmas Mystery V. I'm now ready for the 9th part, which was released today.


I also started - finally! - Chatelaine's Egyptian Garden. Yay!


I continued part 3 of Mystery XI, but as it is quite a big part, I didn't manage to finish it. There is still a few hours of stitching left to do.

CSO

I'm participating in the Chatelaine Stitching Olympics. These are my goals:

1. Mystery XI, finish part 3
2. Mystery XI, part 4
3. Christmas Mystery V, part 7
4. Christmas Mystery V, part 8
5. Start Egyptian Garden, stitch at least the center square (minus the fishes)
6. St. Petersburg, part 3
7. Sweete Bag, part 3
8. Japanese Octagon Box, part 9
9. Sweete Bag, part 4
10. Japanese Octagon Box, part 10

That is quite a lot, and I'm not going to reach all of them, but I will at least start Egyptian Garden, and catch up on Christmas Mystery V. Continuing Sweete Bag and Japanese Octagon Box would be nice, they have been waiting in the WIP pile for quite some time now.

Beautiful rain

And plenty of other stuff...


Last night there was this short downpour. As it was just the edge of the cloud, the sun was shining behind the rain. It looked so beautiful.



I don't think that I've shared the latest progress picture of Christmas Mystery V yet. Here's part 6 and a view of the whole mystery so far. Part 7 is still waiting to be started...



And here are some treasures I got hold of at the summer fairs the past two weekends. I'm really hoping to try some of the Karelian embroidery (from the book "Karjalan kirjonta") at some point, and why not some of the laces (and bedcovers and scarfs) from Mary Olki's books, or learn the basics of girls handicrafts (Tyttöjen käsityöt) from Eeva Haavisto's book :-) The books are all from 50's and 60's, though these are not 1st editions.


And lastly a photo of some pretty cute fledglings (swallows, Hirundo rustica). These babies left the safety of their nest last week, and have been learning the ways of the big, big world together with their parents. Here they are waiting to be fed.

Fabulous Forty

I had birthday last week and my co-workers surprised me with this lovely bouquet and a gift card. In the evening I had dinner with my parents and brother. They gave me this lovely basket.

Happy Midsummer!

After three dry Midsummers (when bonfires were not allowed) we finally got to light one up last night. As it was raining a lot, it proved to be a challenge :-) There was a lot of smoke, a lot of sputter and also some fire...

The photo below is from this morning, when a thunderstorm was approaching.

Rain or not, I hope you all have had a lovely Midsummer!

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:

Cards

One of my uncles turned 70 this month and I made him a card. The design is from Cross Stitcher (UK) magazine's "101 cross stitch cards" CD.

Another uncle's wife turned 60 in March. The design is from the World of Cross Stitching magazine's "101 Best Birthday charts (ever!)" booklet:

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:

Greetings...

...from the land of the pharaohs! What an amazing place!

We cruised from Luxor to Aswan and back and saw many temples and such a beautiful scenery! The above photo is from Abu Simbel, the ones below from the Valley of the Kings (where I saw, among other things, the mummy of Tutankhamon!) and Karnak temple:


Here's couple of lovely sceneries from the Nile, the latter one is from Aswan:

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!