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!

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.

Hoppy Easter! And other ornaments...

This is a Dragon Dreams freebie which I stitched and finished last weekend. Cute, isn't it?

I participated in a Finnish Christmas ornament exchange and received this beautiful ornament made by Leena. Thank you! It is the Chains of Love Ornament designed by Terry Louise Kermode and published in The Gift of Stitching December 2007 issue.


And this is the ornament I stitched for Marja. It's by Brittercup Designs, from JCS Christmas Ornament Issue 2005.


And the following two I made for Christmas. This one was for my goddoughter, the design, by Blue Ribbon Designs, is from the Gift of Stitching December 2007 issue.


And this one I gave to my cousin. It is from 2007 Christmas Ornament issue (more info to come when I have them at hand).

A new start

After a long while (I had a rough autumn and just about forgot about this blog), I thought I would make a new start, so here are finally some pictures...

My first finish of 2008 (just after an hour into the new year :-) was Chatelaine's Mystery X, Secret Victorian Garden. It took about 280 hours to finish, from January 2007 to January 2008. I will attach the bicones after washing the piece.


Later in the day I finished this small design (from a Lanarte kit). It started as my travel project last autumn and took overall only a few hours to stitch:


I have several new starts in January. I'll post pictures of them later next week.