Round Trip

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Heather

You might have noticed that my blog posts have been a bit unusual for the past couple of weeks. That’s because we’ve been away on a cruise. We took Holland America Line’s m/s Zuiderdam on an eleven day cruise to Aruba, Curacao, Columbia, the Panama Canal and Costa Rica. I saw Christmas snowmen, played with dolphins, saw colonial forts, did a partial transit of the Panama Canal, and visited a banana plantation. It was wonderful!

The only drawback as that I didn’t do any stitching at all. We had a very large cabin with a huge balcony, but the lighting just wasn’t strong enough for stitching. Thankfully, I did find some time for knitting. I’ll share what I got done with you tomorrow.

I’ll just leave you with a couple of pictures of my vacation. I’m going to head back to knitting and try to get some gifts done!

Holland America Line’s m/s Zuiderdam anchored at Half Moon Cay.

A small parrot having a big snack in Columbia.

A very rainy Panama Canal.

A banana plant in a Del Monte banana plantation in Costa Rica.

A tropical fish from the Bahamas. (It was actually an amazing silver colour.)

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TUSAL – November

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Heather

Goodness me, late again. No surprise there, right? Actually, this post was supposed to go live over two weeks ago, but I forgot to schedule it before I left for vacation. What, you didn’t know I was away? Well, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

More bits and pieces, and even some painters’ tape.

So, lots of bits again this month. Some from the Creativ Festival, some from the knitting projects I’ve been working on.

Speaking of knitting projects, here is my latest finish: Minor Minion by Heather Sebastian of Joey’s House. The yarn is Berroco Comfort Sock for the body and Mary Maxim Soft Stripes for the hat. He lives in the little man’s backpack, and replaces another minor minion that went missing the middle of November. :/

A very minor minion for a little guy.

 

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Castle in the Clouds

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Heather

It is not very often that the average stitcher manages to get something stitched by one of their favourite designers.

Castle in the Clouds from Dragon Dreams

This is one of the cover samples from Dragon Dream’s Castle in the Clouds. I won it as a door prize at one of Jennifer Aikman-Smith’s classes at the 2011 Creativ Festival. She’s been bringing a few models to the show for the past few years, awarding them through a draw during her classes.

It is another one of those pieces that has pride of place in my collection. Not just because Jennifer stitched it, but also because it is a design really love. I mean, I’m sure there isn’t one of us who wouldn’t like to retreat to a castle in the clouds at least once in a while.

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Purple Wedding

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Heather

Many years ago I stitched L&L’s The Wedding for the second time; this time for my own wedding. I don’t think I’ve stitched a design with so much white since then!

To match the colours of the design more closely those of my wedding, I adjusted the colours of the ribbons on the wedding dress and the flower girl’s dress. I left the flowers as they were charted since I really did have pink roses! Over past couple of years I’ve had several requests for my colour conversion. Unfortunately, though, I lost it! My chart was so damaged after the second time I stitched The Wedding, that I sent it back to get a replacement–with all my conversion notes on it!

The Wedding, Lavender and Lace

Anyway, I finally sat down with the chart, my finished piece, my DMC thread chart, and my conversion chart and came up with this:

930 -> 550

931 -> 552

932 -> 553

3753 -> 554

3756 -> 153

My only other change was to use MLI’s own conversion for Asian skin tone for the groom.

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Petite Flowers

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Heather

Today I’m sharing these two lovely examples of petite point:

Pretty purple petite point pins.

The stick pin was a gift from a knitting friend who knew of my love of all things needlework. I haven’t worn it yet, but I do absolutely love it.

Pretty purple stick pin

The pin with the ribbon was something I picked up the other week at Goodwill. Would you believe it was only CAN$3.03? The stitching on it is beautiful, and it is in excellent shape.

Pretty purple bow pin

One day I’d like to try something on silk gauze. Being able to see two examples of that kind of work makes me itch to try it. In fact, I do have some silk gauze tuck away in a drawer. There was a pretty flower design in a back issue of A Needle Pulling Thread that I just might have to do…

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Heather

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.

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Southern Belle Pillowcase

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Heather

I’m not going to have much access to my blog for the next two weeks, but I didn’t want it to sit idle. So, I will be sharing some of the wonderful needlework I’ve collected over the last little while.

Southern Belle

This first piece was embroidered either by my grandmother or great-grandmother (the latter is most likely). You might recognize it as the edge of a pillow. My aunt decided to rescue several pillows that were deteriorating and turn them into something we could display.

I have no idea what materials she used. It looks like standard cotton floss, and since the colours have lasted quite well it must be something like DMC. The base fabric is a cotton pillowcase of some kind, and looks to be in good shape. My aunt stretched it on an embroidery hoop and added the trim.

Does anyone happen to know what this style of pattern is called? The first thing that popped into my mind was Sunbonnet Sue, but that is the little girl with the giant hat.

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