I’ve discovered the joys of knitting – basically because I want to do some lace knitting.  I finished off a scarf that has been in the works for ages (not a slow job, I just got bored with just knitting and purling), all I have left to do is to stitch in the yarn ends.

Now I’ve started a lace knitting project, but not just any… estonian lace.  I think I had to restart this about 6 times, but I’ve got the hang of it now

As for stitching, well I started Rhapsody in Red when I first arrived in Cardiff. This is a pic that I thought I had posted back in July/Aug last year. But since I apparently didn’t, here you go.

And HAEDs… I’ve done some work on Stella and Pumpkin Pixie.

And then the other month I picked up and old WIP, since this year I plan to finish off things rather than just keep starting them.

And at the moment, I’m working on Blackstone Garden

So that’s you all caught up. For the rest of the month, when I’m not knitting I’ll be stitching on Blackstone Garden. Looks like I might have a stitching finish this year after all.

First up is Pumpkin Pixie.  I got a stack done on her – mostly trees and background though.  I had to leave the very light colours of an evening because they were so hard on the eyes which is why so much of the dark tree was stitched on the next page without the first one being finished.  The photo is not the best but it shows what I’ve done.  

And to show just how much I got done in one week (ok, there was a sunday, anzac day and a good part of saturday put into this), I’ve added a photo of the chart pages to photobucket.  The dark green is all I did last week.

Then last Sunday I started Blackstone Garden.  I really wanted to do it on fabric I already had rather than buy more in – especially as I had bought some of Vikki’s linen for it but those two just didn’t work.  So I went for Pansy (see previous post).  It’s 28ct, so the crosses seem very large and it was strange stitching such large crosses after a week of 28ct over one, but it was also a nice break on the eyes.  I had to stitch some of it more than once since I apparently forgot how to count but I had great fun working on it.  Here it is after a week of work on it.  If you want to see the colours a little better, I have a close-up of earlier in the week too.

First we have Mystery X and Cirques. Managed to get Part 2 finished just last week on the former. And I went back and put the beads and crystals in for parts 1 and 2. Even made a start on Part 3 and got a good chunk of it’s beads in too. I’m all beaded out now though, so I won’t be picking it up again for a few more weeks.

The colours aren’t too good in the pic for cirques, but at least you can see how much I’ve done and have a small idea of colours. Although, the fabric is not actually blue.

Next some HAED progress. There’s a new start this year (Drac’s Leaf) and more progress on Stella. I’ve finally reached her face.

And I’ve been buying some silks. So now I want to start Blackstone. So what colours to do. I tried to take some pics of different floss tosses, but most of the scans and photos didn’t really give a good idea of the colours. I bought mottled magpie tears (from Vikki Clayton) thinking it would be a good one (and 36ct too which is good), but it just wasn’t right. So I went through my stash looking at other colours. Here are a couple of them.

The green I’m using is Vikki’s Dragon Opal (jadeite and black) and the other is a velvet midnight/ultraviolet mix that I had her dye for me. Originally I was thinking of more of a grey blue background. The ones above are PTP pansy (left) which is obviously more purple and grey and the one on the right more green and grey/brown (not sure it’s name count or anything). Of course, the stitching show is coming up, I could always take my spools to see the gals from Stitches and Spice and see if they have some ideas.

Didn’t I score! I’m really looking forward to using those gorgeous threads and fabric. Now, the stiching was only done in a week. How? I’m thinking Nancy is another octopus. Here is a close-up of her beautiful stitching.

I love the cats sooo much, and I really needed a needle book, how did she guess? Here is a pic of the other side of the scissor fob and the inside of the needle book.

Thank you Nancy! I love it all

First of all here is a cool little quilt package and bits that I got (buttons, etc). Some fabric for finishing and my first q-snaps.

And then I got lots of threads. A stack of Carrie’s threads and some gorgeous blue linen from Stitches and Spice and some dinky dye silks.

The first is Stella. I have missed stitching on her and loved picking her back up again. I was pleased with the amount I managed to do over the xmas break. Before I stopped work on her, the top row of pages had been done and about 500 stitches had been done on the next row.

Now for the new starts. I was given Hermit and the threads from Vicky for xmas. So of course on xmas day I started him. And the the very naughty Sue gave me Pumpkin Pixie and all threads and fabbie, so I started her over the New Year weekend for the new start SAL. Managed to get a little more done on the second weekend SAL, but only a few hours. So here is the progress to date.

And lastly, I started Cirques on Country Stitch Wisteria and using Waterlilies Elderberry Wine. The pics aren’t the best as I took them last night. Should have waited until today, but I was hoping to get this posted last night. Of course, that was before my internet connection went haywire. So there are my pics. I’m looking forward to stitching on them again, so I had better hurry up and finish my section on Sue’s RR