cross stitch basket of horror

 My knitting skills were definitely lacking last night so my knitting project is in sin bin for the time being.

It's time to start sorting out the cross stitch/embroidery pile starting with the project basket.

This basket should only contain current projects but it looks like much more has been crammed in over the last year. Current projects (that I may or maynot finish) are...

As you can see, a severe case of startitis haha I do pick them up from time to time and I would like to see a couple of them finished next year.

At least they fit neatly into the basket now, I just need to see if I can get all the excess bits and bobs into the BIG BOX OF STITCHING DOOM

I'll let you know x

Busy weekend

 Its Sunday so its baking time although I'm beginning to suspect that it may be cheaper to just buy a cake and a packet of biscuits !

Ginger cake, ginger oat biscuits and Scottish oatcakes to keep us going this week. At least I know what's in them.

The van has been dropped off for the new upholstery and foam to be fitted, the Suzuki has been serviced and Mot'd so I will soon become a bike widow again as the Round Britain challenge starts in a few weeks.

The Black Welsh Mountain has been spun and plied and three bobbins of the grey Ryeland have been spun ( 60gm ish on each) ready for the fourth to be spun tomorrow.

The forecast for this week is reasonable so the very last of the grey Ryeland should be on the line tomorrow together with whatever is in the next bag that I pull out, Great start to 'spin down the stash '

Now I've found my missing cross stitch project, I've added a few more stitches.

That's about it for now, speak soon xx

2022 Craftyness: update, stash, plans

 I've finally managed to sit down and think about fibre plans for 2022. I've not set any real goals although an American spinner has invited me to join the 365 spin challenge which is to spin 10 min a day. As the challenge started at the beginning of the year I'm about 3 hours behind haha. I may  join in , not sure yet but maybe 10 min a day on a drop spindle would be interesting ? easily portable, always ready and I have a rather nice fine Shetland fleece that would be perfect for this apart from the fact that it needs washing.

This fleece was gifted to me by a close friend and a note in the box revealed that it is from the Derwent flock so fingers crossed that it washes up well.

I'm thinking maybe 10 min a day on my lightest spindle, what do you think ?

Now on to knitting, since the beginning of the year I've knitted a couple of headbands and a couple of pairs of fingerless gloves.

The top pair of mitts are the same length, just need blocking as they curled inwards slightly, These are now in my coffee shop bag. When the bag is full I find a coffee shop and sit weaving the ends in whilst I watch the world go by.

My scraps stash is still a little on the large side and my full skein stash ( ones less than 100gm, have a knot in them or are finer spun than usual) is healthy but I think I need to dye some as its mostly white yarn.

Going forward, more hats, mitts over winter then spin up a couple of fleeces for a friend.

I have actually snatched a few mins to process fibre over the last couple of weeks so this bag is waiting for me to get one of the spinning wheels out.

Cross stitch, yep still stitching although I do seem to have mislaid a project. Hopefully I will find it later today as I sort out the workroom.

First, the big red thing. I have put in a few more stitches and hope to finish it sometime this year. I've popped a six inch ruler in the photo to give some idea of the scale of this project.

The Quaker sampler is coming along slowly, again a ruler to show the difference in scale.

This is really more colourful in real life and on white aida, the camera makes it look a little dull.

This is a quick project that I took to the coast with us, its about 75% complete and will be finished into a small pillow to go with two that I stitched last year. All by Sub Rosa and offered for free on the blog.

The missing project hasn't resurfaced yet, it may be in the van or just hiding well in the workroom !

Anyway, that's it for today, speak soon  xx

 This week I've been concentrating on the Quaker Sampler, I'm a little concerned that I will not have enough thread so the choice will be to leave it until after 12 April when the local needlework store reopens or us something different like dark blue  and redo the small motifs in that colour.....

A few days later.

Its about finished, I need to decide whether to put initial/date on it  but will leave that for the future. I have maybe a foot or so of six strand thread left so cutting it fine but should just be enough.

this was a free pattern on a blog Gazette 94  the blog is written in French but google will ask if you want to translate.

I've also tea dyed some of my cream coloured evenweave fabric to play with next , I still have a few yards of this so plenty to experiment with.

Hopefully my life will get back to normal soon, the paperwork is coming to an end and hopefully the lockdown will start to ease more over the next few weeks. I'm hoping to get out with my camera and start on the new project and also summon up enough strength to start once again on the craftroom destash. I may even document the sheer madness that hides behind the cupboard doors for you .

That's about it for now, take care everyone, speak soon xx

( I may even get the spinning wheel out )

sometimes things just happen

 I was worried about  running out of thread for the Quaker sampler, in fact I was in the process of looking for a source of Anchor thread 161 as it was getting more obvious that the floss that I had was not enough to finish it.

Then this morning, whilst sorting through a small bag of embroidery threads ( about half a dozen full skeins in total) found in my late mothers sewing box I found this.

I guess someone's telling me that I need to finish this piece!

Speak soon xx