GG: Stitching Finish - Tiny Sheep Trio

Stitching Finish! Sheep Trio
February 2019 Design from Cotton & Twine Boxes
(won in a Giveaway, for more information please read this post)
* Crafty bonus: the photo background is a Pineapple Doily that I crocheted! *

Finally, and at long last, my first Gifted Gorgeousness of the year! Although I'm a little late to the party, Jo kindly leaves the linky open until the end of the month, and I'm so happy to be able to jump in with this stitching finish 😊 GG is a great relaxed SAL to encourage stitchers to work on gift projects - either things they have received as gifts, or are giving as gifts. As I won this kit as part of a Giveaway, it was a gift to me!

Although the February Cotton & Twine Box come with a cute floral printed hoop to use for finishing this project (which you can see in my last post) you may notice that this hoop is plain. That's because as I was stitching this cute design I thought the slightly oval shape of the floral frame would make a beautiful Easter Egg! Indeed, I even bought some backing fabric and floss to make an eggy ornament but I ran out of time and Easter has come and gone. So I think I may leave it as is until next year, and then decide 😉

This was a cute, fun Spring design to stitch that worked up quickly! Although the kit instructions said to use two strands of floss, I used three (as I usually do) for a plumper look and I had plenty of floss with the exception of one of the greens. Helpfully, the floss card listed the DMC numbers so I was easily able to substitute a strand from my own stash. This is also very useful if you would like to stitch multiples of the same project.

I shared some progress pictures on my Instagram as I went, and I enjoyed watching the project grow from three teeny tiny sheep 🐑🐑🐑...

...to three sheep in a field of daisies 🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼...

...to three sheep among in daisies, standing under a heart ❤🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼❤:

And finally, the end result: three adorably teeny tiny sheep frolicking in a daisy-filled meadow, under a floral arbor crowned with a heart! 🌸❤🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼❤🌸

For the Easter Egg ornament, I bought some more floss in the pretty pink colour of the central heart to make some cording for the edging, and some coordinating mottled pink cotton fabric for the back. I was hoping to find some sheep print fabric but no luck this year! Maybe that will be my excuse for waiting until next year for final-finishing it - trying to find the right fabric 😂

Did you stitch anything for Easter or Spring this year?
Or are you planning anything for Summer?!

A New Year Brings New SALs!

Happy 2019! I hope this is a spectacularly Stitchtacular Year for all of us 😊 Although I know I probably won't be able to blog regularly, due to continued illness in my family, I couldn't resist joining in with Jo's fun Gifted Gorgeousness (GG) SAL again this year:

This is a relaxed SAL that posts every month on the 15th, and is meant to encourage us to use up stitchy supplies given as gifts. You can join in every month, or on an as-you-can basis (which I'm doing). The full rules are on the FAQ post on Serendipitous Stitching. I've participated in past GG SALs and it's a great way to meet new stitchers!

Jo also mentioned a great new SAL that is just starting. It's so new that it doesn't have a name yet, but Rachel at the Ten Hour Stitcher is starting a Fully Finished Off (FFO) SAL to encourage stitchers to make something - anything - with previously stitched projects.

As she says: "It saddens me that there are probably hundreds of completed cross stitches stored away in drawers and boxes when all that might be needed is a bit of encouragement or inspiration for their owners to dive in and have a go at fully-finishing some, even if it's only one or two."

This will also be a relaxed, join when-you-can sort of SAL (right up my alley!) and more details will be given around the 10th of February, as she is more accurately able to gauge stitcher interest. So if this sounds like something you'd like to join - and as an added incentive, each entry will count for a prize draw! - head over to her post and tell her you're interested. If this gets off the ground, I might try to jump in for a month or two. Although I don't have the majority of my unfinished stitching with me right now, I do have a few small projects that are waiting to be FFO! And, no doubt, I'll make more in need of finishing this year too 😄

Although I'm not a big believer in New Year's Resolutions, my Stitchy Goals for 2019 are to keep experimenting with hand embroidery and embellishment, and to stitch whatever takes my fancy LOL I'd also really like to update the blog too, as time permits.

EDITED: I totally forgot TAST! Take A Stitch Tuesday is a SAL that has been hosted by Sharon B at Pintangle for the last few years, for hand embroidery. It is meant to teach a new embroidery stitch each week, with an additional Beyond TAST level for those who want a challenge. There is a group TAST Flickr pool where you can see lots of stitchy goodness and which will give you a better idea of the SAL.

You can customize the SAL by working stitch samplers or doodle cloths, a big sampler, monthly small projects or one big project. Some people have made beautiful fabric books, with each page being variations on a stitch, such as this amazing example at Crafty Creek. Or you can use the stitches in projects you are already making. You can post every Tuesday with a single stitch, or post some Tuesdays with several stitches at once. It's a challenge I've greatly admired from afar for the last four or five years, and I hope I can dip in and out of that one too this year. I still have so many hand embroidery stitches to learn 💟

How about you? Any Stitchy Goals for 2019? And are you participating in any SALS this year? I'd love to hear all about your plans for this year!

❤🎄 A Very Merry Christmas! 🎄❤

❤ The Greatest Gift is Love ❤
My Variation of a Lizzie*Kate design from the
Just Cross Stitch 2001 Christmas Ornament Special

(There's a lovely finish of the design by Anne on Flickr here, closer to the original)

Hope you're getting into the Christmas Spirit! It's been a little hard for my family this year, as it's our second Christmas without my beloved Grandpa. He died on Christmas Day 2016, and last year was a blur - I have no idea how we got through it to be honest. This year his loss is always in our thoughts, and the grief hits hard at the strangest times. So I stitched this little ornament as reminder to us all that it's not the Holiday hustle and bustle that matters, but the time we spend together and the memories that we make 😊

I really enjoyed working on this, and it stitched up quickly! My first idea was to stitch everything with beads, but the lettering looked too wobbly, since I was using inexpensive silver-lined seed beads that have a pretty sparkle but unfortunately aren't a regular size. So I settled for beading the star and the border, which I turned into little red flowers with gold centers. The lettering is in metallic floss, for some extra sparkle ✨

In keeping with the sparkle, I found this beautiful glittered gold fabric for the back! It is so lovely, especially in the Christmas lights - it looks like it's sprinkled with real gold dust 💛 Unfortunately I had trouble capturing that in the photo.

And I used some of my favourite cording, a red-gold-green tinsel cording I found at Michaels a few years ago (and really wish I'd bought more of!):

It's a little challenging to attach, but I've found that sewing through the trim with invisible thread does the trick. And the end result is fantastically sparkly! I tried to capture all that pretty glitter, and this is the closest I could get (sorry it's a bit dark):

You can see a little bit of that gorgeous silver-lined seed bead shine on the star ⭐

2018 has been an interesting stitchy year for me! Although I haven't been able to do nearly as much with the blog as I'd hoped, I joined Instagram and have greatly enjoyed the huge stitchy community over there. I was awed and incredibly thankful for the support my Joyful Jester entry to the SFSNAD Stitch At Home Challenge brought 🤗 And I've been having a ton of fun experimenting with hand embroidery.

Hopefully 2019 will bring more stitchy time, for all of us! 😄

Best Wishes for A Very Happy Holidays, and a Stitchtacular New Year!

Etsy Treasuries: Becoming a Curator

In all honesty, I am completely hopeless at Social Media. After all these years, I still refuse to join Facebook, only have a vague idea of what Instagram does, and have absolutely no clue what that Periscope stuff is all about. It's all a mystery to me!

Back in my day (which wasn't all that long ago, oh the irony!) we didn't have a 150 character limit, and tweeting was something only cute little cartoon birdies did.

I am, to put it mildly, wildly behind the times. And I'm mostly okay with that LOL ;P

However - a friend of mine is really getting into home decor lately and we've been doing a lot of window shopping in real life, just checking out different ideas.

I truly think when it comes to finding your own style in anything - be it throw pillows for your couch or paintings for your wall - it really helps to just browse around! If you keep an open mind, I guarantee that you will find inspirations that will help you narrow down and refine your vision so that you can go looking for what you actually do want, and it greatly increases the probability that you will find what you want.

These days, the best way to find unusual and nifty things is online. Now, I much prefer to shop locally, and I don't have much experience shopping online, but I have been doing a lot of virtual window shopping this week and it's super FUN! I think the biggest platform for this is Pinterest, but the site is so huge that it's overwhelming.

Image Source

So I decided to start off a little smaller, and joined Etsy instead. My Profile is under AureliaEglantine. There isn't a "Friends" function that I can see, but you can Follow other users. The main advantage of having an Etsy account, if you aren't a Buyer or Seller, is that you can become what they call a "Curator".

This means you can "heart" or Favourite items you like. These are automatically saved to an "Items I Love" list, but you can set up other lists with your own titles and sort listings your own way. Setting up categories makes it easier to find things later.

And you can collect up to 16 such items into a little collection called a Treasury!

Most Treasuries have some sort of theme, usually indicated in the title, and include items from different shops. Although you could have all 16 listings come from one shop, it seems to be frowned upon, as is self-promotion (which is linking to an item in your own shop if you are a Seller). Treasuries are fun and easy to make, and the best part is that the thumbnails of the images take you directly to the full listing.

So if you see something you love and really want you can actually buy it, if the listing hasn't expired. This is very convenient, especially compared to Pinterest where you can end up spending a lot of time trying to trace an image back to its source and often hit dead ends. And Etsy is also great for thrifters, as there is a lot of Vintage (you can filter your searches by Handmade or Vintage) too, although the values vary widely.

The Treasuries look a little different on the Etsy site, and you can view a list of all of them on my Profile here (or click on the titles below to go directly to that specific Treasury). But thanks to a neat free tool from Toastie Studio, you can also add Treasuries to your blog, so here are three full of interesting stitchy treasures:

Stitchy Goodness: Light & Lovely

Soft, lovely colours perfect for Spring stitching!

Powered By Toastie Studio - Etsy Tools

Stitchy Goodness: Bright & Bold

Strong, gemstone colours perfect for dramatic stitching!

Powered By Toastie Studio - Etsy Tools

Spring Flowers: Needlework Kits

Stitchy kits and patterns perfect for Spring! The designs use all kinds of different needlework techniques but all feature pretty flowers :)

Powered By Toastie Studio - Etsy Tools

Also, is this not amazing?

This is the "Canvaswork Embroidered Minihoop Pendant No. 2 Kit" by the shop Beautiful Stitches, which is located in Australia. It looks like an interesting project.

The amount of creative talent on Etsy alone is just awesome! And very inspiring.

Hope you find something to enjoy here, and if you curate some Treasuries of your own I'd love to see them! Feel free to leave a link in the comments :)

Are you a Buyer, Seller or Curator on Etsy? Found anything that you love lately?!