First a finish. This is a Christmas Strawberry designed by Prairie Schooler that I stitched for my friend Cath. I did a series of seasonal designs over the course of two years and finally finished the last one (Winter) and thankfully, after a diversion to Singapore (!) it arrived safely at its destination. I guess it doesn't like the bitterly cold weather either and so decided to get a little sand and sunshine first.
To be honest the finishing was a little challenging. I made one of these before for a friend, but it was many years back and so I couldn't quite recall the tricks I used the first time around. So I fudged things a little bit but it came out mostly okay. The green leaves are made out of felt.
It was attaching the leaves and closing up the top that was difficult. The stitching itself was quite enjoyable however. Do you remember what it first looked like? Probably hard to imagine where I was going with those shapes just in red!
Here are the rest of the seasons:
Spring
You can see more of it here.
Summer
You can see more of it here.
Fall
You can see more of it here.
So I am definitely ready to move on to a new project and likely it will be by Prairie Schooler (again) or Blackbird Designs (I stitch a lot of her things as well), but I am not quite sure what I am in the mood for. So in the interim I will keep chipping away at a few 'in progress' designs that I can once again turn my attention to.
I think I shared this one before and as you can see I have not made a lot of progress on my little Winter scene, but I'll get there. At the rate things are going winter is going to last an eternity here anyway. I plan on stitching both little scenes and finishing it as a little cushion or maybe a scissor fob.
And since Valentine's Day is right around the corner I think I should pull out a couple of projects that have not had much attention of late. I stitched this design before all in red but I wanted a nice 'warm' color so am using this variegated floss. I'll finish it as a cushion again but as a 'mattress' pincushion (like the spring design up above).
And then there is this longish cushion which is a nice simple Valentine's Day design which I quite like working on. Maybe I will even manage to finish it by the actual holiday? Well, don't hold me to it, but I'll see how much I can finish in the coming month.
We're a bit behind the UK, but I now spend my Sunday nights watching The Great British Baking Show and Downton Abbey, both of which are hugely addicting and the perfect way to relax with my stitching in hand. And as Monday is always something to (mostly) dread, it is a nice way to end the weekend.
Maybe I'll even be able to share another update soon (sooner than every three or four months, that is!).