All went smoothly with the zoom link to the Church meeting.
I filled in a little bit of red, spotted one stitch of white needed in the left kittens whisker and then well I had white loaded into my needle!
hmm perhaps a close up.
Lots of jumping off places for other colours. However, also still sections of reachable white so options for next time.
New Forestella song to enjoy.
I am not sure at this stage if the originator of this particular themed link up will be hosting it this year. Due to circumstances certain hops and linkups had to be paused last year.
I did note however that more than one blogger still posted on the 15th of the month any items either gifted to them or intended as gifts even without the link being available.
I expect we all received something craft or stitching related last month so January might produce a few posts in the blog world on this theme.
For me, a gift from my father, one he spotted and chose himself for me.
I am fond of a box
This is a very nice box. And what will I put in it? Well I will put in it those numbered threads I was previously gifted inside a very nice cardboard box. I made a few cardboard bobbins, but that was irksome so I bought 100, that should do the trick .
And the drawer at the bottom, variegated threads may well find a home there.
I have plans for the top but after the dragons and the All our Yesterdays projects I think.
Click here to pop over to jocondine for her GG2026
.
and another cover kit, we looked at the pattern before we settled on this one. It met out current criteria for a SAl.
Not too big, not to much dotting about and not too much backstitch, even if it isn't just outlining backstitch.
Added to all that we had previously considered a Toffee Cow (they will always be that to me because of the Highland Toffee from my childhood with a picture of this breed of bovine on the wrapper) of much greater complexity.
I had already sorted the thread for this so I did a bit of bobbinating, well one skeins worth whilst Roni sorted hers then we made a start.
Just not my night for it, I made a single stitch mistake on the bit in the middle. I was going to leave it and just work around it. Then I realised I had my thread card turned around and ended up using the wrong brown. So out it had to come, back to the point I went wrong.
and then start stitching again. To finish the night here.
As per our ohps agreement I can have the time that did not equal productive stitching back off camera.
So about 1:20. .
CLICK HERE to see my BFF's much smoother start.
well sort of, worked up from the tail and met up with the working down from the head and it joined in the right place.
Still some dotty filling in to do on the tail and the wing struts. This is confetti filling in and so will be quite slow.
wondering about the backstitch now, not sure if the one strand of normal DMC will be too thick and I think there is maybe a bit much to do with my usual alternative. Plus the availability of the darker strands is reducing and even if I do find sufficient not sure dark brown will be dark enough.
the second of two booklets with threads I bought longer ago than my brain is willing to acknowledge.
The first was a booklet of Country Companions Designs and I discovered quite quickly that not all of the shades of threads in the keys for the patterns were in the kit. I reiterate I had no expectations that the thread that came with it would be sufficient to stitch all of the designs in the booklet. I had however thought that there would be at least a length of each shade needed.
As noted that was not the case so I approach this one with greatly lowered expectations and the assumption I will need to dip into the thread stash.
Here is a picture of the booklet, which as you can see is All Our Yesterdays.
And the thread bundles, and there is quite a lot of thread there just a question mark over what might not be there when I need it.
It is making an appearance as I have something specific to stitch for. But the specific something will be a gift so it won't get any updates at all till it is all finished and gifted. I don't think the intended recipient is a visitor to the blog but just to be on the safe side.
a technical success.
For the Zoom attendance at our Church meeting. The experiments with various equipment have found a winner. Nice clear picture and oh sound that stays, not breaking up and best of all for my mother the sound stayed fixed for the music and singing.
I on my stitching noticed that there was no a lot of the shade I was using left, which felt strange as otherwise so far the kit has been reasonably generous.
Oh, ah I appear to have at some point mixed up the shade represented by a capitol A for the shade represented by a black triangle. Hmm, well it does mean that the patchwork blanket is less shaded than it should have been up at the top of the kittens head.
Am I going to unpick it and fix it. NO. I won't run out of thread, as there is not that much left to stitch in the A, it won't change the overall look too drastically and its just not going to bother me that much. (Well especially as I have no intention at this point of keeping it when it is finished)
So here is todays update, a little more purple (the right shade in the right place) but a bit less done due to the ? over the ohps needing to be checked and considered.
If you came here from Roni's blog then this first image will surprise ewe.
yes it is a sheep in a Christmas hat! This is the RAL part, as I had already started the backstitching on the SAL when last we were working on it. So I finished off the cross stitch and backstitch on this first whilst Roni caught up.
Then I moved onto the Wreath Mouse. I found one ninja as I was backstitching the mouse, some ??? placed ones whilst doing the holly leaves and decided that the backstitching in the random greenery was excess to my requirements.
Not that sure the yellow bits look like the bells I supposed them to be, even with the bit of gold blending filament, perhaps they are baubles?
I did not feel bad stopping backstitching at this point and not finishing the stitching as per the pattern as after some discussion my BFF also decided to limit the amount she was adding.
Here is mine with an idea of how it will look in it's felt frame from the kit, but as Roni noted we have an over abundance of time to sort that, it will most likely be gazumped by other more time sensitive projects ( then next thing you know we will be complaining how Christmas crept up on us and be in a rush)
CLICK HERE to pop over to my BFF's blog (well if you did not start from there) and see how her variation looks.
And yes that is the dragons in the background, I was showing my BFF my progress, I will update on that one separately later.
We think we have a plan for BFF SAL 22, but plans can change.
on the dragons, and a note of the double benefit of the heated over blanket I bought . Not only does it keep me warm but the mag with the pattern in slides off less often than it does just on my knee.
by looking back at 2025. It has not been an easy year, it got progressively more difficult and those issues which came to light in November will inevitably result in more challenging times ahead for 2026.
What that will mean for the crafting and the blog I do not know. The blogging community has become quieter of late and I don't want to become part of the encroaching silence.
The crafting is my meditation, my safe place.
However as noted in my previous post some crafts, such as the quilting take more space, more preparation and planning so may fall somewhat by the way side.
Having completed the Mini Brother felting project I may have, with kits left, have done with that, I will wait a bit yet and see.
Looking at into 2025 well Hark the Herald Angels got some stitching done, but I am still working on the robes. Millennium is still stalled on the comet and the Earth. The illusion quilt remains unquilted
The a year in flowers is finished, but unframed. The ties for the tie quilt have been unpicked and the BFF quilt completed.
Do I have projects for the year ahead?
Yes, the dragons to finish, perhaps some progress on the two projects with angels.
Things to frame ideas swirling in my head, but what will get done or worked on, well only time will tell.
And for today, well I think more on the dragons, the right dragon appears to be a little less bitty so it looks like quite good progress, also I have been stitching it whilst watching "normal" TV with my parents, and it does go much faster when I am not trying to read captions as well as watch something and stitch at the same time. Much as I am still enjoying the Korean and other Asian films and programs.
And there is still Forestella with the prospect of a new album sometime in 2026 hopefully, there might be inspiration for some further crafting links to songs or logo images.
And the BFF SAL and RAL is indeed holding steady through its own challenges and changes.
So OK 2026 we are
my BFF gave me a book
I tried to keep to colours that my BFF and I like and those reflecting the coloured squares. It was fun working out which bits to colour and which to leave alone. Fun and an endeavour to stick to less is more and not colour everything.
I was particularly pleased with the way the checked sections came out. I wondered which were me and which were Roni, and if she would see it the same way.
Shopping from the loft stash I was sure I had some purple, a darker toned to the red side of purple, I did and that would be the sashing on the top.
There was a little rearranging of the patch order. I wanted some squares in very specific places. The same but different in the middle for example. And I wanted to space out the squares with two figures and the ones with one.
Bright pink for the binding to pick up some of that from the squares and colours on the characters.
(Grace did such a good job taking a picture of her quilt I got her to help me take a picture of this one)
The backing was light pink and then I thought about the quilting. Stars , hearts and circles in the patterned squares, by hand. Down the sides of the purple stripes by machine, then some cascades of hearts, again by hand in the purple sashing.
I added the label under the binding, quilted under it then stitched the label down. The label references the theme and the inspirational source.
Once finished I was very happy with the way the ides had translated into the finished quilt.
However, it was also very frustrating as destined to be a gift for my BFF I could not immediately discuss my delight with her.
We had scheduled our Christmas get together for 10th of December, Christmas before the actual day and in the same year even, wow! Sadly that was not to be due to on going issues for us both. We did however manage it on 30th. Roni kindly made the trip to mine as family circumstances are such that any long time away from home is not advisable.
I opened the door, we looked at each other and laughed, as I was wearing her favourite purple and she, my favourite teal!
We had a splendid relaxing visit which included amongst other things a viewing of The Muppets Christmas Carol and tea from the Chip shop and a tech assist as I forgot how to make my selfie-stick work.
Although there is still a certain knack to using it at arms length.
And having got it working here we are using its tripod function and feeling very pleased with ourselves.
