Some more stitching to show.

I stitched some more today and quite enjoyed it. I was feeling much better today, no fever, less caughing but still some headache and being tired. I am going back to work tomorrow, hope I’ll stay OK.

This morning I finished my slot for “Under the friendship tree” by Mirabilia. I really enjoyed it. I finished the cross stitch in the flowers/apples on the top and started stitching on the dress of one of the little girls. This is how it looked like as I packed it away this morning.

After taking a nap (how refreshing it was) I decided to dig up the Oakhaven SAL that I started at the beginning of the year. I did quite well until I had finished April but then things started to slip but now I intend to finish it quite quickly. I finished of May today and it was less than an hour stitching. It is looking pretty, now I just have to post my picture on the list and request June.

Now, I have to decide what I want to stitch next. I saw a very pretty Christmas SAL that has just started and I think I might just start that, maybe later tonight. We’ll se about that. 🙂

Anyway, I am off to send the girls to bed. All the best to you.

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Still here but very busy

I think it is time to say “Hello” again. Time has really flown over here. A lot of things have been going on, everything good I am pleased to say. Work has been kind of crazy lately, lots to do to prepare for next school year, etc. The 2 older girls have started their school holidays, they have been spending quite a lot of time with their grandparents (my mum and dad) which is great. We have started our camping trips again, already went on two trips in June which we like a lot. The first one was a weekend trip and the second one was a family trip with Runar’s family where we celebrated the 85th birthday of my father-in-law. We spent 6 days together with them and had a wonderful time. It was good to see everybody and it was so wonderful to have some days off on a holiday. Now I’ll be working for 2 more weekend and then I’ll be on holidays for 4 weeks. It will be so great. We have got a lot of camping planned for the summer holidays so I don’t know how much you will see me blogging but I’ll try to pop in every now and then with some pictures.

I have been knitting a lot lately. I have also been stitching some but most of it is secret stitching that will be shown later on. I finished knitting a vest for Hjalmfridur Briet – I’ll enclose a picture of her. And I have finished a sweater for Fridbjorg Lilja – I still have to rinse it and let it dry before you see a photo. I have started yet another knitting project but that one will have to remain a secret for a little while. But here is a photo of Hjalmfridur Briet in her new vest.

I received a beautiful return exchange from Pascale in Belgium last week. It is so beautifully done and words really can’t describe who much I like it and I think the pictures that I took don’t do it justice at all. Thank you ever so much Pascale, I will cherish this stitchers wallet, it is wonderful. Pascale also enclosed 2 patterns from my wishlist and the thread the patterns call for. Here are some pictures.

This is the outside of the stitchers wallet
Here is the inside, look at all the details, it is so beautifully finished and every detail is so very well thought of.
And finally here is a picture of the whole exchange. Again thank you so much Pascale – I really love everything.

Well, I guess it is high time for me to stop now. Thanks to everybody who still come around for a visit to my blog. I will post on and off during the summer but it won’t be regular. Hope you are all having a great summer and will be having a lot of fun during your holidays.

Take care, hugs and kisses to you all.

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An exchange and some knitting

Whow! Every day seems just so buy at work those days. I am longing for holiday right now but still have about a month to wait for it.

I heard that Pascale in Belgium received the crazy exchange that I sent to her so I can show you some pictures. This was a march challenge piece at Stitch and Stash forum (Jayne’s Attic). I really loved making this little hedgehog. And immedialy thought of Pascale to send it off to, I am happy to say that she enjoyed it. I made this into a needlebook. Here are some pictures.

And this is inside the needlebook

This chart is called the Hedgehog Quaker and comes from the Workbasket.
The free chart can be found here.
The facric and thread are some scraps from my stash.

Lately I have been knitting quite a lot. I have managed to finish off a dress for my youngest daughter Jóhanna Brynja and a vest for my middle daughter Friðbjörg Lilja. Here are some pictures of them showing off their new clothes.

Here is Friðbjörg Lilja wearing her new vest. The pattern can be found in English on the net for free. Please, click here. If you would like to find out more about icelandic knitting and for more free patterns please check out http://istex.is

Here is Jóhanna Brynja modeling her new dress, she just loves it.

Here they are both showing off their new clothes. The spinning wheel that stands between them is an heirloom from my husbands side. It was handmade by his grandfather and is a beautiful work.

I’ll leave you here. Currently I have started knitting another vest, the same pattern as I knitted before but in different colours for my oldest daughter Hjálmfríður Bríet. I am also working on my Nature’s Home afghan. I have started another block and have been stitching on tuesday evenings just not posting a picture recently. I will post a picture on tuesday of the block and also of the whole afghan, it has changed a bit since I posted a overview picture the last time.

Until next time, hope you have a wonderful day. Take care.

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Time for an update don’t you think.

It’s been a long time since my blogging again. I am sitting here at some sick, staying home from work. I’ve got the flu, a sore throat, stuffy nose, bad caugh and am running a fever. I have a feeling that the flu has developed into an infection in the sinuses, I’ve got a doctors appointment lined up for Thursday, so we’ll see about that.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about stitchy update. I have got some pictures to show you and some updates to tell you about. First let’s start by Nature’s Home Afghan. The picture from last week is here below. I will be stitching on this today so I’ll have another update for you tonight/tomorrow (not sure when). I am still working on the bottom right block with the rabbit, still have got quite some stitching on that block before it is finished.

I have been working on my rotation. I finished stitching on my slot for “Under the Friendship Tree” by Mirabilia. I really love this pattern and it reminds me of my lifelong friendship with my friend Árný. We have known each other since we were 2 and 3 years old. Stitching on this brings on many fond memories of our friendship. Well, this is where I left it after finishing the slot in my rotation.

I have got a new start in my roation now. It is something that I have wanted to start for ages. I have already done a hour stitching on it and hope to finish the slot this week to make a move on my rotation. The new start is “4 Wishes” by Just Nan. I love her designs and learning some new speciality stitches is so much fun. I will not show you a picture until I have finished the 10 hours on 4 Wishes so you’ll have to wait a bit longer. I really love the way the rotation is working this time. I am cutting a huge dent into my UFO pile, I can see it vanish in front of my eyes and I think it is unbelieveable how little work I’ve got left on some of the projects. They really shouldn’t have found their way into my UFO pile. And I love the guilt free new starts that I have been making too along the way. 🙂  It is such a joy.

Remember back in January I did the Monthly Challenge at Jayne’s Attic message board. I haven’t posted a picture of it on my blog yet as it got sent away as an exchange for the Crazy Exchange group. It has been received by the recipient a while ago but I always forgot to post a picture. So here it goes.

This is “The Three Emblems” a freebie by Papillon Creations
Stitched on scrap fabric that I found in my stash.
Can’t remember what thread I used.
Finished as a bourse – my very first bourse.

I wanted to participate actively in the Montly Challenge this year but I failed to do February. I did finish the March challenge yesterday (will post a picture later) and I think I might go ahead and do the February challenge even though it is March already. It can’t hurt anyone. LOL  🙂

I did a couple of HOE Exchanges in February and March. The HOE Biscornu Exchange has been received by Jayne in the UK. Here is a picture of the biscornu I made for her for this exchange.

The pattern is “French Biscornu Chart” by Papillon Creation.
The pattern was published in Gift of Stitching Issue 27, April 2008.
Again stitched on scrap fabric found in my stash.
Threads are Carrie’s Thread from a Grab bag that I bought long time ago.

I am waiting for the HOE Winter Quaker Exchange to reach it’s destination. It is probably on route across the Atlantic Ocean as I write this. Of course I forgot to take a picture of this exchange before I sent it away so I’ll have to ask for a picture from the dear recipient when she has received it.

Yesterday, I did finish the stitching on another Crazy Exchange, I can’t show you a picture yet. I’ll probably do the finishing today. We’ll see about it. I will show you a picture once it has been received.

What else can I tell you. I have a secret gift flying across the pond to UK where it will land in the hands of a very dear online blogging friend. She was so kind as to send me a pattern off my wish list when she had finished stitching it. Thank you so much dear Julie – I know you read my blog. The CCN pattern “The Tearoom” will find its’ way to my rotation thanks to you.

I think this really is all for now. I’ll be back with an update on Nature’s Home after today and will continue with my rotation tomorrow. Until next time, hope you are having a great day! Thanks to those who are still reading my blog, thank you for staying around reading even though sometimes it is long time between my posts.

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Photoheavy post

The heading says it all.  I haven’t had much time to blog lately but I’ve been doing a lot of things. There are quite a few photos that I would like to show you.

First let me start off with my stitching happy dances. The first one is a part of my rotation. I had quite a few projects in my WIP/UFO pile that only needed a few stitches to be finished, I include those into my rotation every second slot so I am finishing quite a few WIP/UFO’s as I go. On saturday I finished one of those projects. This one is a Ozark SAL from 2007. It is stitched on a piece of evenweave which was handdyed by Jayne at Jayne’s Attic and all the threads used are dyed by Mary at Ozark Sampler. I really enjoyed working on this piece and I don’t really know why it became an UFO for me. But here it is all finished up.

With the Ozark SAL 2007 slot finished in my rotation it is time to move to the next slot. Now I am stitching on Under the Friendship Tree which is a Mirabilia design. I had started this some months ago and really love this piece. I did manage to stitch on it for 2 hours before I had to put it down. But it will be back in my hands on wednesday when I’ll continue stitching on it. I wanted to show you a picture of it as it was before I started working on it again.

I have another stitching happy dance that happened just today. I’ve been taking part in the Oakhaven Design SAL and I quite enjoy it. We can send a picture to Tonia at Oakhaven Designs when we have finished a part of the SAL and she will then send us the next part. So we get to choose how fast/slow we stitch each part. I really love her designs so it is difficult not to fly through the parts. I finished the March part today and will be sending a picture to Tonia tonight asking April. Anyway, here is a picture of March finished.

Today I finished off a biscornu that I can’t show you a picture of just yet. This is for the HOE biscornu exchange. It is all packed up and ready to be taken to the post office tomorrow. It hasn’t got very far to travel so I might have a picture for you soon. Tomorrow I’ll be working on the Monthly Challenge on Jayne’s Attic Message Board. I’m looking forward to working on it.

I’ve spent a big part of this weekend helping my girls with their homework. Hjálmfríður Bríet had a project that she had to finish and hand in tomorrow morning that was really time consuming. I think I told you in a previous blog entry that I like to have my knitting needles with me when I help the girls out when it is possible. Over the weekend I managed to finish 3 projects knitting. All of those had been started and only needed a minimum work to finish. Here are pictures.

First there is a “Kiss Me Dishcloth”. I did join a group on yahoo where they have a Discloth KAL. You get a pattern of a discloth sent to you in 7 parts – one part each day. I have never knitted a discloth before but I thought it was a lot of fun and quite an easy task as I only did a small part daily. I must warn you the photo isn’t very good, the wording doesn’t show well. It says Kiss Me and there is a picture of lips below.

The next project was a pair of mittens that I had started for Hjálmfríður Bríet. I finally finished knitting the second thumb. This is an icelandic pattern and I used some Lopi light wool for it. I simply love this pattern and I might make some more mittens using the same pattern. Hjálmfríður Bríet did choose the colours herself and I think it looks very pretty.

And I finished a pair of socks for Friðbjörg Lilja. I had knitted the first sock ages ago and then had the second sock missing. But it knitted up quite quickly. Those are made with Regia sock yarn and she hasn’t taken off her socks since they were finished.

Well, I think that’s it for now. This post has been quite long and you deserve a medal to be still reading. I really hope you will all have a nice week ahead of you. I am looking foward to talking to you all again, hopefully soon. At least I’ll have an update for you on tuesday on my Nature’s Home Afghan.

Until then, take care, hugs and kisses.

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February SAL part already finished

As it is the 1st of February I decided to work on the February part of the Oakhaven design SAL that I am working on. And it didn’t take long, I had it finished in about 2 hours. I love the 12 different hearts and enjoyed stitching this part. Here is a picture.

Tonight I’ll be working on a biscornu for a Biscornu exchange on HOE. I have the front side almost done, then there is the back and stitching the pieces together. I really enjoy making biscornu projects. Of course I won’t be able to show you a picture yet but I can tell you that the main colour is purple.

Well, that’s all for tonight folks. See you all later.

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Small dance tonight

I mentioned Oakhaven mystery SAL in my last post. Well, I finally found some fabric to stitch this project on and I really like it. This mystery has 12 parts in it one for each month of the year. It is designed by Tonia Pappan at Oakhaven designs and it is being posted on Tonia’s yahoogroup called OakHavenDesigns. Here is the link to check out the group. I am stitching this up on a checkered fabric (don’t know what it is called in English, sorry) and I have decided to leave out the names of the months. I am planning to make a pillow out of this when the stitching is done. Well, I am not going to keep you in suspense any longer. Here is the picture.

OakHaven Designs Mystery SAL
January part

Now I get to start stitching on my 2 exchanges and I have got them planned but just have to find the right fabric and threads. I am looking forward to those 2 projects and I have got some great exchange partners to stitch for.

I hope you’ve had a great weekend. I spent a lovely morning at the handball tournament with my daughter. Her team finished the tournament in 3rd place with a bronze medal around their neck and a huge smiles on their faces. They played some great games and had fun and that is really what counts, right. !! 😉

Till later, all the best, hugs to you all.

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A Happy Dance again

I really think my rotation is working out fine. I have another Happy Dance of a WIP that I hadn’t been working on. This time it is a project that I started working on when the icelandic stitching group Allt í kross had a Quaker Mystery SAL going last year. Somewhere on the way I got sidetracked with other projects to stitch and this pieces went into my stitching box. I really love the finished piece and now I have to come up with a way to finish this. Here is a picture for you all to see.

Arbre aux cerfs
Freebie pattern by Gigi to be found here
http://storage.canalblog.com/24/24/176833/20795916.pdf
Fabric – Enchanted Fabric 32ct Cafe Mocha Flair
Threads – Carries Thread (can’t remember the name)

 

Next in line for my rotation is the Warwickshire Ring but I probably won’t start it until next Wednesday as it is getting fairly late over here, we’ll see if there is something interesting on TV I might just stay up until Rúnar comes home from work and stitch. 😉

Tomorrow and Monday is time to stitch exchanges, I am going to start by doing a small SAL which is going at the Oakhaven group at yahoogroups. Tonia has designed a beautiful snowman for January that I’ll be stitching tomorrow. It is a quick stitch so I might just have a photo for you tomorrow evening. Then I will be working on 2 HOE exchanges that I joined. I have plenty of time to stitch those but I have already planned what I want to do so there is no use in waiting.

Tomorrow morning I am taking Hjálmfríður Bríet to a handball tournament. Her team already played 3 games on friday evening and they won all 3 games. So, she was very excited when she went to bed tonight about the matches they have lined up tomorrow. I quite enjoy going with her to watch her team playing handball. Friðbjörg Lilja is also practicing handball and her team has a tournament coming up after 2 weeks. I’ll enjoy that one too.

Well, I am going to leave you all now, hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow doing what you enjoy. Looking forward to your visit again.

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January Christmas Ornament SAL – finished

I decided to join the Christmas Ornament SAL on Jayne’s Attic Message Board. I think it is a great way to build up stash of Christmas Ornaments. I’ve decided to stitch for each of my girls and for me and Runar and then I’ll see. So, the first one is a snowman as Friðbjörg Lilja loves snowmen. I’ve already given it to her and the backside has her name stitched and Christmas 2009. I loved making this little ornament. I finished the stitching yesterday afternoon and did the finishing of the ornament last night while watching Dexter on TV. Here is a picture of it.

 

Another Snowman Ornament by Val’s Stuff
Freebie can be found here: http://www.needleartworks.com/stv/nwsltr/page1-6.pdf
Stitched on a scrap piece of fabric from my stash
Threads used: DMC
January Christmas Ornament SAL at Jayne’s Attic Message Board

 

Tonight I am hoping to be able to stitch on an exchange, not sure how it goes as I’ve been feeling miserable today. I’ve been feeling dizzy and really strange but I did work from 8am-4pm today – we´ll see how the evening will turn out to be.

Hope you have had a lovely day! Looking forward to meeting you all again.

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Happy Dance again

Have I got smoking needles or what…….. I finished The Rain Fell today as I had expected. It was so wonderful to work on it and I will have to choose a replacement for this slot in my rotation wisely. Here is my picture. Sorry about the wrinkles in the fabric. I won’t iron it until I do the finishing. I am thinking of a pillow…..we’ll see.

The Rain Fell – Little House Needleworks
Finished on January 17th, 2009
Fabric: Wichelt – 32ct French Lace
Threads: DMC and Crescent Colours as the pattern calls for

I have already moved on to the next slot in my rotation and was working on the Quaker SAL tonight. It went back into the box tonight as tomorrow I am working on knitting and exchanges.

Tomorrow I will most likely do my knitting while I help the girls with their homework. And tomorrow night I’ll be working on a Christmas Ornament SAL that is going on at Jayne’s Attic Message Board. I have already chosen my pattern, just need to rummage through my stash to find some fabric. I’ll post a picture when it is all finished.

Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite. I’m off to sleep – maybe I’ll dream of some lovely stitchy stash. 🙂

 

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