Spring Sampler (3) and some cross stitch goodies :)

Monday 5th of May - bank holiday here, in the UK. Aaaah! So nice to have one extra day off which I'm going to spend mostly tiding up but hopefully will find some time in the evening to do some crafting. Currently I'm working on my Spring Sampler from Riverdrift House. I haven't shown my progress on this piece of cross stitch for a while so here it is! Half way done. I think the colours are emerging very nicely on the fabric. Now I can see that aida is getting a bit grubby now and it looks like a gentle wash will be needed when all has been stitched. The cotton thread inlcuded in this kit is Anchor. I never use Anchor threads, so I hope the colours won't run in the wash. Does anybody use Anchor threads and has ever had any problems of this sort? Please let me know. 

I just love stitching samplers - they are always a nice collection of various little "characters", motifs and decorative frames so you just don't get bored stitching them. I am much better with small cross stitch projects rather than the big ones - I get bored quickly and lose my will to keep on stitching. I need frequent changes and vibrant colours to keep me going. I tend to put a project away and then it is very likely to turn into a so-called long-term UFO - an UnFinished Object. I usually come back to it after a while :)

This design comes from Riverdrift House - a UK-based company that designs many other lovely samplers. Amanda, the owner of Riverdrift House promised me (and others too, I suppose) to design the remaining three seasons in a similar style - SUMMER, SPRING and WINTER. I did ask her to include some nice wording in them. I'm really looking forward to seeing them. Actually the Summer Sampler is on sale now and I shall be buying it soon! :))) Check her blog and the Facebook page for more sampler updates and you can post a photo of your progress too! 

Speaking of the Riverdrift House designs, I have done quite a big crafty shopping recently so have a peek at what treasures I've got! :)))) They arrived very quickly just before Easter. Blissss! I purchased 4 card making sets and a set with a frame. All cross stitch motifs. I really love those mini-samplers for cards. Perfect for me!

Here are the sets I ordered:

The royal themed card set. Full of regal symbols, red, white, blue and gold for splendor. Perfect for the British people who are royalists or for someone who is fascinated by the Britishness and the Royals :)

The Love set: this one is super sweet. I love the wording, I love the font and I love the choice of colours. The cards can be given both as Valentines or as birthday ones. Really looking forward to stitching those!

The Christmas kit no.1 I love this combination of white, red and blue with some beige. The motifs have some sort of a folky twist to them, which is what I just love. Another one to look forward to!

Christmas card kit no.2 - this one is my favourite in the entire collection. My regular blog readers will know that I love all things Scandinavian and anything with Norwegian stars, reindeer, Nordic folky hearts, christmas trees and snowflakes captures my heart straight away. I can't wait to lay my hands on this set! :)

The last set of cards to stitch is the Spring / Easter set: fresh, cheery, full of daffodils, hyacinths, bunnies, and spring branches. Easter may be over now but still there are some spring cards to be stitched :) I think I'll start with this kit first very soon. I live in North Wales where a daffodil is a national symbol so this card kit just blends nicely with the overall Welsh theme :)

And the last but not least is this gorgeous white Scandi-looking heart frame with a Home Sweet Home design in it. So pretty! So keen on this one. Not sure when I'm gonna stitch this one as with such a choice I really find it difficult to decide myself! 

Well, anyway with some new cross stitch kits in my cupboard, I'd better get a move on with my Spring sampler. I've already been looking on the web to find a nice frame for it. What colour would you suggest? I have had a white one on my mind.

Linking up to Hand-made Monday tonight - the blog hop no.166! Do join in :) There is also a newly created facebook group under the same name as the blog: Handmade Harbour where you can meet other crafters and chat about your blog and crafts. Check us out too!

Spring Sampler (2) Yarn shopping.

Hi all. Spring is coming on nicely... well at least on my cross stitching frame :) Here's is my progress. I'd say it's about 1/3 done by now. I'm going to stitch the upper part now and then finish with the bottom of the project. I'm really enjoying stitching this sampler and I'm lovin' how the font came out too. 

In 3 days Welsh schools break up for a weekly half-term break. This means the whole week and actually 9 consecutive days of crafting bliss :) I'm soooo looking forward to this free time and I'm hoping to make even more progress with my sampler. In the meantime I ordered another Riverdrift House sampler to stitch. I've kept my eye on this Easter sampler for a while now. I've missed stitching with some pastel colours. 

With the Valentine's Day last Friday and all things nice to celebrate, last Saturday I treated myself to a big crafty shopping :-)))) Finally this gorgeous set of circus font stamps is mine, mine, mine!!! :D

This set can be teamed with a complementary set of cutting dies, which arrived at my place today! :D I can't wait to lay my hands on this set. Naturally, I couldn't miss the shelves with yarn:

Some mercerized cotton in energizing colours: Wendy Supreme:

Sirdar Simply Recycled yarn

 more of Freedom Sincere organic cotton:

Some Sublime Egyptian cotton - never had one so wanted to have a go at this type of yarn:

and all the yarn "loot" together :)

in Lidl, again, I found the remaining orange cotton yarn and a set of dpn:

All these vibrant spring colours inspire me to try some projects for home like coasters, mug hugs, mats, Easter chicks, floral garlands etc. Hopefully I'll find some time to have a go at them. 

Now a good news for all nutty knitters who love all sorts of fonts and words: This gorgeous new book Knit the Alphabet by Claire Garland is hitting the shops at the end of March. I've already pre-ordered my copy on Amazon and I'm awaiting it impatiently :) I have a feeling it will be a big hit in the world of crafty books, just like Knit 55 Christmas Balls by Arne & Carlos.

And to finish off, a few photos of my little furry not-so-patient model - Cookie. I was trying to photograph him on the windowsill but he kept catching the strap of my camera and chewing on it. His attitude towards the cat modelling didn't help at all! Just see for yourselves :)

He can be naughty but he's a totally sweet and adorable little bugger <3

The weekend has been gooood

Yes, the weekend has been good. Busy but full of lovely activities and I enjoyed every single minute of it. On Saturday we ventured out in the morning for some shopping including my visit to a very nice craft shop - The Purple Butterfly shop in Daleside Garden Centre. I'm like a kid in a candy shop there and shouldn't be really let in there with my bank card. I always leave with a carrier bag full of goodies. 

Then we were doing this...

We have had three reasons to celebrate - bf's stepmum's birthday from last Thursday, today's Father's Day and the oncoming BIG Birthday of bf's nan (just a brief intro to what's gonna happen in 2 weeks time!) We were lucky with the weather and managed to fit in with our bbq cooking between the fleeting showers. There was food galore and it was so nice to be together and share the meal.

Sunday was more shopping and driving around here and there. Again some more crafty shopping with some card stock bargain at HomeSense in Broughton. I haven't managed to do much crafting in the end (apart from putting a few cross stitches on my little project) over those two busy days but here is what I've been working on for the past few days: crochet flowers! 

Another episode of my crochet self-teaching. I dug out the archival issue of Mollie makes and started working on my first crochet flowers learning to follow and interpret the crocheting instructions. 

Currently working on a layered crochet flower...

Ready flowers went into a glassy storage jar :)

Crocheted flower progress - from the most wonky one to the more improved ones...Still plenty to learn and practise.

I think I'll practise crocheting those flowers a little more next week and then go back to learning the remaining two basic crochet stitches - double treble and triple treble so it will be back to making crochet swatches again :)

On Saturday morning a nice surprise happened to me - Margaret, a friend from facebook kindly offered to buy me this gorgeous Christmas quaker at an online shop in Canada. I received it as a gift and the custom gods spared me paying a tax on it too! So happy! THANK YOU SO MUCH Margaret! x x x

It's a big project but it's full of lovely motifs and surely won't be boring to stitch! I also love the Olde Worldie wording on it. I'm hoping to get started on it this year, before Christmas when I'm done with my Nordic stocking first. It's going to be my first quaker to stitch.

Erika's Knight's book inspired me to reach out for some Earthy natural colours so on Saturday I got myself a few cotton yarns to practise my crochet. 

Finally, something that made me wonder. Not long ago I was a little shocked to find out that this simple 19cm x 19 cm card from WHSmiths with a few coloured letters and literally only 4 embellished 3d foam mounted letters costs as much as £4.99. Just a reflection: if an average card like this costs that much, how much should crafters charge for theirs then?   Unique lovely hand-made cards when plenty of time and effort is spent on cutting, trimming, stamping, embossing and embellishing? £6? £7 to make it fair? And who is going to buy them at this price? Another of those dilemmas: hand-made or mass-made? What do you think? I'd love to hear from you about it.

Some of you during the last Hand-made Monday asked me to post the photos of the finished crochet bowl I blogged about before. Well, I've finished it and you will find it - here. 

Linking up to Hand-made Monday tonight to do some blog hopping and see what others have been up to this week. Thanks for popping by and leaving a comment. Have a good week all! x x

Stitched on wood

Hi all. Took a short break from knitting and card making and quickly cross stitched this lovely freebie from the newest issue of Cross Stitcher :) A keyring with a vintage rose design.

Always wondered what it would be like to cross stitch on other materials than canvas. Well, now I know :)

To tell the truth, I doubt it will be my favourite technique as stitching on a piece of perforated wood is... well, more rigid, the knots are harder to make and sometime you struggle to push the needle through as you stitch in 4 strands of cotton. But the overall effect is nice and it's worth aching a bit to have this nice design :)

I may present my mum with this stitched bit. She loves roses.
In the meantime, relaxed lazy knitting... 3 "eggs shells" waiting for ironing and stuffing...

and the next one is on the needles...

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Today a heavy winter snowfall hit the Great Britain again. Large areas of the UK are snowbound, schools are closed, streets are empty and people stay in. Basically, today is cancelled. I'm off work today and it's my bonus day to add to the whole school Easter holidays :) I have a feeling it's going to be a crafty day :D
This is what it looks like from my window today:

and the doorstep! poor budding daffs!

Seriously, it's 22nd March today - officially the calendar spring - is this weather some kind of a joke? If yes, then the Weather Gods must be having a laugh!
I do long for something sunny and warm and I bet most of us do so here's a cheery pic for you, with a supa cute ladybird :) just to keep you going through that cold weather.

Roll on Spring! And please, hurry up! ;)

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Welcome my new blog readers! :)

Crafting away...

Would it be a cliche if I said I love my holidays and I'm the lucky one to have proper school holidays. It's the only time when I can craft freely without worrying that I have to go to bed early enough or will run out of time to finish the project or simply be disturbed by anything. Precious enjoyable time! So... For the past week I'd been doing all sorts of crafting - knitting, cross stitching and cardmaking - in other words, whatever takes my fancy :) Here is what I have been up to...

Featuring for the first time on my blog is my Scandinavian-style cross stitched sampler with reindeer :) Yes, yes, I simply couldn't resist not stitching something Nordic this year. I feel this is beginning to set up as a tradition now - a Scandinavia inspired hand-made creation made each year! I'm so in love with this Scandi style that I'd probably feel guilty if I didn't make any! The inspiration for my sampler comes from one of my last year cross stitched cards from this post. You can guess easily which one from :) On this colour of aida the white "chalky" cross stitch against the dark inky blue background  feels... very wintery and cold as if it was at deep dark midnight, don't you think so? :)

I must admit I love stitching sampler elements - hearts, snowflakes and above all those great folky reindeer :) They are such fun to stitch and you don't have to worry about changing the threads. This is a great thing about monochromatic samplers. It feels great to see how by adding an element each time you see your sampler building up. 

This is as much as I have stitched so far - the middle part has been finished and currently I'm working on the upper decorative band. As the last thing I'll be stitching the bottom part. For the photo I took the sampler off the frame to show you what it looks like in its full size :)

For my cross stitched cards - well, I've finished stitching the three festive motifs and started the 4th one. Added some backstitch for the finish too. Then on Saturday a disaster struck - a standing nearby table unexpectedly folded in under the weight of stuff lying on it and the whole mug of hot (!!!) tea went down pouring all over me and some drops of tea also stained my stitches. Argh! I immediately ran with the stitches to soak them in Vanish and the stains, thank God, disappeared. This is what they look like after drying up - all the helpful grid marks disappeared. Never mind, I can put up with that as long as the stains are gone! It was a blessing in disguise, I'd say, 'cause the tea stained mostly the edges of the aida, which will be cut off anyway when I put the stitches in the aperture cards. This is a good lesson for the future. No drinks anywhere near my stitching! 

Overall, happy ending! Phew!

Recently I've subscribed to a Cross Stitch Gold magazine. As a gift the publishing company sent me this lovely cross stitch kit with clifftop poppies. I thought I'd show it to you. Poppies are so trendy to stitch these days! However this kit will have to wait for a more convenient moment in the future as currently I'm busy with my Christmas stuff! 

More on the cross stitch kit theme - my recent purchase from Stitch Direct- Yuletide Reindeer Stocking :) - the cross stitch kit I've been wanting for months and finally is mine! Simple, folky, Scandinavian and with reindeer - just as I like it! I'll be stitching it as soon as I've finished my white-on-blue sampler.

The sampler details are great - Scandinavian poinsettias, geometric floral designs, snowflakes, Christmas trees and forest animals :) This is what makes a Nordic look!

On the knitting front, I've knitted 10 more "skins" and they are waiting in my knitting bag to be steamed and stuffed :) I take such relaxing pleasure in knitting them that I delay finishing them off. I promise myself I'll sort them out by the end of this week :)

Well, I think I'll stop here. There is more stuff to show but I don't want to make this post too long to read through :P Keep dropping by!