Flat fold

One of the moderators of "I Love Cross Stitch" yahoo group taught a class for making a flat fold. The class was really fun and I hope that Maeri will teach another class in future. She did a great job. Everything I learned will be very useful for other projects as well. All by all it meant a lot of fun to follow the lessons and to watch the flat folds of the others grow.

Because of me so much playing around with this new blog it took me a while to stop goofing around and sit down to finish the flat fold off. Which I did today. Then I wanted to have a bow on top of it. Can't be that difficult I thought, got some ribbon out and realized that it might be handy to read a "how to do" first. Which I did ...and of course I tried to do it my own way. After couple of trials it worked out fine. And I sew it on top of the flat fold. Problem was, it did NOT look good. So I removed it, and added instead a simple ribbon. That looked better. As you can see, sometimes you can have the most fancy ideas, and in the end something more simple does look heaps better. I'll keep the first bow anyway thoug...might come in handy for something else.

Here are 2 pictures of the flat fold. In the first picture you can see the bow I took off laying in front of it. That's my first bow ever...next to simple bows made on presents of course.

Queen of the Needle

Tomorrow evening I'll start "Queen of the Needle" from Just Nan. The plan is to stitch couple of days this one and then to return to my other big project (Alpine Season Garden) When I purchased the chart it was meant to be stitched as a SAL with my friends from "I love Cross Stitch" - but that didn't turn out as I wished. I ordered hand dyed fabric, which took ages to arrive...and I had to send it back. Was the wrong color and had a stain too. Took again ages until it arrived. But it was worth the wait. It's a lovely opalescent hand painted Cashel linen from Sugar Maples in Canada. I think the color is called "Shimmering Powderpuff" It's such a pity that Mindy from Sugar Maples stopped her business. She made so beautiful fabrics.

The SAL has already finished, but that doesn't matter. This little sampler will get a place at the wall right next to my stitching chair. It has such a nice verse ...that alone is already a reason for me to stitch it.

In my little Kingdom of stitches that cross
I am Queen of the Needle
And Boss of the Floss
etc etc

I think that fits quite perfect in my stitching corner.

Hawaiian Mandala

One of my favorite designers is Martina Weber from Chatelaine Designs. At the moment I'm stitching 2 of her designs. The Hawaiian Garden Mandala get released in 12 parts. Normally the new part gets released begin of each month. Because of taking a vacation Martina released this month the part for August earlier. This evening I finished it - and it will now get rolled up until begin of September.

Here is a close up of part 9:



And here how the mandala looks part 1 to 9:

Magnet Exchange

Today I got an email from Vanessa stating that she received her magnet. Which means I can publish the picture. This was from an exchange run by my favorite yahoo group (I Love Cross Stitch) and my partner is Vanessa. I stitched for her part of a Jill Oxton Design over 1 on 25ct Lugana. The border is stitched with Dinky Dye Silk.

It's all in the name

The birth of a new blog...sheesh. Somehow I seemed one of the few not having a blog, and the main reason was simply I couldn't think of a name. Not that I'm totally thrilled with the name I gave it in the end...but at least I don't have to try and think of a name. Took me a while to come up with this. Not that I am having a lack of fantasy, but there are moments when my brain goes totally blank. Thinking of a name for a blog was one of these famous moment. Asking my daughters was not really any help either. Things came up like: IloveMelanie.blogspot....or IloveSaskiamore.blogspot..nottrue.blogspot. - Teenagers are so helpful. Finally they came up with "Mother Needle" and "Needle Devil" I politely thanked them for their help, complimented them out of the room and stared again at the monitor. "Lady of the Floss came up in my mind....and that was that.