Peppermint Purple (Green) - weeks 32 & 33

I completed 2 more blocks for the blackwork SAL.  I’m 2 weeks behind as of today.

SYOA - Chapter 2 - snitch - revised

I wasn’t happy with the snitch so I frogged it and re-stitched it.  This is the free pattern by Little Mojo.  I stitched it with the charted DMC colours.

I’m so happy I re-stitched it.  Now it feels like the chapter is complete.

Photo below shows my original snitch, same pattern but stitched with metallics and over 1 using tent stitch.  I wasn’t happy because it was too small to show all of the detail like the rest of the items in this chapter.

SYOA - Chapter 4 - Happy Dance!!

 Last night I finally finished Chapter 4. Next Chapter will be released on Tuesday, September 1, so I have a few days to catchup on the Peppermint Purple SAL and maybe do some extra stuff at the top on this project.

More birthday cards

 I forgot to show these 2 cards I made for family birthdays in August.

The first one (August 16) for my brother-in-law (Dave's sister Diane's husband Greg) who loves to fish.  I created a fishing vest.  I looked at images on line and then made my own.  I used several die cut shapes to make all of the items ... 

• "S" for worms
• "J" for fish hooks
• circles cut in half for bobbins, then add 2 smaller circles to top and bottom to match each end
• 2 long stems glued together to make a fishing rod
• added a string of Christmas lights for the hooks on fishing rod
• glued white sewing thread to look like the fishing line goes through the hooks.

Fishing Vest card closed

Inside the card I used a goldfish stamp & die set.  I thought it was funny because he would never go fishing for goldfish.

Outside cover.

The second one (August 24) for my sister-in-law (Dave's brother Bob's wife Olivette) who loves the beach and cruises to warm locations. 

This one was fun because I got to colour with pencil crayons.  I printed 2 different beach colouring pages on white card stock.  I coloured the main scene, then added the palm tree, ship and sun from the other page that I coloured.  I framed the beach scene with seashell paper left over from my sister's mermaid card.  Found a fun Happy Birthday to colour, then framed around with green cardstock which was also used inside the card. 

Sunday, October 25 is Mother-in-law day.  I need to make a card for Dave's mom.

I usually make about 20 different Christmas cards each year.  I like to have choices when I mail them out.  

I also have one more birthday card to make at the end of the year.  My close friend Lisa turns 60 on December 30th.  

I also will need 3 birthday cards in the beginning of January (3, 10 and 19), so I need to get them done early.  I won't feel like making more cards after I do so many for Christmas.

SYOA - Chapter 4 - sweets - update #4

I finished all of the backstitching on the Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans and started stitching the table end/edge. I chose a beige a little darker than the fabric so it stands out as a shadow for the edge, but not too much that I have to stitch all of the table.  This way I hope the fabric looks like the table itself.

In case you were wondering how the chapter looks with all of the other ones, here is a photo of the whole project so far.

The only thing I’m not happy with on the whole project is the golden snitch. I stitched it in metallic floss over 1 thread to make it smaller, but I find it doesn’t stand out like everything else. I have decided when I have time I will frog it and restitch it over 2 threads. Not sure if I will use the metallic floss or not.  Other than that I love how the whole project looks all together.

SYOA - Chapter 4 - sweets - update #3

I have completed stitching all of the Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans.  I still need to back stitch around 4 beans and then stitch the end/edge of the table top to give it some perspective.

SYOA - Chapter 4 - sweets - update #2

Last night I started stitching the Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans.  I’m not using the original chart from Stewart.  My son Jaspar and I don’t think they look realistic enough.  I was going to create some myself, but managed to find a pattern online that works.  They do look a lot bigger than the original ones, but at least these are more round/oval shaped.  They also use 3 different shades of colour (light, medium and dark) to give it some shape and 3D look.  I have chosen about 10 colours (x 3 for the different shades) to stitch the beans.  I want them to standout a bit from the other items in the chapter, so I chose greens that were not the same as the peppermint toad.  Tonight I will stitch some more beans.