Wednesday 19 December 2007

It's Been A Long Time

I've been very remiss of late with blogging, so apologies to all whose blogs I read but haven't commented on lately.

I do have some things to show you although in the last week or so I haven't done that much stitching. I'm afraid that I haven't spent much time on Celtic Christmas, so it really isn't worth a picture at the moment. However, a couple of weeks ago I decided to "finish" my Autumn pinkeep. It's the first one I've done and although I feel I could have centred the design better I'm quite pleased with it.




At the same time that I was finishing the pinkeep I thought I'd finish off a Christmas ornament that I'd stitched in the Christmas Ornament SAL. It's by Glory Bee from the JCS ornaments 10th Anniversary Collection. I only managed to stitch two ornaments in the whole year and the other one is not finished off as yet. I really must try to stitch more in 2008 so that I can fill up my ornament tree.




This next picture is of Just Nan's Morning Flower that I stitched for my friend Colette for Christmas. She and her husband came over on Sunday for lunch so we exchanged presents then. I'm afraid that I neglected to take a photo of the framed piece so this is just as I finished stitching it. I'm afraid that I've really gone off Just Nan's for the time being as stitching with perle 8 on 28ct proved to be rather a pain, I feel it's just too thick for this fabric. Unfortunately I don't, as yet, have a photo of the lovely sampler that Colette stitched for Keith and I. I'll show one in a future post.




It was my 50th birthday on Monday, can I really be that old? (LOL) I had lots of lovely presents, a silver ring set with Tanzanite stones from Keith and some Molton Brown Shimmer fragrance from my son, Paul, in Heavenly Gingerlily, my favourite fragrance in that range. I had hand dyed threads and a voucher for stash from the girls from the Stitch and Stash forum and shown below, this lovely pretty patchwork project bag from Colette, that she had made herself. The Ashley Gingher scissors, shown on the bag, are a present from another good friend of mine Clare. She went to a lot of trouble to get these for me, eventually buying them from Mike and Carol's online store. Clare told me that she was very impressed with the service from them and would recommend them. The scissors arrived in the UK from the States in under a week. It's a shame though that Royal Mail's Special Delivery service that guarantees next day delivery didn't work, and they took two days to get from Clare to me. Still they are here now and they are very pretty indeed. I shall really enjoy using them and Colette's bag along with everything else.


Many thanks to all of you who read my blog, and to those who comment on it. I will try not to leave it so long between posts again.

10 comments:

Sally said...

Very nice finishes Nicola. I love Morning Flower.

Love the bag and scissors you received for your birthday. I love my Gingher's and wouldn't be without them:) Sounds like to had a wonderful day!

Hazel said...

Some lovely stitching here. I have a problem with centreing too no matter what I do. Yours looks great though. xx

jane said...

Happy Birthday Nicola - enjoy your gifts!

Karan said...

Good to see you posting again. :0)
Beautiful finishes & lovely gifts, sounds like you have had a great birthday.

Stitchingranny said...

Beautiful finishes Nicola, I love the orange ribbon and black beads on the autumn one they are just perfect to compliment in, and the ornament is delightful.

I love the JN too but know what you mean about the perle on 28 count, think Sally will too lol. I think if I came across this again I would replace it with an anchor marlett thread or something else.

Andrea said...

Great finishes. I just had to enlarge the JN piece and have a good 'ole nosey.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

Clare said...

Nicola spectacular header - one of yours? The scissors look fab - if you ever get fed up with them, I promise to adopt them and give thenm a good home!!!!!!!!!
VERY impressed with all your stitching finishes - at least you have finished an ornament, mine still needs completing, then I will have made ONE all year!

Carol said...

Beautiful finishes Nicola! Merry Christmas!

Meari said...

Happy Belated Birthday, Nicola! Your finishes look wonderful.

Leslie aka zoeandcooper said...

Great job on all those finishes, Nicola!