Forever in my Heart

Last February marked the second anniversary of my Mum's passing.  In the run up to the date I saw the Forever in my Heart chart by Sub Rosa on Etsy and knew I had to stitch it.  It turned out very pretty.  I decided to turn it into a little cushion.

The cross stitch on the wall is Sarah Moon by Lanarte.  I had bought the kit in 1998 when I visited the UK.  My Mum stitched it and got it framed for me back in 2004.  She was a very practical person, so probably figured I would never get around to it and did it for me!  lol.  I can be sure of the date because thankfully she signed and dated it on the back.

My Mum loved stitching large pieces.  She stitched many as gifts, and many still hang on the walls in my parents house.  Perhaps I will share some on my blog in the future.

Stitchy happenings

I thought I would share a few things I've stitched during my blogging absence...

Midsummer's Day by Scattered Seed Samplers (I also have the companion piece Midwinter's Day kitted up but have not yet stitched it).

Plum Pudding by Brenda Gervais.

Love is the air by Country Cottage Needleworks

And Heaven and Nature Sing by Kathy Barrick/Carriage House Samplings.  I chose to leave off the letterbox type thing and stitched a tree instead to make it "more nature-y". lol

Outlander by the Clouds Factory.  I can't wait for Season 5 (although I do think the first few seasons were my favourite).

Trick or Treat by the Prairie Schooler.  My daughter has shown an interest in Halloween this year, so I might have to stitch some more Halloween pieces.  It's not really something we really celebrate in New Zealand, but it seems to be gaining in popularity.

The 2017 Prairie Schooler Santa.  Love the polar bear.

In 2018 I signed up to the Into the Jungle SAL by the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  As I stitched it I realised how much I enjoyed the mini finish aspect of each block, and that is another reason I decided to stitch Shores of Hawk Run Hollow (same idea, on a bigger scale).

I have also learnt to crochet (on a very basic scale) and was able to make my daughter a scarf this past winter.  She hasn't really had a chance to wear it though because the winter was so mild!

Fingers crossed the quality of these photos is reasonable, as I had to screenshot them from my Instagram.

Hope you are having a stitch-filled week!

Popping up

Just slipping back into blogging after nearly two and a half years.  My last post is certainly not my favourite, so it's about time it got bumped from the top!

So here is a very recent finish I have to share.  Back at the end of August I happened to notice finishing services available at around the same time as spotting the Shepherds Bush Thomas stocking pattern.  Hmmm, I thought... I could do that for my daughter for Christmas, but I'll have to be quick!

I managed to purchase it fully kitted up at a reasonable price and it arrived from Australia within a week.  I sent it off to Broomfields in Nelson less than two weeks ago, and here it is back again already.  The finishing is of a very high quality, it's padded on the inside and has a thick, navy coloured velvet backing.  I definitely could not have achieved such a great final finish myself.

I'm hoping over time those creases from being posted between islands will work their way out, and that Santa might fill it up on Christmas Eve!

I am about one and a half blocks away from finishing Shores of Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings, so I will do another post when I finish it.  I started it in December last year, so my plan is to get it finished by the end of 2019.  Although they are big blocks they are pretty easy stitching and I should easily meet my goal.

Happy stitching!

Hit and miss

It has been hit and miss with updating my blog over the last few years.  I'm not sure if many still read it.  I won't make any promises about updating regularly, but I don't plan on giving up on it either.

Back in February our lives took a sad turn, when my Mum passed away.  Although she had been ill, we were not expecting such a dramatic turn at that time.  I still feel some disbelief, and then at other times the reality feels very overwhelming.

My Mum would have hated her face being on the internet so here are a couple of photos of my Mum and I which she still wouldn't have approved of, but that I might have got away with.  :-)  In the first I am around 2 years old, and the other is at my wedding in 2009.

 

My Mum worked tirelessly as a volunteer for our local animal rescue shelter for nearly a decade, and helped hundreds of cats, kittens and rabbits in that time.  She particularly liked the very small kittens that needed to be hand reared, and was still doing this two weeks before she passed away.

Not long after she died I went stash diving for something to work on.  I ended up pulling out Alpine Garden by the Drawn Thread which I'd had in my stash for nearly a decade.  As I was working on it I realised that many of the flowers and their meanings were words that described my Mum - compassionate, strong, loyal and courageous.  Needless to say it went straight off to the framers once I had finished.

A little later than expected...

but the winner of the Margaret Jagger 1824 chart is.... Barb from the Wicked Stitcher blog   Congratulations Barb!  I will get the chart into the post for you this week.

I visited my younger sister (who is an occasional stitcher) the other day, and she was busy stitching on her Margaret Jagger which was nice to see.  She got off to a great start originally, and then lost interest but some recent atrocious summer weather has spurred her on again.

Happy new year and a giveaway

I was going to do a blog update to show my latest stitchings, but at present I can't access my Flickr account where I store my photos. 

So, lets have a giveaway instead.  If you'd like to win a  copy of Margaret Jagger 1824 which I reproduced from the original - please leave a comment and I'll throw your name in the hat.

I will draw a winner on Sunday 22 January (NZ time).

Hope your 2017 is off to a great start!

Strawberry House

After we moved house in January life threw a few lemons my way, and I didn't stitch for quite a few months.

The first thing I stitched when I got my mojo back was Strawberry House by Tanya at the Scarlett House.  I think this is quite possibly my favourite design ever.  I just love the design and the thread colours.  I had put it off for ages because I didn't have the exact fabric called for or anything similar (such a silly attitude!).  I eventually decided a piece of WDW Cocoa fabric would be just fine.

When I won the generous gift voucher on Sharon's blog back in May the main acquisition was the fabric, threads and chart for La D Da's  Honeysuckle Birth Sampler.  Although I stitched a couple of things for Annabelle before she was born, I never got around to a birth sampler.  It was a pretty quick stitch, but has been languishing unfinished for a little while as I have yet to decide on the lettering for this piece.  Unfortunately, I don't like what is charted and I want to fit her full name in the middle portion not just her first and second names.  (I've just spotted I missed a honeysuckle flower on the vine!).

Annabelle has become very interested in my crafting lately.  "What are you making me today?" she asked yesterday as I was rifling through my crafty drawers.  Then this morning she asked "Are you needle-ing me a hat?".  lol.   Her and I started making her a scrapbook yesterday - she really enjoyed rummaging through my supplies and spreading them all over the floor.

At the end of July we said goodbye to my bunny Milly.  Obviously I was sad, but I believe she was probably old in bunny years as she went blind with cataracts soon after I got her (here she was the first day I adopted her from animal rescue).  I had her for a little over two and a half years.

My other bunny Cola is getting on in years, I've had him for about four and a half years and he was also a rescue bunny (so real age unknown).  He will have to make do with our company as, as much as I love bunnies I don't plan on getting anymore.  However, I may take him to see my Mum's bunnies on occasion for something different.

It is a miserable, cold day here with lots of hail and sleet.  Parts of the country have been really battered by storms and snow.  Winter is giving us a final farewell, as it gives way to spring.  Wahoo!

National Parks Birthday Club

Thanks for the warm welcome back to blogging everyone!

This weekend I managed to finish up part 1 of The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's National Parks Birthday Club.  Part 2 will be released at the end of September.  It will be interesting to learn about US national parks.  New Zealand has many too, my favourites being Fiordland (awe-inspiring/jaw dropping/out of this world beautiful in my view) and Tongariro (a few hours north of where I live, with a couple of active volcanoes).
























Some of you might recall that last year we moved house and totally made a big mistake in doing so.  In January this year we moved back to our old neighbourhood.  One of the things that attracted us to our current house is it's lovely large garden, which even has it's own stream. It is a great time of year to see what is popping up in the  garden.  Fortunately the previous owners liked spring bulbs and there are many, many yet to bloom.   I can't wait!




We also have some unique garden visitors, including this endangered New Zealand falcon (Karearea). Annabelle and I were home alone one day and there were a lot of banging and crashing noises.  I could not understand what was going on at all.  We went outside and found a white dove which we sat and talked to for a while, before noticing the falcon in the tree watching all of us.  We had interrupted the falcon chasing its lunch!  First things first I got the camera (as you do!), then I rang my husband to see what he thought I should do - either let nature take its course or save the dove from becoming lunch - however before I told him the whole story the dove flew off with the falcon in hot pursuit.  I don't know how it ended.  Maybe that's a good thing!

Back soon with part 2 of the local sampler history.  I am glad that some of you commented that you enjoyed part 1!

Local sampler history - part 1

Earlier in the year I purchased  'New Zealand's Historic Samplers' by Vivien Caughley .  I had borrowed the book from the library several times, so figured I must quite like it so I may as well just buy my own copy.  :-)

I was surprised that there were so many samplers stitched in New Zealand.  The few samplers I have seen in person all have their origins overseas.

As I was reading the book one sampler in particular caught my eye because it was fairly local to me. It was stitched by a young girl called Jane Tonks (age 8).  Unfortunately, she died aged 22 in 1867 and is buried in Bolton Street Cemetery in Wellington.

I am quite familiar with the cemetery, as it forms part of the botanical gardens which Annabelle and I frequent.  I particularly like to visit the cemetery at this time of year because I love to see the spring bulbs blooming amongst the historic graves.

Anyway, back in March Annabelle and I headed out on a little mission to see if we could find the grave of Jane Tonks.  We had to veer off the main path a little but eventually found her headstone.

Unfortunately, the headstone does not mark the grave of Jane Tonks.  Her remains were disinterred from her original resting place in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the motorway.  Jane's remains now lie on the other side of the motorway in another part of the cemetery, along with the graves of many others.

A little while later I was again reading the book and found an even more local to me connection.  I will save that for the next post.

Back to blogging

For a while now I have wanted to start blogging again - so here I am dipping my toes back in the water.

As Annabelle gets older I am starting to find a little more time to get back to stitching.  At the moment I am working on Merry Christmas, My Deer from Country Cottage Needleworks.  I was lucky enough to win a very generous gift voucher on Sharon's blog back in May and this is one of the designs I purchased with it.

A few days ago I saw the hashtag #nationalparksal on Instagram, which picqued my interest.  A quick search and I found a sneak peek of the National Parks Birthday Club from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, and immediately knew that I was going to sign up.   The first part was released today.  I have the majority of threads required, but still need to decide on the fabric.  Annabelle has already claimed it as her own.  "What is it Mummy?" she asked.  I told her it was a cross stitch chart and she said "Thank you... thank you".  

Annabelle turned 3 in July.  Definitely the fastest three years of my life! She's now going to kindy a few days a week.  The kindy has a farmyard theme, so she even gets to ride the pony and feed the chickens.  Such fun for her.  Three is such a fantastic age, and I love the funny and sweet things she comes out with.  Every time I pick her up from kindy she says "I love to see you Mummy".  I never tire of hearing that.  I always enjoy it when she brings home her creations too - this one last week was quite different than the usual paintings.  A 3D tree!

The weekend is finally here.  Hope you have a stitchy one!