Mystical Light

Thought I'd just give a quick update on the progress of Mystical Light during UFO nights.

The contest for the Christmas Humbug finished, and as expected I didn't win, but I did come third equal and a photo of the top ones will be on the Victoria Sampler website, so I'm really pleased with the result, especially given that was the first time I've entered anything I've stitched in a competition.

Christmas Humbug

The first stage of the competition is over and I made it through to the final :) I didn't get the most votes, so it's unlikely that I'll win, but I'm still pleased to have got that far.

Christmas Humbug

I decided at almost the last minute to enter the Victoria Samplers Yahoo Group competition for the Christmas Humbug. Thea provided the chart and we got to stitch it in our own colours and make changes if we wanted. I hadn't really had any idea of what colours to stitch it in until about a week before the competition closed when I suddenly decided that silver, white and blue would be nice and wintery and hopefully Christmassy too with all the sparkle.

Anyway, here it is:

I pulled everything from my stash. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I mean, it's good because I didn't buy anything, but it's not good because it means I've got a bit of stuff. The only thing that I might have brought if I'd had time would have been ribbon, as it turned out the only thing that I had in anywhere near the right colour was Flair. So Flair is what the flowers are made of. I'm not entirely happy with how the centre flower turned out, but I couldn't think how else to do it, so that's how it's stayed, and it does look perfectly alright, so I think it's just me being fussy.

Birds of a Feather

I finished this last night. I'm counting it as the last finish of 2008 although technically it was after midnight as I was still working on the last band at midnight. But it was before I went to bed - therefore it was yesterday. And I'd already put the date on - so it has to be a 2008 finish - it says so!

Birds of a Feather

Tonight's progress:

Birds of a Feather

And last nights progress:

Birds of a Feather

Here is a new piece - Birds of a Feather by Victoria Sampler (published in the October issue of Gift of Stitching magazine). I started this in a Stitch-a-long yesterday. The plan is to finish it by new year and have it be the last finish of the year. I am stitching it on a solitaire piece of fabric from Sparklies.

Heirloom Christmas Sampler

I have finally got back to this. I have now finished the tree and started on decorating it. Initially I failed to read the instructions for the gold garlands properly and did the first row in backstitch only. I was thinking you couldn't really see them very well, then I read that I was supposed to use stem stitch, so I went back over them adding a stitch from the middle on one side of each backstitch across to the middle on the other side of the next stitch to try and get the stem stitch effect. It came out looking good, and in fact almost better than the row above which is just stem stitch, partly because I have trouble getting my rows of stem stitch to go where I want them, so doing the backstitch first solved that problem for me.

Here are two photos of it - the first with just the backstitched garlands, and the second 'fixed' with the next row. To be honest, you probably won't be able to see any difference. Also - don't compare the pine needles to the pattern - I think I managed to get the main branches where they were supposed to go, but most of the needles just happened.

Heirloom Christmas Sampler

I'm still working on the tree on this, but it is starting to show a bit more shape. I have reached the bottom branches on one side, and obviously I still need to do all the needles, but it's showing promise.

Heirloom Nativity Sampler

Here is the latest on this - I'm now halfway through the 2nd band. The white isn't showing up as well as on the recommended fabric, but I think it still looks nice. I think switching to a 32ct wasn't the wisest choice either - the star (and presumably the rest of the beads etc when I get there) is a bit squashed and the crosses are a little bit lumpy - almost too much bulk - perhaps I should have only used one strand of silk instead of two. Still if I'm careful they come out alright - it just may take a little longer than normal so that I can take that little bit of extra care to make sure they don't bunch up. The squashing I can't do too much about, but if it looks weird I can adjust the things around.

Heirloom Nativity Sampler

And the latest picture on this. Not much further, but the angels have wings now.

Heirloom Christmas Sampler

I have started this SAL too - I haven't got very far at all, but at least I've started and it will get finished.

Heirloom Nativity Sampler

I was talked into joining a stitch-a-long (SAL) for Heirloom Nativity Sampler (Victoria Sampler) recently - it didn't take too much arm twisting as it is one that was on my to-do list. My biggest reservation was that I'd also talked myself into joining the Heirloom Christmas Sampler (Victoria Sampler) SAL at the same time. That one hasn't started yet as a couple of people are still awaiting their materials, but the Nativity one started on the 1st of September. Some people are doing really well are up to band 8 - I'm still on band 1 (counting each row of different stitching as a band).

Here it is as it stands anyway - the fabric is a hand-dyed opalescent called Soft Skies from CountryStitch - it's actually a bit bluer than it looks in the photo - so I'm not doing the falling snowflakes as I think that would look silly. I may change my mind at the end, but I will wait until then to see if it looks good without them.