Secret Stitching Sweetheart blog hop

Hello Dear Reader,

Happy Valentine's Day!!! 

In the world of cross stitch Jo of Serendipitous Stitching is renowned for her blog hops! And today we are joining her for the latest!

Those taking part have sent Jo a photograph of stitching suitable for a gift to our:

Secret Stitching Sweetheart 

Jo has randomly distributed those photos amongst those taking part, for us to show on our blogs. The idea is that now we go and visit everyone else to discover who has our piece of work and then let them know it is ours!

If you visit Jo HERE you will be able to visit those taking part and see some beautiful stitching  

This is the photo I received:

NOT MY STITCHING!

I can't wait to discover who stitched this beautiful project and now I'm off to Jo's to start visiting the:

Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog hop

I expect we will find lots of gorgeous projects to add to our stitching lists. I love reading your kind comments, but don't forget ..... if you don't comment no-one will know you've visited! (I'm sorry I have a few comments still to reply to but your comments still mean a lot to me).

I hope you  have a lovely stitchy week!

Hugs,

Barbara xxx 

A little knitting post

I’ve suddenly become interested in knitting. It happens once in a while! Usually when it’s cold!

I had all this wool hanging around, found a pattern I liked and hey presto. 

Talking to my sis the other day I groaned that my wrists were hurting a bit after knitting so much, and complained I couldn’t knit fast enough, she suggested I tried Continental knitting which is supposed to be less strain on the wrists, so I’ve been investigating via utube. 

Sis also suggested other methods of knitting which are meant to be quicker than English knitting - Lever, Russian and Portuguese, but they seem a little awkward to me - not that I won't try again some other time.

 Anyway, I've spent a fair amount of time this week trying them out and I think I will probably be using Continental Knit in future. And here is a link to a 5 minute Continental knit tutorial which I found quite easy to follow. 

Go on, you know you want to ...... have a little go!

Mind you, I do hope I have enough wool or I will have to rip it back - again!

although I do have a few more scraps I can use

The handy thing about blogging is that it makes it easy to keep track of when the knitting reaches a certain length.

Well I'll be back tomorrow joining Jo's Secret Stitching Sweetheart bloghop.

Bye for now!



Hugs,
Barbara xxx

 

WIPocolypse

Hello stitching buddies, old and new!

I've not been here for so long I didn't know how to start up again! 

So ........ I'm just going to jump in and say that I have been stitching lots of cross stitch last year and most of it is over on Instagram - you can find me there as "flashinscissors"

I didn't manage to finish any WIPs last year thanks to my Cancer, and hospital appointments.. I mainly stitched small cross stitch projects that I could carry with me. and for WIPocolypse this year I am going to try to finish a few of those things I started in 2021:

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In the days before my operation I quickly half-made a little bag with the aim of having something with me, to finish in hospital! Although, of course, I wasn't able to do much ...... mostly I slept! But using a big stitch and DMC random thread I was able to stitch the lining in place around the top and finish a row of stitches around the handles. 

I intended stitching some tiny embroideries to decorate the bag.  Crabapple Studios were running a SAL on Instagram at the time I made my bag, with a free download of patterns of tiny embroideries.  I didn't join in at the time because I was mainly stitching the tiny monthly cross stitch calenders from CrossStitcher magazine, for my monthly page markers on Instagram and so this year I aim to stitch those darling little embroideries from Crabapple Studios  

 

Then later last year I started making another larger bag ..... to carry all the paraphenalia I would want with me when I went for my Chemopherapy. Ha ha, of course Chemo has been and gone and the bag is still not finished. There probably isn't much more to do either .....

Then, of course a WIPocolypse post wouldn't be complete without this project I've been stitching for many years, it is getting closer to a finish, ha ha!

Cocoa Sampler

And I have already started a couple of new projects this year!

This will be a scarf/wrap/sweater

Most evenings I've been knitting the scarf/wrap thing as I'd like to finish it while its still chilly weather, but it's slow going.  I need to knit until it's 52" long and I'm about half-way. So I'm investigating different ways of speeding it up - Continental Knitting and ....... oops sorry this is probably too much for today so maybe there will be another post about this soon! (Well OK soonish)

"Snow Place Lke Home"
From CrossStitcher magazine - Jan 2021

 I've even started knitting socks now

Who knows, maybe I'll do better at finishing this year!?!?

Happy 2022 everyone!, 

Hugs,

Barbara xxx! 

Now I'm off to visit some of you. See you soon!!!.