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last weekend I finally did my tast samples of Fly stitch and Cross stitch, as I am now way behind with my sample stitches I did the 2 on one sampler, I haven’t been very creative with these (must change that) so I used a paper with interest, I am going to cheat a little and also show a sample I did about 23 years ago for my C&G studies,

Cross stitch on the left and Fly stitch on the right,


Cross stitch sampler on even weave furnishing fabric in a variety of threads including ~ 20 crochet cotton, perle cotton, 2 strands of stranded cotton, 3 and 4ply wool, wool slub knitting yarn, cotton slub knitting yarn, other decorative knitting yarn with mohair, raffia and unknown shiny thread bought cheap as label was missing,



was pleased to hear the news this morning that a stay of execution has been given to the local middle schools, Lionel in Ness being one of them,

woke up to a line of light on the horizon this morning but it was gone by the time I had got the camera, then these pictures appeared over the course of the next half hour, just after seven by sun up winter is a coming, that means the sun rose over an hour later than in the photos I took less than a month ago, as you enjoyed them I thought I would share these, on another note my thoughts are with all those people in the uk who have suffered flooding,

I started to write this last week but didn’t get past the title and a few photos, so here goes again, the rabbit is still around the garden and has been keeping the grass down just outside the kitchen window (photo taken through the window),



interesting on the radio Scotland prog this Sunday, a lady asked the team for plants rabbits do not like and they suggested hairy leaves (yuck) and scented plants :o) now I know why the rabbits do not touch my herbs, rabbits do not like eating scented plants, I love, love, love scented plants so I have lots in the garden (I can get quite heady when weeding), they also said that baby rabbits do the most damage as they are trying plants out to see what they taste like (just like people babies), the rabbit is cutting down the heather for me, it keeps tunnelling through it so cutting it off, saves me a back breaking job, the only thing I have not seen any evidence of is rabbit manure, if it is eating my grass I want the fertilizer!!!

This wonderful little red rose that I planted in a better position last year has had a second flowering this year, I hope this is because it is happy and not a last fling……


I finished 2 more stitches last week and have not started the next ones so behind again, I have not even looked up to see what the next ones are, these two were both new to me which was nice, on the left is barred chain and alternate barred chain, on the right up and down buttonhole stitch,



no I had not heard of either and could not find them in any of my books not even Mrs Christie, so I checked for them if you are curious click the links
and stitch
stitch

I am not impressed with alternate chain but do like the Up and Down Buttonhole stitch and think it will be used again,

A couple of weeks ago I saw my blog friend was offering an ATC (artist trading card) swap so I asked to swap with her and this is the beautiful ATC she sent me from NJ,


as well as beautiful embroidery and lovely photos of rescued kitties on Conni makes beautiful Santa’s check out her website link on her blog,

I am still going to figure drawing classes and last week there was some black paper so I used that with pastels and really enjoyed myself which for me is what it is all about,



Work continues on the back room, the joiner turned up 10 days ago so I now have plasterboard with insulation behind it on the outside walls….hurray and without any warning the plumbers were banging the door down at 10 o’clock this morning (tues) to finish moving the kitchen sink into the room, it was a bit of a scrabble as I tried to clear the cupboard under the sink while they were starting work, if only they had thought to phone that they were on the way I could have cleared it before they arrived…..or is that expecting to much forward thinking for plumbers? I am not complaining thought just amazed (or us some would say ~ totally gob smacked) that they arrived so quick and it is DONE…….hurray……now when will the electrician arrive???

saturday morning




sunday morning

the next 2 stitches were Couching and Knotted Cretan, again I have put both together, the Knotted Cretan stitch is the row of green sticks at the top, I did not like it much, too ridged, making the knot in the middle of the stitch prevented the flow you can achieve with Cretan so I only did one row and will not be doing any more,
Couching I do like and had already done it on some of my other samples so here I have not done lots of different stitches mostly just straight stitch to couch down the thicker thread, the top is couched sequin waste, ribbon, ricrac braid and double thread, the middle is traditional blocks of formal couching and the bottom is free motion couching with a variety of threads, this is the bit I like best,

have a nice weekend,