Siberian Gold - The Resurrection

As part of my Feb to do list I will be picking up my Mum's cross stitch again. It's been 4 years since she passed away and I miss her everyday.

I'm going to be working on the big Tiger piece again - Siberian Gold. Some of you might remember I started on this one a while back, but haven't touched it for over a year.

Just as a reminder this is how far Mum got.

And this is where it was at when I last worked on it.

I surprised myself by how far I'd come with it when looking at these pictures together. There is still one heck of a long way to go though. I'm going to try and focus on the other things on my to do list and just have this to pick up when I'm home and have time for a few stitches here and there. It will be interesting to see how far I've gotten by the end of the month.

Siberian Gold - Part Fourteen

I had hoped to spend a little time each day stitching on this this week but of course that never happened. Yesterday I had a pretty much free day though and thought the perfect way to remember Mum would be by working on her project.

As this is the last post of the year for this one I thought it would be fun to remind myself of what this looked like back in August when I first picked it out of the pile.
Wow even I have to be pleased with how far it's come. This is a reminder of what it was like on the last outing.This is the now.
It's really difficult to see the progress I think just because the colours I'm working at the moment are so close to the background fabric.


I think you might just be able to see from this close in shot the white stitching at the end shows the very edge of the picture which gives an idea of just how big this is going to be!

I'm going to stick with the rotation thing as I think it really does push me to achieve as much as I have time for in the week. That being said I don't think this one is going to get finished until the later half of next year. It would be nice to be working on something else by the time next Christmas comes, lol.

Haven't decided what I will be working on this week. I have a couple more little embroidery kits that I've bought during recent months so I might pull out one of those .....

Siberian Gold - Part Thirteen

I was supposed to have been diligently working away at Siberian Gold this week, but what with feeling icky and trying to get the Christmas postcards done I didn't pick up the needle until yesterday. Consequently not as much finished as I would like but hey at least some progress has been made.

This is the last time we left it. And the now.
It's difficult to see the progress too much in the picture as a lot of the background colours are similar to the fabric.

I think I'm going to struggle during the next few sessions with this one. This second half of the picture has a lot more background in it. A lot of the background colours are only done in half cross stitch so you would think it would come together more quickly, but there are a lot of colour changes which slows things down a bit. Still I really like the beautiful subtle colouring in the background so I'm hoping that focusing on enjoying each stitch with them will help pass the time and I won't get too anxious at the slow progress.

Now it's time to get back to the sheep this week :)

Siberian Gold - Part Twelve

This week saw me actually getting to the half way point on this baby, yeah!


Here is where we were at on the last outing.
This is half way through.
I had hoped to steam on and progress this even more but other things seemed to get in the way and I only managed a few extra stitches. So this is where we stand now.

Time to put the Tiger's away for a week. Tomorrow I'll introduce the new project in my hand stitching rotation :)

QUILT NEWS - I'm happy to report that despite not feeling well yesterday and therefore not spending all day stitching as originally planned I've got an almost finished top, just have the border fabric to add which I'm hoping to get to this evening. Pictures soon :)

Siberian Gold - Part Eleven

First off I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone who has commented on my last couple of posts. I love blogging and although I think I would do it no matter what, the wonderful support and encouragment from everyone who takes the time to read my mumblings really means a lot to me.

Now at last something that I can report progress on!

The whole rotation approach is working wonders. This is such a large piece for cross stitch that I had started to loose enthusiasm, but the knowledge that I only had this last week to progress the the Tigers really spurred me on.

This was where we last saw it.

This is the now.Good progress, no? I'll be working on Mountain Autumn this week, you know I think I am actually going to miss those darn Tigers.....

Siberian Gold - Part Ten

Thanks to the miracles of modern blogging hopefully you will be able to see this post which I've scheduled to pop up while I'm away.

I've made a reasonable amount of progress this week which is great.

That was then.

This is now.

I'm not very hopeful of much progress this week. As well as the conference it's Mark's birthday Friday so I expect we will fit in some celebratory outings over the weekend. I don't see much stitching time until next week.

Siberian Gold - Part Nine

Wow I can't believe I'm just about to give the ninth installment on this one and it's not even half way through yet, I'd better stop thinking on this like that as it's enough to make me want to give up right now :)

I had a pretty tough week with this, it wrestled me all the way. I guess it serves me right for working on it with a fuzzy head. Part way through the week I ended up frogging a whole section as I'd stitched it up in the wrong colours, don't ask me how I managed that I have NO idea!!

Anyway you know the drill by now this is last week.

This is the now

Not as much progress as I had hoped but C'est La Vie!

Siberian Gold - Part Eight

First off I want to thank everyone for their well wishes I'm feeling pretty rough at the moment and have the concentration level of a gnat which is really limiting the amount of time I'm at the computer so apologies that I haven't replied to everyone personally this time!

I was in two minds whether to post about this this week. I've hardly made any progress on this since the last update, as I think I mentioned before this one didn't come on vacation with me it would have been too unwieldy to work on in the tent!


In the end I decided that this was probably the best way to kick start me again. I know it's only been a few days since I've been back but as I'm out of the habit I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to get back into my routine on this one.


As usual here is where we last saw itand this is the now. See, I warned you there hadn't been much progress. Still every little stitch helps. Hopefully this will have moved along at a somewhat quicker pace by the time of my next confession :)

Siberian Gold - Part Seven

It's that time of the week again, doesn't time fly!

In spite of the camping trip and limited stitching time at the weekend I still managed to make reasonable progress on this one this week, more than I had dared to hope anyway, managing to fill out the corner and even making a start on coming back across the fabric a bit.

Here's the usual reminder of last week.

And the now.This one really isn't going to progress again until at least the middle of October now. The next few evenings are going to be filled with organising and packing for vacation next week and although I will be taking some stitching projects with me this one will not be among them. It's too big , we're camping again and I don't have much room to spread out in the tent!

Siberian Gold - Part Six

Thanks to generally feeling awful over the weekend (and thanks to everyone who sent their well wishes I am feeling a lot better now) I made some decent progress on this this week.

This is last week
This is now My unofficial goal for the week was to try and extend down the left side all the way to the bottom of the picture which I have done. This gives much more of an idea of the overall size of this piece.

I am going away at the weekend so I know there will be no where near as much progress on this in the coming week, but I will keep plugging away and hopefully there will still be some progress to show next week.

Janet's Cat

With the healing hearts done, it's time to move on to the next UFO.

This is the Kitty that I started in the Janet Bolton workshop that I took a while ago. I came away from the workshop feeling a little disappointed. I'm a huge admirer of Janet's work but I just couldn't seem to get to grips with the small pieces that she is so skilled at using so my kitty is quite big.

Even though he is not quite in the same league as Janet's work I fell in love with him again when I spotted him in the UFO pile, I wonder what he will look like when he's done?

Healing hearts - finished

You might remember this pile of hearts from a few posts ago... Well they were on my to do list list week and I'm pleased to say that my comfort cushion is made. My plans for these changed a few times before I settled on the final idea. I had originally intended to make a larger cushion and make a few extra heart blocks myself.

The original blocks were all different sizes and when I had a measure the large red heart with the blue background was 7.5 inches I really loved that block and didn't want to cut it down any so I decided to make a really scrappy cushion by adding fabrics to the smaller blocks. I already had 8 blocks and thought that 14" would be a great size for the cushion so no extra blocks required.

I know the mish mash of bright random colours might not be to everyone's taste but I love it, and the love that it represents.

Siberian Gold - Part Five

Time for an update on the cross stitch. Although I've been really busy during the last week, I still managed to make a bit of progress on this which is really an unexpected bonus.

This is last week And now Sorry the picture is a bit wonky I was a bit rushed and didn't really take the time I should have when taking the photo.

As I've been working on this for a month now I thought it might be fun just to remind myself of where this started and how far it's come. So here is the starting point and the now lined up together.

UFO SAL

The further into Mum's cross stitch projects I get the more help and encouragement I'm going to need I think. So I decided to join a couple of yahoo cross stitching groups and so far the ladies and gents have been great!

One of the groups is having a month long 'complete your UFOS' stitch along. Of course my main UFO at the moment is Siberian Gold but this week I came across a small project that I started a while ago.

When I was having a lot of family problems a lovely lady in the US sent me a gorgeous little kitty kit' Hang in There' Well I got some way into the project and at the time, having not done any cross stitch for a while, I realised that I'd made a totally rookie mistake and started stitching on the fabric the wrong way round.

This is how far I'd gotten and I really couldn't face unpicking it all or starting again.

Anyway having come across the project again this week I had a count up and figured that actually the design will still fit on the fabric even on this wrong orientation. This is going to become my 'mobile' project this week. I like to have some stitching in my bag so that if I'm stuck waiting for dh to leave work at the end of day or if I manage to fit in a lunch break at work then I have a little something to keep my hands from being idle.

I'm not sure that it will get done by the end of next week, but I'm sure that I can get this done by the end of the month when the SAL finishes.

Healing Hearts

As the GWE samplers were such a quick turn around already it's time to pick another of my ufos from the box.

I thought I'd work on another cushion in the hopes that this will be a reasonably quick turn around project too. I have a couple of big projects in that UFO box but I'm trying to ignore them for the time being ;) After my Mum passed away two years ago some lovely ladies on one of the yahoo groups that I belonged to at the time sent me some healing heart blocks. I have been wanting to make these into a comfort cushion for a while but need to make a few more hearts of my own as I want to make it double sided. Somehow I just never found the time to make them. Now I'm going to make time!

I'm having fun with these UFO's and it really feels good to see the pile shrinking. There are plenty more to be done though so no time for slacking!

On Safari

I'm happy dancing as another UFO is finished up.

My safari cushion is done. Here it is sat on the sofa. In the end I didn't add anything more to the centre panel as I was thinking I might in the last post. I did think about it and actually wanted to add some trees along the horizon line. All the other pictures on the panel are fussy cut appliques. When I looked through the fabric stash I have nothing with trees on, actually I couldn't believe that I didn't, but it's true. I might in the past have rushed out to find some but as I am trying to cut back I really didn't want to go out and get more fabric just for a tree or two.

I also thought about maybe embroidering a tree or two but didn't think this would really fit in with the rest of the panel so decided to leave well enough alone.

I haven't done anything fancy with the back just picked out one of the fabrics that feature in the border. (sorry about the blurry pic, the light here is terrible and the flash just glares back on this fabric)The cushion measure 18 x 18. The only thing I have left to do is go buy a cushion pad that is big enough the ones I have really don't fit properly so it's a bit saggy :)

DH is out tomorrow for the day so I'm looking forward to a day stitching and catching up on some blog reading, with maybe a chocolate eating break thrown in there somewhere for good measure!

On Safari

As I got the bag finished at the weekend it is time to draw another one of my UFOs from the box.

In November 2005 I took a workshop with Jan Hassard based on an African themed quilt she had made. I came away from the workshop with lots of little blocks but knew that I would never actually make a large quilt using them. So shortly after the workshop I decided to join a few of the bits together to make a cushion top. After doing this and adding some simple quilting it has been languishing in the UFO box. Looking at the centre piece on this now I think that it really needs some more stitching/detail to bring it to life a bit more but I don't know what. I will mull it over for a few days, if nothing comes to me I will finish it as is. If I decide not to add anything else this really shouldn't be more than an hours work to get it all finished up.

Also on the worktable this week I have these watery babes waiting for some embellishment.

Bags of fun

It suddenly occurred to me today that as I am so motivated to finish Mum's UFOs at the moment, I should take a bit of that enthusiasm and work on some of my own too.

I have this tote box full of half finished projects, blocks and quilts. So I went rummaging today and found myself one of my own UFOs to work on. A couple of years ago when I first started getting into all things fabric I fell in love with the bag on the front of this book. So started one of my own this is as far as I gotActually as I simplified mine quite a lot it's not that far off being done. I'm not sure why I never got round to finishing it at the time. I think it might have been because as I didn't have any specialist feet for the basic model sewing machine I had and wasn't too pleased with the free motion work, but actually although it's certainly no masterpiece of stitching on closer inspection it's not as bad as I remembered it to be.

You might be able to see from the first picture that being in the box it's gotten somewhat squashed so is in need of a little bit of rescuing. My first task will be to try and get it back in shape and then I will be repairing this holeI'll let you know how I get on.