Sticking my neck out.

This week my Giraffe has finally grown a neck! There are some more leaves growing around him and a bit of tree has sprung up behind him too.

I've started working on the hoop as it was getting tricky to keep the fabric taut as I worked further into the design. I've made some progress on the birth sampler too but haven't got a picture of that.

I was also busy in my pottery class this week. I started, and pretty much finished, a coil pot. I just have to scrape the excess clay out of the inside and then glaze it.

Making good progress.

As I promised myself last week, I spent most of my stitching time this week on the birth sampler, which of course I then forgot to photograph - d'oh! However, I also made some good progress on the Panda Collage. There's now a happy Giraffe smiling at me from the Aida...

...although DH insists it looks like he's sporting a Richard Branson-esque beard :D

Another successful creative exploit came to semi-fruition this week. I started a pottery evening class 3 weeks ago and my first project was a pinch pot. When the tutor said we'd be making pinch pots my heart sank. In my experience, pinch pots usually look something like this...

Now, no offense to the creator of the pots pictured, but that's just really not my cup of tea I'm afraid. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when the tutor showed us a technique to join two pinch pots and make them into a lovely smooth clay sphere, ready for us to decorate as we wished.

I chose to turn mine into a Sea Urchin inspired tealight holder, using various objects I found around the house to make the decoration. I used part of a broken zip, the barrel of a ball point pen and even a wine pouring device to make this little beauty.

Now it just needs to be fired before I probably go and ruin it by glazing it! I'm thinking I'll make the raised circles white and the rest a turquoise/teal colour, if that's even possible. Not sure yet how I'll do that. Probably by using a white glaze all over, firing it, then masking the circles and re-dipping in the teal glaze. I'm sure the tutor will be able to let me know the best way.

One week in...

After a week's work on my Panda Collage cross stitch it's not looking as different to last week as I'd hoped. I've managed a few hours on it, spread over the week, but the section I'm working on has so many different shades of brown that I feel like I've spent most of my time changing colours.

The most frustrating part has been the confusing nature of some of the symbols on the chart. Some of the symbols are not as they appear in the key, and so I've had to guess which colour they're supposed to represent. Then, to make matters worse, two very similar shades of brown have very similar symbols too! I've lost count of the number of stitches I've had to unpick because I've used the wrong shade - grrrr!

Still, I'm loving how it's looking, with it being such a densely stitched design. It almost ends up like a stitched carpet of colours.

Here's where I'm up to now (excuse the poor lighting)...

I haven't made any progress on my birth sampler this week as I wanted to get a good start on the collage. However, I think next week my stitching time will be more evenly split between the two projects. After all, I only have until New Year to get the birth sampler complete and framed - eek!

A new thread...

...quite literally! I've taken a little break from card making to concentrate on Cross Stitch for a while. I've been dabbling with cross stitch for about 20 years but never managed to finish anything other than tiny projects.

There was one particular project that I bought around 20 years ago that just kept getting put in a bag or drawer for years at a time, then worked on for a week or so before being consigned to the bag again. I dug it out again recently and, spurred on by my 3yr old Daughter, I decided I WOULD finish it this time. It is called 'Fireside Toast' and features the Country Companions animals. I DID finish it and this is what it looks like before framing...

As you can see, where I kept it on the hoop it has marked the fabric but I'm hopeful that I can get a picture mount that will cover those bits.
I also completed a Cherished Teddies kit which was given to me when my Daughter was born. It's called 'Phoebe Bear'...

I've now started two new projects. The first is a birth sampler for my Sister-in-law, who is expecting her first child in December.

This is where I'm up to so far...

The other project is a kit I found on eBay for the silly price of £4.50 including postage. There must be over £20 worth of threads alone! It's called 'Panda Collage' and is part of the DMC Wildlife Collection. I hadn't realised quite how big it was until it arrived and it's huge! Much bigger than anything I've attempted before. When completed it will should look like this...

It took me about 4 hours just to sort all the different shades of floss so I've not had much stitching time yet. However, this is my progress so far...

Not much I know but I'm happy with it as a start. The pale blue stitches are all half crosses which helped speed things along. I'll try to provide weekly updates on my progress.