Another week goes by.....

One day last week I had a strong compulsion to stitch something by Michael Powell. This little one was a freebie, given to us by Carol on her blog a few weeks ago. Wasn't sure if I liked it too much at the time but it kinda grew on me. The blurb calls it a weekend project, but I beg to differ on that one. Maybe a fast stitcher could get it finished in a weekend but certainly not me! I have to say I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought .... its very blocky, white on white is mindblowing. Still, I do still like it and fully intend finishing it. It looks weird right now because I was missing 2 or 3 colours when I started it. Lesson learned, ensure all threads required are actually acquired before starting something new. I still really like this designer's (Michael Powell) work, but if I do another one I'll make sure its one with less blocky patches and a lot more detail.

Funnily enough, Celtic Chrismtas is also large blocks of colour, but not in the least bit mind blowing. I'm really enjoying this - have been back working on it again since Saturday. I love the way the different reds fade into each other. I'm sure somewhere along the line I've got the wrong reds in the wrong places - but I don't think it matters. Not sure if its visible from the photo, but along the lefthandside there are a few single stitches in a sort of brown colour. They are wrong and need to be pulled out. No idea how I managed to translate the symbol on the chart for that colour because it is in fact the symbol for a bead. I think I'll leave the beads 'til last.

I mentioned before that I'm useless at winding thread onto bobbins from skeins, so I bought some ready-wound ones off ebay. Big mistake! They stank of smoke. I spread them all out on a tray and febrezed them and put them out in the garden. Then my neighbour decided to have a bonfire so not only do they stink of smoke but they are covered in ash. *Sigh*

I also bought some new DMC threads, appx. 120 skeins, the ones needed for the Angel of Cross stitch, although I don't have any suitable fabric for this one as yet. Some of these threads are 8m lengths cut from bulk cones rather than in actual skeins so hopefully I won't have such a difficult job winding them onto bobbins.

Finally, my first months fabric club order came from Tandem Cottage. There's a very big bit of blue/grey Permin linen, nice colour, should be useful for one of the Mirabilias, a lovely bit of silver lurex, slightly smaller, I'm hoping to be able to use this for the snow Princess, once I've checked its the right size. And a smaller, oddly shaped bit of lemon coloured evenweave, not sure what I'll do with that, I don't think I like the colour very much. Can't win 'em all!