finished the AA

And cannot wait until I have some halfway decent pictures to show, I am so happy I got through it after all problems I came upon sttching it :-) ! I really hope to do some better pics later, in real daylight etc.
The design is by Nicola Mascall ( the  problems were NOT due to her, honest, it was entirely me. Breaking an arm is definitely not a good plan if you want to do stitching, and getting mojo going again afer operation , rehab , took its own sweet time )

Anyway, here goes :

                                                    This is it, glory be !!!

And this is where it is going to live for the time being :

Finally progress!!!

Back from really glorious holidays in Switzerland in one piece , I might add, thank you.( yeah, I know....but I am always quite happy to be there and return quite rested ) . If you need a good sleeping pill, try my album  :-) . Remember those days when people insisted to show their pics, even if they were quite bad and mostly showed off "us here and us there and everywhere "? With internet albums you are free to ignore or just say "how wonderful"without even looking , much better !!!!

Well, nuff of that now,  during the last days of my hols weather was instable at best, often rainy, so  I decided to get into my stitching again. I seemed to have a "stitcher's block" or something, but it is over now, methinks.

Here is where I have got to by now :

 Last pic I posted was in Nov 2014. To be fair I had done some stitching in between , but it was verrrrrry slow going , I was not really inspired .

Here I am - finally !

And not even with my own work, actually, feathers are Frances' !

Here goes:

Some years ago, I posted a pic of ( then little ) Tiffany, playing a cat game on my Ipad , at PetitPointers, a Yahoogroup.

                                                       Here is the pic :

 Frances Peterson ( from TX, USA), a gifted designer, was not only smitten with this small lady, but immediately wondered about that carpet ! She liked it big time ! So up onto a chair I climbed, took as many pics of the carpet from as high as I could and mailed them to her, so that she could adapt it for a design for a PP miniature carpet. And no, trust me, if you have never tried it : that is not as easy as it sounds ....! Designing/adapting, I mean, climbing and photographing were the easy parts.

Tis ready now after about a year- or more-  of hard work by Frances ( designing plus stitching) . The first pic - aside from the progress pics that we share in the  group was this little teaser:

                                Bwaahaaahaa ! One mini Tiffany  with a  mini Ipad on a minicarpet !

                                    But here it is , The design can be bought from Frances :

                                                                         Right here

                               I am quite honored to be in her exquisite selection, thank you, Frances!

Yess, I am winning!

Slowly, slowly the Accursed Aubusson is emerging by now. After all problems I had during the last 14 months - the only minipart of me functioning seeming to be hitting  the "buy it"button  and trouble getting "back into"minis , even stitching ( some hefty mistakes in this one included) ,I am now making progress. Finally! Hooray!

So here we are, Nov 2014 :

Not much progress, but

At least there is some !!!

I am finally also sliding into the rhythm of stitching again. OK , there is hardly any progress to show (as I said in my last post : don't dare to laugh :-) ), but progress there is, even a very itty bitty.

This is the August '14 version of the Accursed Aubusson!

It has got ginormous whiskers by now, because during the time I tried to work one-handedly my cats were also keepng me company , of course, and I was so much bent on getting each stitch right that I did not have the time or energy left to get each cat hair out. So more heirloom kitty hair worked into this one !!!

Bad picture...Update!

But finally an update on the Accursed Aubusson!

Here is where I left off in November :

And I picked it up last month again, after having discovered I could actually use my shoulder :-). Since ironing is not exactly what I do want to do right now ( bit hard as yet), however, I scanned the thing.

I had hoped to get on a bit more , but RL kitchen remodelling ( taking place right NOW)  plus, of course , hours of daily exercise for shoulder plus physio plus keeping up with RL routine chores does take more time and energy than I had reckoned with. We will be allright, though, and I am finally hoping to get there - once , in a dim and distant future !

Judy's table

A short while ago I bought (off Ebay) a lovely little table with a top, stitched by our Petitpointers member Judy Spadoni . That gal is an artist. she stitches as she goes !!!


                                                      Look for yourself :

                                                 Table seen from the top:

                                                           It is FANTASTIC !!!

I also received a lovely small stitched purse from Lisa S, that she had given Anne . I did photograph it too this morning , but in the dark weather it simply didn't come off. Will try again later :-)

Some more pics and update on the Aubusson

Anne sent me several of the pics she made during her stay here , this one I snagged from her blog , though :-)

You can see why it is preferable to view the canals either in autumn or in spring ; in summer the trees tend to screen off the view of the houses.

 These were some she took in the Rijksmuseum :

               These two she made for me , as they irresistably reminded me of Marsha's porcelain!!!

                                         These she took in the Willet Holthuysen museum:

(that gigantic fireplace was reproduced in miniature by Sue Cook , I think, but I cannot find it on her website now)

                            And now for the update : my Accursed Aubusson! It is still slow going , as I                                        cannot really stitch for long periods of time , but there is SOME progress....

Stitching update : the Accursed Aubusson

Well, here I am again , with the latest installment of the Aubusson (design by Nicola Mascall, Anchor on 40 hpi silk gauze) .
I am, of course, just doing background. Turning the frame over or handling it at all strains my bad arm rather considerably.
Since I am also only able to work just over two hours every two days,going is VERRRY SLOOOWWWW. But I WILL get there , eventually! By the time I can fill in the flowers I am quite sure I will have the use of both my hands again :-)

Soldiering on :-)

After my recent adventure, I am still in shackles (hope to get free of them in 2 weeks). Of course, no mini-ing possible with left paddle pretty useless.

So I decided to buy a clamp and a frame for stitching, to use instead of my left hand. Bought it from Sewandso, an online shop in the UK , this was the stand I chose.
A friend helped me sewing the gauze into some cotton and setting up the frame , yesterday another friend came by and stretched the gauze a bit further. So now I am able to stitch , even if slowly ! This was where I left off inAugust :

and this is where I am now :-)

 (if you look very well, you can see that I am working on a background, the small flowers are more than I can handle for now. still , that background will keep me busy enough for the time being )

Here I am again...

Finally !

I did not really blog anything during last weeks , as I did not have much to blog about! But I am working on a Nicola Mascall Aubusson carpet, which is spectacular , or will be when finished, but we have  a long way to go yet. Never made so many mistakes in my life ( and no, it is not her fault, entirely mine !) . But , gritting my teeth , I have finally made some headway  and here we go :

OK, I agree, it is not much to look at yet, but you'd better believe it : this took a lot of effort and time ! Still, I only started in earnest( this was the second go, I won't bore you with the story of my first attempt, which went hopelessly wrong) about 6 weeks ago.So I trust it will look better as time goes by.

Weather has improved ,as well, so my two little friends hang out on the balcony when they can. You did not think this is my chair , hm??

Note that belly little Tiffany has developed ??? Oh dear....

The needlework shop

During the latest fair in Apeldoorn I bought this shop:

It is in Jugendstil style.

Being the lazy gal I am ( and still looking for inspiration on how to go along for decorating ) I hardly did anything to the outside, as yet. I did do wallpapering, though and cut and stained the skirting, so decided that today was as good a day as any to remove things from my "old"shop and move in to the "new "one.

Bot are needlework shops. If I am quite honest , I use it to dump my overproduction :-) I haven't got round to making some windowshop yet, will come ( we hope) in time.

Here are pics of the shop as it is now, inside

Several gossiping ladies, the widow in black waves with the testament of her late hubby, who left everything to a floozy, I am afraid.

the younger ladies are not really impressed

Here a sampler collection. Not all of them were made by me, though, two of them I think I bought some time in the past. Of the red cat I am quite sure, as it reminded me of Floris, the plant is a bit of a question mark, though.

I found lots of other things once I took that shop apart, like a  straw hat. Tiffany has taken hold of it and is tearing through the house with "kitty's own straw minihat"

Nicola Mascall bellpull

Before I started on a big carpet ( well, bigg-ish , it is not as huge as the BBB), I wanted to do something small. Actually, had to do it, as I made a hole in the wall of my roombox, intending to pull wire through. Unfortunately, the wood started to crack (!), so I had to give up that plan. Was left with the ugly hole, though, so decided something else might nicely cover it. Bought bellpullkit from Nicola and stitched it ( on and off ) during the last 10 days or so.
I just finished it :

Yeah , I know , it looks crooked on pic, fortunately it isn't really :-)

Little sampler

When I visited the Apeldoorn fair last October I saw this sampler kit designed by Janet Granger. I knew of its existence as Carolyn in Texas had already stitched it ( and I thought:" I love this..".)
I stitched it on silk gauze though , as (for me) linen did not quite work well for me.
Then on to framing ( grrrr), but it is done.
I may replace the pic yet, due to the flashlight you can see the reflected lights. In reality, it is not that bad :-)

You can imagine , though  , why I love this little sampler !!

Whooopee !!

Some months ago I started on a set of chairs, stitching desgned by Nicola Mascall, chairs themselves made by David Booth.

Well, stitching is usually the easy part ( although Nicola's charts are challenging :-) ), but I was dreading the finishing part.

Still, having done my Friday chores etc, decided to have a  go. Nicola's instructions are excellent and the stitching does fit the chairs, although one has to pull! And pull!
It is not as perfect a job as Nicola does, but for me... well, I am really happy with them.

I have two other chairs waiting in the wings, but will start on something else first , I think..

And in case you are thinking

I let everyone in the world make things while I myself do nothing...Nope! Last weeks I have been busy stitching backs of chairs, designed by Nicola Mascall. Background has not been done yet, I first wanted to do the stitching
The same procedure will be followed for the seats ,
As you may see, the designs are workes in mirror images, so that they will be a pair.

The chair backs and seats, as stitched, will fit chairs made by David Booth-sorry, no website- ( well, that is the idea - I do hope it will work out!!! ). There is a third David Booth chair waiting in the wings, that will be the rose in a medaillon design.
My friend Sue Simpson from the UK took care of getting the chairs for me.Thank you so much Sue !

Besides, there is also chair no 4; that was one made  by my friend Elga from SA who was here in June (at the Rheda fair). This one is  destined to have the  stitching from Annelle Ferguson;s book ( out of print, so grab it if you can for a reasonable price....)

In between I am stitching some of the last designs Bobbie Schoonmaker made for some new slippers. I stitched two foxhead slippers and will make two sets of initialled slippers, too.

There should be space for some little schuffs or childrens slippers and some scuffs on this gauze before I take them out and finish them, maybe...

PS and besides stitching I did a big reorganisation of my stash qua dolls/doll dressing/etc!!! THAT was a lot of work! Threw two palstic drawer units out that were gone after 15 minutes next to the trash bin. Good for them.

I already told this at PP( Petit Pointers)

There are some more boxes. Three of them are labelled "stuff", "stuff"and "stuff" and I don't have the foggiest what it is them. There is also a fourth box, labelled "new", which means newer stuff, I am afraid . I still have to overturn these and look what is in them. Bwahahaa!! I think they may contain all kinds of kits and things that were unfinished , not UFO;s , but intentinally bought unfinished to work at in an undefined future.

And a box of flower kits has gone missing, it msut be out here somewhere. We are talking a two bedroom flat, mind you!

Well, that will be a  nice puzzle to solve in my bed tonight....

Nicola Mascall carpet complete !

This evening I finished the little Persian carpet/ rug, designed by Nicola Mascall.  I needed to fringe it, and always ( I mean : always) forget how I did that. There are several excellent tutorials on the web, a.o. Janet Granger's  and Anna-Carin Betzen's , but  they did not work for me , somehow. So finally I went off to my own tutorial to find the stitch I wanted :-) and yes, this worked.

                                                               Taaadaa: here it is :

                                  And here it is in its own home, bathroom of my Kendrew House:

                      Now on to the next projects ! I seem to be in the swing of things again .

And some weeks later...

Here it is again. I was away on holidays and had brought the little carpet with me. As you can see, only the fourth outer border needs to be stitched now. I had started out too far from the corner ( no fault of Nicola, mine entirely, I am afraid, but I am rather bad at starting from the centre), so got slightly into trouble.
still, I love it. It is also easy to work on, with many small motives that just seem sto cry out "just do me before you go to sleep", so that you keep going, and it is not frogging-prone, either.
Pics of the holidays ( or  a link thereto ) to follow later, I am fighting with Photobucket right now and it is nearly steaming in an attept to swallow all those megabites :-)

Happily stitching again

On a nice little carpet ( kit I bought from Nicola Mascall at the Arnhem fair).  I first set op the borders , to make them meet, using the patterns in them, then set up everything in the centrefield and I am now in the process of doing background. To avoid boredom, I change between borders and centrefield all the time. Actually, there are so many motifs that I don't have much chance getting bored !

This is where I am now, after about 6 weeks .

( I scanned it, so it is not much of a  pic, but you get the idea :-) )

working table

  A looooong time ago my lovely Canadese friend Cheryl made this working table for me. As you can see, it is designed to have a  bag underneath. Snag : I did not have the bag yet, of course.
The poor thing was sitting in my chest for a long time, but now that I am back in the swing of stitching, I decided to do something about this unsatisfactory state  of  things and last week I stitched the bag.
Clever people would have chosen crewelwork, I think.However, I am anything but, so I went for Petitpoint again, this time with a kind of "bargello"woven background ( with a big thank you to Susan Farnik, whose idea this combination was ,for a project of hers). The designs were nicked from Sue Hawkins's book and from Dolls House Nederland, I needed some small rose designs.

It was kind of nail-biting work whether it would work out or not, but I think it did and let nobody say otherwise, since I am really really proud of it ! There !

                                               And a BIG thank you to Cheryl !!!!