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The tulip looks great, love the way you did the card

Two finishes -- DH and youngest are away on a father-and-son weekend until later this afternoon, and I've had a stitch-fest

So here is the folk sampler -- no idea what I'm going to do with it, I just enjoyed stitching it:



It was stitched on coffee-coloured mottled evenweave (from a 10,000 post present) using Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and Weeks Dye Works -- I love the slightly variegated effect of the threads!

And here's the second monochrome mother and child -- this was an experiment, on one of my last bits of 22ct aida (1-2-3 Stitch sold it until recently, but now that I want to replenish my stock it's gone from their range!), using Caron Impressions (wool/silk mix) in half cross stitch with Madeira blending filament for the halos. It's certainly quicker than full cross stitch and the coverage is fine! However, the fines aida I've now got is 20ct, so I'll have to see if half cross stitch will work on that...

Both are very lovely Mabel! Glad you had some alone time to sit and stitch.

Those are wonderful.

Beautiful work - as always. I especially love the sampler - what design is it, I'd love to stitch it!

Such beautiful stitching Mabel. I really love the way the Mother & Child design turned out.

Kell, it's a freebie which I made a few changes to. I haven't got the original anymore, but I think it was a Blue Ribbon freebie, you may be able to find it by Googling and I'll have a look as well. I found it mentioned on a blog about freebies.

Edited:
Found it! Go here then click on freebie and scroll down a bit.

Those tulips are stunning! I love the bit of 'bling'!

The sampler and 'mother and child are lovely simple designs that are timeless aren't they.

Lovely finishes as always

Lovely stitching Mabel

I think the mother and child design must win the prize for the most stitced design here on the forum. But I'm not surprised as it is so simple and yet so effective. This is a lovely version of it Mabel.

Mabel Figworthy wrote:Kell, it's a freebie which I made a few changes to. I haven't got the original anymore, but I think it was a Blue Ribbon freebie, you may be able to find it by Googling and I'll have a look as well. I found it mentioned on a blog about freebies.

Edited:
Found it! Go here then click on freebie and scroll down a bit.

Thanks for that.

Have started on the Time for God bookmarks, but not much to show for it yet as I thought I'd better first do the long lines of backstitch which will be used to sew the backs and fronts of the bookmarks together using biscornu finish.

This means two lines of practically invisible backstitch (oh my eyes!) on each of the six pieces of linen, and then on three of them (which will be the backs) I will stitch "To [name], A Small Group Thank You" ("Small Groups" is what we call our church's house groups, where people share and do bible study and pray for each other and go for meals together and generally support and encourage each other.)

And then I can start on the colourful part ! I hope to finish the boring-but-necessary-bits by the weekend.

Beautiful!!!

Great stitching. I like the sampler.

Just got a piece of black Congress Cloth in the post -- I've been wanting to try it out, it's like a very fine canvas or a very stiff evenweave. I want to do one of those monochrome mother-and-child ones on it, hoping that because of its stiffness it will take half cross stitch instead of tent stitch. I've had a bit of a feel and I think it will -- also it is not nearly so "open" as I feared it would be. I think I'm going to like this fabric!

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

It did a bit of stitching on the congress cloth. It is quite stiff, and where it was folded I can't get it to lie completely flat. It's 24ct. Here I used two strands of Vikki Clayton silk in half cross stitch.

I found that the stitches don't lie quite so neatly flat as usual, which may be because the holes are larger, I don't know. Coverage is OK though, as long as I don't pull the stitches too tight. It will need backing of some sort, as you can see from the second picture which I took using flash so that the holes would show up. Black Vilene should serve the purpose, and ironing it on will also flatten the cloth, I hope!

All in all, I'm quite pleased with this new fabric! Just a shame i won't be able to use beads for the haloes, as even petite beads would be too big.