Su's finish
Well I managed to get finished before my holidays. This is the centre of my neighbourhood, its a stitching shop (couldn't fit needlework on the sign), I feel I should put something in the sky, but I'll wait I think til it comes home in 18months. Tasha is sitting there waiting to greet everyone, tho' I should have added some black on her, but I know its her. The garden is full of flowers, the shop is ALWAYS open. The shop is an adaption of Brightneedles Needlework shop, the tree on the left of the shop is an adaption of a Homespun Elegance tree and fence. The other tree with the swing hnging from it is by DT, the swing was my own thoughts, as I'm still a big kid and love swings (Mum you must have deprived me as a child as we never had a tree that could take a swing in the garden - LOL!!). This time the path is straight and paved in granite as granite never wears out and there should be a lot of walking in and out of the shop LOL!! - Do you want to visit my shop? - I hope so.
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Hopefully my 2 squares blend in together OK
Veronicas finish
Well I received Veronicas finish in the post yesterday and its beautiful.
The house is by Elizabeth Designs from 'A House of my Own'. The garden is full of lupins, delphiniums, lobelia and buttercups which are all from Veronicas own ideas as is the walls. The cat is called Tabitha and is mums own cat. The yellow flowers along the front wall are forsythia bushes, and the pot is full of busy lizzies. The tree is full of apples.
A house for Novia
I think I found the house that I am going to stitch for Novia today. It's a good thing to because her's is the first one I get in the rotation! I am not going to post a picture because I want it to be a little bit of a surprise and I hate the colors that the chart uses. I will definitly be changing them. Anyway, I found the chart in a Spanish magazine and am very happy and hoping that when I have Novia's RR in my hands that I still think that I have made the right choice.
I am finally in the mix with the rest of you!!
(Sorry about the crooked scan - I am too tired to redo it)...
I finally jumped in and am actually stitching on my RR now! I am pretty excited about it - now I really feel like a part of the group! I basted my huge piece of fabric into 9 90 x90 squares today... and started my house... which is Gardener's Cottage by Elizabeth's Designs... which will be modified to add the two little cats from LHN's The Friendship Tree - I will stitch them over one where the planter box of pink flowers is supposed to go in the
original pattern - I won't be adding the charms though - not at all fond of those.
Yay, finally in the mix with the rest of you!
I hope Barbara is feeling better this weekend!
still kickin' around
Hi Everyone. What a rotten week. I'm of more than half a mind to just move back to Maine, but of course that's not really a possibility. The whole thing is incredible. Not only were we home, but this is the 2nd time we've been broken into while at home (the other time was the early hours of morning, before we were up). I keep thinking, "what if one of the kids had wandered into the room?". It's enough to stop your heart. And the police! Don't even get me started. They blame us because we did not close our curtains. yep. And they have not even begun the paperwork that we need for the insurance company to start our claim. Grrr!! So I will be offline indefinately.
Thank you for your support and for attempts to stay in touch! (I've felt so cut off this week!) I've lost everyone's email addresses. Feel free to email me, but no attachments please. As I can only check in two days a week, my Inbox fills up too fast...
POSTING DATE
Confirmation for everyone, we all agreed that Posting dates will be 15th of a month, so please don't panic that its in 2 weeks, we still have a month to finish our houses (well in my case 2 1/2 weeks as I'm going on holiday)
Thank you Silkweaver!!
It's here! Finally! It is sitting right in front of me now - my Autumn Fields Belfast for my RR has finally arrived, with two weeks before the first mailing date!!!! But first... to try to finish Part 5 of Medieval Town Mandala... but I can also bring this RR to work with me.... fingers crossed, here I go!
Sad news...
Hi all,
I just got a phone call from a very distressed Barbara. Her home has been broken into, and these miscreants have stolen her computer, containing (among other things) all the information surrounding our Round Robin, including our addresses and phone numbers. Now even though Barbara and I, and our other halves, don't think these thieves will be interested in information concerning a bunch of cross stitch fanatics, Barbara did ask me to inform you, because she feels terrible about this. She sounded so tired and sad, I felt incredibly sorry for her, and I hope that she and Niek will get over this soon... Barbara doesn't know if her company will replace the computer she has now lost, because this is the second time this has happened. So let's just hope she will be back online and cheerful very quickly!
Veronicas finish & update on next
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Here is a piccie of my first square finished. The hills in the background depict the hills where I live. The pond has a small stream running into it and there are dragonflies and bullrushes
The next picture is of my next square, like Su I have 9 squares on my fabric and so have chosen to stitch 2 houses on my fabric. This house is taken from Elizabeths Designs - 'House of my own', the rest although not yet finished are my own ideas, the cat on the wall is my cat Tabitha. The purple will be spires of Lupins, I haven't decided as yet whether to put a birdhouse on, and of course I have the garden to fill.
Finally here is a picture of what it looks like with both squares.
Footnote: Su apologises for the standard of the photos, they are maybe not lit as well as they should be.
Veronica
I guess our resident list maker Su keeps her mom informed about the houses. I am sending mine to her in a few weeks. Does she have any questions for me? ; )
Silkweaver has shipped my fabric!
Oh, I feel quite blessed right now - I got an email from Silweaver - they got my Autumn Fields belfast in from the supplier and they shipped it off to me today - so I am off now to stitch my fingers off getting through Medieval Town Mandala - it will take a few days for the linen to arrive (although Mississippi is not terribly far from me, the mail from Silkweaver takes a good 5-6 days) - then I can get my RR set up and (fingers crossed!!) be ready to post to Annemarie on time! I have a week from Monday off from work (President's Day) and I took the following Friday off (typical for me to take a Friday off here and there)... and with that extra time, I just might be able to do it!
I will be emailing you all my condensed version of my questionnaire this weekend, as requested. I am glad we are doing that - as time goes by, I get new ideas and want to clarify them anyhow! I am not going to be as rigid as I originally had planned to be :-)
Here's an update from me too
Don't worry, it will get finished. I set a two week deadline for completion. See, I am up to the second floor. I had trouble with the light brown roof and stitches matching and ripped it out a few times. Linen will trick you that way. I add lots of detail like the lattice (there's some on the other side too). Also need the French knots flowers in the windowboxes. If I don't get to the border, I will ask you to initial your stitching and I will add you names later.
Finally: an update
Yay! My best friend Harmien has been and she has taken some wonderful pictures of various projects I'm working on. The most important, of course, is an update of my house. I'm so happy that now, you will all know what I'm whining about when I tell you my flowers are smudgy and the blues and greys don't work together. This is 'Enduring Friendship' by Blackbird Designs, and as you you can see (from the meticulously outlined squares on my beautiful fabric ;o)), I'm using up two squares for my house. I'm still in the process of frogging the flower and replacing the smudgy reddish-purplish thread with some beautiful darkish wine-red colour. I will be adding a few personal touches, such as a rose bush at the front of the house (love dark red roses), an elf (to represent my son Pelle) between the leaves of the flower, a dog (the one for which Pelle was named. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my son was named after a dog) I will also be adding a tiny moon with a house on it in the lefthand corner. I think. Your names will have to be stitched in a sort of border, but I'll do that once my neighbourhood is returned to me. Harmien (she of the pictures) assured me that there's enough room for a border if I want to have it framed, so I guess I'll believe her.
Design and color preferences
Since the time is coming closer for us to mail our houses, I was trying to locate everyone's questionnaires. At the time we were filling them in, I was switching over internet providers. Some of them are in a file, some are not. Do you think we could do a little refresher post here? I know I may have changed a few things. Can we do another mini questionnaire? I would say I am missing many of the originals and I am sorry about that. It's up to you. If I am getting yours next, you may be getting a few emails from me. : )
Here's what I have on my computer: Ann-Marie's and Carol's questionnaires. I have a print out of what designs Barbara likes. I'll have to check my old email for the others.
Its finished (I think)
Well I think I have finished my first house, so here it is for all to see.
The design of the house is Mill Hill Spring village. I have now got a clematis growing over the fence as this is one of my favourite flowers and I have at least 30 of them in my own real life garden. The small tree on the right of the fence is from DT as are the birds. I have placed Floozi sitting in the garden as that is where he loves to be, I haven't put Tasha there but I might as yet. The birds are suposed to be blackbirds - common in my area, the softer gray one is a female with 2 male birds chasing after her - must be something psychological haha!! I added what I would call a band stand as I have always fancied one in real life but no room to have one, there are roses on the bushes and an apple tree, I'd love a conservetory in real life so my make-believe house has one. I would have added more flowers and some bees and butterflies, but felt if I put much more in it would look really cluttered. The path is winding as nothing in life is straight I find it always has a slight bend and turn.
Look what I found...
This may be helpful to those of you who may have a photo of a house you would like to make into a cross stitch chart. I tried it with a photo of my cat and it made a 18 page chart! Ouch! Needless to say, I didn't print it out. I'd say the smaller the better. You can play around with it too.
http://www.darklilac.com//upload.jsp
where are you?
I want to hear about what you guys are doing! I want to see progress pictures!! I'm tempted to start the panel with our names on it just to see the little *new* symbol next to this blog in my my blogrolling list!
So what's up? I know that Annemarie is busy with her current translation, but I also heard that the stitching is looking up for her house. Is Harmien taking pictures soon? Rachael, yours was coming so nicely - where is it now? Dianne, the same goes for you!! Novia, have you started the house yet? And Carol, I hope Silkweaver is going to personally deliver your fabric tomorrow! Su & Veronica, you're off the hot seat because it was just Veronica's birthday.
On a practical note, you've probably noticed in my blog that I'm going to Maine for a WHOLE MONTH this summer. I'm so happy I could skip! But whose RR do I have during that time? I want to make sure it also get stitched, despite our holiday.
And I'm hoping it might be possible to meet Carol while I'm "home" - she isn't actually all that far from my parents. Well, kinda-sorta, but I'd like to try for it. Sadly, Dianne's just too far away. :-(
