The pursuit of perfection – or taking it a bit too far?

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a plastic canvas box. It’s taken me longer than I expected – it’s my own design and that design keeps changing as I try different things. This time, however, I’ve come up against what is, to me, a major design flaw. Just when I thought I’d finished the actual stitching on the box and was putting all the bits together.

My starting point was this.


Winter Snowflakes from Kick Back and Stitch. I stitched it a while ago, but it’s never been finish finished as I couldn’t think how to do it in a way that would show it off the way I wanted to. Then, a few weeks ago, I saw this post on Craftypod and all of a sudden things clicked together in my mind and I came up with the idea of making a plastic canvas box with my Winter Snowflakes in the lid. And I could use the many of the same threads, stitches and so on in stitching the box that I used in the original design. I still think it sounds like a fantastic idea!

So, first of all, I made this for the base of the box. It’s far too nice for the base of a box, but hey-ho that’s what it’s for.


Then I made some box sides.


The diagonal stitch pattern used here (can't remember what the stitch is called) appears in the Winter Snowflakes design, but I’ve used my own choice of colours. Then I decided that the box sides weren’t going to be tall enough for the type of box I wanted to try. So the box sides became the sides of a box lid.

And when Winter Snowflakes was mounted on some stiff card and fitted into the lid, it was perfect!



So I stitched some different, taller box sides, stitched them to the base and stitched up the sides.


Then, full of anticipation, I popped on the lid.


Looks OK in this photo, but it’s not perfect! The lid doesn’t come as far down the sides as I’d planned – it’s supposed to come down to the darker area between the two horizontal bands. And the box is now just too tall for what I wanted!



So I’m not sure at the moment what the next step is. I suspect it will involve dismantling the box sides and possibly stitching something completely different. But all this stitching on plastic canvas used a mountain of thread and I’ve run out of the dark blue #5 pearl cotton I’d been using. I don’t know, if I completely frog the sides, whether the threads will be re-usable. And I’ve also run out of one of the colours of metallic braid I was using too and I really didn’t want to spend a small fortune on making this!

Here and now

Thanks very much for all your kind comments on my last post. After I came back from holiday, I was in two minds whether or not to continue blogging. (A hangover from my earlier apathy.) Your comments have reminded me what it is that I love about blogging – the sense of community and sharing. I can be really bad, when I feel down, at withdrawing into myself and cutting myself off from other people. I need to really push myself to get back out again and connect with the people around me. So thank you all for reminding me about our wonderful blogging community!

Over the weekend, I finally finished my August biscornu for the SAL.



It’s a design by Sue Hawkins in the Aug/Sept issue of Stitch magazine, using Polstitches varigated floss in Fireworks and Wizard on 18ct mono canvas.

After reading your lovely comments last week, I had an idea for a blog to show off the best of our stitching, where only a very limited number of pieces by each person would be featured and most of the pieces would be ‘voted in’ by readers of the blog. I think sometimes that the best of what we do can get lost under the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ that gets posted, whether on blogs, in forums, or in photo sharing. I still kind of like the idea and being more selective, but I’m not entirely sure whether it might not just be a bit too much like reinventing the wheel……


I’ve also decided that I’m going to ask at Alexander’s school about teaching an after-school club once a week after October half term – Cross Stitch for Christmas! Maybe teach a small number of the kids to cross stitch and help them make their stitching into ornaments. I was thinking about this over the spring when I was probably struggling a bit with the work/life balance, but I’m definitely going to do it this time!

And, typically when I only have limited time available, my mind is now buzzing with ideas for new designs, new things to make, new projects to try .....

Who knew that tribal tattoo designs could be such an inspiration?

Time for a change

I've been suffering a bit from a crafting overload over the last few weeks - I seemed to work on 3 exchanges in fairly quick succession, gifts for Alexander's teachers and since then have been drifting, unable to find anything sufficiently interesting to work on. With the lack of inclination to craft came a similar disinclination to blog, so I've not been doing much and have had little to say about it.

I have, however, done a couple of things. The first is my July biscornu for the Basket of Biscornu. I'm really very pleased with it!

This was my first go at bargello and uses a coaster pattern from 'Bargello: A Fresh Approach to Florentine Embroidery' by Brenda Day. I really love the colours I've used for it too - a different combination for me - and I just don't know which side I like best!

After that, I continued the canvas theme by digging out Nova and stitching another 8 or 9 squares.


I had an idea yesterday for a stitchy project to try and had to rush home from work to dig out fabric and ribbons - it's all quite exciting and looks like the crafty overload is history! But I don't think I'll be attempting any more crochet for a little while - still feel a bit crocheted out!

As a result of my new project, I'm now lusting after a copy of Jean Hilton's Stimulating Stitches - isn't it amazing what different people think looks like fun?

This week, part 2 - time to show off!

Lots of photos in this post!

I finished this at the end of last year, but haven't had time to blog about it up to now.

I said in November that I'd had a bit of inspiration regarding my Mystery in a Corner from Gay Ann Rogers - well, it worked!

In June, when I finished part 1, it looked like this.


But I wasn't really happy with it. The design was beautiful, and I loved the stitches, but I wasn't happy with my choice of threads and fibres which made the colour scheme far too pale.

My inspiration was to add a new colour of perle cotton in part 2, and I knew exactly what colour to use.

The problem then was how to introduce the same colour to part 1, but with a minimum of frogging. I decided the answer was to add some beads. Later, I changed that to Swarovski crystals, just for that extra bit of fun and sparkle. And, in adding the beads I changed the charted Rhodes stitches to Jessicas.

Finally, I had seen Laura's version of MIAC with her border and loved it and wanted to do something similar.

So I did, and here's the end result!

Can you tell that I'm delighted with it?

It really is a beautiful design and once I sorted out my colour dilemma, I absolutely loved stitching every stitch! The instructions were everything I could have wanted which is a good thing as I splashed out and bought some more of Gay Ann's designs when she had her e-week sale in the autumn!

And now for something completely different .....

I've spent far too much time recently drooling over some gorgeous needlepoint and, needing more of a fix, stitched up this.

This is Winter Snowflakes from Kick Back & Stitch. It wasn't too complicated and fun to stitch up, using some fibres, Neon Rays in particular, that I hadn't used before.





I don't use a laying tool, generally railroading does it for me, but I did need a little help to make sure these Neon Rays (ribbon) Rhodes stitches lay correctly. And in good light, the Neon Rays ribbon really glows!

And I do love the eight pointed star in the middle.

I don't know how I'm going to finish it - an ornament? A box top? I feel in need of something that's really going to help show off the sparkle (which doesn't come across in the photos), but am lacking inspiration at present. Anyone have any good ideas?

I'm now thinking about signing up for Gay Ann Rogers new Mystery in a Corner. The older mysteries (Glittering Diamonds and Mystery with a Little Bit of Glitz) are just gorgeous and I'd love to get my hands on them, especially Glittering Diamonds!

I've been a little distracted over the last couple of weeks watching my blood pressure going up and down and up and down, never the same two days in a row. But yesterday I was back at the hospital getting the good news that they're quite happy with how things are with me. I just need to remind myself that, although my blood pressure has been up, it's not consistently too high (just all over the place). Long may that continue!

Now I just need to get organised to slow down and finish up at work.

With everything that's going on right now, blogging is feeling like less of a priority, but I'm determined to keep at it as I don't want to loose touch with everybody out there in Internet-land. I suppose that I'm just getting to a point where having a baby just takes priority. So I'm sorry I'm not taking so much time these days to keep up with everybody's blogs and not commenting as I maybe should. I also owe a couple of people emails which I've been very bad at replying to. Hopefully I'll do that this week now that I feel a bit better about the BP situation.

Now all I need to find is some comfortable clothes!