The Production Line

My stitching mojo seems to be back with a bang - I'm rather amazed at what I've achieved over the last 10 days! As the nausea lifted and the desire to stitch returned, I promised myself that I wasn't going to push myself too hard, just make a point of enjoying the stitching.

I seem to have stretched that promise a bit more than I expected with 3 Shepherd's Bush finishes in the last 10 days!

First up is my Family Sampler, although I've realised that I can't finish it completely before June as it includes the initials of my family!


(Not ironed as it is just being folded up and packed away again until the summer!)

Next, while I was waiting for a stash order to arrive, comes Sweet Pea which I also have the Jill Rensel mat for.


Then, as Sweet Pea didn't fill all the waiting time, I started Quaker Heart which I finished last night. Much as I do like the others, I really love this one. And, at this point in time, the words really appeal to me.



I'm still waiting for some floss to arrive, so it's on to something different tonight, but not another SB piece!

First finish of the year

And here it is, Medley by Carol Tinson of Heirloom Embroideries! It was started on Christmas Eve and finished on 2 January.


It had been in my stash for a while and I'm glad I finally got round to stitching it. I found stitching the border a bit tedious, but enjoyed stitching the inner motifs. The only difficulty I have with it now is that I find the colours very cold!


After my finish, I drifted a bit, not sure what I felt like stitching next. However on Friday, after admiring Karen's Holly and Ivy Sampler, and having drooled over someone's Quaker Heart (oops - just can't remember where I saw it now, I know it was in a blog header - gorgeous too!), I was in the mood for some Shepherd's Bush stitching. So, over the weekend, I rediscovered my SB Family Sampler! I haven't stitched on it since early last year, but am quite enjoying it so far. Most of the motifs are complete, and for now I'm working my way round the border.

Thoughtful Heart

I was really pleased with the progress I made on my holiday project, Thoughtful Heart from Shepherd’s Bush. So much so that I actually finished it on Sunday! I can’t believe it took me less than 2 weeks to complete it.

I’m also particularly pleased as I bought this as the chart alone (not the complete kit) on ebay and converted the threads to DMC. I think the conversion worked really well, although I did change all the yellow after I arrived back home from holiday.

I particularly loved the speciality stitches, they are my best thing – I love them, kiss kiss (sorry, too much Little Wolf). I really like the texture added by those areas of Ukranian Whitework.


I was initially also a bit sceptical at first about only using one strand of thread, but now I really appreciate the delicate effect.

The conversion I used is as follows:

Colour Description	Soie ’Alger colour	DMC colour
Pale Rose	4147	225
Middle Rose	4632	778
Deep Rose	4634	316
Plum	4635	902
Pale Purple	3332	211
Middle Purple	5113	3041
Deep Purple	5114	3740
Pale Butter	F1	3823
Pale Green	3721	369
Middle Green	3713	3052
Deep Green	3715	3051
Gold	4235	436
Deep Grey (Kreinik, Silk Mori)	8055	646
Pale Grey	3421	3024
Crème	F2	Ecru
Butter	F19	745

I used some online sources to convert as many colours as I could and then did a bit of a floss toss to fill in the gaps and make sure all the colours fitted together in the overall palette.

The online sources I used include:

http://www.hand-dyedfibers.com/oscnuked/modules.php?name=DaDaBik
http://www.thesophisticatedstitcher.com/fibers/dmc2alger.php
http://www.willowfabrics.com/Convert_DMC_Soie_d_alger.html