April 16, 2011 at 7:01 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Joan Elliot Designs, New World, Papillon Creations, Water Goddess, Winter Water Garden
So I finally got some better photos off my camera – yesterdays photos were taken with my phone.
I think these are better photos 
These colours are truer to life I think…
A close up of progress on New World:
And my floss toss for Winter Water Garden
The fabric is pale grey, and I now have most of the metallics:
I have also made quite a bit of progress on Lily. She is at work, so I don’t have photos. but I think she is now over half done.
December 6, 2010 at 11:56 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: advent calendar, Chatelaine, christmas, Misty Morning Vineyard
I was going to stitch on the train to Melbourne but we were put on coaches instead as the air conditioning on the train broke… Which was problematic on a 28 degree day. It was very warm. And coming back I was waaayyyyy too tired to stitch anything… so I still have another 5 motifs to go on the advent calendar:
An angel close up:
And because it was next to me when I sat down when I got home and recovered a bit, here is Misty Morning Vineyard:
It is awaiting leaves and flowers in each corner:
I think my Algerian Eyelets are getting neater with each corner. Good practice. Must pull out my Papillon Creations MSAL soon.
November 6, 2010 at 12:05 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Misty Morning Vineyard
I am not sure about my satin stitches, but I attempted them. Hopefully they look okay – well I think they do at the moment. This was quite a bit of specialty stitching today. Took a bit to get this much done. It is fun to try these things though.
Close ups – Kloster squares, Algerian Eyelets and daisy stitches… as well as the regular cross stitch…
And the border – sparkles included:
Thank you everyone for all your comments!!
Now what should I stitch on tomorrow?? Maybe some Egyptian Guarden? Or one the Mirabilias??? Recommendations? Thoughts?
November 4, 2010 at 12:34 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Misty Morning Vineyard
The silk in this layer is done… now just awaiting the metallics and beads…
November 2, 2010 at 12:07 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, fairy of dreams, Misty Morning Vineyard, Passione Ricamo
But Passione Ricamo designs seem to stitch soooo slowly! If I sit down with a Joan Elliott design or a Mirabilia, they seem to almost want to stitch themselves, but PR designs, which have fantastic colours and look great seem to be slow… Not sure why that is. But this one, I think, is because of all the sparklies…
Now I had a question about Chatelaine Misty Morning Vineyard – I am stitching it on white linen – but it is a French linen, so finer than Zweigert and more a creamy white than a bright white. I have converted 90% off it into HDF silks, which I like to stitch with, and am contemplating changing the silk in the border I am currently stitching for a different colour that is closer to the Caron waterlily colour called for… however, I am not sure that I will. It will look fine with either, but the darker colour varigate is probably closer to the original than the one I am stitching with currently. Anyway, if anyone wants the conversion, I can post it. HDF is a lot cheaper than Caron silks.
Thanks everyone for all your comments!!
September 2, 2010 at 12:49 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Egyptian Garden, Fairy Queen, Joan Elliot Designs, Passione Ricamo, Phoenix and Chrysanthemum, Water Goddess
Water Goddess – the great frogging progress..
The lily pad has to go 
Close up of her skirt
A little bit more of Fairy Queen
The start of the Chrysanthemum and the phoenix
And an over 1 fish on Egyptian Garden.
June 29, 2010 at 12:52 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, hdf, stash
No stitching tonight. Went out to dinner and came home tired.
Instead, I got home and found the fabric I ordered to dye:
The rest of the skeins for Watergarden – here are all the skeins, beads and specialty threads kitted up:
And some spools – PB Red, Old Maid of the Tempest, and a custom colour
June 8, 2010 at 1:24 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Cirque des Carreaux, Egyptian Garden, experiments in dyeing, ink circles
I decided that the fabric for PR’s “The Night” had dyed too pale so tonight I decided to fix it – and couldn’t get the lid off one of the dyes… when I did manage to the dye flew everywhere – my hands are dyed, it went into my hair and all over the floor… so I am now running low on one of my greens.
Anyway, as it is cold I am leaving it to cure overnight, and will add the fixative in the morning. If it doesn’t work out how I think it should I will just dye it all navy.
So I gave up on that and did another bit on Cirque des Carreaux:
And because I had said I have started it – the very beginnings of Chatelaine’s Egyptian Garden – on 32ct linen dyed by me
June 7, 2010 at 11:44 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Cirque des Carreaux, Egyptian Garden, goals, ink circles
I have done another bit of Cirque des Carreaux and have started the centre square of Egyptian Garden.
I think I need to start a rotation.
Goals for June:
Finish Cirque des Carreaux
Finish current border on Misty morning
Water Goddess – head and hair, start the moon
Lily – Wings
That should be enough for this month I think…
June 2, 2010 at 2:12 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chatelaine, Egyptian Garden, hdf, stash
More setting up for future projects.
I dyed two more pieces of fabric – both I think will work for what I have dyed them for, however one I want to go back and revisit. I was trying to do mottled dark blue with bits of other colours through – violet, green, pink etc – kind of reminiscint of photos from the Hubble Telescope of nebula and such… however only the green showed through the blue so the fabric might have to go back into a dye bath and get some pinks and violets if I can be bothered. It is for Passione Ricamo’s The Night – I have a piece of Aida that came with it but when I double checked the measurements it only has about 2 inches for framing – which doesn’t leave a lot of room… This piece has lots of room for framing.
This is darker in real life
I got my silks for Egyptian Garden, now the only Chatelaine left to finish kitting up is Watergarden. I have done my own conversion to Vikki’s HDF silks by eyeballing the colours on my monitor and choosing ones that looked (on screen anyway) pretty close. I have dyed a piece of Belfast linen to stitch it on – it looks quite bright but I think it will look pretty – it is blue, pale orange and pink – I was aiming for sunset colours.
I went down to Kmart to see if they had any zip files for me to set up a few of my projects in – and they had these lovely bright pink files:
The zipper on the pocket will be ideal for scissors, hilighter pens etc. Inside there was another pocket, and a “Pencil case”
I think between the two floss, needles, beads and metallics will work.
Then I very industriously made up floss tags with the symbol in the fabric and the floss name:
And slipped the pattern into plastic pockets – the pages had to be trimmed slightly as they were US letter size and the pockets are A4. Luckily most US cross stitch patterns come with a decent margin so you can trim without losing the pattern (I did the same thing to my Cirque patterns)
And the complete kit minus fabric as it is still wet:
Then I pulled out my brand new spools and stitched a few samples:
The spools:
