Signs of spring!

My little pot of tête-a-tête bulbs in my kitchen have flowered and make a very cheery sight! I love these gorgeous flowers with their bright sunny colour, they make me smile.

Guardian angel ami

This is the ami I made this week for the swap with Steph, now she's in her new home I can post the picture! Loved this one, I used a cream wool with gold thread in it for the wings so they are sparkly. The hair took ages as each strand of wool had to be split into the separate strands to make it look wavy but the results were worth it!

Knitted toys

Made from an Alan Dart pattern, Jultomton is a Scandinavian gnome. He delivers the presents at Christmas instead of Santa Claus. I loved the fun fur wool to knit the beard as it looks really beardy!

A lovely ball of a mousey, the pattern is a simple slip stitch pattern that makes it look like a complicated fair isle. Love his cheeky face and lovely long tail!

A pretty flower petal fairy, this was for my friend Steph's birthday present last year and she thought she was lovely! Her clothes are made from all different coloured flower petals and she has tiny knitted flower rings on her fingers. The details in this pattern were incredible, with the rings being removable!

Daisy the dragon, this one's all mine! She was made from a Debbie Birkin pattern and is very cute, love the bright colours and little flowers.

Some random amigurumi

A cute ladybird! This is a very sweet little one that I love to make, lots of character in such a little one.

A little geisha lady, this is a pretty one as the dress is embroidered by hand. I used lazy daisy stitch to add flowers around the bottom. She sits with my collection of kokeshi dolls!

English bull terrier, this little doggy was made for my boyfriend who loves this breed. As he hasn't got a dog and we have a cat I thought I'd make him this!

The not scary monster! This was made for my friend Steph for one of our ami swaps. I love the bright colours and happy face with the stripy legs, very cheerful for a monster!

Some amigurumi Hello Kitty's

I love Hello Kitty! This one is a bit larger than the usual size ones I make and I added a cute butterfly button to her dress.

Hawaiian hula kitty! Love her outfit, the lei was made by my friend Jeanne for her out of fabric flowers and sparkly beads and looks gorgeous.

Goth kitty! This one was a special order for a teenage girl and I had great fun making it. The pink skull I found on a pair of earrings at Claire's as I couldn't find pink skulls anywhere else!

Gorgeous!

 Couldn't resist buying myself this very pretty chrysanthemum plant, there are so many flowers and such a pretty pink colour too. While I'm waiting for spring to start springing outside I'm starting to bring it inside with pretty flowers and plants to make me smile!

Busy making my ami!

Today I've been busy crocheting my ami for the monthly swap with my lovely friend. I'm not going to say what it is or post any pictures as I know she'll  read this, lol! I know it drives her a teeny bit mad when I tease her about it which is exactly why I posted this.......sorry to wind you up Steph but I couldn't help it!

Get well card

Stitched this with leaves appliquéd on in green cotton for a get well soon card. The design was from Cross Stitch magazine and is one of a set. It was lovely to stitch and fast too! I'm going to stitch some more of these to keep for spare cards as they're so cute!

Head, Cosy Night. Page 4 finished!

I know I only posted the picture of page 3 yesterday but I was almost finished page 4 then, lol! So here it is........tada!

So that's 4 down and 8 to go! However I have crochet to do as the monthly ami swap is approaching, yippee! 

Haed, Cozy Night. WIP

This is my current project, Cozy Night. I have finished page 3 of the 12 so far.

Finished Heaven and Earth designs

I love Heaven and Earth designs! These are the ones I've finished so far,

The Storykeeper, Selena Fenech. This was the first one I stitched and the biggest.....so far! It took me around 9 months to complete which I thought was pretty good as the chart was over 30 pages! I love how she turned out and she hangs in pride of place in my living room.  

                                         

                                        

This is Moon Goddess, it was a SAL chart from the Heaven and Earth Bulletin Board. I only stitched the first half of the chart as I wanted to use it for a bag. The bag is made from an old pair of jeans and lined with satin from an old chemise, recycling at it's best! I hand stitched swirls in silver metallic thread on the denim and added silver beads too to jazz it up a bit more.

Enchanted Garden, another Sal one from the Bulletin Board. Love the colours in this one and the effect of the wings is lovely! I haven't decided yet what to do with this one and might just end up framing it.

Lastly, this is Sunny, another SAL. Loved all the bright colours in this one and enjoyed stitching her a lot. Another one I haven't decided what to do with yet, I'm sure it'll come to me!

Hanging things!

A couple of little stitched padded hangings I have made. The spring witch above is a cute one with beads and button embellishments that hangs on a door handle in my house.

The secret garden mandela below was made for a secret santa present on a craft forum and has a beaded tassel on the bottom. It's a design with a pond in the middle, flower beds and wrought iron gates around the edges and was another fun one to stitch!

These are two scissor keeps I stitched. The one above is a Hummingbird one and is looking after my scissors at the moment. It's a Barbara Ana design from Creative Poppy and I love how it turned out!

The one below is a Joan Elliott design and was made for a gift for a good friend, I love the colours used in this.

Some of my biscornu's

I love making biscornu, here are some of the ones I have made. This one is stitched with a variegated thread border and uses a very cute ladybird button. It's a design from World of Cross Stitch and is the first one I made.

This one was a present for a friend's birthday. It uses a lot of beads and is one of my favourite ones with lots of detail It's a chart from The Floss Box.

Another Floss Box design, this was another birthday present for a good friend and another of my favourites. Another one with lots of beads and detail.

A gorgeous kokeshi biscornu! This is a Barbara Ana design from Creative Poppy and was another present for a good friend. I love this one, it's such a cheerful and fun design!

Vin Diesel!

Now this one was a pleasure to stitch! It was certainly a lovely view while I worked, lol! The chart was from Celtic Rose Needlecraft and was a freebie, I'm not sure if it's still available.

Bowl of peonies

I stitched this one for my Mam as a Christmas present a few years ago. The petals look velvety and beautiful and I enjoyed stitching it, my Mam was thrilled with it!

Ivor the engine

I loved watching Ivor the Engine when I was little and enjoyed stitching this one. The backstitch was time consuming but gave it a great sketchy look just like the original animation. I entered this picture in the local village show in 2009 and it won third place in the cross stitched picture category, YAY!

Zebra backside!

I loved the angle of this one! It's stitched on sky blue aida so I didn't have to stitch all the background and I stitched it for my boyfriend as he loved it.

Witches cat

I love this picture! It's a witches cat and comes from Joan Elliott's Bewitching Cross Stitch, I love Joan's designs and this book is my favourite. There's a lot of metallics and beads in this picture and the detail is wonderful. It hangs in my hall and looks great!

Oriental fan bag

This is my favourite creation of all my bags! I used a chart from Joan Elliott's Oriental Cross Stitch book that had three fans in a row for this, the fans were overlapping slightly so I had to make up the edges to make full fans. I used lots of metallic threads and beads to make it sparkle, black velvet to make the the outside pieces of the bag and lined it with black satin. I then I had great fun making the beaded tassel for the bottom! I love my fancy double sided bag!

Cross stitch bags.

These are three of the bags I have made from pieces of cross stitch. I love to make bags as I just love bags! These are all made from old pairs of jeans and I use old tee shirts or bright patterned cotton to line them, I guess it's recycling! My favourite of these is the bottom one with the pink lily, it has a bright stripy lining and is so cheerful it makes me smile!

My cat Bootsie

                    

I'm going to add pictures of things I've made over the (many) years that I've been creating things.

This is a cross stitch picture of my cat Bootsie. I loved to stitch this and was thrilled with how realistic it turned out to be. It isn't a stitch-a-photo but was a kit that I found that actually looks remarkably like my cat.

Welcome to my blog!

As this blog is totally new I'll start by saying hello! I'm new to this so hope you will bear with me while I get the hang of things.

I'll be posting pictures and writing about the crafts that I do and my projects and hope I'm not too boring!