Garden Chair

I said it before and I am saying now - stitching is pleasure, finishing is pain. And if finishing combines cardboard, glue and upholstery... It's double pain.

It took me two days to finish - last Saturday and today and finally...

The Garden Chair from The Cat's Whiskers stitched on Mint Green 32 Belfast Linen.

Some more pictures of pleasure and pain. 

Letters are one over one.

I think the cardboard they provided was a bit thinker than necessary. That caused some problem with finishing. 

Violets

What I like about cross-stitching is that this is a relatively mindless job. You have a pattern to follow and  holes to stick your needle into, you just need a bit of counting.

Embroidery is a different matter. In my case - I never know where the needle should go and how to make everything to look nice and neat. 

Cross-stitching brings me piece of mind, embroidery is hard work and I am never satisfied with the result.

I've just found a bag I embroidered back in 2007 and I am thinking - why I was so hard on myself, it looks rather pretty (but for the strange dark green lines on the leaves).

Ghost from the past

Look what my Mom's found!

One of my first attempts in cross-stitch. Back then (my guess, about 20 years ago) I knew nothing about DMC or Aida or linen or stitch-count... This was some design from a German Burda magazine stitched on what I could found - napkins set. I stitched 2 over 4 (result is 14 ct.) and everything was strategically placed. I am proud of myself :)

Need to wash and iron them. I may even use them as intended.

Tour de Fleece

I cannot actually participate in TDF as I am not such a confident spinner and have not much to spin. But most of all, I have no TV channels to whatch Tour de France.

However, I can spin while everyone is TDFleecing. 

For this I've picked my first hand carded locks. I bought 3 oz. of Rainbow fleece to accompany my first cards, separated locks by colour and carded them. I have some doubts that I did everything right but at least I did my best.

Beautiful!

I tried to spin them picking up at random using what I think is long draw.

Not entirely happy. I was planning to make singles but it seems that I am spinning them too thin, again! 

And the yarn is kind of itchy. Will see...