SFS2015 B October Report

Month: October
Earned: $14.00
Spent: $ 26.67
Carried over from September: $ 1.17
Budget: $ 25.00
To be carried over to November: $ 13.50

Hello dear friends and followers,

it's been a while since I last posted here, but life kept me more than busy! I did however manage to squeeze in a little stitching, here is the piece I have just finished today:

Isn't he a cute fellow? What about you out there, are you also already busy stitching for Christmas? Only a few more weeks left...

I'll be back on Saturday with the letter of the month, which is going to be D. I already have something very Austrian in mind for this...

Happy stitching to all of you,
Silvia

September SFS-B 2015 report

Earned: $ 16.00
Spent: $ 94.21
Carried over from August: $ 54.38
Budget: $25.00
To be carried over to October: $ 1.17

Hello dear friends and followers,

it's hard to believe that another month is already over. This September I have done a lot of shopping for Christmas stitching, both presents and projects I want to stitch and sell at a Christmas market. But I managed to stay within my budget, yay! I guess that the next two month will see a lot of stash money earned by those projects, well, at least I hope so.

I finished a lovely project that still needs some framing, I already have the frame at home but still need to do the work ;-) and a small project a stitched for an exchange.

For a wonderful friend of mine a plan to stitch a Lizzie Kate design for Christmas. He has had some pretty hard times lately and this little saying has become a kind of code word for us when he needs some uplifting, so it might made a very suiting small present:

I had to buy the chart, the threads and the fabric, this explains why I nearly blew my budget this month as I also bought some other small treats.

I hope you are all having a good time and enjoying autumn or spring, depending on where on this beautiful planet you live.

Best wishes to you all,
Silvia

THE ALPHABET CLUB - LETTER "B"

Hello dear friends and followers,

it has been a loooong, hot summer here in Austria and with the start of September autumn has finally arrived. So it did not take me long to come up with a "B"-word for my contribution to the Alphabet Club this month. For details of this fun club please click on the icon to the right. The word that I chose for this month is:

BLUTZER

So what have...

... these three pieces of stitching...

... in common?

Your guess was right, there is a pumpkin on each of them! So the word you learned today is used in wide parts of Austria for the standard German word "Kürbis".

As pumpkins tend to be round and sometimes quite large, it is also used for the human head, especially a rather large one. For example for "I hit my head" (Ich habe mir den Kopf angehauen) you could say "I hob ma den blutzer anghaut".

Pumpkins are widely grown here in Austria and used to cook wonderful autumnal dishes. The Styrian Oil Pumpkin is not grow for its fruit pulp, but for its seeds, that are used to obtain the "Styrian Gold" - pumpkin seed oil.

It may sound a little strange at first, but one delicious way to eat it is to pour some over vanilla ice cream, yummy!!

Your can also roast the seeds and eat them for a healthy snack, the come salted, with cinnamon or vanillia or chili...

And to give one of you the chance to taste them, I decided to have a little giveaway this month:

A packet of roasted and salted pumpkin seeds from an organic farm only a few kilometres from where I live. If you are interested, please leave a comment saying that you would like to receive them. If there will be more than one entry, the winner will be randomly chosen.

So I wish a wonderful and hopefully sunny autumn to all of you out there, and if you're living in the southern hemisphere, have a lovely spring!

August SFS-B 2015 report

Month: August:
Spent: $28.27
Earned: $6.00
Budget: $25.00
Carried over from July: $51.65
To be carried over to September: $54.38

Hello dear friends and followers,

the end of August in nearing and so it's time to my monthly Stitch From Stash report.

I have only managed one finish this month, but this really is a stitch from stash, it has been in my stash for several years and this group inspired me to finally get it out and work on it.

It came as a kit from DMC together with a second one with a dog on it, which has long been sent to a friend.

I ordered some goodies from Stoney Creek: The latest issue of their magazine, some fabric and threads and a prefinished bookmark.

It has not really to do something with stitching, but I want to share with you the little fellow I crocheted recently:

Sally Sheep

Isn't she lovely? It was fun to do something different for a change.

Hope you all are having a nice late summer weekend!

Hugs, Silvia

IHSW August 2015

Hello dear friends and followers,

it has been a really hot weekend, most likely the last one like this for a long time...
I took lots of time to sit outside in a shady place and stitch to my little heart's content. Friday noon I started here:

 It is a design from a spring issue of Cross Stitcher called "Locked on you" and I really enjoy working on it. On Sunday afternoon I finished the top half and now it looks like this:

The first photo is much more true to the actual color. I hope to be able to finish it soon, because my fingers are already itching to start some Christmas project.

What are you all up too stitching wise?

Greetings from good old Austria!
Silvia

THE ALPHABET CLUB - LETTER "A"

Hello dear friends and followers,

I joined The Alphabet Club hosted by lovely Chiara over at "The Grey Tail".

It is a fun idea, we post a letter each month, starting with "A" and get creative with it. I chose to post words in my mother tongue, Viennese German. Those of you who speak standard German, be warned: This may look like a completely different language to you sometimes! ;-)

So here is my word for this month:

ACHTERL

You can hear the word spoken here. I would pronounce it a little different, the speaker is definitely not from our region, but it gives you an idea.

There is a lot of wine grown around here, both white (Grüner Veltliner, Riesling...) and red (Zweigelt, Blauburger...) one and many winegrowers have small wine bars that are open for a few weeks every year, named Heuriger. There the wine and the food (only cold dishes allowed) are rather cheap and it is the perfect place to spend a warm summer evening. You usually order your wine by the amount of an "Achterl", which means 1/8 of a liter. If I would like to order a glass of red house wine I therefore would say "A Achterl Rot, bitte" (the "A" means "Ein" = "One" in Viennese German, so this month's letter alone would also be a word).

I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody else posted, hope you all have fun with this idea!

Greetings to all of you, I am off to the next Heurigen! ;-)

July SFS 2015-B report

Earned: $30.00
Spent: $3.35
Budget: $25.00
To be carried over to August: $ 51.65

Hello dear friends and followers,

time for my monthly report on Stitch From Stash. As I enjoyed a two week holiday at home, I was able to do a little more stitching than usually, which really boosted my budget.

Here is the finished HUG pillow that earned me $ 16.00:

I also finished a cover kit from a magazine, a lizzie*kate design called "My To Do List" and a Christmas design by Stoney Creek (has been a UFO for three years with about a third of it stitched and was finished only yesterday). I will show you pictures of these two finishes when I have finished them into a standup and a framed picture. So stay tuned for these two lovely projects :-)

Summer greetings from Austria,
Silvia

A HOT finish

Hello dear friends and followers,

hello from a really HOT summer day here in Austria. With 35 °C there are only a few things that can be done properly: Swimming, taking a shower and of course some stitching in a shady place with lots of ice cold drinks.

I love summer weekends and was happy to get some stitching done, because now I can show you my latest finish:

It is HUG by Emily Peacock (as some of you already guessed) and has been my major Stitch From Stash project for the last three months. All that is left to do now is some sewing, but that will have to wait for a cooler day. Sorry, the quality of the picture is not too good, but it was taken by DH from his sun bed with his mobile :-)

Wishing you all a big glass of ice cold lemonade and a cool place to enjoy your stitching!
Silvia

SFS 2015A Report - June

Earned: 0
Spent: $ 102.75
Carried over from May: $80.27
Budget: $25.00
Leftover budget: $2.52

Hallo dear friends and followers,

I am VERY proud of me, the last month of Stitch From Stash is over and I managed to stay within my budget perfectly!

I did not manage to have a finish this month, but it was time to do some stash shopping, as I would lose it if I did not spend it. Losing stitching budget? - No way!!

So I did a little shopping on the internet:

I have been after this wonderful chart and the accessory pack for a long time, but always was concerned about the price. As there was enough budget left, I finally bought it! It is Beautiful Finishing 14 "Autumn Box" by The Victoria Sampler.

As Christmas will be here before we know it, I also stashed up on Christmas-themed goodies:

Both kits are from Dimensions. The kitten seems to be discontinued and I managed to get my kit at nearly 50% off, which fitted my budget perfectly.

I hope you are all having a sunny and stitchy weekend!
Silvia

IHSW June 2015

Hello dear friends and followers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend, some of you maybe enjoying IHSW, just as I did. I am one day late posting what I was working on, but I have a good excuse: Yesterday DH and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! We went out for dinner and had a good glass of wine.

Here is where I started on Friday afternoon:

Despite taking (and passing with the marks "excellent"!) a saxophone exam I had been practicing for the last few weeks on Saturday, I managed to get some stitching done and here you can see where I left it on Sunday evening:

This also is my current Stitch from Stash piece, which I hope to finish in early July. Watch this space for a picture of the finished piece! :-)
Sorry the pictures are a bit dark, but we are not having too much sunshine at the moment, I hope that summer will be back soon again.

A lovely week to all of you!
Silvia

MAY SFS 2015 A - Report

Spent: $ 4.50
Earned: $ 4.00
Carried over from April: $ 55.77
Budget May: $ 25.00
To be carried over to June: $ 80.27

Hello dear friends and followers,

it is that time of the month again, and although I have not been able to finish more than one small project, I have been a good girl and did not spend much either.

The $ 4.50 were spent on threads for an ongoing project and the $ 4.00 I earned were for this cutie:

Only six months to go until Christmas season is beginning!      ;-)

Hubby and I were on holidays and came back only yesterday evening after an eight hour drive from this wonderful place:

We spent some lovely days at Lake Garda together with friends of ours and three inflatable canoes. We paddled from one café to the next and I have to say that my trousers seem to have shrunk a little...

I hope that you all are having a good time with lots of stitching going on!

Best wishes to you all,
Silvia

April SFS2015-A report

Month: April
Spent: $ 28.73
Earned: $ 0
Carried over from March: $ 59.90
Budget April: $ 25.00
To be carried over to May: $ 55.77

Hello dear friends and followers,

it's time to post how I did with the Stitch from Stash challenge this month.

Unfortunately I have not succeeded in finishing one of my projects to earn me some extra budget, but I did not spend a lot anyway, so all is well. :-) The only thing I bought was some stranded cotton for a SFS project, which I hope to be able to show you soon.

I had one small finish that does not count as SFS, as the chart was younger than 6 month when I started it, but I could not resist stitching this little cutie. I found the fabric and all the threads in my stash, so it did not cost me any budget The chart came from Cross Stitcher, to which I have a subscription.

Isn't this a cute vintage pincushion?

Perfect backing fabric

My late grandmother was a seamstress and I inherited lots of pieces of vintage fabric from her, this one was simply perfect for finishing the small pincushion off.

I hope you all are enjoying spring (autumn for our Australian friends) and find some time for a little extra stitching.

Greetings from Austria,

Silvia

Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2015

Hello dear friends and followers,

it's time to have some spring fun! Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching has organized this blog hop (thank you for letting me take part, Jo!) and there even are prizes to be won, so find all the details here.
I think it's a lovely idea to hop from blog to blog like an Easter bunny collecting alle the letters to form a phrase.

My Easter/spring phrase clue is:

A

Stoney Creek, Easter Bunny Stand Up

Now please hop on to Jocondines blog to find about the next letter.

Have fun collecting all the letters and a very Happy Easter to all of you out there who celebrate it!
(and I hope your weather is better than ours: wind, clouds and rain all Easter weekend :-(  )

Silvia

March SFS2015-A Report and a Fire Accident

Month: March
Spent: $ 23.92
Earned: $ 13.50
Carried over from February: $ 44.92
Budget March: $ 25.00
To be carried over to April: $ 59.50

Hello dear friends and followers,

an especially warm welcome to all my new followers and thank you for your lovely comments on my Coffee stitch. The fun fact is: I don't drink any coffee, simply don't like the taste, so this piece is a true labour of love! ;-)

As you can see, I am doing quite well with my budget, the only things I have bought this month are an issue of the "Cross Stitch Collection" magazine and some zinc grey fabric for a future project. Both are on their way to Austria by mail, so I can't show you any photos.

I have been a good girl and done some stitching from stash, I finished three Christmas cards. It never is too early for them, right? I did the finishing this morning so that you can have a look at the finished cards rather than at small pieces of fabric.

These were two small kits from Mouseloft and there was so much thread left over that I decided to stitch the owl twice. I had a scrap of exactly the same light blue aida in my stash and also the three card mounts, so it was not only stitching but also finishing from stash. These cards earn me $ 2 each for my budget.

What I also finished this month is a page of my "Coffee Time" piece, but there won't be a photo until my next "Gifted Gorgeousness" report, sorry! I started this page about half finished, so I claim $7.50 for it.

This month I also learned what heat can do to a stitched piece. The owner of my favourite pub bought one of my "Little Sheep Virtue" pillows from me a while ago to display in her pub. She is crazy for sheep. It always sat on a nice and safe place but somehow the lady who does the cleaning must have moved it and put on a lamp. No problem this far, because this lamp is usually not turned on.

But fate was not good to the little sheep and somebody turned on the lamp and the back of the pillow got hotter and hotter.... Fortunately it didn't catch fire, but there was quite some damage done:

Well, what do you think I should do about it? Do you think it makes sense trying to save the stitching on the front and sewing it unto a new pillow? I would be grateful for any ideas, because I am rather unsure at the moment how to tackle this...

I hope you all have a lovely week with lots of stitching time, now that the days are getting longer,

Silvia

Gifted Gorgeousness March

Hello dear friends and followers,

it's the 15th of the month and so it's time to post my progress on my Gifted Gorgeousness piece. This is the first SAL I have joined and it's all about gifts. So you can work on projects with gifted charts or materials or on projects you will give as gifts.

My project is a quite large Mystic Stitch piece named "Coffee Time" which I promised to stitch as a gift for friends of mine far too long ago. This month I made really good progress and am about to finish page 7 out of 16. Here is how it looks today:

I love the look of the finished section a lot, but sometimes the confetti stitching drives me nearly nuts...  The red thing you can see under the words is the top of the coffee cup, so I seem to be getting there slowly :-)

A wonderful week with lots of stitching time to everyone of you out there!
Silvia

February SFS 2015-A Report

Month: February
Spent: $ 24.26
Earned: $ 17.00
Carried over from January: $ 27.18
Budget February: $ 25.00
To be carried over to March: $ 44.92

Hello dear friends and followers,

time for the monthly Stitch from Stash report, organized by Mel over at Epic Stitching. I have to admit that I am quite proud of myself as I finished three stash pieces this month.

Here is the finished and framed border collie, DH was as nice as to pick up the frame I had ordered on his way home from work today :-) I had taken it from my UFO pile about 1/8 finished, so I only claim $7 of the $8 the finished piece earned me (73 x 79 stitches).

I love the mount that came with the kit and the vintage style frame!

The second finished project (61 x 61 stitches, $8) was for an exchange, so I cannot show it to you yet.
And last but not least I finished the Lickle Ted Christmas Card I had started in December, about half of it was stitched in February, which earns me $2 (40 x 40 stitches).

Only 10 months left until Christmas ;-)

And here is the stash I invested in, which arrived only yesterday from the U.S., I simply could not ignore the Super Bowl sale with its 25% off....

How is your stitching going? Have a wonderful weekend!
Silvia

Gifted Gorgeousness February

Hallo dear friends and followers,

I have to admit that I missed posting on the 15th because of carnival celebrations and recovering from them... LOL! Now everything is back to normal again. Not that carnival is such an extremely big issue here around Vienna, but there are some parties to attend, some people to meet and having lots of fun.

I have stitched a lot lately, but sadly not much on my Gifted Gorgeousness project, my stitching time was spent working on an exchange piece I cannot show yet and finishing a stitched tablecloth for a work colleague of mine. She started it, made some mistakes and then lost interest. As the piece is meant to be a birthday present for a friend of hers, she asked me to finish it for her.

Well, but I made some progress around the lettering on my coffee piece, believe me, this confetti stitching drives me nearly nuts. I am happy to have made any progress at all and will pick this WIP up next week again. So hopefully next month I will be able to show you some major progress. :-)

Here is a closeup of the section I am working on at the moment:

Thank you for stopping by and have a lovely week!
Silvia

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is just a quick post to share with you the wonderful Valentine's card a very dear friend from the US, who is a talented artist, has sent me by mail. It is showing DH handing over a heart filled with 40 pounds of swiss chocolate to me. He knows me so well... LOL

Happy Valentine's Day to you all, I hope you all got as spoilt as I was!
Silvia

January SFS2015-A Report

Hello dear friends and followers,

thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post, how nice to know that there are some people out there who are interested in my little stitching. :-)

It's time to give my monthly report on

organized by Mel from Epic Stitching. So how did I do?

Month: January 2015
Spent: $ 5.82
Earned: $ 8.00
which with the January budget of $ 25.00 means that I have $27.18 to carry over to February - yay!

I have one finish from stash, the pirate I shared in my last post, here again the picture for all of you that only have time to read this one.

Sue Hillis Designs "Pillage and Plunder"

I started it on 1st January, which means that I can claim the total stitch count of 86 x 56 stitches, which, according to the rules, earns me $ 8.00 :-)

I am also busy working on my second project, the border collie, which now should not take me long to finish anymore. Here is where I stand today:

Really, I do think I would not have brought it out from my UFO pile without SFS, so it seems to help, thank you Mel ! My next project will be for an exchange and this is also which I spent the few dollars for, because I needed some embellishments and threads.

Now back to my stitching, so I will have some more finished stitching from stash in February to show you!

Hope you all have a wonderful week,

Silvia

IHSW January 2015

Hello dear friends and followers,

thank you all for your lovely comments and spurring me on to finish my Mystic Stitch piece this year.

It was the third weekend of the month which means that it was time to have a hermit and stitch weekend (if you do not yet know what this is, please click on the icon on the right-hand bar).

As I also joined "Stitch from Stash" (more about this next week), I took an old UFO out of my pile and worked on it all weekend. Here is where I started:

I managed to get quite some stitching done and now you can see much better that it is going to be a picture of a border collie:

It is a DMC kit designed by Pollyanna Pickering and came with a beautiful printed mount. The fabric is a printed 14ct aida, which makes a lovely background, the second photo shows the original colors much better. I had it lying around unfinished for some years (at least 5, shame on me!), no idea why I did not finish it, somehow I lost interest.

But not only did I stitch, on Friday afternoon I had a framing session and did the finish on DH's pirate. I put it in an IKEA frame I had at home. I also tried a black one, but it looked a bit too dark and I wanted it to be a little more cheerful. What do you think?

Can you see the little golden treasure chest in the red square? Really cute!

And then there was a piece I finished about 6 years ago but never framed. In November I had a frame custom made and not FINALLY I put the lady in her frame. May I present to you my African beauty:

A Vervaco kit stitched on cream 14ct aida

I must say that I am really satisfied with what I have achieved so far this year.

Well, DH has prepared some Cuba Libre and as it is dangerous to have a full glass near the computer, I leave you here for today.

I hope you all have a wonderful week full of stitching pleasure!

Silvia

Gifted Gorgeousness January

Hello dear friends and followers,

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a good start into the new year!

Today is the day to post "Gifted Gorgeousness", a SAL from Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching.
It is all about using stash you have been gifted or stitching pieces you plan to give to someone, a lovely idea.

I have not been at least as busy as Jo, but let me show you what I've managed so far:

Sue Hillis Designs, Pillage and Plunder

This is a piece DH has asked for to display in his new office. He is now self-employed and can decorate his office the way he likes :-)  It is ready to be pressed, the charm sewn on and framed, which I hope to do at the weekend.

And there is another piece of stitching, which is most likely to accompany me all year long.

Mystic Stitch "Coffee Time"

This is going to be a present for friends of mine, which I should have finished ages ago. It was one of the main reasons to join "Gifted Gorgeousness", because I hope that it will spur me on to finally finish it this year.

I'm planning to frame another picture at the weekend, so stay tuned, I will hopefully be able to show my framed pieces to you on Monday!

Time to go to bed now, I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Silvia