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

IHWS December 2014 and a trip to Salzburg

Hello dear friends and followers,

it was IHWS this weekend again (if you are not familiar with it, just click on the icon on the right-hand bar) and I did some stitching, but what I definitely did not do is hermitting... lol!

DH and I had booked a weekend trip to Salzburg, which is a three hour train ride from Vienna. This of course gave me some time for stitching. Oh, Salzburg is a wonderful city and if you have never been there you should seriously think about going! Especially in Advent there is a certain magic to that place.

We were really lucky with the weather, on Friday and Saturday it was unusually warm and sunny for this time of the year (many Austrians are already complaining about the lack of snow for Christmas, but as I am not a winter person, it is all right with me) and we had the most wonderful time walking around the town. We headed up the Kapuzinerberg to a tiny old castle named Franziskus-Schloessl (Francis' castle). This means about half an hour of walking uphill and especially at the beginning it is really uphill, but it always is well worth the effort.

Francis' castle - just look at the gorgeous weather and DH in front of it ;-)

There are some wonderful Christmas markets in and around the city at this time of the year and so we took the bus to Hellbrunn palace, were they had put up lovely decorations.

And if you are looking for the perfect place to drink your Gluehwein (mulled wine in German), you have to go to the heart of the city, to Europe's oldest restaurant.

since 803

Stiftskeller St. Peter - St. Peter's Abbey's cellar

This is the entrance to the yard where you can spend the most romantic evening

The entrance to the cellar/restaurant itself

Just look at the old vault with the wonderful decoration

In the evening they have a brass quartet playing Christmas songs, which certainly adds to the athmospere. There would not have been a better and more romantic place to spend the 4th Advent weekend and if we had not been in Christmas mood before, we certainly were then!

But IHSW! Yes, I did some stitching on the train ride, so here are the two cover kits from previous issues of British cross stitch magazines I had started a while ago on Thursday evening when I popped them into my tiny suitcase:

Fizzy Moon Christmas card from The World of Cross Stitching

Lickle Ted Christmas card, likely from the same magazine

 And where I left them yesterday evening:

All this backstitch drove me nearly nuts, but it looks sooooo cute

Way to go, maybe for Christmas 2015?

 A merry Christmas to everyone of you who celebrates it and I hope to see you all soon again on my little blog!

Best wishes,
Silvia