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