Previous Finishes

Hello Everyone, I don't have a card for you today but I am about to start stitching a birthday card for my husband's cousin's grandson who is 2 later this month.  I hope to have this done by the end of the week as it needs to go to Australia.  In the meantime I thought I would share some of my larger cross stitch pictures.

This is the work that inspired me to start sewing.  My Granny embroidered this peacock when she was young and I always loved it.  She taught me to sew starting with chain stitch when I was little.  When she died in 2004 I had to have it, I had it reframed and it hangs in my bedroom now.

 This is the first large cross stitch picture that I did, it is a Mirabilia chart called Christmas Elegance.  It is supposed to be done on dark blue evenweave so the beads for the stars stand out but I did it on Aida as I was too scared of evenweave at the time!

 My next big picture was The Three Birdwatchers which is a Dimensions kit.  We have a tabby cat so it seemed appropriate.  Around the same time that I did this one I also did another Dimensions Gold Collection kit of a Japanese lady, this hangs at my parents house as my Dad really liked it.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it completed, I'll have to take one next time I go round!

 This is another Dimensions Gold Collection kit of hummingbirds.

Another Dimensions kit of a peacock, this one took ages to finish but I eventually got it done whilst on maternity leave just in time to start on a sampler for the baby. 

Here is the sampler I made for our son, a bit blurry I'm afraid! 

I have also done a Gold Collection kit of a Christmas village scene.  I don't have a picture as it's in the loft, it only comes out in December!  I am running out of wall space which is one of the reasons I am making smaller things like cards or Christmassy things that don't need to be on the wall all year round.  Having said that I have a kit in my stash that I bought recently called bamboo fan which I will have to find space for when it's done.

I can't start that until I've finished my reindeer, yet another Gold Collection kit (there's a bit of a theme here!)  I've made good progress with it over the last month, still not done any of the metallic thread but I have bought some thread heaven as suggested by Justine in a comment on my last WIP post so hopefully that will make it a bit easier - thanks for the tip!

I've been looking at and following a lot of stitching blogs lately and love all the HAED pictures that so many of you are doing.  I think completing one of them is going on my bucket list, if only I could choose from so many beautiful pictures!