A family of mice

We are already preparing for the family Christmas eve party, when my brother and I, plus significant others will come to my parents. I'm already planning of making cookies, and the log cake. And I also made these cute ABC mice on plastic canvas for the table decorations. As you can guess, it took me quite a while !

Surprisingly, we end up with 2 Ms, 2 Ns, and 2 Ss...

Santa Archie bag

I thought  long and hard about what to do with this little stitching, and rumaging through my stuff I came across this gift bag I bought a long time ago in Hobyycraft. A bit of double sided tape, and voilà ! Archie Bag !

Winter Fairy Progress 4

Looks like every year I add a few stitches to this project. It's big, it's long, but I don't have to produce a lot of projects, so... Never mind. I worked on this before stitching Archie Santa, but didn't take a picture, and it's too big for the scanner.

Now we will have a hiatus for Christmas projects; but I wanted to document where I was with this.

Previous update and history of project here.

Stitching ?

Apparently I didn't post since last June.... I blame it on new technology, where you can  share your pictures and progresses on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with one button. So what about Blogspot? Apparently it got lost on the way. Who still read blogs these days? Not me, I'm an Instagram enthousiast.

So this post is for whoever remains, and also serves as a journal entry.

From 2001 to 2008, I was an avid cross stitcher. Then life changed, and I also wanted to make stuff I could use, and not just pretty pictures. And here came crochet. Then knitting, tatting, and other things. Last December I made an attempt to go back to cross stitch, but then I opened the folder where I had stached all the finished pièces and got depressed. So many beautiful pictures with no use at all....

But here comes Christmas. Early this year as DBF decided to make the Christmas tree last Sunday. So I stitched little Archie here. I think I will make a mini cushion.

About the project itself.... It's a Margaret Sherry design from an old CrossStitcher magazine, from a time they had one Archie design per month. I used DMC threads. And I was glad to stitch it on 14 count aida when came the moment to do the backstitch. Very challenging as non go through the holes, but I love the sketchy final result, so it was worth it.

Next: more Christmas stitching.

Tatted blue phone pouch progress

Remember I tatted a little square motif, then started to make more and join them as I go?

I finally made 14 squares, and I hope that, folded in two, it will cover an iphone 6. Otherwise I will have to make an extra edging.

I still need to find a way to close the sides, with a row of rings, or a sort of rope ?

Now I wish I simply joind the squares before, just like I did for my first phone pouch ! Oh well, can't think of everything all the time...

An unexpected bargain

Yesterday morning I went to the local market, and they have a big haberdashery stand. On a first look, all they had was generic big balls of size 20 thread.

But talking to the sellers, I told them that I was looking for  fine thread for tatting, and the husband came with a box of 10 DMC cordonnet special, size 30, and an extra bag of 19 balls of different sizes from 100 to 30. They sold all the 29 balls to me for 30 euros.

Do the math, it's just a bit more than 1 euro the ball. I searched the net, and one ball of those is usually sold for 7 to 9 euros. Not to mention that you can't find them in shops. You can wonder how DMC threads are so hard to find in France, their country of origin, and so expensive, compaired to other countries.

Anyway, I now have loads of thread for my tatting. And I made a little scale thingy, the same flower tatted with the different thread sizes. I thought it could be handy at some point.

3d tatted star

At first I wasn't going to buy the "crochet creation" magazine about tatting (a translated Japanese tatting book sold as a crochet magazine, go figure) but then I wanted to make the 3d thingies, so...

Here is the 3d star made of 8 flowers. It's quite big, I used a size 10 thread, but I think it's the perfect size for the Christmas tree !

Tatted snowflake

Just a snowflake in size 30 thread, just for the fun. And you can't make too many flakes for Christmas...

petit beurre tatted motifs

At the beginning,  I wanted to make the amulet bag in my japanese tatting book. But one square is 4cm by 4 cm, not big enough for a bag or even a pouch ! So I decided to make several. I don't know how big it will end up.

I am making it in two colours because I started loading one shuttle with blue cotton size 20, but all the other shuttles were full, so I took a size 20 white thread.

I think the effect is nice, even if the squares make me think of"petit beurre" biscuits !

Back from the lost things

I've been crafting for so long I have loads of bits and bobs in my crafty boxes.

And sometimes it's even finished stuff like this tatted rosette. I have no idea when I made it, but it was years ago.

I washed and blocked it and voilà ! Ready to use ! It's so small it can only go in the Christmas tree,  but well...