I am back - coming with Sans soucis again

After a looooong hiatus I worked on Sans soucis. My eyes, which were exceptionally good started to feel my 50 years. I simply did not want to accept the fact that I need glasses, so I quitted stitching for a while -  I still read without glasses and I moved to reading instead. But for our summer vacation I took Sans soucis (also glasses ...) with me, and had quite a nice progress. Originally the right side was only a small corner in line with the the dark bird.

Long Dog Samplers: Sans Soucis

Fonal / Floss: Caron (#63,#153) Gloriana (#67) Edmar Rayon (#206)

Anyag/Fabric: Tea dyed Zweigart white 32 ct line

Kingfisher still flying

I made quite a nice progress on Kingfisher. I finally got used to stitch with glasses on. The optometrist said since my sight is still good to read small letters, and I need glasses only for stitching, I do not need any special ones, drugstore ones will do the trick. I bought several ones to try and opted for the 1.5 for my cross stitch, and having 2 of these means if I lose one I still can find another somewhere in the flat! 

Anchor: Kingfisher

Fonal/Floss: Anchor from the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart white 16 ct Aida from the kit

Kingfisher in flight

Having my stitching mojo back I made some progress on Kingfisher. I left it here in August 2021:

Anchor: Kingfisher

Fonal/Floss: Anchor from the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart white 16 ct Aida from the kit

Put some stitches in the first few days of September, and found it quite meditative to stitch the tree trunk.

 

Eagle eyes in the Autumn garden

I was quite sad that from now on I will need the glasses, but miracle of miracles: it was the grey fabric and not my eyes!!! When I took out Autumn Watergarden, which is my usual antique white Belfast there was no problem with seeing the holes. I am happy to go on with my own sight, and hopefully they will last a couple of years...

I not only continued this piece, but also joined on facebook the weekend Chatelaine stitching, and having explicit goals really motivates me. Mushroom&Fern went quite slowly, but Autumn Watergarden either has significantly smaller parts, or I am much better to reach them, so I had quite a nice progress in the last 2 weekends. 

During the week I have almost no time for stitching. Life is turning back to prepandemic routine, and my travel is back. It is not too much, 2 days every 2-3months, but I did not miss it at all... I like meeting my colleagues in person, and I also like travelling for fun with my family, but mixing work and travel is not to my taste.

But enough of whining, pics are better:

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Fussy ferns

I have finished the middle part of Mushroom and Fern. It was a real pain to stitch the meadow with all the swirling ferns and vines, I think I frogged at least half of them. But the result really worth all the effort! The photo does not do justice, in real life it is gorgeous!

Chatelaine: Mushroom and Fern Mandala

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart Cobblestone 32 ct Belfast

Little bit of Sans Soucis

In the weekend when my husband went to a music rehersal - he is a drummer in an amateur band -, we spent the afternoon with my sister in law and I moved forward with Sans Soucis. I finished the box with the birdies (except the accent on the lower one), and added the frame, and a little bit of the side flower as well. 

Long Dog Samplers: Sans Soucis

Fonal / Floss: Caron (#63,#153) Gloriana (#67) Edmar Rayon (#206)

Anyag/Fabric: Tea dyed Zweigart white 32 ct line

New Chapter: Mushroom and Fern

 After finishing Pomarium, Saturday I moved to a new Chatelaine chapter: Mushroom and Fern Mandala. I was hesitating between several ones what I have kitted, some of them printed as well, since I prefer to stitch from paper not from the pdf provided. 

• Mushroom and Fern - already printed for stitching 
• Deep Blue Sea -kitted with beads, floss
• Herbularius - kitted with beads, floss
• Tinctorium - already printed for stitching 

There was also the option to continue wioth Autumn Knotgarden, where I am halfway, but since it is really difficult to choose from all these beauties, I asked my son, and he picked Mushroom and Fern, so mushroom it is. I put all the floss to their envelopes (I keep all the used floss in a separate envelope and the envelopes in a basket for easy reach), and I have started the next chapter!

Chatelaine: Mushroom and Fern Mandala

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart Cobblestone 32 ct Belfast

Skiing sans soucis

Last week we went skiing and I took my Sans Soucis with me. I hardly stitched, because the light was quite bad, but still managed a little part of the border next to the birdie

Long Dog Samplers: Sans Soucis

Fonal / Floss: Caron (#63,#153) Gloriana (#67) Edmar Rayon (#206)

Anyag/Fabric: Tea dyed Zweigart white 32 ct line

Pomarium ready, sparkling begins

 I have finished Pomarium last week, now the beading starts. Glimmer on! It is huge, I put a pen next to have a feeling of the dimensions.

Pomarium last run

Last corner of Pomarium is in the making! I mixed up the floss and used the one for the leaves for the trunk and branch of the little tree ( I was even wordering the green-gray...)  but realised my mistake only when both trees were ready, so I simply chosed a different greenish (caron waterlilies 065 - jade) for the leaves.

 

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Kingfisher

I have found my new summer holiday piece: Kingfisher. I have bought this kit more than 10 years ago, when I was expecting our son - he is going to be 12 next Spring, so maybe it happened 12 years ago... It is part of a series of birds by Anchor, where I finished the Bluetits, the Red Robins, and this Kingfisher was sadly sitting among my kits to be started. There is an aida in the kit, and I have moved to linen a long time ago, but somehow I was in a nostalgic mood and I thought using some easy aida with fairly low count and not too many colors could be a good choice. 

Actually it is quite a lots of colors, and seems a few only because I compare it to my Chatelaines, but definitely easy to have a kit with me when I am packing for a holiday. The central bird is ready, the wood it is sitting on will be the next, and also the missing triangle, which will be some leaves overlapping the central bird.

Cherry

The last arch is ready!!! Cherry on the cake, no more confetti tree background, all the arches are done!

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Pomarium - Apple

Last week I have finished the apple tree in the last but one arch, there is only the cherry remained. The confetti flowers took quite a while to stitch, but putting it on the blog was even more time consuming :)

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Matching up!

 I was curious to see how my Pomarium goes, is there any hidden hickup along th lines - so I quickly did the matching up of the border and also the last arch for the fruits. All is well, both are perfect, not a misalignement anywhere! I am hoping for a next finish, but it will take some time...

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I am planning to move forward with my wip killing, and buy a box for the Stitches around the world piece, and mount it up. If it is done, then I can start another Chatelaine to accompany Autumn Watergarden and the 2 other ones: the kingfisher and Long Dog sampler, Sans soucis. I thonk it was a good idea to start with a smaller Long Dog, because I realised it is not as exciting as it seemed last summer. I am not saying I do not like it, but it is for sure that I do not mind leaving it in its cover at all.

The decision is which Chatelaine should be the next one? I have Mushroom and Fern, Herbularius, an Deep Blue Sea kitted, all are different. Deep Blue Sea has darkflue fabric, so it should be a piece when my eyes are not tired. Herbularius is similar to Pomarium, but full green. Maybe Mushroom and Fern are the easiest, grey fabric, medium sized, nice colours. I have also realised, that I have ordered Tinctorium as well. This is the 3rd of the Cloister Gardens (Pomarium for fruits, Herbularius for herbs, Tinctorium for dyes, Rosarium for roses) but it has quite cold colours, what I am not sure I want to spend years with...However, it is not urgent, there are several months of stitching in Pomarium, too.

Pomarium moving on

Pomarium is moving forward slowly but steadily. I am partially finding my mojo - I was working a lot on the computer lately and I realised this was the main reason for my lack of stitching.  The laptop has its strain on my eyes, and after 8-10 hours in front of the screen the tiny holes were not welcoming at all. 

Also nature knocks ony my 47th door and taking my eagle sight away. I do not need glasses yet, but I see (or in practice starting not to see) the difference of this year of homeoffice did to my sight.

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Pomarium back on track

 

Chatelaine: Pomarium

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

chestnuts

I just realised that in English there is a difference between horse chestnut and normal chestnut. All the pictures I did before in practice are horse chestnuts and the real chestnut came only now, with the second half of the Autumn Watergarden as seen above.

And the piece in its full glory (minus the wrinkles...)

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Autumn Watergarden - one branch of chestnuts ready

 I have finished the chestnuts, and there is the other half branch of a different type of cheshnut, a hairy one. When I am done with them, half of the piece is ready. I do not like it as much as the other ones, but I am committed to finish it. It is not so bad, but the colors are a little too cold for me, I prefer a warmer palette.

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

A closeup of the finished branch:

Autumn Watergarden garden gate finally done

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have finished the second garden gate. I can see that the 1 year homeoffice with 8-10 hours screen time took its toll on my eyesight - it is getting tougher to see the holes on my 36 ct linen. Maybe it is also the natural flow of time (my doctor said in the last couple of years, that it is a great blessing  I still do not need  glasses - next year they will come for sure!) that closing on 50 (sounds quite a lot, huh) brings the inevitable. So I was doing one stitch a time, skipped evening stitching even with my ottlite, and used only weekend daylight hours to finish the perle and the flowery silver lining on the gate. I am also thinking on getting stitching  glasses...but at lest it is ready, and I can move on the last part, the side branches.

Autumn Watergarden - cattails are growing

I have finished the second cattail part of Autumn Watergarden. The corners and the middle one had been finished last week, now I am moving to the gate and the branches to finish the second quarter.

Closeup of the cattails:

And a picture of what we are doing when I am not stitching:

No, not a natural diseaster - the family does it willingly. /Do not ask my son, under18 does not vote:) / We are trekking in the weekends, whenever the weather permits. The only problem, that the weather is quite tricky nowadays, so we decided not to listen to the forecast, just go whenever we want. 

This weekend it was 17kms of melting snow over tricky frozen ground creating a slippery path - with some rain given as an icing on the cake (mud?). But we met not only rain, but sunshine, deers, ravens and a beautiful sunset on a hilltop in the woods. The sunset was not that intentional, but gave the adventure a perfect finish - getting to the car just before it became fully dark...