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Monday 31 December 2012

Theme-a-licious End of Year Round-up

Theme-a-licious

A Big Thank You to Heather for organising the Theme-a-licious this year!!  It's been so much fun even if I have had to bend the definitions some months.  Round Robins are birds aren't they?

Here's my summary of the year.

Jardin Janvier, so I stitched Green Goddess.  She is all leaves and flowers so most appropriate for the theme.



Fan Girl February, stitch your favourite designer's work.

I managed two of my four favourites - Joan Elliott and Just Nan.  

The first Just Nan piece is Spring Peepers
 

and the second is Kathy's band sampler, bands taken from Burgundy Stocking and Evening Star Sampler.  Colours changed to match Kathy's colour scheme.


The Joan Elliot piece was my contribution to the JE RR on the Yuku WWRR Board.  I've decided on the Flower Fairies series.  There are six of them and seven stitchers in the RR so I thought I'd do the centre piece featuring each of the flowers.  Here's the pic:



I've not stitched any metallics, beads, backstitch or leaves yet.  That will all be added when it returns to me next year.  I was unsure about having any leaves but I really like the pop of green on the Chrysanthemum so I will be adding some more at the end.

March Madness, stitch a different project each day.  Not going to happen.  LOL.

I did manage to stitch several different designer's pieces and not duplicate a single person.  I also had a Moment of Madness mid-month and did a few stitches on My Lovely Sewing Tools.  Then to round the month off I decided to start a few new projects instead of working on my WIPS.

So here's what I stitched on this month:
1. Julie from In the Company of Friends (Dark Alphabet) T and U, part of V
2. Chez Elisa for the Needlecraft Haven Freebie Challenge
3. Debra Page for the WOCS Daffodil Flower of the Month card
4. Sandy from San Man Originals for her Little Quilt Shop
5. Marie Suarez for My Lovely Sewing Tools from GoS online magazine
6. Joan Elliott for the JE RR on the Yuku Board.
7. A secret project I can't show yet. (this turned out to be Dark Side Cookies for Christine)
8. Elissa Hudson - Alphabet Sampler from Cross Stitcher mag 249
9. Spring Sampler based on motifs from Samplemakers Forum
10. Just Nan Dewdrop the Rabbit
11. Country Cottage Needleworks - Cherry Hill
12. Gazette 94 - Spring Heart
The last 5 projects I started in the last 5 days, I thought I'd have a flourish of starting madness to finish the month!!

And here are the pictures:

Dark Alphabet - T

Dark Alphabet - U
Chez Elisa - Needlecraft Haven March Challenge



WOCS Daffodil card

San Man Original Quilt Shop.
Sent to Lany Bleu as her Epiphany Giveaway prize.

Inside of Lany's card.

My Lovely Sewing Tools - Gift of Stitching


Joan Elliott Round Robin for Jacqui.
I've actually done loads more than this but don't want to show her until I've finished now!
This is all the black I worked on during IHSW.

Mystery Project!  This is the back of one part.  If you guess what it is then I'm calling you a geek. LOL.
Elissa Hudson for Cross Stitcher mag.
stitched on 32 count white evenweave.  4 letters down, 22 to go!

Samplermakers Forum Spring Challenge.
stitched on Slighly Lilac from Sparklies
Bunny Bum!
A Thank You gift from Jan of the Thread Garden
Country Cottage Needlework - Cherry Hill.
Giveaway prize from Crafty Rahenna.
stitched on 40 count over 2.
Gazette 94 - Spring Heart
stitched on 36 count over 2.
Really bad scanned picture!


Amazon April or your biggest projects.  I decided that BAP stands for Big AlphabetProject and worked on both Dark Alphabet and my Turquoise Baby Alphabet.  I also worked on My Lovely Sewing Tools (which actually has an alphabet in it, scattered around the piece) and had a completely unexpected start in Papillon's Around the World in 80 Stitches.

ATW80S is certainly an enormous piece of fabric for me and it's a full two years project so that will definitely count as a BAP.

Pictures:

Dark Alphabet


Turquoise Baby Alphabet

My Lovely Sewing Tools (includes an alphabet!)

Around the World in 80 Stitches


May Memories.  I decided to go for Making Memories with The Dark Alphabet designed in memory of Lisa Roswell and also my Joan Elliott Round Robin piece which is about making memories with new friends as we all stitch on each piece.


And the Joan Elliott Round Robin:


Jumanji June, birds and animals.  As I didn't have any pieces with either of those I stretched the definitions to the limit and stitched on two Round Robins and a guinea pig piece where I tested a chart out for a friend's new website.

This is the first Robin, Melva's Christmas themed piece:


Here is the second Round Robin I stitched during June.  This one is for the Band Sampler RR and this is Angi's piece:



The broader cross stitched bands are from the Antique Lace Band Sampler by Northern Expressions Needlework.  I changed the colours to suit Angi's palette.
The narrower speciality stitch bands are from Just Nan Summer Sampler which I just framed having stitched it about 10 years ago.
I put UK for my location as we don't have two digit county abbreviations like the States.

And here's the guinea pig:

What's that?  It looks like a snowflake to you?  That's because I was the guinea pig.  Beverly who blogs as Wee Stitchy has a new website Love Thy Thread.  A while back she offered a free chart to anyone who wanted to be a guinea-pig.  So I said "wheep wheep" which is guinea pig for "Me please" and received this lovely snowflake.  I'm stitching it on navy blue aida using 2 strands of DMC Blanc.

Jolly July, It's a jolly holiday with your WIPs...you can concentrate on Christmas designs, ornaments, or even pick a different holiday to render in stitchy goodness.

I chose this cute little ornie from the Christmas Preview issue of Just Cross Stitch, it is designed by Blue Ribbon Designs and I chose to stitch it on 32 count twilight blue linen rather than the tan colour in the magazine.  I also changed the Blanc to B5200 because I like it!


Altius AugustEmbrace the Olympic motto--Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger)--by elevating your mind. It's the perfect time to learn something new! Or maybe achieve some goals...
I thought I'd follow Heather's example and set myself some targets and award myself Bronze, Silver and Gold medals for how many I complete.  Here are the August targets, in five categories, one for each ring:

Blue Ring
Band Sampler Round Robin - Finish the current piece and also the one due to arrive next week - Finished the first, started the second -  Bronze Medal
Blue Ribbon Designs - stitch the snowman ornie and scrapbook the two together - not at all.

Yellow Ring
Joan Elliott Round Robin - Finish the current piece -  Finished -  Bronze Medal
Birthday cards - stitch two cards for lucky August ladies - 
Finished one - Silver Medal
Finished two - Gold Medal 

Black Ring
Giveaways - stitch at least one of the two outstanding prizes - Finished one - Bronze Medal
Needlecraft Haven - stitch the August freebie  Finished - Silver Medal

Green Ring
Papillon Around the World - stitch at least the outlines for Parts 3 and 4, complete Parts 1 and 2 including the metallics. -
Part 1 complete - Bronze Medal
Part 2 complete - Silver Medal
Part 3 complete - Gold Medal

Red Ring
Just-Nan-a-thon - stitch at least one design - not yet
12 in '12 - keep up the good progress and either start or finish another one of my 12.  NB this does not include the BBD as it is nearly done even as I type - 
Started LHN - Home of a Needleworker - Bronze Medal
Finished Every Time Hearts - Silver Medal

So that's a total of five Bronze medals, four Silver Medals and two Gold Medals.  According to the table of medals, that means I am Kenya.  For pictures look at the August tab on the sidebar or follow this link August 2012

September Smalls
"We all love gadgets, and none better than the teensy tools and holders we make ourselves. Let's stitch some smalls--needlebooks, fobs, biscornus, scissors keeps, pincushions--or knit some teensy things--amigurumi, jewelry, sachets...."

Not a lot of small stitching went on, and certainly no cute finishes like Heather listed!

LHN Home of a Needleworker was the main "small":

 

I also stitched two cards, one of which was for Kell:


and the other is for Karen aka Stitchywoman.


The final small is the Hallowe'en design by Puntini Puntini and I've made great progress on that one:



Obligation October.  I stitched a number of cards and two Round Robins for this theme.  


Stephanie's Joan Elliott Round Robin

 Autumn for Cat's Seasons Round Robin


Chiara's Birthday card

Shirlee's Birthday card


Zombie Kitty 1 made into a card



Zombie Kitty 2 made into a card

Nail It November
What's lying around that's so close to being finished you can't stand it anymore? Get to it and finish it!

This was a tricky one for me because nothing was close to completion and I needed to work on Round Robins!  I decided to "nail" those for the theme.

Here's Debbie's RR in it's entirety.  I didn't want to post a picture until she confirmed that she'd received it back.


Debbie's theme was Fairies and Goddesses.  I was the last to stitch on this one and chose Sweetpea Fairy (top right) because (a) she fitted the box left and (b) she matched the others in blingability!


Delightful December
The holidays are a time for relaxing...at least, that's the theory! No stress here...work on whatever you want and enjoy!

This is a nice easy theme for everyone to join in with.  I worked on my Mirabila Round Robin and the Scarlet Letter English Transitional Sampler for most of the month.  Then a couple of days before Christmas I received a gorgeous Christmas sampler from Shirlee the Easily Influenced Stitcher, Joyous Noel by Elizabeth Designs.  At once I had to order some platinum linen and some satin thread (plus a few charms!), thank heavens for SewandSo's next day delivery!  I've been stitching on this all over Christmas and it's been so much fun.  The satin stitching does make the linen go a little skew-whiff so I think I might get this framed professionally and have my framer stretch it properly.




I also completed the design which was another prize received last year from Kaye of Kitten Stitching.  I used DMC threads and evenweave.  This was such a nice quick stitch but I felt it needed a little something extra so I added the word "Claus is coming" along the bottom.  I used this website to chart the letters - Stitch Point  It's really easy, just choose a font, type the words you want on the onscreen keyboard and the chart appears underneath, print it off and stitch!




The final piece I stitched is the Needlecraft Haven Freebie Challenge for December.  A Primitive Hare design, Xmas Time.  I stitched this over 1 on the same platinum linen I used for Joyeous Noel.  It's pictured here on the fabric I used to back the ornie.



and finished into an ornie:
This has been stuffed using my ORTS from 2011.
The 2012 ones are in a bag ready for the next ornie.

Heather has now finalised the Themes and the Logo for the 2013 Theme-a-licious.  There are some old favourites and some new challenges too.  I like the idea of mononchrome May in particular.  I do like monochrome designs.  Maybe one of my Firewing patterns will see the light of day!  Click on the logo below for the full list:




January is Jardin Janvier as per last year so I think I might just dig poor old neglected Green Goddess out and stitch a little on her.  Inbetween my Round Robins and the Scarlet Letter!

Finally, this is the last post of the year and possibly the longest phew!!  If you've come over from The World of Cross Stitching magazine (and have made it this far!) then welcome to the blog, please leave a comment and say Hi!

And here's a quick non-stitching pic to explain the reason I've not actually stitched anything yet today -


3 hours build time, approx 20% of item complete!

Have a Stitchy 2013!







18 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds as if you had great fun with the themealicious in 2012. Wishing you a wonderful New Year.

Unknown said...

Wonderful post Jo and its been great looking back at all your themes. I made it half way through the year on themes and then lost my bug so I'm really looking forward to trying to do the whole year in 2013 and I love how the ornament themes work alongside the main themes ! Hope you have a wonderfully stitchy 2013 also.

Kerryp77 said...

I've loved reading your theme-a-licious posts so much I've joined the 2013. Not sure I could pick a favourite but I do like the chez elise hanger - so sweet, glad I'm not the only one who has spent half the day building lego, mine was lego city though! Happy New Year Jo. :-)

Wendy said...

have a wonderfull 2013 , and perhaps some sleep aswell ? from the looks of it you haven´t slept at all, you must have stitched 24/7 to get all that done !
( she said ever so envious...... )

Birdie said...

Wishing you and yours a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Nicola said...

Jo you have achieved so much in 2012, well done.

Wishing you and your family a wonderful 2013.

Giovanna said...

Congrats on all the wonderful achievements of 2012! Best wishes for a very happy, stitchy 2013!

Ziggyeor said...

OH I love all the stitching. Pretty projects and I love the Halloween cards.

Linda said...

What a great post Jo. Loved looking at it on one post.

Happy New Year
Linda

Mii Stitch said...

Happy New Year! Have fun with your Lego Death Star building :) My OH has this one too!

Topcho said...

Wow you did great on all the themes last year! It seems I missed som of those beauties when they were first posted and this is the first time I see them - and oh my Godq they're gorgeous!!! Happy stitchy new year to you too!

Christine said...

Is that a Lego Death Star????
Cool.
Great year of stitching too.
Happy New Year

geeky Heather said...

ZOMIGOSH LEGO DEATH STAR!!!

*ahem*

Fantastic, lovely stitching! Thank you for participating in Theme-a-licious and always being FIRST. =) You got a ton done in December!!

mags said...

Yes have come from world of cross stitching. What a fantastic year of stitching. Will be visiting again!

Kaisievic said...

Great post, Jo - as always I am amazed at how much stitching you get done! Gorgeous projects and I am thinking about joining the Theme-a-licious - although I am in so many SALs already. Plus I have been slack at keeping up with the Yuku board. I am so pleased that you liked the design that you won from me last year. I like your change/addition - it certainly adds to it. Lastly, still waiting for WoC Issue 198 to turn up in Oz - maybe next week?

Julie said...

happy New Year to you and the family Jo.
I've loved seeing all your super projects, Green Goddess is stunning, can't wait to see her develop this month.

rosey175 said...

Thanks, I totally have some Star Wars music playing in my head now. :B

You had such an amazing year; you can look back and say "look how crazy I was!!!" (LOL) I'm sure your next year Theme-a-licious will be just as magnificent (if you can put down the legos -- impossible!). For some reason, I just adore the Joyous Noel colors. It's such a beautiful piece!

Here's wishing you a marvelous stitchy 2013 as well! (almost put 2012, we don't need to do it again!!)

Valentina said...

You really stitched a ton in 2012! Happy 2013!!