I haven't started stitching yet, the background has taken some time, but keep an eye out for more progress reports soon!

Continuing with the hearts theme this post, here is my latest swap piece for the Phat Quarter.

December had a fifth friday so that means a swap over at the Phat Quarter Flickr group. This time the theme was It's Not The End Of The World.... and my mind went to musical theatre! The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Tell Me On A Sunday has a song in it called exactly that. Apparently I'm a little bit obsessed with hearts at the moment so this image came to mind.

I wanted to experiment with using my own hand writing in a piece and to use a different stitch than usual. I went with a long and short stitch for the heart mixing metallic thread with regular thread to give it an interesting texture.

I quite like the way the writing came out. At first I thought it was too messy, but after I slept on it I think it puts across the emotion of this piece quite well.

In case you were wondering the background of this piece is rust dyed - it is one of my favourite techniques of late and meant that I finally got to use one of my pre-dyed backgrounds in a piece.

I like the simplicity of this piece but the weight of emotion that it brings. I think I need to investigate this interest in the heart shape as well and see where it takes me..... keep an eye on the blog to see!

Um, yeah.... not very stitchey but quite funny! I was in Grand Cayman the other day (as you do...) and found this photo of William and Kate where you could be in the picture and just had to take one :-)

There was also this amazing sweet shop where the window display had dresses decorated with sweets in it - awesome!

I ♥ my job!!!

My Sketchbook project is finally finished! After four months I have finished my sampler with 70 different stitches on it!

My theme this year was Stitches and Folds which gave me the chance to experiment with shibori dyeing and new stitches. I set myself the goal of trying out all the stitches for fabric in Betty Barnden's Embroidery Stitch Bible. I think I did pretty much every one and then a few more I found online. Some I like and think I will use again and others don't really work with my style.

My one challenge this year was the new restriction that the sketchbook could only be 1 inch thick when finished. This is because the sketchbooks are touring to Canada, the UK and Australia this year, but it meant I had to think really hard about my presentation. No quilted pages for me this year! Instead I decided on a fold-out sampler (because of folds, right?!) attached inside the cover. I'm pretty impressed with how this came out in the end, I didn't think it was going to work for a while!

I'm proud of the work, but I'm also very glad it's finished and I can move on to something else now. Usually my projects are pretty short or varied so this one took a lot of effort for me to keep going on!

More photos can be seen on my Flickr page here

Here's a little Christmas gift for your eyes. I stitched his scarf for my friend Elvy Rose with patterns from Sublime Stitching and French Knot.

I'd wanted to use that dancer for a while! I think it came out pretty well and she loved it.

Happy Holidays everyone!

One of our Guest Entertainers is a good friend of mine and bought me an early Christmas present. We were walking around Walmart and saw in the toy department a set of fashion dolls based on movie monsters. When I wasn't looking she went through them and found me the perfect one....

Please meet Frankie Stein!

Not only is she based on Frankenstein's monster (ie awesome) but she takes Home Ick class at Monster High! How funny is that?! She has scissor earrings and came with a tiny reel of cotton and a needle - she's a mini me! We have decided that Frankie is now coming everywhere with us - she even has her own Facebook page with photos of her travels.

In my free time I'm making her some new outfits and already she has admirers following her around! It doesn't matter how old you are, toys are still fun to play with!!

More adventures with Frankie to come!!

While my ship was out of Copenhagen this summer I was lucky enough to see a couple of outdoor art exhibitions dotted around the city. Elephant Parade was an open air art exhibit in which proceeds from the sales of the pieces were donated to charity in aid of the Asian elephant. The painted elephants flaunted many different styles and colours and were certainly eye catching. They were not around for long but I managed to get a fair few on camera to share with you here...

Aren't they beautiful? I hope they all went to great homes and lots of money was raised for the cause.

Over the summer I purchased a needle felting attachment for my beloved Bernina. I also found out about the Capture Cure charity auction which was accepting donated works of art to auction off in aid of breast cancer. My mother and best friend from high school are both recovering from breast cancer so this was a cause near to my heart.

I created a needle felted and embellished wall hanging that is a tribute to the strength of women. It uses skills taught to me by the women in my family and the new techniques I have learned after being inspired by them. Only 40 pieces were accepted into the auction, mine being one of them. I am fiercely proud of this and hope it went to a good home.

I am also about to start a little cross stitch I downloaded, designed by Emily Peacock. It is a pink breast cancer ribbon which I am going to make for myself and my mother. I haven't followed a cross stitch pattern in a while so it will be interesting to try that out again! I encourage you to go and get the pattern yourself and donate to breast cancer research in the process. Check out the Mr X Stitch post about it here

Next week two of my friends have their birthday on the same day. It's going to be lots of fun, especially as we are in St Thomas that day and there's a crew party! For each person I have crafted a very personal present based on who they are and what they like/do. This is the first, for my friend Jonny Danger (yep, that's his real name) who we all call Tuxedo... he works with the kids, ok!

Tux is a poetry major and particularly likes Edward Lear so I stitched him a tie to go with one of his suits. He better like it, is all I can say because I had to use metallic thread. And we all know how difficult that is :-)

Thank the Goddess for thread heaven!

I'll post the other present for my friend Karlene next....