2019 Summary

2019 is over and, maybe it is quite late, but it is time to make a summary of the year. This year I made an other big change in my life. After living in London area for 8 years I decided to move to the north of England. I left my job and I got a new one in  Northumberland, North East of England. So I packed all my stuffs and my little Luna and moved to the North to a very cute and beautiful town close to the Scottish border. I am very happy here, all is very different, people are very friendly, it is colder and I am very close to the beach and hills.

I don't know the hills yet, I need to go to the Cheviots, but what can I say about the beach......? There are beautiful landscapes in this area, I love how quite you can be sitting in the beach with nobody around.....

But as a consequence of moving, my stitches have been completely stopped. I stopped in June as I got the new job and I was looking for my home. Then I was preparing all for moving and finally moved. After reaching to my new place I had lots of things to do, in the house organising all, in the job getting used to a new company and outdoor as I was amazed and couldn't stop visiting beaches every afternoon.

Finally I settled a bit and started to do some stitches. And unfortunately I fell down and broke my wrist, so again I stopped stitching.

I started the new year with a plaster cast on, but now I improved a bit and I am able to do small things. I can fix the fabric in the hoop, I can thread the needle and using a embroidery hoop that I can hold with my leg while sited I am stitching again. Hope my wrist heals soon and I can start doing embroideries at my normal pace.

Back After a Break

I have been away from the blog for quite a long time now. I never stopped stitching but I considerably reduced the amount of time I am dedicating to that. I will explain the reason later on because first I would like to show you the advances I did on my project during my absence, even they are not too many.

I am really delayed in the Blackwork Tangram SAL organized by Lakeside Needlecraft. All the parts have been released no but I am still struggling to finish the third part. I finished the second one and for that I chose yellow thread (DMC 444). Hope finish soon with the complete job.

I continued with the fifth part of the Connie Gee Design SAL. That one is quick and easy and I did it while watching my favourite programs on tele.

May and June flowers are done. May’s one is a nice rose in pink color similar to the ones I have in my garden. The flower representing June is a daisy. I love daisies. I remember when I was a girl removing one by one all the petals of a daisy thinking in the boy you liked at that moment and telling ‘He loves me, he doesn’t love me’ for each one of the petal. The last one was the one deciding if the boy loved you or not. Obviously it is something silly but it was funny when I was a girl.

Why I have been far from my blog and my craft? The reason is that in May I got an allotment plot. It wasn’t in very bad conditions when I took over, actually it had few raised beds covered with black plastic ready to cultivate. But nothing is 100% perfect and other areas were completely covered with weed. It took me long time and effort to clean it up, it is not completely cleaned now, but at least I have some space where to start planting and later I will finish with the wedding in the remaining parts.

This picture shows how it was when I took over.

On top of the weeding, there are a lot of tasks to do in a plot. You need to dig before planting, plant, water, support some species,.... And what it is more annoying, fighting against the birds and pests. I planted my onion sets and when they start spouting pigeons ate some of them. Luckily I am going to the plot daily so I could notice soon and cover them with a net.

Something similar happened with my beans, broccolis and kales. I don’t like to use chemicals as I like to grow organic veggies. One day I reached there and I saw all my beans and kales eaten by someone.

I thought quickly in slugs or caterpillars so I add some coffee grinds to avoid slugs and sacrifice lettuce leaves to attract caterpillars. But I couldn’t see any sign of them and my plants were eaten over and over. Then I decided to put a net covering the kales and they are now growing healthy. Finally I realized that the one eating my plants were again pigeons, so after fitting a net over the beans they are also growing nice.

Anyway it is really rewarding when you see the veggies for the first time. I have now tomato, pepper and courgette fruits

Hope my amount of job in the plot decreases now and I can come back to my embroidery and blo 

Earth Day

 Yesterday 22nd April was the International Earth Day, a day to honor our planet. The good thing is that there is still one day when people are conscious about the health of our planet and about that we need to take care of it. It is a joint job to make the planet healthier and sustainable. In the other hand, what makes me feel bad is that we need that day to make people do something for the Earth. Everybody should take care of the Earth in daily basis and not only once a year, but it should be a starting point.

I didn’t do anything special as I take care of the planet daily. Because of my believes, I consider myself one more creature in the planet, not superior to any other existing creatures, animal, plants or stones, and I try to minimize the impact I am having on the planet.

But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make a small homage to the Earth and I prepare a small and easy embroidery. It represents a tree, where the trunk is the world EARTH and the leaves part is composed by different worlds representing all what the planet is.

Birds, plants, animals, water, flowers, bees, trees,.... All of that is the planet. It cannot survive if some of these is missing. We need the water to make the trees and plants grow, the bees and birds to pollinate the flowers which at the same time are food for birds and animals,..... In summary, all of that gives raise at the most important thing we have, LIFE.

The Earth is a living creature and it need the care of all of us. The human being is not contributing to the ecosystems, we only use resources. We are the main consumers and, nevertheless, nobody consumes us. I don’t pretend people agree with me, maybe for you the Earth is only the place where we live, but in any case, I would like to ask you a question, will you destroy your home? Remember something…….

TUSAL - February

My ORTs are going on. That is a sign of the quantity of stitches I am doing. From last month, I finished the second part of Connie’s SAL and the two first mandalas, two flowers from Cuore e Baticuore, a small part of my dreamcatcher and two aromatic sachets. I will show all of these advances in future posts.

That is my ORTs jar at that moment.

TUSAL - January

This month I didn't get a big amount of threads. I have just started my projects and I am still quite slow as a consequence of Christmas holydays. I decided to change the jar, the one I was thinking in using is too big. I hope to have more threads for the next month.

See you on February.

The most strange SAL I have ever participated

It is called TUSAL, Totally Useless Stitch A Long and I discovered it while reading the blog It's Daffycat.

When we talk about a SAL we always think in embroider something by objectives all at the same time. This SAL is completely different as we don’t need to do any embroidery. The idea of TUSAL is collecting in a jar all the the cast-off thread ends a needleworker cuts away. These ends are called ORT ~ Capitalized, it stands for Old Ratty Threads. These ends are often saved in clear jars as a decorative object. Every New Moon day we need to write a post in our blogs with the picture of the jar. Why New Moon day? Because DaffyCat, the person who organizes the SAL, decided in that way.

I normally put all my threads ends in a green bin which I have only for that purpose and I empty it once or twice a year when it is full. The idea of collecting all the ends in a jar and share with people looked interesting and funny to me and I decided to join. You can introduce whatever you want,  fabric trimmings, thread bands, empty spools or any other stitching cast-offs you gather. I decided to add only the cast-off threads. The following picture shows my green bin on the left and the jar I am going to use for that project on the right.

If you want to join, visit It's DaffyCat blog.

Projects for 2018

I have decided the projects I am going to work on this year 2018. I have already started some of them so long back as the Queen of Water, Zen Garden or Around the world in 80 stitches.

Other are new projects. I already had the graphics of some of them as the Sewing Owl or the lady MD69 Cinderella. Other are SALs organized by some Facebook group or blog. Among them I would like to mention the colourful owls I will do with the Facebook group Cruzando Puntos e Hilando Amistades (the group is in spanish) which will start by the middle of January.

This year I am going to embroider the new SAL organized by the magazine CrossSticher (I am subscribed) which consist in a small embroidery for each one of the moths of the year. What I like more in that embroidery is that is using the new DMC threads.

I am going to start two project using a different technique, blackwork. I discover this embroidery long back as it is easy to do and gives amazing results. I couldn’t avoid join these two projects when I saw them. One of them is organized by the blog Connie Designs and will be going through 2018 and 2019. It consists in 25 parts, one per month which I am going to do using Aida grey fabric with blue shade colours DMC threads.

The other blackwork SAL is called Monthly Mini Mandala and it is organized by the blog Brodeuse Bressane. It consists in 12 mandalas that can be done together or separately. I am going to do all together in a 4 x 3 disposition. I am using Aida orange fabric and I am using violet thread at that moment but I don’t know if I will do all in violet colour or if I will mix the violet with green colours, I didn’t decide yet.

I would like to make a special mention to my collection of Pagan Embroidery. I am going to start or continue with some project in that topic. I am going to continue with the Sabbats Banners, which are freebies in the blof The Primitive Hare and I am going to start the Sabbats to frame and the  Wheel of the Year (from CTHdesign in Etsy) and the Zodiac Pentagram and Greenman bought both in Witchykit Design.

In int left side of my blog you can see all the project I would like to do during the year. I will updating the blog with my advances.

Comments are welcome.

New Section on Sunday: The Blogger Behind

From next Sunday I am going to start a new section in my blog, The Blogger Behind. This section will consists in interview to people having a blog in anything related with crafts as embroidery, knitting, sewing, cooking, soap making, candle making, etc. 

I have already few interviews programmed but if you want to take part feel free to contact me or leave a comment.