Hi Everyone
I hope you’re all well. By the time I publish this post, many of us in Australia will be half way through/nearing the end of our last long weekend until October. As quickly as those weeks and months will go between now and then, the prospect of there not being a long weekend to have a reprieve from the cold weather, work, life and anything in-between seems daunting. To help put things into perspective with the number of long weekends Australia has, most of ours tend to happen from Christmas/New Year through to June.
That said, in Canberra at least, the week that’s just ending has been my first week to go to the gym and start seeing people I have regularly trained with and seen in the gym face-to-face! I never thought I’d be so excited and happy about setting foot in the gym again and seeing everyone! Seeing some of my training buddies online via Zoom has helped with not feeling so isolated. But there’s something about seeing someone face-to-face – even if you can’t or aren’t meant to – give them a hug, just being around people and being able to start working out with gym equipment felt really, really good.
There’s also been a few times in the last few weeks where I’ve popped into work for a few hours here and there and it was nice to get out of the house. I didn’t enjoy feeling like a pack horse and lugging my work equipment between the office and the car. For cheaper parking, I choose to park my car about 5 to 10 minutes walk away from the office and carrying a laptop bag with the laptop, full keyboard, power cords, mouse and anything else I need gets heavy after a while. I’m estimating it all to be about 2 to 3 kilos. Which doesn’t seem like much, but it feels like 10 kilos by the end of the walk.
Now for the cross stitch stuff
In my last post, I hinted at how I was going to be able to work on some of my projects from Stitch Maynia that I hadn’t been able to spend as much time on. Taking inspiration from Stitch Maynia and Canberra moving well and truly into Winter, I’m aiming to make June and July as colourful and festive as possible. This means making June and July the months I can focus on Christmas related projects and projects that are colourful, make me happy and I really enjoy stitching.
Christmas Stitches
It’s not going to be a nutty as what Stitch Maynia felt like. At the moment I’m going to be working on finishing the Christmas themed projects I started from the Ultimate Cross Stitch Christmas magazine/book, Volume 19 from 2018. The pictures below are the projects I had started working on – Candy Express and Santa’s Coming, designed by Shannon Wasilieff and Durene Jones.
Tip: Candy Express can also be found on the website Shannon Christine Designs.
Since last week, I spent a bit more time on Santa’s Coming and below is my latest progress. I may need to re-stitch Ryan’s name to centre it a bit more. The long line of crosses you see just above Ryan shows the full width of the banner his name is in. That said, I just need to stitch the apostrophe and the ‘s’, so it may balance it out!
I’ve also made a start on (and nearly finished) a project that I’ll make into a card or Christmas decoration called Let it Snow by Emma Congdon out of the Ultimate Cross Stitch Christmas magazine/book Volume 19 from 2018.
My reason for it being in dark colours is due to it being for one of my work colleagues who wears a lot of black at work and sometimes some pink. For this project I used the DMC 53 varigated thread. Unfortunately I can’t remember what the fabric count is because I’ve had this fabric for a while. I’m guessing it’s 28 count and I’ve stitched it two strands of thread over two ‘strands’ or squares of fabric.
I’ve also learnt my lesson with reducing the amount of rotations I do with this pattern when I’m stitching the border! Check out my recent post called ‘How Many Secrets does your Cross Stitch Hold?’ and you’ll see what I mean.
I’m aiming to continue stitching the Let it Snow pattern a few more times in different varigated threads for my work colleagues so that I feel ready for Christmas time and surprise them. This is also pending that we’ll be all working back in the office!
Jolly June Stitching
Yesterday afternoon I started one of the projects I’d been wanting to start in May – Design Works ‘Zebras’. In my last post, I had called this project Colourful Zebras. That was a mistake on my part. This project is just called Zebras.
Since working on some Dimensions kits, I’m making sure I get into the habit of writing the symbols on the floss cards for any kits I work on. This has made the world of difference! The only sticky point I had with writing the symbols on the card for the Zebras was for two of the holes in the floss card, are two different colours. E.g. a blue and brown in one hole and a purple and green in another. Not a big deal, just something I hadn’t expected! Below is my progress as of 7 June 2020:
So far I’ve been able to stitch around a part of the Zebra’s eye that has a lot of yellow and orange and I’ve stitched a part of the pink on the second Zebra’s forehead and a part of it’s forelock.
Stitchmas Plans
For Christmas in July, my aim is to keep working on Candy Express and Santa’s Coming and the Let it Snow cards. My additional aim is to start on the following patterns – some of which I had kitted up and mostly ready for Stitch Maynia.
Christmas Cuddles
I’ve got this project kitted up and it’s designed by Jenny Burton. Her pattern is in The World of Cross Stitching magazine. Unfortunately I’m unable to properly tell what the volume number is or the year. I had bought it at the same time as the Ultimate Cross Stitch Christmas magazine/book near the end of 2018 at the Batehaven newsagency in New South Wales, Australia.
When Santa got stuck in the chimney
The design is by Emma Congdon out of Ultimate Cross Stitch Christmas book/magazine. I’m yet to kit it up. I like look of the design and the lettering in it so different to what I’ve been use to seeing in designs over the years. I’m curious about how the design process is for such lettering!
On the first day…
This design is by Rhona Norrie from the Ultimate Cross Stitch Christmas magazine/book. I’ve partially kitted this one up because some of the called for colours are being used in other projects.
I think this project and Christmas Cuddles will give me a run for my money with both of them being stitched on navy blue fabric! Thankfully I have a few other projects to alternate between and I have an awesome over-the-top light that will help a lot!
Well, that’s it from me for this week. Until next time,
Happy Stitching!
The XStitching Runner 
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