A finish and a few new starts...

It looks like we all have survived another end of the world, just as expected by many. The mercury is still down - I'm not in the mood for shopping or even going outside. But I'm always in the mood for stitching. You will not believe it - I finished my Pirate Santa!

Really, he is all done and hanging. I started to stitch him a long time ago, he was a WIP and, for some unknown to me reason, became an UFO. It was on my December challenge list to have him done and now I can put a check mark beside his name.

And since we have enter a new season I wanted to start something new. I looked and looked through my stash and couldn't decide... then I spotted Paddy's Luck, all kitted up and ready to go.

Yeah, that's the one I want to stitch. Let's bring some rainbows and sunshine and let's forget the cold, dark winter!

I'm stitching Paddy on the 22ct antique tan hardanger with two threads over one. What you see there are about 360 stitches of 54,015 and some. Long way to go!

Yesterday I checked my mail and to my surprise I found there couple kits from Scarlet Letter. (Well, I shouldn't be so surprised, I ordered them a month ago.) Nicola of Stitching By A Cornish Sea Shore is celebrating her 50 birthday by dedicating a whole 2013 to charts from Scarlet Letter (she must really love them, eh?) She has created a blog Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year and many of us joined her to celebrate her birthday by stitching her favorite charts. I not only never stitched them before, I never even heard of them! Anyway, for the start I bought two kits (time is an issue so I couldn't be bother with buying charts and try to kit them up). To make Nicola happy I started both of them:

A lovely c. 1800 Gift Pincushion is stitched over one on 26 ct linen with 1 strand of silk. The silk is lovely to work with and my previous practice with HAED makes this an easy stitch. I am a little disappointed with the kit as not everything what suppose to  be included was included. The most worry I have is about floss. For example the package says that there should be 6 strands of dark navy silk but included was only 5... I've contacted The Scarlett Letter and we'll see what will happen.

And the second was a lovely quaker

stitched also with silk. (Ignore that tiny blue mark on the top. It is from my water erasable marker, it will disappear with a little water). The instructions are saying that I should use only 1 strand of silk over 2 threads of fabric (it's 36ct linen). The coverage isn't the greatest but when I looked at it from 5 feet away, it looks perfect.

So there, one little finish followed by three big starts - not bad eh? Now I have to work on some other WIPs so they don't become UFOs (unfinished objects).

So long my friends,
Evalina