Friday 30 January 2015

Snow Days

Cannot believe I have not blogged for almost a year. Mind you I can believe it because real life this last 13 months has been .... well rather real is all I can say. But onto lovelier craftier things! On Wednesday evening it started to snow here really rather heavily and has only just stopped Friday afternoon. So all snowed in and unable to get to work and school closed there was nothing to do but make tea and stitch. So that is precisely what I did and I have to say I cannot quite believe what can be achieved over two snow days.

I bought the Shaker Scissor Stand and Needle Roll kit from Jane Greenhoff when I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show before Christmas. It was just so sweet I could not resist it. Anyway Thursday morning was the day to start.

I love the way that shading on the hillside is done by varying the number of threads you use and how much of a cross you do but all in the same thread colour. It looks far better than on the screen.



The band itself is beautiful. A crisp white linen with a wonderful embroidered edge. After the hills it was time to stitch the trees.



 Then I started the houses. They are lovely little shaker style salt box houses in a deep red. At first I was not sure about all the outlining in grey but it actually worked really well and still showed up even after putting the black windows in.



The roofs are in a lovely deep grey/blue, again the screen does not do it justice.




Once the lighter pink was finished the houses looked so sweet. Also the larger tree in the middle adds height. I did the trunk for the larger tree in a mushroom brown rather than the suggested dark grey and love the way it stands out. The birds are a nice subtle touch and almost add a border to the scene. There are sheep to be added to the far right meadow but I am saving those for the end.



On the far right there is a stand alone design. Here is the outline stitched in backstitch. It has a wonderful shape.



Then the leaves are filled in with some dark green...


... and some light green.


This end tree is now waiting for the red blossom which is stitched in large button hole bars which I am saving for the end along with the sheep.


At the far left there is another stand alone tree. So far I have only managed part of the trunk before the light was fading and it was time to call it a day.


So this is where I got to after two whole snow days. Not bad really for what could easily have been such an unproductive day. Hopefully over the weekend I will get time to carry on and get the project finished. When done it has felt on the back to keep your needles in and then it wraps around a wooden bobbin which you can pop your scissors in the top of. Everything you could possibly need all within one lovely place.


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