"50 shades of grey" lace shawlette - Design F201

I've been waiting to make this pretty little shawlette for a while but I've been working through all the various patterns that I have.  This is the third and final yarn that I made with first Jacob fleece that I ever bought and processed myself.  You can read about the yarn and fleece here.

I named this yarn "50 shades of Grey", because it does seem to have so many shades within the skein.  This is another "single ply" yarn and is of fingering weight, a tad thicker than the black and the white yarns.

The varied shades in the yarn made it difficult to see the pattern and I had to rely heavily on the stitch markers between each pattern repeat to keep me on track.

I didn't notice until I had completely finished knitting this shawlette and cast off that the two garter stitch sections along the bottom edge of the shawl are darker grey than the main section of shawl and darker than the section of lace between them and so creating natural "outlines".  How amazing is that, I could not have planned that in a million years and it all occurred naturally too.

I have to make one of these in a plain colour, maybe a white or ivory...

I've made a photo prop

I need to find something to photograph all my hand decorated baubles on in my mobile photography studio, which is basically a fold up half-metre square light tent complete with lights etc.  I knew that a small artificial Christmas Tree wouldn't work, the branches would be too small to accommodate the large baubles.  I done a search on Ebay and found a bauble holder and bought the largest one, which is supposed to be perfect for an 80mm bauble.  Bingo!  I thought.  How disappointed was I when it arrived and was too small for MY 80mm baubles. 

Yes they would fit if they didn't have hanging ribbons and didn't have decorations hanging below the bottom of the bauble.  Some quick thinking, plastic ties and a whole lot of bending into shape later and I have not only extended the holder but covered it as well. 

To make it I had to gently bend the top of the arch of the holder back to make it straighter, a bit like the letter J in reverse as opposed to its original letter C. I then used some artificial greenery to cover it, using the strong wires of the stem to form a hanging notch and fixing it to the original metal holder using plastic ties.  The problem was that the weight wasn't balanced now so it kept falling over backwards.  My solution to this was to strap the metal base to a large round cake board that I covered in some white satin.  This larger base prevented it from tipping over and the white satin helps it to blend in with the white fabric of the photography studio.

One photography prop finished and in use.

Some of the cross stitch others have done in the past

I've shown you the cross stitch that I have that I have done in the past and now I'm going to show you the cross stitch that my husband and late mother have done.  My mother passed away about 16 months before my father, so when he passed away we had to clear the house and all that so my mother's cross stitch was divided up between the four of us "kids", each saying which ones they really liked and agreeing on which each of us had.  As I am the only one that cross stitches I inherited all of my mothers threads, fabric, patterns and unfinished/unframed pieces.   The only unfinished piece that I can remember was A Stroll In The Park, which had barely been started, all the others are waiting to be framed.

In the photos below, the first one, The Apache Marriage Blessing, that was a gift from my mom to us on our wedding day to go with The Spirit Dancer that I had already stitched.  The second one, the lady with the baby and the third one, the tram, I chose to have both of those when we cleared our parents house.  The fourth one is one that my husband done and it means "A hundred thousand welcomes".

My late mother loved Christmas, can you tell?

This was her favourite poem and the rooster, well he was in one of those flexi plastic frames that looks like an embroidery hoop but there is no glass on them to protect the stitching.  As both of my parents were heavy smokers you can imagine the state that was in an desperately needed a wash.

Some of the cross stitch I've done in the past

I've been blogging a bit about the cross stitch that I like to do as a hobby, when I can when I'm not doing business thing or being a busy mom and wife.  This post is just to show some of the work that I've done in the past.  Some are framed and hanging on the walls around the house whilst others are waiting to be framed and are in a box but all of these have been stitched by me.  They're not all here as some I have done and gifted like the big galleon ship for my brother and the big bride and groom one also for my brother and countless others.

In the photos below: The very first one I done in infant school when I was 5 years old, it still attached to the piece of paper with my details on it my teacher used to display it on the wall in the school hall.  The second one is something I done at home during the summer holidays when I was 9 years old.

In the photos below: the first one is a cute Christmas mouse that I done when I was about 13 or 14 years old and the final one is cross stitch but on printed cotton and I was in my teens when I done that one.

In the photos below: I need to re-frame the first one, it fell off the wall and the frame broke into pieces.  I made the matt using framing card and some lace.  The Dragon Castle I done in my late teens during my college days and the last one was probably about 10 years ago, I can't remember.

In the photos below: The cottage was stitched before the dragon above, the dolphins was stitched secretly 16-17 years ago as a wedding present to my husband, that was fun, working on it during my lunch break at work and at home when he was on a late shift or working over the weekend and having to hide it in the flat and sneak it back out the next day or after the weekend.  He had no idea whatsoever of that one.  The last one, again I think I was in my teens.

In the photos below: The first one I think I was in my early 20's, middle one I done when I had my kids and the last one was about 2000-01 cos I know I was with my husband then but we weren't married but we were living in the flat.

In the photos below: The first one was about 5 or 6 years ago I think, the second one I think I was late teens and the last one was about 6 or 7 years ago I think, could be longer, doesn't time fly!

Alphabet Wall Hanging

I designed and stitched this massive wall hanging mostly when I was pregnant with my first child back in 2003 and finished it shortly after she was born.  I didn't design them in alphabetical order, the order was decided by me being able to find suitable image of a Disney character that matched the letter and some are very basic, whilst others are a lot better, and that shows how my experience of designing progressed from start to finish.  Its not for sale, neither are the designs as I destroyed them after I made it, it will become a family heirloom.

Stitched 1 over 1 on Afghan cloth, which is normally stitched 2 over 2, for extra fineness of details this was a massive undertaking and way back then I didn't have any Cross Stitch software to help me so it was all designed the old fashioned way with graph paper.  I removed the vertical stitching from the centre panel, tying it off and securing at the back, to make it 2 squares wide by 1 square high as I knew I wanted to stitch the words of "When You Wish Upon A Star" and add the Blue Fairy in the middle panel.

Why "When You Wish Upon A Star"?  Its inspirational and one of my favourites as a child and I still have a wind-up musical jewellery box from my childhood that has Mickey Mouse, not a ballerina, that twirls round inside to that song.

White Mohair Old Fashioned Cape - Design D194

No rest for the wicked, straight on with the next capelet.  I chose some vintage white mohair for this one.  I seem to be favouring the handspun or the mohair lately, I don't know why that is.

This is some vintage Mohair yarn called Tahiti by Lister (UK) Ltd from around 1976.  Its double-knit weight and is 67% Mohair, 28% Wool, 5% Nylon.  Its not as high quality as I usual buy but at 67% Mohair its pretty close.

The only problem with working with mohair are the fly-away fibres that seem to shed as you work which make me sneeze and makes my eyes itch a little.  This one is lightweight compared to the green one, the yarn is nowhere near as dense.

Such a pretty capelet needs pretty buttons and I've chosen some silver coloured diamante/rhinestone buttons that I bought a few years ago specifically for wedding capes.