Gifted Gorgeousness SAL June Update

Hello Friends,

It's that time of the month when we show what gifts we have been working on or/and what crafty gifts we have received. If you don't know what I'm talking about , check Jo's blog for more info. This is a easy SAL where you have choice to stitch any designer, color or pattern, just that it should be a gift for someone or gift from someone.

I'm taking a break from finishing a gift to write this post. The gift was supposed to be given today but the amount of back stitching is just killing me . I visited the family today for whom I'm making the gift and told them their gift is late by one day 😩😀

Let me show a gift finished last week back, my first no sew cube finish.

Blackwork Elephant
Anchor Design Studio

Image Courtesy:Rene Bester, taken during WWKIP day

This is a birthday present for a lady in my craft group who loves elephants. I would like to claim extra GG points for this finish- the fabric was a gift from husband; pattern was gift from Jo, the GG SAL hostess herself ; the metallic thread was a gift from Shami. 

I didn't have the called for threads in the pattern except one. I bought a lot of Anchor variegated threads from a shop in my hometown to support the shop which was clearly not in good financial condition. I tried to use the nearest matching threads in my stash with the ones in the pattern . I am very happy with how these piece turned out, I have used metallic floss first time and didn't play chicken with the french knots 😉.

Jo, if you are reading this , may be you should start a point system for the GG SAL😀. It can take into account how a gift shown in the GG post uses gifts received.

When I started stitching the design, I thought of framing it. Failure to find a suitable frame , I turned to YouTube for no sew cube tutorial. I'm surprised how easy and quick this finishing method is . I will be surely making more cubes in future.

That's it for GG post. 

Last Saturday my craft group celebrated Fourth Edition of Kuwait WWKIP day. This time I took a back seat and requested other group members to organize the event. It was a fun event with lucky draws and door prizes. Everyone bought their projects to share and so much talent was on display.

Beautiful brooch like this was given to every attendee

If you wanna read more about it , click the link 

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/2018/jun/12/20.pdf

You can also visit my fellow Kuwaiti crafter Tammy's blog for more pictures :

http://tsdailytreasures.blogspot.com/2018/06/kip-day-2018.html

Its a 4 day weekend here and I will try to put in stitches in my WIPs whenever I can amidst packing for vacation, hosting a dinner , shopping and sleeping .

Yay another first!!

I'm not sure if there is a word to describe the excitement of doing a thing/activity for the first time.
'firsts' always excite me...be it the first car ride,first view of the sea or first salary in new job. personally, I feel that firsts are an assurance to ourselves that life has much more to offer than we what see in our daily life.
Someone very rightly said everyday is a new learning. I try to achieve this in my professional as well as personal life.
I have already talked about my wonderful cross stitch group on fb.im always learning something  new about the art of cross stitching because of this group.
I wanted to make a personalized gift for my new born nephew since he was born and learnt about birth samplers on the group. I think they are a beautiful way to capture arrival of new baby.
here are pictures of the birth sampler I made for my nephew and the family loved it. I have made few changes to the design: I have stitched birth time instead of birth weight and changed the font to a simpler one as the original one had backstitching(I'm still not good at BS).

Started on : 5-Sep -2014
Finished on: 22-Oct -2014
Stitched on:14 count white Aida
Floss used :Anchor
Designer: Anchor design studio
Pattern source: Cross stitch collection, Sept 2014
Number of colors: 19
Stitch count:214H*144W
Type of stitches: Full cross stitch, back stitch, half stitch, french knot
Number of strands used :2 for Full cross stitches,1 for back stitch,3/2/1 for half stitch

I used the loop method to start the thread for the first time....thank you Pat Carson for the tip.
I also serged the fabric to prevent fraying.

This is my first birth sampler for the first member of new generation of my family :) .The cherry on the cake is..the only French knot in the design was made by my MIL..