Mistress Clarey, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Very well, thank you very much:

Stitch watch: Hardanger

I haven't been posting much recently, but I have been at work. These pictures are bits and pieces from some hardanger samplers -- the patterns are in The New Anchor Book of Hardanger Embroidery Stitches.

I'm using a mixture of left over perle thread from other projects and some skeins of Anchor multicoloured perle -- hence the slightly eccentric colour schemes in some pieces.

Caw

Stitch watch: Mushroom

A few weeks ago at the drawing class I attend, we did mushrooms. I traced my sketch with a transfer pencil, ironed it on to a piece of cotton, and made this:


The brown marks are where the iron burnt the masking tape glue -- next time I'm using pins to hold it all together. The pink marks are the transfer pencil -- I gather they'll wash out, but I'm a bit wary of trying this... Better luck next time :-)

Stitch watch: scissors case

This is a scissors case from Sue Hawkins' range. I've never done much canvas work before, and this little project was a very pleasant introduction. I love having something pretty that I know I'll use, too. I particularly liked the nubbly rhodes stitch (left side of the front of the case).

The colours glow much more in real life -- I'm not sure if the warmer picture shows this better than the cooler picture of the back of the case. The satin stitch (top of the back) feels lovely.

Stitch watch: Buttercup Lane

This is Buttercup Lane from Rowandean. It was great fun to do -- even all that straight stitch grass. I need to work on my stem stitch, though, as it looks a bit knotty, as you can see in the close-up below.

Things which are only pleasurable because of the unpleasantness which went before.

• The burning tingling of cold fingers warming up.
• Feeling better after throwing up.
• Once back at home, thinking about eating a tangerine and drinking very cold water from a rinsed-out milk bottle while sitting on a stone behind a low wall, the only shelter from the wind on the top of a cloud-bound mountain.
• Waking up with no headache after falling asleep while ill.
• The engineer has visited, and now it works.
• Coming into a cool, dark building on a day when the light and heat burn my head.
• A stuffy warm office after a walk on a morning when a knife-sharp wind is blowing.