Last day of August

Hi everyone,
As always I'm having a last minute panic to get a blog post in before the end of the month. So, with just a few hours to spare, here's some of what I worked on during August.
A couple of posts back I showed you the lovely book by Anni Downs that I won in her giveaway to celebrate the launch of the book.

This is the needlebook and pincushion from the book and I also took one of the little designs to make a scissor fob



The needlebook has more stitchery inside



and opens up further to reveal a felt needlekeeper and pockets



The zippered project bag and supplies pouch are not in the book but I wanted to make a bag to keep everything in. I took the stitchery design for the pincushion and stitched it onto the smaller pouch.



to make a nice set


I'm afraid I've fallen behind with my Christmas ornament a month stitching challenge.
I cheated by finishing a small design that had been in my finishing basket since last year.
It is a free design found on Nan's blog
I stitched it over one on 28ct fabric using Vikki Clayton silks and I used the beaded edge finishing tutorial on Andrea's blog





I took the small holly design and stitched it on the back only this time over two threads





So that's my ornament for July but I still didn't make one for August!

Another one out of the finishing basket that I stitched months ago is this pillow.
It's Basket of Memories by Blackbird Designs. I stitched it with GAST Antique Rose and finished it with a crochet edging using DMC perle cotton.


In the past I've struggled with putting lace or trims around a pillow and had never thought to use crochet until I saw a post on this French blog
see post for August 29th. I thought it was a great idea but had no idea how to do it so Google to the rescue and I came up with this
which worked a treat. It's not easy to crochet with a pillow dangling down!
Maybe I can improve with a bit of practice but overall I'm quite pleased with it.

I've been trying to get into embroidery a bit more and have been enjoying Bari J's website We Love French Knots

I stitched this fun sampler from a free download on Bari's website.



Finally, I can't resist showing you these





Those of you from UK that have been to Betty's Tea Rooms in York and have sampled their Big Fat Rascals will recognize them :)
Sheila sent me Waitrose recipe she found online which I took as a massive hint that I had to bake them for her next visit so I did and they were good!
They are huge and I'm sure they are 1000 calories each so only for special occasions!
Well, that's it for this time. Thank you for visiting my blog and for your lovely comments on my last post.
Margaret