Essential Stitches & Mini Peep Boot Contest

Detail of Castle Peeps sampler: there are quite a few different stitches here!

Just this afternoon I posted a question on my Facebook page (and through that on Twitter) about what people think the 5 most important stitches to learn are for a newbie embroiderer. I was surprised by some of the comments and clearly there is a difference of opinion on what should be in the top 5 of essential stitches. So I thought it would be fun to do a poll, it's in the left side bar. Also if you choose 'other', please leave a comment on this post on what stitch(es) you think is essential but not in the list. You can choose several answers.

I would also like to use this opportunity to write something about the fun Mini Peep Boot Contest that Lizzy House started today. You can find a template of a Peep Mini Boot on Lizzy's blog, make your own version of a Peep Mini Boot, join the Mini Peep Boot Contest Flickr Group and win awesome prizes. Contest is open until the 20th so hurry! I'm certainly making one, or maybe even a pair of Peep Mini Boots!

Royalty on my Doormat! (& Embroidery Stitch Challenge #6)

Last a week I finally got to meet the Castle Peeps 'in person' as the Royal Sampler Patterns and Limelight Bard Mini Quilt Patterns arrived at my house. I'm absolutely smitten with how stylish and pretty the patterns turned out! The patterns hold a colour key, an example of the finished embroidery, an iron-on pattern and a large sheet with details about colours and stitch suggestions.

The Limelight Bard Mini Quilt also has instructions on how to make the mini quilt of course. I will list both patterns later this week in my shop but I will have only a couple of each in stock for now!

For this week's Embroidery Stitch Challenge I just picked a stitch that I didn't know from one of my books: the Loop Stitch.

P.S. don't forget: there are still a few days left to enter the 'Quick and the Thread' Giveaway!

In which I talk a bit about a lot of different things...

I was browsing through the photos I made in the past year and stumbled upon one of the many progress photos I made of the Castle Peeps project. At the time I couldn't share this, which was really hard because I like to share about every crafty thing I do with you all, :) This sampler must have been one of the biggest embroidery projects I did and certainly the largest!. It didn't even fit my largest (10 inch) hoop. I spent quite a lot of hours embroidering this sampler. It was much fun though and I miss these peeps dearly, for they moved away to live with Lizzy House in the States. The good news however is that some of the Castle Peeps patterns will come and stay with me for a bit. In other words: soon I will have this and the other pattern, of the  'Rockin' Bard,  available in my shop!

For my Embroidery Stitch Challenge of this week (#4) I chose the Cretan Stitch. You can read how me and the Cretan Stitch got on after the weekend.

Yesterday I was featured crafter on the Fat Quarterly blog! So if you'd like to know a bit more about this crafty bunny,  do have a peek at the nice write up they did about me.

As I'm near to my 300th blog post I'm planning a fun giveaway,  so please visit soon to find out more about it! For now you must see this fun giveaway at the Feeling Stitchy blog. You can win an embroidery mystery novel called The Quick and the Thread. How awesome is that? I must read that book, the title alone kills me! Well not literally but you know what I mean. ;)

update: I could not resist and just ordered 2 copies of this book. One for me and one for a lucky winner in my upcoming giveaway!

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Bard has news for you...

Yep, this colourful Sampler is the result of me and Lizzy House teaming up. I'm very excited and proud. Will let you all know when it hits the shop(s)!
p.s. I'm in a bit of hurry today, have a not so pleasant visit to the dentist scheduled this morning so head over to Lizzy's blog and read what the Bard Peep has to say!

Sneak peek of some Castle Peeps stitching

Some details of Castle Peeps in Stitches! Could not wait to share some of this, I'm so proud of my Peeps! Well technically they are Lizzy's Peeps and I have lovingly adopted them in a way. ;)  On Lizzy's blog you can find some cute and funny printable Castle Peeps Book plates now.

Politics, Peeps and things

It has been quiet on the blog this week. Partly because I am still not all that well and this week my laptop decided it didn't feel too well either and refused to start up. I'm now using our 'old' computer which is incredibly slow. So all that is slowing me down a bit. The good thing about my broken laptop is that in the evening (when it's too dark to stitch) I read quite a bit. I am now reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and it's actually a fun, very well written book to read (even if the title doesn't sound like much fun). I have also been watching some debates on television because today there are elections in the Netherlands. Unlike other countries we have many political parties over here: about 20 or something! A great deal of them are very small though and there is even a Pirate Party. Not sure if it's a good thing if for the next 4 years our country is being led by a guy with a parrot on his shoulder shouting 'har har' all the time. ;)

Still busy working on the Castle Peeps patterns! I love how new and bright colours have made their way into my floss box due to this project. I do tend to use the same colours over and over again and this will absolutely influence colour choices for future embroidery projects.