Flung ...

This flinging lark is contagious. Not only have I worked through my UFOs, I've had a sort out of other stuff too. Thanks to Freegle, I've been able to help out loads of other people with my unwanted possessions. Prior to this weekend, I'd already got rid of a chest of drawers - replaced by a bigger set - but this is what went this weekend:

• Over 1kg of yarn
• One box of books
• Two bags of clothes
• One pair of boots
• One pop up laundry basket
• Two small plastic baskets
• Four underbed storage bags
• One underbed storage box
• Four jewellery display items
• One "hygienic trimmer"
• One posture chair
• Two underbed storage drawers
• Two bath ballistics
• One Psion Siena organiser
• Two hand held games
• One large box of various bits and pieces
• Two covers for clothes rails
• One tall bookcase
• One set of hair clippers
• One three drawer desk tidy
• One 16" CRT monitor
• One flatbed scanner
• One Gameboy Advance
• Three Gameboy games

I think this will be it for now - and I feel happier with some of the clutter gone. Now I can get round to sending out the UFOs other people have spoken for, and I may also get rid of some charts and kits to raise money for the MS Trust. I've also got some course deadlines approaching, so I will be busy - it's probably a good thing that I got the weekend of the knitting retreat wrong and it's not this weekend, it's the one after!

Finish or Fling? - Wizard of Oz

And here, for all to see, is the date of this project. 1994. It could be about to sit its GCSEs, it's that old! Once upon a time, I dressed up as the Scarecrow with a group of people I was involved with, and we paraded through the streets of our town in their Festival parade. It certainly beat the previous year, when I'd dressed up as a mushroom for the same event, and so I decided to commemorate the occasion with a sampler and the help of Jo Verso's books. And for some reason I stopped before adding myself. I'm sure a psychotherapist type person could have a field day with that little nugget :o)

Pros:

• A reminder of a great day out with friends
• A chance to finish an early design of mine

Cons:

• I don't like the style
• Worked on aida

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. I have a professionally taken photo of us all (thanks to the local paper) and I don't need this too.

Finish or Fling? - Winter Sampler

This is the start of a band sampler from a book by Jo Verso. It's one of a set of four, and I think at one point I had designs on stitching the set.

However, this got laid aside because I think I made a counting error in at least one of the specialty stitch bands - and frogging those can be nearly impossible!

Pros:

• Worked on evenweave
• Like the design

Cons:

• Barely started
• Counting errors
• Difficult to frog

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. I haven't left much of a margin for framing. I'm going to cut this up and perhaps make a little ornament out of what I've done so far and reuse the rest of the fabric for something else. 

Finish or Fling? - When This You See

I know I started this out of a lack of anything else available at the time. It's from an old, old, Leisure Arts booklet, and has a basket of flowers on it. I've stitched several other designs from the booklet, including one I have currently hanging in the hall, and another one which I finished in 2007 but probably started at about the same time as this.

Pros:

• It's on evenweave
• It's not a big smapler, wouldn't take long to finish
• Would fit in a standard sized frame

Cons:

• Don't really like the design

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. This too is up for adoption - will send the chart, and check that I used the called for threads!

Finish or Fling? - The Lord is My Shepherd

I don't know who I was stitching this Jo Verso design for, or for what occasion. It certainly wasn't for myself, as I'm pretty much a lifelong atheist, despite my family background. It was possibly for a family member - I'm wondering if it was for my late step-gran, as it would fit with the period of acquiring the book?

Pros:

• All the backstitch lettering is done!
• Stitched on evenweave

Cons:

• Not my sort of thing at all
• Lots of fractional stitching and backstitching to do

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. Or offer for adoption. You will need the relevant Jo Verso book or I could possibly copy the chart for you (it's a colour chart though).

Finish or Fling? - Sweet As Honey

My mum found this in one of her "rootles" - either at a car boot sale or in a charity shop. It's from a Jiffy kit and is stamped cross stitch, not counted. The first kit I ever tried was stamped cross stitch - I was six - and I think that became a UFO too. And my feelings for stamped work have not really altered much in the the intervening 35 years, despite a couple of other attempts...

Pros:

• It's bees!
• My mum gave it me

Cons:

• It's stamped cross stitch, which I hate - I can never get it looking neat enough
• It's almost a prayer, and I don't do that, even in jest - well, especially in jest, as it could be taken as disrespectful - although the idea behind the sentiment I quite like.

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict - Fling. Again, it's up for adoption if anyone wants it! :o)

Finish or Fling? - Patchwork Garden

 

I think I started this in 1998, when I moved back North and lived with my parents for a while. The design is by Elaine Cosier and was published in Cross Stitch Collection. It features a number of specialty stitches.

Pros:

• Stitched on linen
• Specialty stitches

Cons:

• I've lost the chart - that's a pretty big one!
• Don't like the colours I've chosen

So - Finish or Fling?

Verdict: Fling. Or at least, recycle the linen.

Finish or Fling? Moonshadow Path - Shepherd's Bush

 

This is an old Shepherd's Bush kit that I bought on eBay yonks ago. It's stitched on Quaker cloth using DMC flower threads.

Pros:

• Worked on evenweave
• I like the design

Cons:

• I don't like the fabric - the horizontal and vertical threads are different colours, I find it difficult to see
• I don't like the leaf border - one leaf is too dark, but DMc flower thread is discontinued

So - Finish or Fling?

Verdict:

Fling. Or at least offer it up for adoption! Complete kit, including button... comment if you're interested!

Finish or Fling? - Hot Water Bottle Cover

This has moved house with me more times that I really want to count. Observant long term readers of this blog may recognise some of the fabrics have been used in the Advent Calendar Wallhanging, which dates it to about 1992/3.

It was supposed to be a cute hotwater bottle cover of a patchwork quilt. It came from Needlecraft magazine - and I've lost the pattern. And a couple of the pins holding the piles of fabric together have rusted.

Pros:

• Very cute
• You can never have too many hot water bottles

Cons:

• Don't have the pattern
• Some of the fabric is damaged
• The Hermit's Christmas allergy

So: Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. Or at least, subsume the salvagable materials back into my stash.

Finish or Fling? - Friendship Sampler

I think I started this when I first moved back to Sheffield. I'm not sure why - it's so not my style! It's from a book by Gail Bussi, which I no longer even own. And no, I didn't take a working copy...

I can see there's definitely a pattern to my UFOs - they seem to have accumulated at a time when my life was very unsettled, and I wasn't online, so I didn't have the support from the online stitching community I have now. It's very motivating for me to set goals and to share progress - there are very few UFOs from about 2002 onwards ... so I have made progress in my life ;o)

Pros:

• Can't think of any, apart from getting it crossed off the list!

Cons:

• No longer have the chart!
• Not my style
• Worked on aida

So - Finish or Fling?

Verdict - Fling!

Finish or Fling? - Heavenly Cherubs

This was a kit I bought and started at least elevent years ago, because I found it in a remaindered bookshop i the small Sussex town I was living in at the time.

Early on, I made a counting mistake, and hence I put it away. Sporadically, I take it out and think about stitching it, as I like the black humour of it - these famous cherubs are from a bigger Michelangelo design and are actually leaning on a coffin. And I live opposite a firm of undertakers (funeral director).

 

 

I love the slightly cheesed off expressions too...

Pros:

• Like the design - even if it is cherubs.

Cons

• Lots of work
• Will need to frog or fudge
• On aida

So - Finish or Fling?

Verdict: Fling, but again, I will keep the chart and restart at some point on evenweave. I might even do it over one...

Finish or Fling? - Turquoise Pillow

For some reason the colours on this haven't come out accurately - the dark turquoise is more of a green, in my opinion. Again, another scrap bag quilted block made with a mixture of cotton and polycotton fabrics. I was making it for my gran, for her small bedroom, and she then completely redecorated it and changed the colour scheme - for the first time in umpteen years, I may add - so I abandoned this.

Pros:

Very little needed to do to finish the block

Cons:

Would need to make it up into something

Not great stitching on it

Have no decor with which it would fit, apart from - possibly - the bathroom

So: Finish or fling?

Verdict: I think I will fling this. Does anyone want to rescue it? - happy to mail it and the plain green fabric to anyone who asks!

Finish or Fling? - Floral Sampler

This was a Wedding Sampler I made for a colleague back in 1996. Their wedding was in February, and that was the month I ended up hospitalised. I didn't go back to work for more than six months. And my colleague had moved on by the time I got back. I wonder how the couple got on?

It would be possible to frog and restitch, but the fabric has got stained at some point in storage - I've not idea what with.

Pros:

• Would only need to stitch initials
• Quite like the design - I stitched another version in a different colour way for my gran, and of course, I have that now.
  

Cons:

• Hate the colours - I'm not a pastel person.
• Damaged fabric
• Already have a version of it

So - Finish or Fling?


Verdict: Fling. Definitely fling! Of course, if anyone has initials KD or is a "K&D" couple, they could try and rescue it?

Finish or Fling? - Bless The Baby

I started this in 2000 for a colleague's baby. And then gave the proud parents something else. This pattern was repeated for all the babies that have happened since,which hasn't been many. In fact, there have been six in nine years - I don't seem to have the sort of friends who want families!

So, on a twist on the 'Finish or Fling' theme I'm going to do both. If you - or someone you know - has had or is soon to have a baby, I will finish this design, with the baby's name and birthdate, and will add a charm too before finishing this as a bellpull, pinkeep or small pillow (your choice).

Leave a comment below, and if there are several comments, I will make a draw on the 27th January, which is my parent's 42nd wedding anniversary.