FFFoF "Black" Swap Part One

This Weave swap theme was quite tricky - "black" has so many possibilities. This is my piece for Sister Twisty of the amazing catfish. I was originally going for black lacy flowers and spirals, but Gavin decided evil sheep were the way to go.


Luckily I'm a bit of a goth so had lots of black supplies. I certainly got lots of practice with french knots.


I ignored everything I learnt about french knots at the RSN, no way was I going to try to thread that many strands through a small needle so I would only have to do one even knot rather than 4.


I've mostly been doing my Frosted Pumpkin Halloween Town cross stitch and designing my next Unexpected Kitty embroidery pattern, but it's been too hot to do much crafting in the south of the UK recently. Flash has also developed a liking for sleeping on my chest which doesn't help! He and Miskit are gradually getting used to each other, a few tiny spats but I caught them both sitting on the garden bench yesterday so I'm not worried about needing Jackson Galaxy just yet...

Meet Lord Flashheart!

We adopted another cat from a local rescue shelter last weekend. This is Lord Flashheart, Flash for short:


He wasn't treated well by his previous owner, so he's really small for his age (5) and has loads of almost-bald bits where he had so many fleas. He is very talkative, loving and attention-seeking, and acts like he has lived here forever.  Miskit is behaving really well, although she hisses if he gets within a couple of feet of her. I think she's more upset about being stuck in the house for a couple of weeks until we can let Flash outside.

Within 2 days he was letting me stroke his tummy, and has for some reason fallen in love with my ukulele case.


Exciting news about my embroidery patterns (exciting to me, anyway)

My bee/flower pattern is currently the second best-selling free embroidery pattern on Craftsy! I have no idea where it was featured, but lots of people seem to have downloaded it yesterday.
It was originally part of the Bugs & Fishes flower tutorial linkup, there are loads of other lovely tutorials and patterns here.