Secret Stitching Sweetheart & Friendship Exchange

Jo at Serendipitous Stitching has organised a Blog Hop for Valentine's Day - everyone taking part has sent Jo a photo of something they have stitched that is suitable for a friend on Valentine's Day.

Jo has sent everyone one of the photos to include in their blog post - but of course we don't know who's photo we have or who has ours. There is a list of all the participants on Jo's blog, the fun part is visiting all the blogs to see who has your photo.

This is the beautiful photo I received - if this is your beautiful work please reveal yourself by leaving a comment.

Secret Stitching Sweetheart 

Thank you Jo for all your hard work and another great Blog Hop - I'm off to see who has my photo !

Valentine's Day is also the opening day for Needlecraft Haven's Friendship Exchange. I really enjoy organising the exchanges - we are just a few but a very friendly few so a Friendship Exchange was the perfect choice.

Everyone has different stitching commitments and mojos so I decided to make the exchange open to everyone with the first part being to make, stitch or buy a friendship card. The other elements of the exchange were to find a freebie friendship chart online and print it off, include two threads relating to either the chart or the friendship theme and a small friendship gift.

My Friendship Exchange parcel travelled a very long way - just 20 miles up the motorway to Julie who I've been friends with for quite a few years. As well as online we occasionally meet for a coffee, always good fun but the time flies too fast.

I loved the Blue Ribbon Design sampler chart as soon as I saw it and as it only required four threads I popped them all in the parcel.

I included chocolate hearts and flower petals that are hand wash soap sheets and a organiser set that Julie can use for stitching/sewing projects or just general notes.

Friendship chart for Julie from Blue Ribbon Designs 

Happy Valentine's Day Julie 

My Friendship Exchange travelled a little further, it came from Deb in the United States of America. 

Deb sent a beautiful card, two skeins of ThreadWork variegated thread, hand dyed green 28ct fabric and a super chart from Casa Mia. However that was not all - Deb surprised me completely with a beautiful table runner themed on wine (my other hobby which you can read about here) - it is gorgeous and I feel very spoilt - thank you so much Deb.

Beautiful gifts from Deb

Stunning table runner from Deb 

Now it's time to own up - I opened my exchange parcel yesterday, not because I was impatient but because today we are travelling to Cardiff to see our daughter for her birthday. For a change we are taking the train not the car and so being as I had to be ready for a set time this morning I wrote my blog last night (it feels odd to be writing in the future) and saved it as a draft. This morning I just clicked published and hey presto here it is :-)

I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day - with friends, with family and with loved ones