Hasn't worked very well, has it!?

The whole point of these questions was to try and encourage me to blog everyday.  Well .. uh .. nope, that ain't happened!  Here we are on 4 November and I've missed three days' worth already .. oops!  Right, catch up time.

Day 2: What is your current stitching project?

At the moment I am working on one of my HAED projects, Tranquility.

Day 3: Do you have any other WIPs?

Seriously, is this a loaded question or what lol !  Of course I have other WIPs, or should I call them (slow)WIPs?  I have - actually I am not going to say how many - other HAEDs on the go and also some kits that are in my 'deep storage' that really ought to be finished at some point.

Day 4: How did you learn to stitch?

I bought a kit and followed the instructions!  So totally self-taught as no-one in my family, or none of my friends come to think of it, were stitchers.  My Nan used to knit and crochet and my Mum can knit and is great with a sewing machine, but at the time she wasn't a stitcher (although I have now turned her to the dark side, along with my sister!).

Not really much else to blog about today and, most boringly, no photos :-( I've been making steady progress on Tranquility and had hoped to have half the page done by now but I'm not quite there yet.  Hopefully I might get caught up a bit over the weekend, children allowing.

We've had the final page for the SAL today too, so I really ought to do some more on Curl Up as I think I am a couple of posts short of the requirement to qualify for the remainder of the SAL charts.  I  also need to do some more work on Ice Wind, but I just can't seem to tear myself away from Tranquility.  On the plus side though, I have met - quite unintentionally - some of my yearly goals on the HAED BB!  Yay, go me!

Finally!

I have at last finished page 1 of Curl Up! It has taken me weeks! I have never, ever struggled with a page as much as I did with this one! Here he is:


It has been busy chez moi just recently. DH home, kids off school and I enjoyed a couple of days in London seeing a show and doing lots and lots of shopping! A friend and I wandered around Covent Garden for hours, and of course spent a few hours in Selfridges too ;-) We saw Pygmalion with Rupert Everett (cor!) and Kara Tointon and Diana Rigg. Totally brilliant, one of my favourite plays. It doesn't matter how many times you see it, it is still fresh and relevant today.

But now that it's settled down a bit and that ****** page is behind me, I can get on with something else for a while so I am going to do a bit on FF150. I've not stitched on her in ages so she fits nicely into the slow wip sal on the BB this week. This is how she looked when I left her last, just over a page done:



Still not sure about the green, but I'll keep going!

An icy wind blows in a page finish!

After the SK SAL week I am pleased that I am on course and have finished the first page of Ice Wind! The first time ever on a SAL that I am actually keeping up. Of course, now that I have said that I will now fall woefully behind! Here she is in all her first page glory:

I am avoiding the themed SAL this week - which is new start! New start?! I really don't need another one right now lol (but more of that below) so I have gone back to Curl Up with a hope of getting at least the first page finished and hopefully a bit more too. It's nice to have some bright colours after the tans, blues and creams of Ice Wind.

Now, a bit of news, but I won't go in to too many details right now - at least not until I have the project in my hands. I have signed up for a memorial stitch for a fellow stitcher who sadly passed away this last week. She was far too young, only 26 and had undergone a heart/lung transplant last year. She died very suddenly and has left a huge void in the lives of her family, friends and online buddies. I hope that the project that is being planned will be something that her family will treasure. RIP Chelsea, God bless.

well, I am a busy blogger :-)

I must be a bit like a bus - nothing for ages then loads come along together :-D Lots of things have been happening for a change!

First my update for Curl Up after the July SAL. I have, at last, got through the worst of the decanter - whoop whoop! I can honestly say it was absolutely painful to stitch and I'm glad it's done. It took sooooo long to get through those columns. But now he is 5 columns done. Still nowhere near being on target but hopefully progress will be a bit faster now.

So now I am going back to Ophelia. She's been shouting at me for at least a week so once I had finished with Curl Up she went right back on the frame. I'm still stitching the first page, so lots and lots of black with the odd splash of dark green and dark grey!

I finally invested in a laying tool (one that sits on your finger) and I think it has helped with my tension which I was struggling with on the dark colours. I'm enjoying trying it out. I thought that it would be really annoying sat on your finger but tbh once it's been on for a few minutes, you don't even notice it.

I submitted my Porthole finish for the HAED reward program this week - such a fabulous and extremely generous scheme. You finish a HAED, send your pictures to Michele and she sends you a free chart! How amazing is that! I chose QS Dahlia by Hannah Lynn. Don't you just love those fizzy summer colours?

And, I won in the Fairy Day 2011 draw! I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened that thread and saw my name! I was expecting to congratulate the winners but I had won!!!! I got to chose a QS as my prize :-D I was trying to choose between Tag Alongs by Hannah Lynn and the QS of Amethyst Moon by Nene Thomas BUT the winner was:

QS Moonglow by Hannah Lynn!

I just love the tat on her back and the colours - purple of course and the colours in the moon are so cute!

Finally, it's my blogging birthday today! One whole year already since my first blog post :-D Thank you so much for reading my blog and here's to another stitchy year!

So that's it! More excitement than I can handle in a week that's for sure lol

Another Fairy Day has been and gone ...

so here is my post-Fairy Day SAL update ....

For Fairy Day itself I was working on SK Sunny (from last years SAL!). I'm still on the dreaded confetti that is her hair and boy is it frustrating! Over the four days I had allowed for her I only managed to complete the column I had left her at in November 2010, so still a long way to go :-( Here she is:

After that, I made a start on Ice Wind for this year's SK SAL.

Opinion was divided on this one and the wonderful Michele at HAED has, as a result, done a rechart of her face and neck as some stitchers thought she didn't look enough of a 'English Rose' with the colours she had used. I have both versions and originally intended to stitch the alternative version, but after I had put the first few stitches of her neck in I have now gone with the original. It seemed to me that the neck colour was just too similar to her hair. So, we will see how she goes.

I had hoped to get half the page done but I ran out of steam halfway through the week, so managed just three columns. Hopefully next month I will be able to complete the page and will be back on target. Here she is stitched one over one, full crosses on 28ct ice blue jobelan:

So SAL week this week is the QS, so back to my little draggie on Curl Up. Fudgey has sent page 4 through this month but I am sooooo far off that it is untrue lol. I am hoping to get page one done this week - but we shall see ...

A little progress

but not much :-( the ole stitchy bug is still mostly absent, but it is probably not helped by me having jetlag after visiting NY last weekend (which was fab!).

Anyway, in an effort to kick the little bugger up the butt, I've decided to follow the SALs on the HAED board for a bit. So this week it was the freebie SAL week and some progress was made - YAY! That's three columns now done and so only one more of that painfully slow decanter to go.

Curl Up after the June 2011 SAL

So, this week is the swip SAL and, let's face it, most of my HAEDs could qualify for that one! I've decided on Early Visit as she has been sadly neglected for a long time and to be honest, I need a break from the confetti. I'm hoping that the blocks of colour will stitch up quickly and give me some visable progress on something!

Early Visit at April 2011

The week after is the confetti SAL and that will have to be Sunny as I need to complete her for one of my yearly goals.

Speaking of yearly goals, it's review time already! Looking back I think that I may have been overly optimistic lol! So far I have only achieved one of my goals - to finish Porthole. I think that if I follow the SALs I may be able to meet the others, but hey who knows!

Not feeling quite so guilty now ..

... that I have at last made a start on the SAL Curl Up piece :-) I've managed to get in just over a thousand stitches and despite the numerous colour changes, I am enjoying stitching him and wish that I had started him sooner!

After plugging away for a couple of hours with brown, brown and brown I was starting to get a little - shall we say - annoyed. But then I pushed my frame away and lo! there were all the little details that you really just don't see up close and yes, all of a sudden all that work was soooo worth it. Here is progress after the May 2011 SAL week:

SAL Curl Up with a Good Book

(c) Spangler and HAED

He's a bit messy with my parked threads everywhere but you can see the detail coming out in the book. You wouldn't believe the colours in the decanter - pink purple green and more!

Anyway, I've decided to carry on with him for a bit and try and catch up. I've got the first three pages to work on and I don't think page 4 will come until July so I've got a bit of time ... I'll see how it goes.

It's that time of the year again .. already

And the sign up for the HAED SK SAL has started. It only seems like 5 minutes ago we were signing up for the QS SAL but we are already 5 months in! As entry for the new SAL doesn't close until the end of the month, I'm not going to say here what I'm doing and you will have to wait until sign up is closed before I post a picture lol! As usual I have signed up despite already having sooooo many wips! 

The one good thing to come out of it though is that I have at long last made a start on the QS SAL Curl Up with a Good Book. I felt so guilty even contemplating another new start when I hadn't even started my draggie, that I quickly gridded up and got started. Some of the threads have been pinched for other projects but they were easily found. 

So far it is a little slow going as there is quite a bit of confetti and colour changes, but not too bad. I've managed to get about 700 stitches done in the space of the last three nights so I'm quite pleased with progress. I'll post a picture when it's worth showing. So far, when you are looking up close, it looks like nothing but already from a small distance you can see the swirl on the book. Very clever charting as usual from HAED.

Ta da!

Here she is, my pretty Porthole mermaid - halfway done. I am loving stitching her!

Porthole as at 3 February 2011

I have at last ordered my threads for the 2011 SAL (stitching Curl Up with a Good Book). I only needed 21 colours which was a great bonus! I just need to grid my fabby and then hopefully I can make a start for the March SAL week. I'm not going to be able to keep up with those that have already started, but hopefully I will be able to make my yearly goal of at least getting one page finished :-)

In the meantime, onwards with my mermie!

New Year, new project, new goals

It's been a long time! I just couldn't face anything for a while after the disaster on FF88. I ended up having to just bin her :-( I knew that I wouldn't be able to carry on stitching when I knew there was a messy bit - my OCD just wouldn't let me lol

So, on 2 December I started a(nother!) new HAED. This one is Porthole of Fantasy 1 and I love her! She is being stitched whole crosses, one over one on 28ct bone jobelan. I finished the first page last night and I'm really happy with progress so far. It's a good mix of blocks of colour and confetti stitches and there are also some sparklies in her. I'm looking forward to page two as that has the beginning of the pink dragon on it. Here she is:

Porthole of Fantasy 1 JBG at 4 Jan 2011

So .... the New Year is upon us already. Last year went sooooo quickly! Therefore, time to think about new things - new starts and new goals.

First, the new HAED sal has started, this time it's a year long and I have chosen to stitch the QS of Curl Up with a Good Book by Spangler. Surprisingly for me, I haven't started him yet and, in fact, haven't even got my threads! I really want to get some more done on Porthole (and hopefully finish her) before I make a start and if that means joining the sal in March, then *hey* whatever. As long as I post six wip photos through the year then I will be eligible for the other charts, so perfectly achievable :-)

Talking of the perfectly achievable, it's time to think about my stitching goals for the year. My addiction to HAED is as strong as ever and I cannot see myself stitching anything other than them again this year, their pull is just to hard to resist! So, I need to decide what my goals will be. So far, I've got these in mind but I do have a few more days to make my mind up:

• To complete Porthole 1, currently one page done of six (two of which are small partials).
• To complete the Sunny SK sal from last year. I've just started page 2 of 3.
• To start Curl Up and complete at least one page and two pages if possible.
• To complete at least two pages of my Wall, Dragon Charmer. Currently at about half a page done.
• To start and complete at least one page of a new BAP start. This will probably be The Three Fates by JBG but could change nearer the time lol!

More than enough to keep me going for a year I think!