Wow, it has been aaaages!

I just looked at my last post and it was 11 August!  It just goes to show you that the summer holidays really do nothing for your free time.  I had so little time to stitch, let alone blog :-(   But it was good to have fun with my girls, even if the weather was - as usual - disappointing!

Now the girls are back at school, DH is back at work for three weeks and the perfect time of year for staying in with your stitching is on it's way, it's time for a little me time.  So, in an effort to get my stitchin butt back in gear I am going to join in with the International Hermit and Stitch Weekend!!  I found out about it on Joyze's blog right here and I've posted the IHSW button here on my blog too.  Just click on the button to take you to the information page :-)

I think I am going to use the opportunity to make a new start - yes another one!  BUT this new one is a big love for me and I've waited quite a while for Michele at HAED to release it - it's Gypsy Firefly by Aimee Stewart.  I totally adore this one!! I often dreamt as a child of having my own gypsy caravan and travelling the highways and byways in it.  One of my favourite books was Danny Champion of the World, which if you have read it you will know that Danny and his Dad live in one!  Here she is:

I'm also adding another gorgeous chart to my stash this week and really must resist the temptation to start her too.  It's this one - Tranquility by The Vintage Angel.  Totally gorgeous and sooo peaceful!

But what have you been stitching, in those rare moments you have had to stitch, I hear you say?! Well, I am ashamed to say, it was another new start!  I had one of those weeks where nothing was calling to me (Really? Out of the all the wips I have? Yeah right!!) so I started Moonglow by Hannah Lynn.  Well my justification was that I didn't have a Hannah in my wips ;-D  Here is my progress so far, please excuse the gaps, but I was missing some threads.

Isn't it great - I just love the colours in Hannah's work.  And, now that I've got a picture, I can really see the moon coming together, up close it has just looked like a blob!

So, that's me caught up except for the blog I drafted over the summer with my new storage stash which I will add pictures to and post in a bit.

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.

A little update this time :-)

After my last mammoth post, a smaller update this time. I worked on Portrait of Ophelia this last week as part of the HAED ufo/swip SAL. I've been itching to get back to her, even if all I am stitching is black, black and more black! I managed to get a fair bit done, so am now 6 columns down and just 2 away from the page finish. Yay!

So back to Ice Wind this week for the SK SAL. I'm aiming for a page finish this week so that I am on track to finish her in time.

I've decided not to join in the themed SAL next week as it is a lethal one - the new start SAL! I so do not need another new start! So, I will use next week to make sure that I get my page on Ice Wind done, and will go back to Ophelia to get her page done too.

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

Jasmine Becket-Griffith is so cool!

Jasmine

When I completed Porthole of Fantasy 1, I sent a photo of her to Jasmine as I thought she might like to see how she turned out. Well, I got a reply today and here it is (I'm pretty sure she won't mind me putting this here):

"Hey Jo!!

I was going through my ancient Spam folder and for some reason this was in here! =)

I wanted to thank you so much for sending this pic over - she looks awesome!!!

Hope your summer is going well!!

Jasmine"

I really wasn't expecting her to reply so this was a great surprise and really made my day :-)

Half year total ...

For a bit of fun, we record our hours stitched each week - and then each month - on Bubble. It's really interesting to see just how much, or how little, stitching you manage to get done each week. My hours are noted each day in my stitching diary (where I also make notes about what I'm stitching that week and how it is going) and then posted on a Monday on Bubble.

As we are now halfway through the year (already! now where has the time gone?) I thought that I would post on here how I am doing so far. So, drum roll please, to the end of June I have stitched for 415 hours and 50 minutes!

I can't believe I've got that much done. Last year, from March to December (I didn't note January and February's hours) I managed 578 hours and 45 minutes so I am catching up on that one already!

Anyway back to stitching, this week is the year long SAL - so Curl Up again. Here is how I left him after the last SAL:

I am still in the nightmare that is the decanter :-( It took me 90 minutes to do just the first 10x10 block! So sloooow going but I will beat it LOL I am aiming to just get this one column done this week, so as not to put too much pressure on myself - I'll only get annoyed if I think I will do more and then not get it done!

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 ...

By jiminie ..

... I think it worked! My stitchy bug has returned :-) After a terribly long (for me) absence, he has finally made his way home thanks to my joining in with the HAED swip SAL!

I worked on Early Visit this week and I managed to complete the whole page, so I actually stitched 5 columns. I've now got to her hair, so the next page should be a little more interesting. Here she is:

The next two weeks are the Fairy Day and SK SALs. So for those, Sunny as I really need to get going on her and, of course, Ice Wind (a lovely new start).

Here is Sunny how I last left her in November 2010!

I'm going to give her my full attention for 4 days and then will settle her into the regular swip SAL each month in the hope that I can get her done. Page 2 is confetti mad but page 3 should be a quicker stitch. She is being stitched on 25ct, which I have now decided is NOT my thing. I don't really like my coverage on it but it does make a nice change from the 28ct and is giving my eyes a bit of a rest :-)

Finally, Ice Wind. No before picture but I will make a start on her on Friday. Hopefully by then I will have the rest of my threads so that I can start her fully kitted up.

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!