IHSW

I had a great hermitting weekend!  Despite the girls being around and DH not going back to work until Sunday morning, I got loads done :-)  I worked on one of my HAEDs - Tranquility by The Vintage Angel.  She is being stitched one over one, full crosses on 28ct bone jobelan.

The only problem I have now is that iphoto has let me down and just crashes everytime I try to import a photo :-(  I have taken one with my phone and have posted this for the meantime, so sorry no before shot just yet ..

There has been an awful lot of blue but bizarrely I have enjoyed stitching it.  You will see that one of the butterflies is starting to appear at the bottom :-)

It's almost that time again ..

.. so don't forget it's International Hermit & Stitch Weekend starting this Friday.  All you need to do is click on the crab at the top of my page and you can sign up.  It's a great way to meet new blogging friends and is the perfect excuse to sit and stitch all day long - like we need an excuse, right?!

I'll be back later in the week with a proper stitchy update but in the meantime, a big "hullo"! to all my followers, old and new - I can't believe 65 of you read my blog! Thank you!


** edited to add that I've been having blogger issues - it took 5 attempts to get this published and I think that the comments section may still be having a crisis!  If you cannot post a comment to this post, please let me know by commenting on my previous entry and I will try and sort it out! **

.. sigh ..

aaaarrrrrrgggggghhh what is it with me and new starts at the moment??  Why can't I just settle down and get something done ... or maybe even *gasp* finished! I have another newbie in the pipeline - Tranquility by The Vintage Angel.  I couldn't resist and finally bought her in the sale.  Here she is again (I know that you've seen a picture here before but she is sooo gorgeous she is worth another look):

It seems like fate that I have a piece of my favourite bone jobelan in *exactly* the right size so I have to do it ... yes?  Completely dire on the thread front though, I think I have about 6 of the 90 I need - so another order has gone off to Donna at Cross Stitch Heaven.  But, after looking through my stash, another! Ta-da! some of the threads I need for the first column are in Dragon Charmer!  I could "borrow" them and put them back when the order comes from Donna.  So ... fate strikes again ... yes?!

That means I'll have had 3 new starts in just over a month!  Yes I know no-one is counting but seriously??  These are HAEDs we are talking about ... it's not like they are a short term commitment .. I *really* need to get a grip on myself!

IHSW 16-18 September 2011

No before picture for me this time as I had yet another new start ;-D Gypsy Firefly by Aimee Stewart charted by HAED.  This is how she will look when she is done:

And this is my progress after the weekend.  Stitched on 28ct light moss jobelan, one over one and full crosses:

I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, far too many things going on and the girls didn't give me much time to stitch.  Hey ho, tomorrow is another day!

I've had to have a little re-organise :-)

Since we added Missie and Jess the kittens to our family, my stitchy stash has been increasingly in danger!  At first, they left it well alone but now Jess has decided that she rather likes the taste of DMC, Missie likes to swipe my needles and they both like to sleep in my workbasket!  

I am so used to be able to leave everything as I left it that it has come as rather a shock that I will now have to pack away each night.  So, never one to miss an opportunity to spend money on stash, I have made a couple of purchases to make the tidying away a little easier! :-D

First of all, I invested in a little unit with drawers in.  The gap between the wall and the sofa is so small that I really didn't think I would find one that would work.  But this little unit is perfect - I picked it up in Argos (and it comes in other colours too).  The top drawer has my threads and wips for my QS, the second drawer my BAP and the bottom one has my spare q-snaps and bits and pieces.  The top is also useful for standing my ORT tin on ;-)

But, not content with that, I decided I wanted needed something to pack away my current wip each night.  I didn't want to have to rummage around in the drawers to get everything together each time I wanted to stitch.  So, I found this!

Cath Kidston

I first saw it when I went to London at the beginning of the holidays in another colourway but this one has just been released and I just had to have it. So now I have my very own caravan - it really does make me smile everytime I look at it! 

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