A new start for a new life

Well, I meant to post this last night but I got distracted, so here goes.

I know that it looks like a bear, but it is actually a lion without its mane.  This is the start of my Noah's Ark piece for my cousin's baby.  Getting set up was a bit of a pain.  It took me over an hour to get the threads sorted so that I knew what I was doing. They were already on a thread sorter but not numbered, so I had to count the number of threads in each colour and compare them to the list.  I've made my own numbered thread sorters to hold the threads I'm currently working with, but it was a bind to have to mess about with that when I could have been stitching.  In addition, Design Works have used the same symbol but at a different angle or coloured in several times, which means that you have to keep checking that you've got the right thread.  However, I'll give it a bit longer before I decide that it's a must do, rather than a want to do piece.

Then comes the Beetle - there is currently no light at the end of the tunnel on this one.  I filled in the empty space that I left last week on the bonnet, apart from the narrow band of white which runs up the side which is 99.5% fractionals and will take a lot of time for very little show-off value.  I've also finished the pink section and started on a paler pink section above it.  I'll get there in the end.

I managed to finish the bottom row of Carnation last week and have started putting stitches into the first square of column 8.   This has become my in the morning before work piece - my sunrise stitching piece.  It's coming along nicely.


I now need to buy fabric for my other friend's 40th birthday piece, but need to get it from the States as no-one seems to have it here.  I also need to get set up to do Christmas ornaments for my two nieces - I've chosen the designs from a back issue of World of Cross Stitching and now need to organise fabric and threads.


In other news, I went to my friend's Dad's memorial service on Friday.  Over 200 people attended and it was lovely to see what an important influence he had been on so many.  However I spent 30 years knowing the family man, rather than the academic, so it was his son's tribute to him that meant the most to me.


It was Bonfire Night here this weekend so I watched other people's fireworks out of my kitchen window on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night.  I'm sure that I've heard some tonight as well - surely enough is enough!