Light the blue touch paper and retire ...

There's been no such thing as a quiet night in this week - it's been one explosion after another.  The Hindu festival of Diwali started last Sunday and finished on Thursday, and it was Bonfire Night on Tuesday.  So every night has been firework night!  I went to one myself on Friday night at my sister's - just a small gathering of family, neighbours and friends, including the most gorgeous and placid six month old baby girl, who just watched the pretty lights and smiled.  I'm hoping that things calm down now for a bit.  There will be fireworks again later on this month when they have the official Christmas lights switch-on, but at least that is only the one night.

On the stitching front, I have a start and a sort-of finish to show you.

I'm starting with my finish - here is Serena with all her backstitch completed.  When she is beaded (eventually), she will have beads down the centre of her skirt, beads in her collar and hair, and beads round her head and at the bottom of her wingtips.  I think that she looks good now, but will look even better when she is really finished.

I did start the next angel, but having had to frog every stitch that I'd done twice, firstly because I'd not read the instructions properly, and secondly because the blending filament was not co-operating despite a liberal coating of Thread Heaven, I gave it up as a bad job.  The current plan is to start again at a different point on the chart to avoid total frustration, so hopefully I will have something to show.

This is a not very good photo of my new start, April.  The ecru is not standing out from the sand coloured linen very well, so I am hoping that when I backstitch it, that will make it pop.  I had to start this twice as well.  The first time I was using two threads over two, but the coverage was not what I wanted, so I had to frog and re-start with three threads.  It's going to use a lot more thread than I am used to, and as I had to 'borrow' some skeins from other projects, I can see some thread purchasing in the not too distant future.

Last but not least, Train of Dreams.  This benefited from my frustration with the angels as I got a whole block stitched last night.  Today I stitched the two whole and one partial blocks required to finish column 3 and got a few stitches in at the top of column 4.  So good progress this week.

In other news, I maintained at Slimming World last week, so am still weighing in at 11 stone, 12lb.  There are two factors at play here.  Firstly, although I like eating, I don't like cooking - to me it seems a waste of time that could be spent doing other things.  That is why I eat a lot of pasta - it's quick and easy, and it doesn't matter if you don't stir it all the time.  

The second factor is the time of year.  Once the clocks go back, I tend to suffer from seasonal depression, and for me symptoms include tiredness, apathy and a generally negative viewpoint.  I do have a daylight lamp at home, which does help, but I work in an office with no natural light, and that doesn't!  So things which require a positive effort, like slimming, become much harder this time of year.  Stitching helps, because I have to concentrate on what I'm doing and therefore am not thinking negative thoughts.  And every year is different, some better and some worse.  At this point though, there's a long way to go before the sun comes back, so please bear with me.

All the best to you and yours, and may the frog keep well clear of your stitching!