What happened to the weekend?

It's Sunday night and very little has gone as planned this weekend!  It's fair to say that everything has got done, but not in the order that was intended.  I have a haircut and a new suit for my interview on Tuesday, I've done the laundry and the grocery shopping, but its all been a bit on the stressful side.

Anyway I do have some update photos to show you, including a finish.

This is the Christmas ornament for my eldest niece.  It was quite fun to stitch up and has come out quite well, I think.

This is the Christmas ornament for my littlest niece.  I'm quite pleased that I managed to get all the framework stitched so you could tell what it is going to be.  I'm going to be making some colour changes on this so that the angel has the same colour hair as its recipient.

The next deadline is a baby deadline.  I don't feel that I'm making enough progress on this, but my stitching time has been so limited recently and I have so many deadlines to hit that I'm starting to get a bit nervy.

With things not going to plan this weekend, I only managed to get an hour or so stitching done on the Beetle today.  I've been filling in with red round the orange wiggle at the top left hand side.

On the subject of cars, I went to a party last night and came away with some furry black dice to hang in my car.  This is a nostalgia thing - I used to have furry black dice in my first car until they had a close encounter with a small child.  Anyway, I'm going to call it a day before I fall asleep with my head on the keyboard.

Stitching for others!

As per last week's post, I have only been stitching for others this week - Carnation is on hold for the time being, despite my wish to get page 1 finished before Christmas/New Year.

Starting with the closest deadline first, here is my progress on this year's ornament for my eldest niece.  I completed the framework first and am now working on the filling in.  I hope to be showing you a finish next week, and the start of the ornament for my littlest niece.  It's been nice and straightforward, working on this piece in the quiet time between breakfast and setting off for work.

The next deadline coming up is my cousin's baby due at the beginning of January.  As you can see, I've opted to work on the elephant next.  There has been some frogging on this one and also an annoying tendency to miss the odd stitch and have to go back to it with a fresh piece of thread.  Work has been done on this at lunchtimes at work and in the evenings.  This will move into my sunrise slot once the girls' ornaments are complete.  

Finally, the Beetle.  This lost out last week so this week I've finished the pale pink section at the top and added the somewhat wiggly orangey (although it doesn't look it) section.  I still need to do the white line up the side, but the top of the orangey bit butts onto the bottom of the front windscreen, so I am getting there slowly.  This still needs a lot of work to be done by the end of February, and I also have the Jayne Netley Mayhew piece to start when the fabric gets here, and get finished by the same time as the Beetle.  However the JNM piece is smaller and will be more transportable.

Well, that's the stitching sorted.  How about life in general?  Well, I'm a happy bunny cos I have a job interview at the end of the month for what could possibly be the perfect job, so please keep your fingers crossed for me!

We celebrated Mum's birthday this week.  My Dad, my sister and I clubbed together to buy her two vintage dolls houses - one of which I showed here.  We also played Pass the Parcel and my sister baked a cake.  It was good to spend time together.

I also spent time with my nieces yesterday.  My sister was having a weekend away and my BIL was refereeing a football match.  The girls and I had a good time on the whole (a bit of poking each other and some tears), and my BIL had cooked sausage casserole for our tea which meant that I didn't have to cook when I got home and could work on the Noah's Ark piece.

Well, I'm going to finish here cos I need to make tomorrow's lunch and I want to get a fairly early night, so I'll see you at the end of the week.

Decisions, decisions!

Well, folks, I've been thinking it over and have finally come to a decision - Carnation is going to have to go on hold!  Christmas is just six weeks away and my cousin's baby is due early January.  Then I have to get the Beetle finished and framed for the beginning of March.  I also have the Jayne Netley Mayhew piece to get done for the same time, but had to order the fabric from the US this morning, so that isn't even started.  In order to hit all my deadlines, Carnation is dropping out of the list while I get cracking on ornaments for my two nieces.  I also have to get the beads on Poinsettia and some sort of finish worked out for that before 17 December.


I overslept this morning, so laundry and housework took precedence over working on the Beetle.  However I must get a grip with this piece.  Part of the problem is that because I taped all the sections of my working copy of the chart together, the only surface big enough to lay it on is my bed!  Therefore it is not easily transportable and can't be worked on elsewhere.

I did get another two blocks done on Carnation - top right, column 8.  This means that I have started page 2 already.  My plan for page 2 is to work across the page, left to right, one row at a time, instead of the current one column down, one row across method.  That came about because I started off dotting about, doing as much as I could of one symbol before moving on to the next.  Then I had to fill in the gaps.  I shall miss working on this - it has been my sunrise piece, the piece I work on between breakfast and leaving for work.

Next up is Noah's Ark.  The lion is now complete, apart from the backstitching.  He still looks a bit like a bear, but I'm hoping that once the backstitch is done, that will change.  I now have to choose between the elephant or the zebra.  You'll have to wait and see which comes next.

Last up is my new start, a Christmas ornament for my eldest niece.  The plan is to make them both an ornament every year.  This year, the ornaments are stained glass motifs from the Design Library in issue 144 of World of Cross Stitching.  As you can see, I've started on the framework of this spray of holly.  This is the second shot at this section - the frogs have already been out to play on this one!  These ornaments will be replacing Carnation as my sunrise piece.


I hope that all is going well with your WIPs - are you joining in Measi's 2012 WIPocalypse?

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!

Happy Dancing!

Tonight I have two finishes to report - the Robin and the Xmas Tree.  Both need to be finish finished, but the final stitches are in!

I put the last stitches into the Robin yesterday after a little frogging for the ID, and then washed and pressed it today.  I now have three weeks in which to find a suitable frame, lace it, frame it and wrap it.  I really like it - I hope my friend does too.

The other finish was this little Xmas Tree - the last of the back stitch went in early this morning.  It has also been washed and pressed, as have the two other little Mouseloft pieces that I did earlier on.  Now I just need to make them up into cards if I can find suitable colours - this is on a creamy yellow aida (hasn't photographed well) and the other two are on a pale blue.  Not exactly Christmassy colours despite the designs.

I also washed and pressed the Poinsettia that I finished a while ago.  That is now ready to be beaded, something I've not tried before.  The deadline for getting it beaded and finish finished is mid December, so watch this space.

On to work in progress.  This week you can actually see what I've done on the Beetle without going back and looking at the previous post.  A small frog visited this morning while I was working on this, but only about half a dozen stitches.  That's what happens when you are doing the laundry and handwashing stitching pieces as well as actually stitching.  There's still a long way to go on this one so I'm thinking that perhaps I need to give this an evening in the week as well as Sunday mornings.  I'll let you know.


I got another two blocks done on Carnation - it's confetti time again.  However I only have two more full blocks to go on this page and then it is on to the partial blocks in column 8 and row 10.  The plan is to get page 1 done before Christmas.

However, the kit has arrived for my cousin's baby and I need to get cracking on that.  The aida for that was washed and pressed this morning as well in order to get the creases out.  I've measured it up and it looks as if it will fit on my Lapman.  Once I get it all sorted out, I think that that will be my travelling piece (at least I will give it a whirl).

In addition, I think that I've found the piece for my other friend's 40th birthday - it is a Jayne Netley Mayhew cat from a very old issue of Cross Stitch Gold.  I'll need to buy some fabric for it - 28 count desert sand evenweave.  I had been thinking about doing some Ginger Tom bookmarks as they would be easy to send to the States, but if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well.  At the moment, I'm thinking on stitching it and sending it unframed, a) for ease of postage and b) cos I don't know what their decor looks like out there.

And lastly, but definitely not least, I've applied for a new job!  It is the perfect job - using all my skills and qualifications, regular foreign travel, more money and I can walk to work!  They've acknowledged my application - now I just have to wait to see what happens.

Life's too short!

My friend's Dad died this week - I'd known him for about 30 years, he was 18 months younger than my Dad.  He was diagnosed with cancer too late for them to be able to do anything for him.  My friend doesn't hit 40 until the Spring.  It's not fair, life's not fair.  He was a lovely man and will be much missed.  I feel so lucky to still have my Dad - I just wish he'd pack up smoking again.  Both my friends that I'm currently stitching for have lost their Dads - my Beetle friend lost her Dad 12 years ago.

It makes me realise once again that we only have this one life with this particular group of people and that we shouldn't waste it.  Tell the people that you love how much you love them and tell them often - you never can tell when the sand is going to run out in your egg timer or theirs.  I love you, Je t'aime, Ich liebe dich - it doesn't matter how you say it - just say it!

Now that's the deep stuff out of the way, here's an update on my stitching.

Robin is not far from finished.  Just a few blackberry blossoms to put in behind him and then add my initials and the year.  I should get him done well before my deadline.  I've enjoyed stitching him but I do wonder how different he would look if I had been able to stitch him in the original threads instead of a DMC conversion.

The pesky thing about the Beetle at the moment is that even though I put in several hours of work on it this morning, you have to look carefully to see where I've been stitching.  I've been working on the left hand side (facing you) of the bonnet, putting in another strip of colour up the side, plus a few more stitches on the right hand side.  Its the fractionals that take up all the time - if it was all whole stitches like the Robin, I'm sure that I would be much further on.

It's not a very clear photo of Carnation this week - maybe my hand shook or something.  We're back into the confetti zone so only two blocks completed this week.  That leaves me with four blocks on this row before moving onto column 8 which is partly on this page and partly on page 2.  I might get page 1 finished before the New Year, but I'm still waiting for the kit to arrive for my cousin's baby.  Until I've had a good look at that, I've no way of knowing how much time it is going to take.

I'm also thinking that I should stitch something for my friend who's just lost her Dad - a little something for her 40th birthday in the Spring.  So that's the Robin for mid November, the Noah's Ark for January, the Beetle and something with cats for early March, plus Carnation, plus Christmas bits for Marie Curie.  On top of that, working full-time and having some sort of social life with family and friends.  At what point do I eat and sleep?  Answers on a postcard, please!

Why does Monday come round so soon?

Well, this is a Monday update because we had family visiting over the weekend so although I got the update photos taken, they didn't get as far as the blog. 

I also climbed a cliff (actually the side of a disused railway cutting) with my sister and her two littlies so that they could see what was on the other side of the fence at the top.  I was a sedentary, book reading child, as nesh then as I am now.  Although I have lived in this area for over 38 years, I have never climbed the side of the railway cutting until now - maybe life really does begin at 40!

Anyway, on to stitching.  Starting with the smallest piece first, the end is in sight for this little Christmas tree.  A few more X's and then the backstitch.  I attended another Marie Curie meeting last week and we are hoping to have a little stall at the beginning of December to get our fundraising underway.  We have also planned a list of events for the next year, in draft at the moment and needing to be tightened up, but we are making progress.

The robin himself is now complete, including the backstitch.  All that remains is to do the other part of the branch behind him with its attendant blackberry blossoms.  I am planning to frame him myself but need to get him finished before I can go frame hunting with Mum.

Steady progress on the Beetle's bonnet assisted by the fact that Mum had visitors and so couldn't come round.  Even better, Dad has now sorted out her broadband contract and her hub has arrived.  They just need to get set up and then I have to go round and teach her how to blog as she has a history project on the go that she wants to write about.

I got three blocks completed on Carnation this week - the bottom two in the right hand column and the one on the left on the bottom row.  I just need to finish the bottom row and then I will be working on column 8 which is partly on page 2, followed by row 10 which is partly on page 4.  I am hoping to get page 1 completed before Christmas, even though the frogs appeared this morning when I had moved onto the next block.  Basically I wasn't quite awake and got two similar shaped symbols confused, which was a bit of a pain to deal with before 8am.

I have also now chosen and bought the kit for my cousin's baby due in January 2012.  I know that I haven't left myself a lot of time and I will probably not get it done quite in time, but Mum and I have just been so wary of even thinking about things for the baby up till now because of past history.  However I have made the decision and must now just wait for this lovely colourful piece to fly its way across the Atlantic - cheaper from the States via ebay than buying it here in the UK.  As you can see, it is a Noah's Ark and it comes from the Tobin Baby Collection of Design Works Crafts.  I'm looking forward to stitching this piece for a much wanted little one.