IHSW - November 2012 Report

Well, I have quite a lot to report this time.  A finish, a finish finish and a new start.

"I'm Snowman A and I'm very pleased to meet you.  I hope that you will soon be meeting my good friend, Elf H."  So that is one 2012 Christmas ornament for my nieces off the blocks.  The plan is to start Elf H during my lunch break tomorrow and then take him to Sewing Day on Thursday.  The only change made to Snowman A is to backstitch the outline of the white areas to make him stand out better - he was designed to be stitched on pale blue aida rather than white.

The finish finish is Little Miss Gorgeous' Teddy stocking to go on her first Christmas tree.  I'll give him a press before I send him off, but I think that he has come out nicely.  Her parents love the Noah's Ark, so I think that they will appreciate this piece too.

This is not a good photo of my new start but as it is being stitched on 28 count white linen, I think that the fabric doesn't help with photos at this early stage.  This is Just Nan's Serena, being the first of four angels that I am planning to stitch on one piece of linen in response to a request from my Mum.  This is going to tick off a number of firsts for me - first piece on linen, first piece using special stitches, first piece using Kreinik threads - and second piece with beading.  I'm using a 30 inch frame with my Lowery floor stand, so another BAP to join Carnation and Train.

Another block completed on Train and some good overlap into the block below.  I lost the morning light again today due to having to make an early shopping trip to accommodate Mum's birthday tea, but still some progress made.  Despite the issues of using 25 count fabric, I do like the way this looks and how close it is to the original picture.  

Lovely progress on Carnation this week.  In to row 3 and it was so nice and straightforward that I got four blocks done instead of my usual three.  That puts me a tiny bit ahead of my deadline of finishing page 3 by the second anniversary.

So for this week coming, I have a Sewing Day with the Patchwork Group on Thursday.  My plan is to take Elf H and crack on with him with the hope of getting both ornaments made up by the end of the month.

Hope all is well with you and yours, and that you are keeping snuggly warm in this wintry weather.

Slow and steady does it.

This is not going to be a long post tonight as we had family visiting this weekend, which affected the amount of stitching done, but a baby is a lovesome thing, God wot.

Starting with my Christmas snowman, I took him to Patchwork Group this week.  I had to frog his hat almost immediately because I had gone one stitch to the left too many.  However by the end of the evening, he had hat, face and a good start on a body.  The remainder of his body and the start of his blue A got done on Saturday night.  I rather think that I am going to have to backstitch him as well as his A - he was designed to be stitched on pale blue aida rather than white, so does not show up brilliantly.

Train has really suffered this week.  Due to my cousin's visit, I have only put half a dozen or so stitches into this today, but I have completed another block, bringing the total to 17.  Hopefully better luck next week.

On to Carnation, which got its regulation three blocks again this week.  One more block on the current row and then down to row 3 next week.  My camera lost the plot taking this photo - I took the picture and a message came on the screen - "Blink detected".  If you can see anything in this picture capable of blinking, then you have better eyes than me!

Next, my frames came for Mum's Angels and for Four Seasons.  The Angels will have to come first, but it did take two of us to get the fabric onto the clip frame properly.  Now I just have to get my thread organisers sorted and get started.

Finally I had a quick word with my littlest niece today when she came round to my parents' house to see the baby.  It turns out that she wants a picture similar to the one I did for her big sister (see Sunflowers on my 2011 Finish page).  This means that Mum and I will have to do some serious adapting of the Sunflower chart - reversing it is just going to be the start as I really don't want to do the exact same piece.

Anyway, here's wishing you all well for another week, especially anyone still suffering from Sandy chaos.  And as it is Remembrance Sunday, at the going down of the sun, we will remember those who gave their lives that we might live freely.  Willie and Jack, your names live on in our hearts.

Help needed!

I have a little problem relating to the fabrics that I have so badly photographed here.  Z, the honorary member of our Patchwork Group, came back from Turkey with a range of fabrics, including these.  As a result, the group is now faced with a challenge.  By Easter next year, we have to create a piece 6 inches by 24 inches (approx. 15 cm by 60cm for metric people) using our selection of fabrics.  Personally I wasn't keen on any of them, so ended up with these florals.  I have thought long and hard, and the only thing that I can think of is to stitching a climbing rose incorporating the colours in the fabrics and then get Mum to combine my stitching with the fabrics to create the right size piece.  The problem is that I cannot find a suitable chart of a climbing rose.  There are issues about width, complexity (I have limited time to do this in) etc, etc.  So can anyone out there suggest something that I could use or adapt?  All suggestions gratefully received.

Right, moving on - I have both a finish finish and a new start to show you.  Here are my Delft pieces made up into cards to sell for Marie Curie.  It isn't a brilliant photo because I forgot to leave them unbagged so that I could take a photo without glare.  I think that they look just fine and am hoping that someone will take a fancy to them at our stall later on this month.

The festive season fast approaches and therefore so does the need to start work on this year's ornaments for the girls.  This start will eventually be a snowman with a red scarf standing next to a blue A for my littlest niece.  This is taken from an alphabet in the current copy of Cross Stitch Collection (issue 216).  Eldest niece will have a green and red Christmas elf standing next to a bright orange H.

On to Train of Dreams.  Just a little progress here due to this morning's expensive excursion, about which I will say more in the Stash section of this post.  One more complete block and a couple of nearly completed blocks, courtesy of last night's late night waiting for the fireworks to calm down.

Carnation got its regulation three blocks but also quite a bit in the next block, which should speed things up this coming week.  It's very satisfying watching this lovely painting emerging under my needle.

Now - the Stash Update.  As some of you may know, HAED's Halloween Sale expanded from 35% to 50% off.  I had a couple of items in my wishlist and thought why not?  So I did.  As a result, my chart stash now includes Golden Wood by Ruth Sanderson, which always reminds me of the fairytale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and Birthstone Sapphire by Rachel Anderson.

This morning Mum and Z and I went to a fabric warehouse in Leicester.  I don't really go for the fabric but they do stock some DMC threads and other stitching bits and pieces.  Today I spent £137.13 - aren't 0% purchase credit cards so useful some times?  On this occasion, they had far more DMC threads than usual at 40p a skein (85p each in Hobbycraft).  I just went along the rows taking one of each colour that they had in stock - 300 skeins later, I was not massively popular with the people on the checkout - it took three of them to count up how many I had.  The remaining £17.13 was aida, waste canvas, thimble, needle threaders etc.  But as I pointed out, I don't smoke, very rarely drink, don't go clubbing, and so on and so forth - and all those threads will keep me going for quite a while!  Carpe diem, as they say!

2012 WIPocalypse - October Full Moon

Golly, its gone cold round here! Hope you are keeping warm wherever you are and wishing New York and the US East Coast all the very best of luck! 

Despite having very cold fingers, I have a WIPocalypse stitching finish to show you. Finished just before I turned the computer on, here is Teddy.  Apologies for the dodgy photo - I had to rotate it and the definition went a bit blurry.  However I will show you another hopefully better picture when it is finish finished.  It now needs a wash and to be made up into a little Christmas stocking ornament to go on my cousin's baby's first Christmas tree.  I hope that she will like it.

I finished another couple of blocks on Train yesterday morning and put stitches into several new blocks.  However I think that progress on this is going to be hampered by the clocks going back and the increasingly dodgy weather because I really do need good light in order to work on this one.  I may have to move operations into the lounge where I have a daylight lamp, instead of working in my bedroom where the morning light is usually good and I have plenty of space to spread out on the bed.

Progress on this one includes last week's regulation three blocks and the stitches put into this week's first block before work this morning.  I was really pleased the other week when a friend of mine recognised which painting it was just from the corner of it that I had stitched.  

In other news, I have been enabled, or why blog hopping is a bad idea.  I have a number of blogs which I always visit and then some of these have nice lengthy blog lists on them, so I hop from one blog to another, admiring people's work and reading about their lives.  The problem is that often the bloggers out there have some seriously enticing stash and The Crafty Princess is one of them.  Thanks to her, I am now in possession of a new HAED chart, "Four Seasons" by Jacek Yerka (bought in the Halloween Sale), and a massive piece of 18 count Magic Guide aida.  It is going to end up about 30 inches square so I am going to have to invest in a new 39 inch rotating frame to put this on.  It is going to take forever to stitch and then I will somehow have to frame it and then find somewhere to put it - I must be mad!

My stash buying from the other week has started to materialise.  Not just the fabric for Four Seasons, but also the fabric for Mum's Just Nan guardian angels, the beads and the special threads, and the card blanks for the Delft pieces.  I'm still waiting on the DMC threads for the angels, but as I'm out tomorrow at Pilates and again on Wednesday for Mum's Halloween party, nothing is going to happen until the end of the week anyway.  Hopefully I will have some finish finishes to show you in my next update, but until then keep warm and carry on stitching!

IHSW - October 2012 Report

Evening all!  Hope all is well with you and yours, and that your stitching progressed nicely this weekend.

Right, I have a new (to me) car.  It is an 03 plate Fiat Punto which I collected on Tuesday lunchtime.  On Thursday morning, the battery was flat owing to me accidentally turning the interior light on (probably with my head) when I got out of the car on Wednesday night.  On Friday morning, I was stood in the office car park reading the manual to work out how to lock the petrol cap.  Talk about a steep learning curve!  Other than that, it drives very nicely and I am quite happy with it.  And best of all, I am no longer dependent on anyone else to get around.  I now need to invest in flowers and chocolate for my colleagues who made my life easier when I was without transport. 

Stitching progress has been good this week.  I took Teddy to my blood donation appointment on Monday amongst other things.  He himself is finished apart from the backstitch.  This week's plan is to stitch the stick of rock that he is holding in his arms and the sweet which is at the bottom left in the foot of the stocking.  That will leave the background stripes, the backstitch and Little Miss Gorgeous' name between the red lines.  Then I just have to wash it, make it up and decide whether to send it before Christmas to put on the tree or with her Christmas present.

Train has also come on nicely this morning.  In another block completing session, I got five blocks completed and put a dent in some fresh ones.  You can now see a green book spine starting to come through next to the red one.  Slow but subtle progress.  However I do think that I might do my next HAED (whichever one that is) on a slightly lower count - 18 count perhaps?

Another three blocks completed on Carnation and if you look closely in the right hand corner, quite a few stitches in the next block.  This next week will see me complete the top row and move into row 2.  A rough and ready calculation at three blocks a week should see me completing page 3 by or before this piece's second anniversary next May.  There is however still my littlest niece's birthday piece to locate and stitch before next June - the problem is that I want something that she will both enjoy now and that will grow with her.

I have Friday off this week and there is another sewing day coming up towards the end of next month, so hopefully things should be looking good by Christmas.

On the Up!

Today I'll start with the good news and then go on to the stitching.

Firstly Dad went back to the hospital last week and they have discharged him back to his doctor.  The biopsies that they took during the endoscopy came back clear and any thickening of the stomach wall is probably due to the aspirin he takes.  They told him to have some coronary function tests because they now think that taking up smoking again (boo, hiss!) may have altered his metabolism and caused him to lose the worrying amount of weight.  Since he has started eating more, it appears that his weight has stabilised.  He has had the tests done and is now waiting for his doctor to come back off holiday.  Basically they have tested everything and found nothing wrong with him that is not normal for a man of his age and general state of health.  So we are breathing a sigh of relief and looking forward.

On the car front, Dad and I went car hunting on Saturday and I have put a deposit down on a car.  I won't say that I have a new (to me) car until I actually have the keys in my hands.  However, it is an 03 plate Fiat Punto in silver with less than 50,000 miles on the clock.  I got a bit of a discount and it is costing me just slightly more than I got back from the various insurers.  I can't wait to be properly independent again and not have to rely on family and colleagues for transport!

Last week was slightly traumatic at work as we have had a new computer system installed.  We have moved to Windows 2010 and have had new PCs and larger monitors.  So I went back to work last Monday straight into a training session.  For the next couple of days, the air was ever so slightly blue as I tried to work out how to do all the things that I was used to doing on the new system.  Things are a little calmer now as the IT folk work through getting everyone up and running and people get more accustomed to the way the new system works.  But it was fun for a while, not!

In my last post I promised you a new start this week and here it is.  This is a teddy bear Christmas stocking ornament from Cross My Heart Inc. which will be a first Christmas gift for my cousin's baby.  I have had this chart for a very long time, along with similar ones showing a toy soldier and Father Christmas.  It should be stitched on ivory aida but I don't have any, so am doing it on 14 count white aida.  It's coming along nicely and is my current traveling piece.


I was determined to complete a few blocks on Train of Dreams this Sunday in the hope of showing at least 1% completed in the side bar.  So I worked on the black section towards the top right and completed a block there.  I also worked on the left hand side and completed a block there.  I probably would have got more done, had I been able to stick to my usual Sunday routine.  Unfortunately because of needing to borrow Mum's car to go shopping, I had to go in the morning instead of the afternoon, and as a consequence lost the best stitching light.

On to Carnation.  I've reduced my target to 3 blocks per week for this page.  There is a lot of confetti and also the festive season looms ahead.  Furthermore I also have youngest niece's birthday chart still to find - she wants to be like big sister which makes it hard to find out what she really likes and dislikes.  I am still enjoying Carnation very much - the charting is so cleverly done that when you see it at a proper distance, it looks almost like the real thing.

There was a 25% off Columbus Day sale at Heaven and Earth Designs last week and I succumbed to another Randal Spangler chart.  This one is called Home is Where the Magic is.  Just when I will get round to it, I do not know as I still have to get to grips with the Just Nan angels that Mum wants as well as everything else on my to do list.

However, I do think that I can say (fingers firmly crossed) that things are generally On the Up!  My best wishes and Zen hugs to all who want or need them.

Definitely short and sweet!

There's nothing much to report this time because I went away for a few days as I normally do to celebrate my birthday.  So there has been no progress on Carnation or Train of Dreams.  However I do have a finish to show.

I took the train to visit my cousin and took Delft 4 with me to pass the time.  While I was away, I completed the inner border and stitched the second flower head.  The outer border and the last of the back stitching got done when I came home.  Now all I have to do is wash all four pieces and make them up into cards.

I spent a lot of daylight hours last week cuddling and playing with Little Miss Gorgeous, and spending time with my aunt and my cousin.  It was wonderful to see them and to get caught up with family news.  I'm hoping to see my cousin again soon as they are planning to come up next month to stay with my parents.

Nothing new to report on Dad at the moment - he has an appointment with the consultant this week so hopefully there will be an update in my next post.  On the car front, I've settled with the garage so have a date with Dad to go car hunting on Saturday.

There will be a new start to show you as I am planning a Christmas ornament for Little Miss Gorgeous' first tree.  I also have to start planning for my nieces' Christmas 2012 ornaments, so I really do now need to use my lunch hours more profitably than I have been doing recently.