Courage

Here we are. The lovely, cute LHN sheep is all done and dusted but not made up yet. I'm still trying to make my mind up whether to finish them as flat ornaments or pillows. Hmmm decisions, decisions!

Little House Needleworks Little Sheep Virtues Courage

32 count Vintage Country Mocha Linen

DMC

Started 17th June 2013

Finished 9th July 2013

SAL with Barb.

We are both eagerly awaiting the arrival of Faith which will, of course, mean I'll get 2 more of the Cottage Garden Samplings My Garden Journal charts :)

Monday was the lovely Karan's birthday and here is what I stitched for her. I am happy to say that she loves it :)

The Sampler Girl Sweet Things

Unknown fabric

Caron Waterlilies

Started 10th June 2013

Finished 2nd July 2013

Happy Birthday Karan :)

I have been stitching on my HAEDs but forgot to take photos! I have the first 20 rows of  Mini Jolly Old Fellow stitched and a little more on QS Spirit of Winter Robin :)

As I mentioned on my last post Barb and I were having a new start on Monday. We started the Little House Needleworks Song of the Seasons mystery. I made a small start. I am loving this WDW Straw linen. 

Tonight is Curly Q Ewe night with Lainey and Mouse. Loving stitching this one and really must get a head on the lady tonight. She looks a little scary as she is!

Oooh I almost forgot! I made up some Christmas ornaments!

I am quite pleased with these. They are now in a box with some of my others :) I still have a few to go at as well some finishes I had last year. I will get them all done eventually!

I have a quick question now. Does anyone know when the JCS Halloween special is due in the UK please? I don't get it as part of my subscription so want to keep an eye out for it:)

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on my last post. They mean a lot to me. I am thankful for all my lovely friends in the stitching, blogging community.

Until next time.

With much love

Sally

xxxx

Tea and Peace and Puffins ( Picture Heavy)

I thought it was time I did an actual stitching post as I haven't done one for over a week. As always my stitching is my therapy. My stitching and my DH and girls. Poor Abi has been heartbroken at losing little Fozzie and I will admit that my DH and I have shed tears as well. So this week we've been having some mum and daughter time going for some walks. Yesterday was a very long walk and I swear when I got up from stitching last night I was ceasing up! Just want to say thank you for all your lovely comments on my post about Fozzie. The house really isn't the same without him. He would often be at the side of his cage waiting for us when we came down in a morning.

So what have I been stitching. Well I finished the LHN Peace Virtue with Barb last week so am now impatiently waiting the arrival of Courage so we can start that.

Little House Needleworks Little Sheep Virtues Peace

32 count Vintage Country Mocha Linen

DMC

So this Monday I couldn't make my mind up at first whether to start my ornament for the Christmas All Year Round SAL or something else or stitch on something else that I already had started. In the end the ornament won and and this is how far I got.

A few weeks ago Shirlee did a post about tea and I mentioned Twinings Lady Grey and said I would send her a few of my teabags to try rather than her buy a box and waste money if she didn't like it. I decided to stitch up this and send it along with the tea. It's only a very simple finish as my creativity ( what creativity? Did I really have it in the first place? ) has gone out the window but Shirlee loved it and also loved the tea. Julie first got me into Lady Grey a few years ago when she sent me some to try. I hope Shirlee won't mind but I borrowed this photo from her blog as I can't find the one I took.

The Sampler Girl A Spot of Tea

Gift for Shirlee

Wednesdays are SAL nights with Mouse and Lainey and also Barb and the ladies in the parlour at Needlecraft Haven. Here's my progress on LHN Curly Q Ewe. I shall have plenty of LHN stitching to keep me busy in the parlour as I very naughtily signed up for mystery. It was extra naughty as I decided to treat myself to the threads and fabric as well which I don't do very often anymore. I decided I needed a treat. I'm still waiting for my other test results and they should be here any day now.

HAED stitching now ( and just incase you didn't know they are currently having a 50% off sale for Father's Day. I think the rush to buy broke the site though! I'm being good as I have way too many in my stash plus I'm holding out for Jasmine Becket- Griffith's Faces of Faery 199 to be charted. I requested it on the BB a while ago and keep hoping! ).  I'm still plugging away at all the black stitching on pages 5 and 6 on QS Holly Fairy. How I wish I hadn't left all this until last but never mind at least I don't have to think too much about it! Aiming for a July finish now rather than a September one!

I'm about half way through page 13 of Guardian and am loving the detail.

A little bit of progress on QS Spirit of Winter Robin. I did stitch in the wrong colour in one bit but decided not to frog. It's not noticable I don't think.

We decided to have a trip out on Saturday afternoon. We had been waiting for decent weather and as Saturday was forecast  to be nice in the afternoon off we went up to Bempton Cliffs RSPB. We had a brilliant afternoon watching the seabirds and actually managed to spot the odd Puffin or two in amongst the thousands of other seabirds on the cliffs. It only cost us £5, which was for parking, and that goes towards the upkeep of the reserve. We all took cameras. I use my DH's old DSLR and am still learning so my photos aren't brilliant but here are a few.

That's it from me now.

With much love.

Sally xxx

A Gift for Michelle

A while ago you may remember me showing my progress on The Sampler Girl Know Your Own Happiness and me saying it was going to be an rak but not knowing who for. Well when I showed the one Barb stitched for me the lovely Michelle loved it so I said I would stitch her it. Well it was already almost done so here is it finished. Michelle emailed me to say she loved it :)

I also stitched a wee ornament for Michelle's tree. I chose The Sampled Girl Bedford Falls. I finished it off simply. I'm afraid my finishing seems to have gone downhill this year rather than got better!

I have a couple more finishes that I can't show just yet. Chris and I are doing our annual ornament exchange and we are meeting up tomorrow. Really looking forward to that as we haven't met up in ages. So I'll be able to show the ornament I have stitched for her after tomorrow.

Not much progress on the stitching front really. HAED QS Holly Fairy is going quite well though. I finished page 1 and made a bit of good progress on page 2.

Also managed to make a bit of progress on HAED Guardian. I kinda wish I could wave a magic wand and make this grow faster but if I wasn't so darn fed up with myself it would grow faster anyway!

I started With Thy Needle January Wordplay last Monday. This is my SAL with Barb. I decided to stitch this one over one on 28 count linen. I plan on doing them all the same. I didn't get much done so need to get a move on so that I can get it finished and on display for January. I have another gift to finish before I can pick this up tonight though. Not much to stitch on it.

Wednesday I sat down with CCN Gingerbread Cottage which is what Chris and I are stitching for our December Sal. Unfortunately I didn't like it over one on 28 count as the colours didn't show up well enough so I'll be restarting it on Wednesday.

I received a lovely early birthday present last week of HAED Mini I Remember Moonlight from my lovely Irish friend Paula . I've had this on my wish list for quite sometime now and kept looking at it and now I have it! Thank you so much Paula for thinking of me. I love it and look forward to stitching it one day soon :)

I am going to try and stitch from my stash as much as possible next year with maybe the odd treat. I have so many lovely charts and I haven't really missed treating myself as much as I usually do this year. I want to try and stitch on my HAEDs as much as I can with some smalls thrown in here and there. 

I must apologise if I haven't visited and commented on your blogs recently. I keep desperately trying to get caught up but just don't seem to manage it somehow. I will try and get properly caught up soon.

That's all for now. Hopefully I will be back a lot sooner next time.

With much love

Sally

xxx

A Little More Productiveness!

I appear to be on a wee bit of a roll with the old finishing this week. It probably won't last but two more ornaments are now ready to hang plus I finished up something I stitched while I was recuperating from my surgery way back in May.

So I'll show the ornaments first. The first one is Plum Street Samplers Yuletide from one of the JCS ornament magazines. I edged it with ric rac and was going to do a ric rac bow in the same colour but I couldn't find it so guess I must have used it all! So I used a yellowy one. I'm really pleased with how this turned out.

Next ornament is Blackbird Designs Christmas Ornament 2004 from the 2004 JCS ornament magazine. I edged this with chenille trim from Crescent Colours. Really pleased with this too.

I have finally properly finished off Midsummer Night Designs Remember Me Stitching Pocket. I had got it all sewn up but it needed some braiding stitching on as well as the felt/ wool piece stitching inside so I set on and did this yesterday. 

I've had two finishes this week. Monday evening was Blackbird Designs SAL night with Barb but Barb was busy so I'm hoping she'll be back next Monday:). I finished my piece and think I'm going to stitch a Christmas ornament. 

Blackbird Designs Small Token

28 count Jayne's Attic COM Rose

DMC

Started 10th September 2012

Finished 8th October 2012

Last night I popped the last few stitches into this one.

The Sampler Girl Know Your Own Happiness ( from the Valentine Booklet)

32 count Gander rose linen

DMC

Started 26th September 2012

Finished 11th October 2012

Wednesday evening I popped on over to the parlour on Needlecraft Haven to join some of the ladies for The Little House in the Country with The Sampler Girl SAL. The brickwork is almost done on my house so I should be able to start putting the windows and door in and put the roof on before the snow comes! Lol!

Last night I had planned on starting my ornament for this month for the Christmas All Year Round SAL but HAED Qs Holly Fairy was still calling to me after my stint on her on Tuesday evening so out she came. She will look better once she's all done and I can wash the Magic Guide lines out as you can see them under the lighter stitches. 

This month I'd signed myself up for a HAED Halloween exchange on Facebook. The lady who organised it, Tammy, decided to hold it early, for those of us who wanted to, to coincide with the HAED Columbus Day Sale so I did it early. The person who I sent to was Paula and I chose Snowy Treasures by Hannah Lynn to send to her:) Vivienne was the person sending to me and she kindly sent me not one but two gorgeous charts off my wish list. 

This one is Mini Christmas Mailbox by Ruth Sanderson.

And this one is Storykeep Dragons History by Randal Spangler. 

I am hoping to start Mini Christmas Mailbox in January.

Tonight my hunky angel will be coming out to play again and I'm hoping to make good progress on him. I would really like to have the page I'm stitching on finished sometime in November! Lol! 

My JCS Christmas Ornament magazine was in at the newsagents when I went in the other day:) I look forward to this every single year even though I may not get many stitched. I think this years is as good as ever and was so happy to see that Shepherd's Bush had gone back to their usual style as I did not care for the one in last year's issue. There are at least three that I'd love to have on my tree for this year and they are Lizzie*Kate, The Sampler Girl and The Primitive Hare:)

That's all my news for now except that I have turned off accepting anonymous comments. I am sick and tired of spam and even though I moderate all comments it's getting beyond a joke now. I get all excited thinking I have a nice comment to publish to my blog and it turns out to be nasty spam!

Thank you so much again to those of you who do take time to comment. You all make me day.

Until next time.

With much love

Sally

xxxx

Sheep and Stuff

Last week it was my dear friend Lainey's birthday and as everyone who knows her will know she is rather partial to sheep and snowmen. Well my gift for her last year was a snowman so this year it just had to be a sheep didn't it? So this is what I stitched for her.

JBW Designs French Country Lamb

32 count white Jobelan

DMC

Started 12th September 2012

Finished 17th September 2012

Birthday gift for Lainey.

Lainey loved it so I am very happy. I love it when my stitching brings a smile to someone's face:) The chart is now for sale if anyone is interested. I still have some other bits for sale too. Please take a look and see if you can take anything off my hands!

So what have been up to stitching wise? Well I had a wee new start last week. Shouldn't have as I'll be going into overload and having a stitching melt down! I wasn't going to show this as it's going to be an RAK I think but I'm yet to decide who I'll send it to. I haven't done an RAK for a while so thought it was time. I took this to craft club with me yesterday and took everything I needed except............. a needle! 

I had another two evenings on HAED Guardian Friday and Saturday. I almost got the top 12 rows of page 9 stitched. I'm in it for the long haul on this now. I will grit my teeth with sheer determination to keep going and actually finish it. I was looking back yesterday in my stitching diaries and I started it in April 2007! It's shameful as had I kept going I'd have finished it by now!

I still haven't finished my September ornament for the Christmas All Year Round SAL. I thought I had apart from stitching a horn ( not buying the charm as it's too expensive!) but then after I'd taken the photo I realised I had to back stitch the vines at the bottom. I've chosen a Sam Sarah Design for this month.

Monday was SAL night with Barb and I was hoping to get mine finished but it did not happen. I did make good progress though and I think my mojo is returning fast now. 

Last night I picked up HAED QS Holly Fairy. I had stitched a bit more since my update last week and it was going well until last night's session! I had to frog some , got it restitched then realised I'd stitched a bit in the wrong shade of grey. Needless to say that hasn't been frogged. I don't think it's too noticeable and even I'm not sure which bit it is! I think I'm having bother with the Magic Guide fabric now. It was fine when I was just stitching rows of black but now I'm getting to the bits with lots of colours it's a bit more difficult to do. I'm so used to gridding in blocks of 10 x 10 and this is blocks of 20 x 20. I'm quite tempted to grid it but I'll get used to it I guess!

Tonight I'm having a new start. Yes I know what you're thinking! What is wrong with this woman?! Barb was telling me a while ago about a SAL on Needlecraft Haven ( a friendly forum run by the lovely Clare). Now I used to be a regular on NH but haven't been on it for ages now and this SAL is going to be perfect for, hopefully, getting me back on there. It's called The Little House in the Country with The Sampler Girl SAL and you can stitch Little House Needleworks, Country Cottage Needleworks or The Sampler Girl so I'm starting this.

Luckily, after forgetting my needle at craft club yesterday ( and no one had a suitable needle lol) I had also taken my afghan with me. It's growing nicely but yesterday I kept having to take it back ( I seriously think I should not have knitted or stitched yesterday but today is a new day!). I am onto the third square now and it's a lovely pattern.

That's all my news for today. Hopefully I'll be back sooner and get into regular blogging again. Thank you for continuing to visit me and for your lovely comments. They are appreciated more than you know :)

With much love

Sally

xxxxx