Updates and a mini HD

Before I went to Woolfest last week I finished the first side of the purse so join me in a mini happy dance, side 2 is under way now :)

BTW Jo it measures 6 1/4" at it's highist point and a little over 5 1/2" and it's widest point but that's just plain as it now, it will get longer when I add the fringe.

The scan really doesn't do justice to sheen and sparkle of the beads esp. the gold ones but by the time I remembered I needed a pic it was dark out

Next is my progress on Mary Wigham, I made good progress while at Woolfest

And as there is a request for pics of where we are stitching ours here's my pics.

In the Caravan


And in a cattle pen in the middle of a Livestock auction in Cumbria

Lastly this weeks pic of the Sunflowers, not much progress on it all last week but I did warn you there won't be because I had such a busy week and I really didn't want to take it to Cumbria with me

This evening I've been out playing bowls and I won my first match 21-15 and it's only my 4th or 5th match ever

Woolfest 2009

I got back late on Saturday night and was waaaaaay to tired to do anything other than have a brew and fall into bed, yesterday I just plain forgot! It was hard work this year and hot but I did get a good bit of progress in on Mary Wigham, not much else to do when you've got no electric in the caravan and so no portable DVD player but it was wonderful to be able to stitch in peace until after 10pm every evening

Anyway first up is this cute little guy

who is the one on the left in this pic (I meant to put them the other way round)

Recently sheared Alpaca

Bruno who was quite happy to stand on his bars for a pic as long as he got a chin tickle out of it

A few of the dozen or so breeds of sheep there

Friday evening I went for a walk, Woolfest is up those steps on the other side of the road and along to the right a bit

The only thing I've not got a pic of is the new stash I came home with and for once I was very good and only bought 3 skeins of sock yarn (and great fun turning 2 of them into doughnuts)

so you'll have to wait until tomorrw for that

Cheshire Show

I went to the Cheshire Show today and after doing my 3 hours of sandwich making off I went around the showground. As it's an agricultural show they had the normal sheep, chickens etc there but they had other animlas there and I held a Corn Snake on the Reaseheath stand (no Mel wasn't one of the students helping out, maybe next year) but never got a pic of it

Right next door to the Ferts where some owls but this was the only friendly enough one at the time


And of course I had to have a go on the Carousel (I rode Mick in the centre) it's not the Ashley Gallopers that I love so much but they were Steam driven and fingers crossed I get to ride them on Sunday at Chelford Steam Fair

There were some vintage tractors

and cars

and some beautiful Traction engines

But for me on eof the highlights of the day was catching the Sheepshow you wouldn't think something about sheep could be so entertaining and right at the end they dance, well kind of anyway but they all knew it coming and seemed to enjoy it

The guy also did a shearing demo so the sheep went from this

to this in a few minutes

One of the things they aim to do is educate people about wool in general. Did you know that the fleece he took off the sheep is worth less than the £ it cost to remove it because people don't buy woollen items?

The Sunflowers

I've grumbled a few times over the last few weeks about the sunflowers and I thought it was about time I shared them so you know what I'm on about :)

As they arrived

After a few weeks

As much as I love sunflowers I am really not enjoying these ones although I have to admit that they are better to work on now I'm not having to work around what was already done, fix/fudge round her mistakes and fill in the odd stitches that for really strange reason weren't done (like 1 stitch in a colour left undone right next to a huge block of the same colour!)

I'm going to try and post an update once a week but Ican promise you that next weeks won't have much done it as I'm busy this week and won't get much stitching time in. Tomorrow is the Cheshire show and I have my stint in the tea tent first thing and Thursday I'm off to Cumbria for Woolfest so drop by and say Hi if your going (you won't miss us, huge purple sign saying Crafty Allsorts above our heads, I'm the young one most likely knitting a sock)

TUSAL

At the start of the month I joined the Totally Useless SAL and as today is June 22 and a New Moon that means it report day so here are my orts from the last 21 days.

I didn't have a clear empty container of any sort that would be big enough to last until the end of the year so the search was on for one and I found this in a local shop

Mary Busby update

More progress on the big yellow motif this week, sorry about the dark pic it's threating to rain

And a closer look at the progress hot off the scanner

Yay he's home

Back in 2007 when I first joined the UFO RR I sent out Magic in Motion. He'd become a UFO because I had been having vision problems for a few years before that (all sorted now) and could no longer work on black fabric. The round ended and with my blessing he stayed at the last port of call, today he came home and he looks so much better for his trip :) I've been searching through all my discs with pics on and I can't find a single one of him as he left me but I did find this in Zoe's album that I sent to.


There are a few finishing touches that need to be done on him but with luck I'll be able to get those done slowly over the next few weeks and he can be crossed off the WIP list
Last night was WI craft club as it was a take along your own project evening I took my purse with me and made some good progress on it, fingers crossed I'll have this side done by the end of next week.

Jo, you asked how big it was going to be and until I've finished this side I can't tell you! The magazine only gives a stitch a count for beading projects and not a finished size so watch this space and I'll let you know :)

Beading WIP

A few weeks ago I metioned that I'd started a new beading WIP but it was only a few rows of black at the time and a little boring to look at (as well as do). I've been working on it every day and now it's worth looking at :)

I'm about half way up now and you can see what it's going to look like here and then I have to do it all over again for the other side. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll have this side done.

Oh and a word of warning if you bead and this project grabs you, the beads are expensive for it esp. the gold ones

Great Mail day

The postman brought me my fabric from Sparklies so I restarted Mary Wigham

Recently I won a giveaway on Heather's blog and that also arrived this morning

Mum copies the giveaway pages of her craft magazines for me if I'm not there the day they arrive so I can enter them as well, this morning after the postman had been there was a knock at the door and I was handed a bag. Said bag contained this.... a Maderia Gold Chest, filled with their range of mettalic thread

Top Drawer


Bottom Drawer contents, there's 20 packages there


And because Millie was trying her best to get in on the pics a couple of her

I wish I had more mail day's like this

Mary Busby update

A couple of days later than normal and no real reason why that is here's last week's progress on Mary Busby, she's now to wide for the scanner so it's over to the camera instead and not such good pics

Last week I stitched all the pale yellow motif and started on the brighter yellow one. Sorry about the bad pic but it was overcast when I took them

Fingers crossed tomorrow I'll finally be able to start Mary Wigham, I didn't like the orginal fabric I picked out and so last weekend I did a few floss toss' on different Sparklies fabrics (Kate was also at the GTG) and picked out BST for it. Kate has done a cut cut for me and fingers crossed it will here in the morning

Bits and pieces

Paula and Karoline had the brains to take pics last weekend so go take a look at their blogs (I thankfully am not on any of them, yay) but I did get a pic of the wallhanging

A few fellow UK Stitchers had a bit of an informal SAL/race to finish Lizie Kate's Halloween Flip It's and when they started I said I would give a prize to the first one to finish without having a clue what it would beand calling myself an idiot for saying so! Then I did the tassel class and inspiration struck so Sally won herself a Halloween themed tassel from yours truely and has now decided she going to treat herself to a black pair of scissors to match. The orange you can see peeping out at the bottom is in the centre of the tassel.

Today I went to see my Neurologist and I'm am now offically discharged, I knew it was almost certain I would be after the LP I had earlier this year but for it to actually happen was wonderful. The downside was the trip home on the M6 bad, an accident south bound caused tail backs for 3 junctions north bound and I wanted one of those, what is normally a 30ish minute trip took almost 1hr 30mins!!

I'm still plodding on with the Sunflowers but I do keep avoiding them as much as poss so my current beading project is coming along nicely. I know I need to get stuck in to them and I think once I get on to the half that hasn't been touched by the owner I'll feel much better about them. It doens't help that she made several mistakes that I've had to work around, some of them quite large, and she has left odd stitches undone right by stitches of the same colour!

Dad is keeping up with his exercises for his knee and is recovering quite well now won't be long before he's off them completely although both Mum and I thought it was 5 days he was on them for but he's convinced it's 2 weeks so we just let him get on with it because he won;t last that long anyway :)

Travelling Stitcher finish

The weekend was fantastic, I've not laughed as much since last year's GTG and I can safely say that I will NEVER think of Trumpton again without smiling! No pics, I forgot to take any of anything other than the wallhanging and I've not looked to see how they turned out yet.

I worked on LHN Travelling Stitcher while I was there and almost got it finished, I came home just needing to finish the brown houre, tree, fence and date but I was so tired last night that I was almost nodding off as I stitched. The last little bit was done this afternoon.

Travelling Stitcher

Little House Needleworks

30 count Platinum Murano

Crescent Colours

Dad is doing OK, his bandage is off but not the dressing and tomorrow he can come off the crutches

Scissor Fob Exchange again

Another one of those forgot to post items :)

The scissor fob I sent out inthe recent exchange over on Exchange Heaven

I used a scrap of fabric and a Vicki Clayton silk, the motif is from Quaker Pincushions by Miladys Needle. I tried to follow the shape as I made it up and although it didn't turn out quite as I would of liked it's not to bad for a first attempt at something other than a square

Socks

I finished these in early May and never got round to posting them :(

This particular pair of socks were along time in the making. I started them maybe Aug/Sept 07 and worked on them on and off for a few weeks. Then my Gran got sick and was taken in hospital so they came with me to keep my hands occupied, they went to X ray with me, back to A&E, up to the ward and they were with me the day she died. It took me 18 months to be able to face them again, I couldn't even open the bag they were in for over a year