Birth Sampler update

I've reset my router and it appears to have worked, fingers crossed it stays that way for me
I spent yesterday working on Caleb's birth sampler, it's coming along slowly and at this rate he may just get it before his first birthday!

Come and meet Toby

I've mentioned him a couple of times in previous posts so it's about time he put in an apperance. He about 8 months old and will live around 30 years if I remember rightly from the info we were given when Mel bought him

He had a little problem with his tail a month or so ago and the end fell off :( so it's a good few inches shorter than it should be, he likes his daily cuddle, gets to watch TV for a few mins every day and while it's so warm he gets to go outside in the garden for a bit of real sunshine but you do have to hold on to him really well as he's wiggly at times and really, really fast. Oh and he always sleeps with his nose on the glass of his tank (that's not it's offical title but I can't spell that!) on top of his biggest log which leans against the side

30 July - After reading the comments I realised I made an oooppps and hadn't said that Toby is a Water Dragon, sorry if I confused anyone (and it must be me that has a problem with Blogger at home cause it's working OK on my Dad's puter)

A Happy Dance and a new WIP

I've been trying to do this for a couple of days now but Blogger has been having one of it's I don't like you very much so you can read blogs but not post on your's phases, I thought I'd give it one last try before bed and wayhay it like's me :) (for now at least)
So the HD, as you know I've been working on Little House Needleworks Winter Wonderland for the SAL on the LHN/CCN yuku board and just before midnight on Thursday I finished it.

It's on Sparklies Frosted Midnight and I've used the called for Crescent Colours apart from the blue I subbed a GAST for that one as the CC was too pale for the fabric, I'm really pleased with it and it's my 18th finish of the year so far.

On to the new start, I decided a couple of days after we'd moved that a new house deserved a new WIP so I started the Quaker a 6 mains freebie by Gigi & Carinne, it's been sat on my printer for a few months glaring at me because I wouldn't start it. I'm using Lakeside Linens 40 count Navy Bean and DMC Colour Variation #4210

Mel has gone off to spend the night at a friends house before they both go off to Cadet Annual camp tomorrow so I have 2 weeks on my own without the Mum said only the way a teenager can say it that you instantly know they are after something. Tonight is my first night all alone in the new house (apart from Toby but he doesn't really count and is already asleep anyway) and it feels really odd, maybe that's why I'm still up at gone 1am!

Evening entertainment and a HD

Last night Mel & Sheena took over my TV and Wii for a few hours, they worked their way down the list on Wii Sports and ended up with boxing
My stitching chair is just to Mel's left and I had to duck a few times to avoid being smacked in the head while she beat the heck out of Sheena on the screen!

I was busying working on March Birthstone fairy for SOLAK so I could get it finished and in the post today, it's the last one needed for a quilt (I volunteered to stitch it to complete the set, I did May's a few years ago when they where still available as freebies)

I put the last bit of BS in this morning and she's about to go out the door to the Post Office while I go back to Winter Wonderland for the SAL

Anyone would think we'd just moved house :)

Mel had the idea on Thursday morning before the new furniture arrived that we should record the state of the house!

The bedroom one's turned out blurred and out of focus but you get the general idea from these, all those boxes & bags you can see in the first 2 pics had to be moved upstairs to my room ready for the new furniture arriving and some are still waiting for me to get to them.

Toby arrived yesterday and seems to have made the move OK, he's spent most of the day asleep on his favourite log or sat in the water bowl.

We're getting there slowly and once I'm all straight and there's no more bags I've been told I have to post again so watch this space as they say :)

How to keep 2 teenager's quiet for a while

Give them some overalls that are way too big for them so they need belts to able to move around easily, a couple of step ladders, tins of paint, paint brushes, rollers, a completely empty room, a radio and let them get on with it. Take sneeky pics of them while they are busy painting away

and then get told off because they haven't had a chance to pose

BTW the colour scheme has nothing to do with me, Mel picked it out herself with the smallest of help from her friend and I but I have to say that I quite like it

Come and take a tour

Yesterday morning before I started to move stuff in and even before I'd cleaned anything I took pics for a tour.
So as you open the front door we have the hall and stairs, that bit you can see at the top of the stairs is the bathroom and we'll come back to that in a while but first we're going to go through the door on the right into .....
the living room end of downstairsm the only thing you can't see is the alcove on the left behind the pillar which is a poss. home for Toby, turn around and you have......

the dining room end of downstairs, from what I can remember from growing up in a house just like this these would of been 2 seperate rooms when the house was built but at some point one door has been closed up and the wall knocked down. The door we came through is on the left behind the pillar, on we go into .......

the kitchen, all those nice clear counter tops are now covered in buckets, cloths, rubber gloves and other bits and pieces that you need when cleaning all apart from the end section on the left which has a kettle on it ready for the helpers. Immediately to the left of the door we're looking to is the door into the understairs cupboard but it's very unteresting so I didn't bother with that, to the right is the back door which leads into.....

rather unsurprisingly the back yard :) That bit of black you can see past the white bit sticking out is one of the 2 sheds I have and was the toilet when the house was built (the other was the coal shed), the best bit of this is that lovely gravelled area which is the new home for my car when not in use, no more wondering if I'll be able to park when I get home or playing musical cars with my dad. Now we go back inside and up the stairs into ......

the bathroom, I feel quite spolit having a seperate bath and shower esp when the bath is huge!

And it get's better, there's a heated towel rail :)

Out of the door we turn left and enter Mel's new room, which now looks nothing like this, the floor is covered with sheets, paint tins, brushes and a couple of stepladders

The wall with the window on is now red and the other wall is pale purple, I'll take a pic again tomorrow when it's done if Mel will let meOut of Mel's room we go left again along the landing into my room, the area between the banister and wall is where the bulk of my stash will go in the chest of drawers that belonged to my Gran (Mum's mum not Dad's who left us last year), those drawers hold memories for me from my childhood when they lived in her bathroom

And into my new bedroom, I've got 2 built in wardrobes with cupboards above and they are huge, well the one's on the left and right are the centre one and the shelves you can see are in front of the chimney breast so aren't as deep

And the other wall and window :) the only thing you can't see is the radiator and door but you should all know what they look like anyway :)

I hope you've enjoyed your tour of my new home, feel free to tip the tour guide and leave a comment in the visitor's book, LOL :)

Winter Wonderland again

Another 2 days worth of SAL on it and I'm half way there already, I played about with the scanner settings a little and now the fabric is much closer to it's true colour of purple than the blue that it looks in the last pic although it still doesn't show the sparklie in it

I signed for the house this morning and the keys are in my hands, I've been down and gone through the inventory and made notes of things that were missed so first thing Monday morning I'm off back down the agents with it ( you have 3 working days to dispute anything on it). The only thing that's actully wrong on it is the number of plates, by the looks of it they have counted some twice and I wasn't even expecting to see things like plates on it in the first place but they will be washed, packed in a box and put at the back of the understairs cupboard out of the way. I took my camera down with me (twice over the course of the evening) and forgot to take to take pics hopefully I'll remember to take some tomorrow when I go back to start cleaning it up, it's not that it's filthy but there's bits on the floor from odd jobs that have been done, the oven needs a clean, doors need wiping over that type of thing and I'd rather do them before I start to move stuff in

A new UFO to kill

An hour a week worked so well for me at the start of the year I'm going to try again with a new UFO, this time it's Charmed Hearts from Shepherd's Bush.
I bought this way back in the mists of time when I first started stitching and Shepherd's Bush was an even rarer find here than it is now at what was a good LNS at the time (these day's not so much they've gone expensive and stock more quilting fabric & knitting yarn now, the stitching stuff has gone quite basic). I got on fantastically well with it until I hit that outer border you can see and I could just not get it to work out so in the end it got put away in disgust (and after several bouts of swearing when it wouldn't play ball). Last year I got ExH to look at it for me as he has waaaaaay more patience for working things out than I have and he stitched it for me so it's time has come to be finished.

Winter Wonderland

Every Tuesday and Thursday there's a SAL on the Little House Needleworks BB for whatever LLH/CCN your currently working on. I didn't have one started so I pulled out Winter Wonderland and made a start
I didn't like the way it was looking on the original fabric I picked out so I went back and did another floss toss on Thursday and I'm much happier with how it's looking now

Some stitching and a house update

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was working on helping to fill in an RR and I've finally got round to posting a pic, I did 3 French Hens
And as a whole it now looks like this, sorry for the poor pic but I really couldn't take a decent one no matter how hard I tried

I was suppossed to go and sign for the new house yesterday but late Thursday afternoon I had a call off the agents to say it had to be put back :( My new Landlord wanted an inventory doing and had left it until the last minute to say anything, no record of a Gas safety check could be traced so one of those has to be organsied and the Landlord works away from home and wasn't able to remove the furniture and other bits that I don't want/need until this weekend. So fingers crossed I'll be signing at 10am on Friday and moving in sometime the following week

Mel's GCSE Art Exhibition

Every year Mel's High School holds an exhibition of all the GCSE art work for that year, last night was Mel's turn. There are a whole host of reasons she choose to do one of her projects around Hurt but I won't go into them here apart from one at the end of this post

This is her final piece (I've got no idea where she got her love of Dragons from, honest I haven't, LOL) I know from the pic it just looks like it's a drawing but it's not, it's full of texture and levels

This little lot is part of one her best friends work and Mel asked me to share it with you

And this is the work of one of the girls that caused one of the reasons of Mel's subject choice, she bullyed Mel throughout her last year of school. The reason I took a pic of it is because I personally think that this girl needs to get a life if all she can come up with for her art project is make up, it goes to show just how shallow a person she is in my opinion

June Progress & July Goals

For June I said
Finish the Garden Chair (bit pointless putting this really, the stitching is done and I start putting it together in the morning) And I did get it put together so this one is a definate yes
Finish my UFO from the SAL I finished her on June 19
Finish Cookie Dragon I finished him as well
Finish another WIP besides those listed above I finished Home of a Needleworker too
Only start something new if I can finish it before the end of the month ie SOLAK square No but in my defense of the two projects I started one only has the BS left to do and should be done July 1st and the other is for a customer of my LNS that I was asked to do after I set my goals

For July I'd like to
Work on Oriental Orchids as much as poss (the one for the customer)
Work on the Birth Sampler
Settle on what WIPs I'll work on until the end of the year
UFORR

I stitched for a total of 85hours 22 mins last month, had 2 new starts and 4 finishes

And as we're now half way through the year I'm going to do a quick review on my year goals

1, End the year with less than 30 WIPs (I'm starting with 41! Let me know if you want a list) Not looking likely right now my current WIP total is 46, 35 would probably of been a better idea
2, Reduce my stash in some way (kits, charts or fabric, most likely to be fabric) even though I'm getting off the Wagon So far I'd say that fabric is in the lead, I've used just about as much as I've bought
3, Finish a large TW I'm working on this one
4, Start and hopefully finish Tessellations Unless I become a one at a timer this isn't going to happen
5, Get some ornaments done Haven't done a single one yet
6, At least match the number of SOLAK squares I did in 07 (which was 16) Working on it
7, Finish more than I start or at least have them even by the end of the year Yeah right, like that's going to happen
8, Not get sucked into any more challenges (SAL are OK) So far so good
9, Get off the wagon and stay off I put this one down because I knew I could keep it and I am doing