Woooooo Hooooooooo

Here it is hot off the scroll rods

Started before I started to keep records in 2004 and finished a few minutes ago.

Now I'm going to get ready to go out for New Year

Bits and Pieces

Sharon has confirmed that she did indeed get the PIF I sent her.

I stitched Spring Fling biscornu from Dinky Dyes / Cat's Whiskers for her on a white linen from my stash and NN1031.

Yesterday Mel cleaned Toby's viv out and Millie went to investigate it twice

And lastly Fantasy Sampler. I took this one this morning before I started for the day

And this one just before I came online after almost 8 hours of stitching on it today. Don't you just love days where you can sit and do nothing but stitch all day

Tomorrow I'm going to visit family so I doubt I'll get much done on but I'm hoping I'll get at least an hour or two when I get home.

Mum's Christmas present

From Jill Oxton's Cross Stitch and Beading Issue 66

Present finishes

For Sheena who has a gecko

Gecko

Mouseloft Kit

Mel stitched this one for her Dad, she's not a stitcher so for her it's a fairly major Happy Dance.


#1 Dad
Lizzie Kate Snippet
Sparklie aida & DMC

Another ornament arrives

This arrived from Paula this morning she was drawn to send to me in the exchange I organise each year and I knew she was a little behind with starting her new job.

Royal Mail managed to muck up delivery, it was sent by Special Delivery which guarentees next day delivery by 1pm and it arrived a little before 9am this morning a whole 20 hours later than it should of done.

But it was well worth the wait.

Ornaments and cake

A few days ago while at Mum's I spotted these and couldn't believe that she still had them.

They are the first Christmas ornaments I ever made and I was maybe 12 or 13 when I did them making them around 25 years old now!

I learnt to do patchwork the old fashioned way over paper at age 11 and can remember making a few of these as the pattern instructed which was in patchwork but then I wondered how they would turn out in plain fabric and this was the result.

They have now taken up residence on my tree.

In town this morning we stopped outside the cake shop for some reason and I happened to look in the window and although I'm not a cake eater these just had to come home for Mel and I to have with a brew.


They were really scrummy and worth mucking my blood sugars up for the rest of the day

Fantasy Sampler update

First up is a mini Happy Dance as I finalluy got round to doing the last bit of BS on the Griffin this morning. I finished him last week but couldn't get into the BS for some reason and it's not like there's a huge amount of it or lots of colour changes but it's done now

And an overall updated pic. I took it this morning before I did anything on it so now that bottom bit of border is almost done and I've worked on the scene in the middle a little as well.

My Dad is home this week so that means that apart from having to go into town first thing in the morning for last minute bits and pieces I don't have to go out again this week which of course means I have more time to devote to FS and the quest to get it finished.
Keep your fingers crossed for me

Snow

After the last few days of it snowing everywhere else in the UK we finally got our share this morning. There wasn't any to be seen when I got up just after 8am and within 20 mins it had started and it snowed on and off for over and hour until one time it just never stopped for a while.

This is out the front of the house and it shows how heavy it was falling at the time

Out the back

Then Mel came home and she just had to go and play in the snow

Millie was not at all impressed with the cold white stuff

The downside to it was that we had to cancel our trip down to Northampton to see DD and family :( so that's been re-arranged for between Christmas and New Year weather permitting

Exchanges update

Edit let me know a couple of days ago that the ornament I stitched for her in the Christmas Exchange over on Exchange Heaven arrived safely along with the gift for under her tree but I forget to take a pic of that so wander over to her blog after Friday and she may have posted a pic.

Merry Xmas

The Sampler House

JCS 2002

Raven also let me know a few days ago that her PIF had arrived safely.

I stitched the Summer Breeze biscornu from Dinky Dyes & Cat's Whiskers for her

Sorry about all the gaps between things blogger is playing silly beggers won't let me alter them

Happy Dance

I finished ABC Lessons yesterday afternoon, Yay

Lizze Kate

I used 30 count Ivory Murano and the Crescent Colours supplied in the kit.

This was my Birthday start for this year and I finished it 7 months after I put the first stitch in (wasn't planned that way) but a quite a few of those months I didn't pick it up.

I'm down to 42 WIPs now and I should finish those last 2 by the end of the month.

TUSAL

It's the final Totally Useless SAL posting day for this year (the link should take you to the sign up page for 2010) so here's my jar.

This time it has orts from ABC Lessons, Fantasy Sampler, more Nymo, Mary Busby and several ornaments. I don't empty my jar until midnight on Dec 31 so I'll try and remember to get a last pic of it before I do and no I don't have a life and will be sat at home watching the fireworks on New Year's Eve before you ask.

And a day later than promised, the missing pic from Krampus

Krampus

Had a great weekend in Llandudno for Krampus until Sunday morning when the duck egg I had at breakfast made me ill :(

Anyway the food was fantastic as always. Starter for me was a glass of cranberry juice and you all know what one of those looks like :)

These potatoes are devine and get fought over every time we go and one of these times I seriously tempted to ask if I can just have a plate of these for my meal!

I'd started eating these when I remembered a pic, I love profiteroles and these came with toffee sauce instead of chocolate


This is the ornie that St Nick gave to my parents on my behalf this year

I just realised I missed out the pic of Krampus but it's getting late and I can't be bothered with the hassle of mucking about trying to get it in the right place so I'll post it tomorrow

ABC lessons

I've been spending my evenings working on this all week and Thursday reached the point of needing to move the snaps so I grabbed a quick pic.

Last night I decided that as I'm so close to a finish I'd carry on with it for the SAT on Let's Stitch instead of working on Mary Busby but didn't get much done because I remembered I needed to make up the ornament for my parents to give them tonight when we go to The Austrian Restaurant for Krampus

I'm taking this with me to work on in the caravan this afternoon and will hopefully have it finished tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Mini Happy Dance

I've finished the alphabet on Fantasy Sampler, yay.

I've done a little more of the trees so I can do the backstitch on the heart band when the mood grabs me but until that happens I'm sticking to the game plan and working on the Griffin corner block

ABC Lessons

Had a fantastic weekend down at Joy's, we laughed alot and chatted more but as usual I didn't take a single pic but I did make good progress on ABC Lessons while we chatted.

I've done a little more since I got home and should hopefully finish it later in the week once I've got another ornament stitched

Unfortunately on the way home my voice started going and it's gradually gone down hill all evening so I think I may well wake up in the morning with no voice at all

Fa La La

Each year I organise an ornament exchange amongst some of the UK stitchers I know with a posting date of early Dec that always falls around the GTG that's normally held by Joy so that those of us taking part and attending can hand them over in person.

This year mine goes to Pat (no blog and the same Pat I'm SAL on Mary Busby with). I was planning on stitching her something else then I saw the guy from Plum Pudding on someone else's blog and it reminded me I had downloaded it last year and that it was a much better pick for Pat.

Beaded Hangings

I got them finished in time (just, last one was done at 10.30 and the lunch started at 12.30!) or so I thought I got the restaurant where the committee was meeting for our Christmas lunch and found out that there was 11 of us not the 10 I had been told :(

Luckly #11 was very understanding and as I'll be seeing her again on Thursday for the WI Christmas lunch I told her to have a look at everyone else's and pick the one she wanted so I now have another 3 crowns to do.

I'm going to do a post dated post, have my lunch and then I'm off for a GTG with some UK girls

November progress & December goals

For November I said
UFO RR Done
Stitch a Christmas ornament or two I stitched 2 and started a third
Make good progress on a WIP Got a fair amount done on Fantasy Sampler

For December I'd like to

Finish Fantasy Sampler
Finish as many other WIPs as I can

November wasn't too bad a month for me considering I had the madness of the Celtic Fayre slap bang in the middle of the month
I stitched for a total of 91hours 18 minutes, had 3 new starts and 2 finishes (both were new starts and ornies) and managed to stitch every day even if it was only for a few minutes.

Current WIP total = 44

Mel's rose framed

Yesterday I went down to the Nimble Thimble to collect Mel's rose, she picked the frame herself and I think she did a great job.

The only problem is that she has no wall space left in her room so it's going to grace to wall opposite her bedroom door which is by the bathroom door.

And of course I had to buy some stash while I was there :)

I had actually asked Chris to order Tracery Dragons for me just a few days before TW made her announcement so I was lucky there and I didn't have my wish list with me so not much else came home with me