Esther is finished

I've spent the last couple of days working on Esther to get her finished and earlier this evening I did just that :)

She was my Jan 1st start this year and sadly ended up (like most of my projects) largely ignored for several months while I worked on those damn fairies and lewis.

She has been a delight to stitch and I'm sorry to see her finished in a way.

I've signed up for a couple of things in 2014 and have added buttons to my sidebar, I'm quite pleased I managed to do it without help, well unless you count google!

There are a mere 22 minutes left of 2013 and then it'll be a whole new year to look forward to and my giveaway to close and a winner to pick.

I wish you all the happiest and healthiest of years in 2014 xx

Last updates of the year

I thought I had a more up to date pic of Lewis but I don't so he's not here.

This one of Esther Sleepe is out of date now because I've spent all day sat on my behind watching recorded films and stitching on her.

If I do the same tomorrow she'll be finished by the end of the day/month/year take your pick :0

And after a couple of weekends of not a lot of progress on the Tree farm I have finished band 1 which means I'm half way 

Last couple of gifts

Fella has 2 girls and earlier this year I found this eyelash yarn in my stash and thought that I would knit them a scarf each for Christmas.   Each one took 1 50 gram ball and I did them in plain old stocking stitch 20 stitches wide.

Both girls loved them and fella says they have been in constant use

Lucy also got a spike bracelet

Please excuse the mess in this pic, my bead mat is always untidy but it shows the spikes off really well

Mum's Christmas Present

Mum is also a beader and had I just given her the kit for this she would probably of asked me to make it up anyway as she doesn't do as much as I do!   So I decided to skip that step and give it to her already made up and ready for her to use.

This is the Pasture Scissor keep and tassel from Spellbound and is one of the items I couldn't share when I went to Harrogate.

Unfortunately this was the best overall pic I took

So I've added some closer up ones as well

The scissors are not included in the kit and were also bought at Harrogate

Some Christmas gifts

I've made a few of the gifts I've given this year and of course I couldn't share them until they had been handed out so here goes.

Lucy loves skulls so when monthly bead along appeared for 2 drop peyote and someone posted a link to this etsy shop I had a hard time picking one but eventually settled on this one

Mel is an animal lover and when I saw this racing turtle bracelet kit I had to get it for her

Lucy is also a huge Doctor Who fan so again when someone posted a link somewhere to this Etsy shop I had another hard time picking which one to stitch for her. But it did make for an easy stitch when I was sick a few months ago

More gift ornaments

The last of the ornaments that I'm giving as gifts this year have been handed out now and are with their new owners so I can post them here without letting the cat out of the bag :)

This is for my Parents neighbour

This one is Mel's

And this one is fella's

OMG 10 years and 9 days!!!

How did I manage to miss that!!

 I was convinced I started my blog on Dec 23 2003 but no it was Dec 13 2003 so I'm 9 days late :(

At the time blogging was a new thing and like may others I decided I'd give it a go.  I found blogger difficult to use at the time and so didn't really get much further than a few boring posts and I didn't have a camera or scanner at the time to take pics either.

So I gave up here and time passed and I discovered Windows space and got on well with that, sadly that is no longer in existence so all those posts are lost now but I did copy my favourite post ever to here.

In late 2007 I rediscoverd my blog here and have been faithful ever since :)

To celebrate this milestone I'm going to do a giveaway.

As yet I have no idea what will be in other than a tin of some description because the traditional gift for a 10th anniversary is tin and it won't be sent out until some time in January.

If your interested in a complete mystery then leave a comment and to allow for Christmas I'll leave it open until New Years Eve.

I'm not going down the post on your blog and you'll get extra entries as that annoys me and makes for far to much time away from my needle sorting it all out.

BUT if you've already posted a comment this month on a post I've made then you'll get an entry for each one of those

Weekend progress

I think I did rather well with the tree farm over the weekend esp as I managed to finish the fairies as well.

I'm hoping I'll get it finished this next weekend esp as it's IHSW at least I think it is!

Woohoo the fairies are finished

At long last they are done and I'm over the moon about it and feel like a weight has been lifted as they are so not my taste but they are paying for Christmas this year :)

I wasn't planning on finishing them today and fully expected it to be tomorrow but my neck and shoulder didn't complain at me like they have in the past when I've been beading them so I kept on going.

Lewis Hamilton & the fairies

Is it just me or does the post title sound like a rather strange story or a really bad film?

It was either that or updates and I'm fed up of using that as a post title

So as you can guess I've been working on Lewis again this week and I'm fairly pleased with my progress but boy was that tyre boring to stitch

And some progress on adding the bling to the fairires.

I had to put this on hold for a couple of weeks while I made an ornament or two for exchanges and the ones for Family ready for Krampus last weekend but I'm back on it now and should have it done this week.  Tomorrow I'll be rolling it up so I can work on the bottom half of them, it's stars that are taking the time the beading goes quite quick!

Couple of updates

I've started on the last of the 3 projects and this is at the end of last week.

Lewis Hamilton and so far as much as I love F1 it's been a boring stitch with nothing but shades of grey and black and there's lots more of it to come :(

I really needed a break from other people's stitching and so I spent a couple of days on Esther Sleepe.

She last made an appearance here back in April and between that pic and this one I'd finished the band that was half done and and done most of the wide band under it that you can see.

In the last couple of days I've filled in the gaps in the wide band and done the two half bands

Some ornaments

On Saturday the family went off to Krampus and as has become normal for me I gave my parents their ornament for this year but I also gave Lucy her's and Teejay's was completed this morning before I took them home.

Mum and Dad's

Lucy's

Teejay's

TUSAL time

For the last time this year it's time to post rubbish pictures :)

I've added orts from the Firefly Fairies, Legends of the Dragons, Christmas Tree Farm, Lewis Hamilton  and of course lots of nymo etc from beading.

While this is the last official date for the year I'll post a final ort pic early in the New Year.

And just in case your still inthe dark what this post is about go here

November progress & December goals

For November I said

Finish Legends of the Dragons Done 
Pick my new weekend project Done 
Get Firefly Fairies to just needing the beads but finished would be better I've started the beading
Start last paid project if by some miracle I do finish Firefly Fairies I've started it and will work on it in the evenings once I've done some of the beading on FF 
Post every day for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) Done

For December I'd like to

Finish Firefly Fairies
Finish Lewis Hamilton (the last paid project)
Finish Reindeer Stables
Finish something else
Decide on my January 1st start


I stitched for 96 hours 49 minutes in November! had 1 new start and 2 finishes and stitching every day.

Current PHD total = 33

Flower Fairy

Another item made for the charity fair which I'm told raised a total of £7,500!

I made one of these for myself years ago (in different colours) and she sits on top of the tin I keep my needles in.

The thing in her hands is a flower shaped bead and I hadn't noticed it was on it's side when I took the pic and I no longer have her to take another.

With this post I've made it to the end of NaBloPoMo 2013 and have managed to post every day with resorting to posting an old TW finish, yay

Half a happy dance

The stitching is finished on Firefly Fairies and tomorrow I start the beading.

Tonight I started the last of the projects for the same lady

Rosie pic

Rosie's new favourite place to lie is in the top of the radiator.

She started last week when I had a few bits of washing drying there so I put an old towel that was destined for the rag bag there for her to lie on

Mary's Sampler

I finished Mary's Sampler yesterday like many others this week :)

I'm really happy with it even though I have no idea what I'll do with it now!

I used an ooops piece from Country Stitch (are they still going?) and the called for DMC.

The only change I made was to Mary and Joseph's outfits colour, I subbed 902 as it is a little brighter

Weekend progress

I had a very busy weekend so not much stitching time was had but I did make a little progress.

Next weekend I have 18 queen stitches to look forward to

Firefly Fairies

Last week's progress on the fairies.

I'll be beading them by the end of the week

More pen toppers

Few more of the pen toppers I did for the Charity stall a few weeks ago

Kris Kringle

I've been on a class today with Oak Tree Crafts to make a Christmas decoration called Kris Kringle.

It started off badly for me and it took 3 attempts to get his hat started!  Then it took me I don't know how long to figure out why the white at the bottom of the hat refused to sit in the right place on the mould but I got there in the end.

I did manage to get him done by the end of the day and I've booked myself on a class in January so here's hoping the weather plays ball for me to go.

Here he is in all his glory

Better view of his hat

Better view of his beard

I had a phone call while I was there to tell me that a friend from WI passed last night and I have to say it's shocked me quite deeply as she was only 50 and in good health.

Harrogate stash

I went to Harrogate for the knitting and stitching show yesterday and a few things made their way home with me.

I've decided that it was time to invest in a quilters ruler and rotary cutter but don't have any plans to take up quilting and I picked up spare blades as well while I was there.

I've been lusting after the Christmas double flips its since they came out and they were on sale so it would of been rude not to :)

Some more jingle bells in a couple of colours I don't have and extra gold ones, a few delica's, a couple of earring kits and the bead pack to make a Christmas tree brooch.

A piece of Gina's Delight from Sparklies that I have no plans for at all and that fantastic tape measure fabric which I do have plans for.

A few other things came home with me as well but I had to leave those out of the the pic because they are to made up into Christmas presents for people that I know read my blog.

More charity bead work

This time it's a few tube ornaments.

These are done round the tube's that beads (mostly Delica's) often come in and the patterns are all from Threadabead.  I spotted a new one on facebook I think it was that's a reindeer and he's really cute.

Anne over at Feather Stitching asked about the tassel from yesterday and where to get it.

I should of posted the link and I forgot to, sorry about that :(  anyway it's from Spellbound and comes in a few other colours

Balmoral Tassel

Another project that was made for the charity event a friend did.

She gave me this kit and asked me to make it up so I did.

It was a more enjoyable make than I expected it to be and far more sparklie as well.

Thank you all for your support over the death of my family member.

It's probably going to be at least a week before a service is held for him as his repatriation has still to be arranged (he passed in Saudi)