Cirque des Cercles

Having finished Home is where the Sunflowers grow and an exchange project this week I found myself without a currently active PHD to do on Friday so Cirque des Cercles came out to play for the day and should the same thing happen again another week then it'll come out again. 

The last time I can find a pic of is on my blog is here but it's obviously had a little love since then because it looked like this Friday morning 

and here it is on Friday evening and this gives you a much better idea of the fabric colour  Sparkling Sunflowers (what a surprise!) from Sparklies

You think that's bright? just wait and see what Kate custom dyed for me to do another one of the Cirques on in the future

You'll find the most recent but out of date pic of my beaded version here I'll really should try and remember to post a more up to date version of it and work on it more but right now I'm working towards finishing the Kimono

Snow, a finish and progress

This is teh scene that greeted me out of my bedroom window this morning

And this is out across the back of the house

It's all gone now but it was nice while it lasted which it never does here unless the rest of the UK has a ground to a halt.

Last night I finished Home is where the Sunflowers grow and it's my third finish for the year not bad considering we are still in January 

And another bit ready to add to my quilt, I have a few more almost ready to add 

Stitch from Stash Jan report

I'm sticking with SFS again this year but we have a few changes the most notable of which is that we get a £ reward for finishing things from our stash but they have to have been there for more than 6 months to count and you can only count the stitches from this year on any PHD's

£ spent = £3.88

£ Earnt = £2

Budget left = £18.12

New starts from stash = 3.  Sunflower panel, In the Post and Home is where the sunflowers grow

PHD's worked on = Charmed Hearts(Finished) and Toy Gatherer

My spending this month was on a chart booklet and a piece of aida banding so I could do an exchange project which only needs a little bit of back stitch now

My finish was Charmed Hearts but 90% of it was completed before Jan 1st this year so I took a rough guess at my £ earned from it 

Few beading finishes

As promised yesterday most of my recent beading finishes I say most because I somehow managed to miss taking a pic of my 2014 bead mat so I'll fix that tomorrow.

First is a tape measure I did for my Mum, she saw mine back when I did and asked me if I'd make her one so she sorted out her colours, dug out her tape measure and waited for almost 2 years for me to get round to it.

Not the best of pics but it was the best of the bunch and you get the general idea of the colours if you want to see the pattern better follow the link above :)

This little guy was in the bag of kits Mum gave me to do when I moved to here and could only get my hands on Christmas projects in January as everything was still packed, another project that took me 2 years to get round to doing and is the last of the ones in the bag 

And a quick pair of earrings from a little kit I bought off Spellbound a few months back, the lizard also came from them

Grow your blog party

I'm a little late in posting this :( aka I was so tired last night I forgot!!

Welcome to my blog no matter if you're a long time reader or a first time visitor who has made their way here from the Grow Your Blog Party and I hope which ever you are that you'll be back

I'm Lindsay from the heart of Cheshire in the UK and I live alone with a Gecko named Baby who is getting ready to shed in this pic so she's a little dull and cloudy looking

And a cat called Rosie who likes cardboard boxes, plastic bags and waking me up at stupid o'clock in a morning because she want's a bit of attention

I'm a carer for my Mum hence the Caring Stitcher title of my blog which is now entering it's 12th year!!

I started blogging because at the time I was a full time Mum with a husband and 2 girls and not much of a life outside of them and it was the thing to do back then plus I was younger and a bit more stupid than I am now.  These days I blog because I enjoy it and find it's a good way of keeping a record of things I've stitched/ beaded/ done over the years.

As I said I stitch and that's my first love

Long time readers will recognise last week's progress pic of Toy Gatherer

And I do a fair bit of bead weaving, this is just one of my on going projects but it hasn't been touched in months now but I'm thinking about returning to it soon, do come back tomorrow when I'll be posting some pics of recently finished beading project

I never really know what to write when it comes to this type of thing and always feel that I make no sense at all or I come across as boring and I can never think of anything interesting to say!


If by some miracle I make it to 300 followers I'll be holding a giveaway of some sort, I'll decide that when the time comes

Last and first TUSAL

A new year and a new set of dates to post pics of rubbish :) but first pics of my orts on Dec 31

  

Off I go with TUSAL 2015

In here are orts from Sunflower panel, In the post, Home is where the sunflowers grow, Charmed Hearts, Toy Gatherer and an exchange project that I can't say anything about other than it's a bookmark

and my beading orts

IHSW

I took part in IHSW last weekend and made good progress my Toy Gatherer now has legs and feet but no head :)

You can find my before pic at the end of this post and here's my after pic

I got a little more done on Home is where the Sunflowers grow last week after my gifted gorgeousness post but sadly didn't finish it :(  

This week I'm working on an exchange project and will go back to Sunflower to finish it once that's finished

Gifted Gorgeousness

It's the 15th of the month (just about) so it's time for the first gifted gorgeousness post being hosted by Jo.

The idea is that we all have things in our stash that have been gifted to us in some way or other and it's a shame to leave them there feeling unloved or it could be something you're stitching as a gift for someone else.

I have two projects that count this month and both were Christmas gifts last year.

First is Home is where the sunflowers grow that I received in the advent exchange over on  Needlecraft Haven from Ursh who as far as I know doesn't have a blog.  Ursh sent me the chart, fabric (which isn't as light as it looks in the pic) and the called for GAST, WDW and CC.

I started it on Monday and this is my progress as of this evening, fingers crossed tomorrow it will be a finish

The other one is the post box off my fella

Weekend stitching

I was right (for once) about finishing Charmed Hearts this last weekend the last bead went on Saturday evening making it my first finish of 2015 :) and about time to.  I have no idea when I actually started this but it's on my PHD list at the top with no year beside it which means I started it before 1 Jan 2004, before then I didn't really keep a record of what I stitched, when I started/ finished things or how long they took.

I did put the charms on the hearts but decided that I wasn't happy with them so took them off again but I did put the beads on the outer border

And because the big pic really doesn't do the outer border justice a little close up of it

New start number 2

My second new start of this year is In the Post the kit off my fella for Christmas

The grey blob on the right is the edge and on the left there is 15 - 20 stitches more before I hit that edge

You may remember some time ago I posted about making covers for q snaps etc well I've now set up a page on facebook for them

Bit of everything

First is my New Year's day start, Sunflower Panel from Heritage Crafts

Next is last weekend's progress on Charmed Hearts, I'll finish it this weekend 

Sunday afternoon I took the decs down and Rosie was supervising so I wrapped her in tinsel and managed to get this 

before she did this

and lastly day's 22 - 24 of the secret mystery bead a long which means

TA DA it's finished :)

Yet more mystery beading

The end is in sight now, I have a bit of day 24 left to do which will get done in the morning but until then 

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

More mystery beading

I've got further on with the mystery bead a long I didn't quite make it to day 16 by New Year but have added the date charm anyway as I was over half done in 2014.

This is up to day 16

And the other side

Close up of day 16, the other side is just the same only in blue

Days 17 & 18 was the hanging loop

And a close up of it 

I've done day 19 as well but it was raining this morning and so far too dull to get a decent pic of it

Last stitching of 2014

I noticed when I did my goals post that my last post of 2014 was my 1300 post, just a useless bit of info for you

On Dec 30 I finished Reindeer Stables from Santa's Village, it only took me a year and a bit to do!

All I had done when I last worked on it was the bottom vine and a little of the top.

And then for the last day and a bit of the year I worked on Charmed Hearts which last made a visit to the world way back in July 2008!!!!! so you can see I worked on the last border but had to frog the bit of it I did in 2008 which is why it became unloved again

I'm thinking I might just work on it this weekend to finish it because once the green is done there isn't much left and I have no plans this weekend.

2014 goals report & 2015 goals

For 2014 I said
Stitch or bead an ornament a month   Nope
Start and finish at least 6 small TW's for the SAL  Nope, I think I did one!
Have fun rediscovering my stash with Stitch from Stash 2014   Done and I found lots of things I no longer wanted as well so have been selling them off
Keep up with the TUSAL  Done
Finish one of my Circles most likely the beaded one   Nope, but the beaded one is just about half way now
Finish Santa's Village  Nope 
Get my PHD number to below 25   Just missed out on this one it's at 26

For 2015 I'd like to
Keep up with Stitch from Stash, it's done me good this last year
Keep up with the TUSAL
Finish Santa's Village, I've done 6 of them so it's all downhill now
Finish more than I start
Get my PHD to below 20
Finish at least 2 of the projects that have no start year listed
Make good progress on (or even finish) a TW
Not to leave all my Christmas ornaments till just before they are needed!


I stitched for 1,049 hours 6 mins in 2014 which averages out to a little below 3 hours a day, I had 21 starts and 27 finishes over the year and only carry 3 over to this year.

December progress & January goals

For December I said
Finish Teejay's Stocking   Done, made up and given, he loved it
Finish something else   I finished off Reindeer Stables from Santa's Village
Decide on my Jan 1st start  Done
Keep selling stash   Done but only a couple of things they still count tho

For January I'd like to
Decide if I'm going to stick with Toy Gatherer at weekends or have something new for the new year
Start one new project each week of the month
Finish my 2014 bead mat
Keep selling stash

I stitched for 104 hours 50 minutes well over half of it on the penguins, I didn't start anything but had 2 finishes and stitched every day

Current PHD total = 26