Lovely Stash Day

Today I recieved the threads I purchased from Kath. Thank you so much hun!! I love Six Strand Sweets threads and now thanks to Kath I have almost every colour avaliable!!

I also popped into my local stitchy shop, mostly because my mum was working and I wanted to say hi. Upside to mum working here is that I get discount, downside it I use it alot lol. Half the time I end up leaving with something I didn't even need to buy. Today was no exception! Bought some lovely christmassy charms I am going to add to my bracelet!

Shh...don't tell anyone (I bought more wool as well!!) Going to make a lovely chunky scarf for my mum for christmas in the green and one for me in the pink :)

Now my final piece for today was actually a RAK from a customer at my mum's shop. My mum was talking to this woman who said she makes beaded halloween ornaments and she'd hung lots of them onto a twig as a decoration. I mentioned how lovely that sounds and my mum introduced me as her daughter.Went home afterwards and thought nothing more of it. Mum came home a couple of hours later and presented me with this little gem!! The woman had gone home and then come back to the shop with a little pumpkin orny just for me :) It's so sweet and so tiny cos it's made from mill hill petite beads!

Still waiting on my order from sewandso but that should be here tomorrow. Halloween Fairy should be finished by Sunday as well, so then its onto the Christmas Stitching Mountain!!!

Professor Layton & Pandora's Box.

...asking Dad for help with one master puzzle was a big mistake.... he's been playing it for the last hour!! LOL think I may have to buy him his own DS for christmas...On the plus side I've almost completed Pandora's Box. I'd already finsihed the main story and completed most of the puzzles so it's just finishing the side quests & extra puzzles :)

Might have to do some Layton themed stitching in the new year.... =D

An update of sorts.

Work continues on Halloween Fairy, just half a wing and her head to go before its on to the beading!!

Soon as she's finished it'll be onto the mountain of christmas present stitching I see before me, luckily though they are mostly small designs that shouldn't take long to do.

I will be stitching at least one card this year for my Secret Santa.

Also have to stitch a birth sampler for my friend Laura who's due in January & an Orny for the orny exchange on the crossstitching.com forum before December 6th.

Some time during all of this I will also try to get some stitches into Halloween Short Stack & finish that little Bentley bear design.

In other news I bought some lovely soft grey chunky wool, some DK tweed in cream & some aran knit in pink/purple. (yep totally gave into my craving!!) So I will also be knitting up a scarf at some point!!

I am going to be very busy over the next couple of months but will try and keep you all posted!!

Happy Stitching!!

P.S please excuse the lack of photos, I'm halfway through a wing on HF & want to finish it before I photograph it!

Woollen Cravings

I have a craving to buy wool. But not just any wool, I have a craving for chunky wool. You know~the really soft squashy type of wool thats just comforting to hold even if its just a ball of wool.

The main reason for my craving is probably the fact that my home is now like an ice-box constantly, even with the heating on thanks to the numerous drafts that seem to come from invisable nooks and crannys. It creeps in under the doors and around the windows, somehow managing to find its way down my neck and around my ankles chilling me all over. So I need wool, wool with which I can cable knit a scarf to keep out the drafts and chills.

Bit melodramatic I know but damn it I'm cold!! I really do want to cable knit a scarf (bit ambitious considering I just about know how to knit let alone do cable stitch!!) I've seen this lovely yarn in my local shop that is perfect for the scarf I want to do but I must wait until the end of the month to purchase it!!

Warmest Wishes

Fiona xx

Sod's Law & Photos!!

I don't know why but this always happens to me.

I recieved this chart through the post yesterday from Stephanie (thank you so much hun!!) and I wanted to kit it up so I could stitch it as soon as I finish Halloween Fairy.So I found the fabric I want to use and started to look through my boxes of DMC threads. Out of the 8 threads required to stitch this design I had...3. Over 300 DMC threads to my name and I still managed to pick a design that uses 5 that I don't have??

So after a very quick trip to the craft shop this morning I now have everything I need to stitch this design, I even found a really nice box frame in Cargo to frame it once it's done. Plus I was very good in the craft shop, all I bought was the missing threads I needed!!

As I said yesterday, progress on Halloween Fairy is going very well, this is how far I'd gotten yesterday and hopefully if I get some stitching done today it will be even further!!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!!

hmm...me thinks it could be time for an update!!

7 days since my last update!! How did that happen?!

This week I decided to focus my stitching time on Halloween Fairy rather that Short Stack. Mostly because Halloween Fairy is an old UFO I would like to see finished before the new year. Progess is actually going pretty well, I'm hoping to finish at least one whole wing and possibly her head this weekend.

I'm aiming to have her finished by October 31st so I can start my christmas stitching!! Luckily the charts I have chosen for people are quick but quirky designs to stitch (I'm thinking approximately a week for each given the amount of time I now have free to stitch in!)

So Halloween Short Stack probably won't get picked up again until the new year but seeing my project bag almost empty is such a lovely sight I'm determined not to get it ever get that bad again!! There are a couple of quicky stitches still in there but they will be completed inbetween xmas pressie stitching as a bit of a break :)

Thats all for today, will upload photos tomorrow of Fairy's progress

Happy Stitching!!

Boycott Cross Stitcher!!!

Sorry but I feel the need to vent. Having just purchased the 'new look' cross stitcher magazine the only thing I have to say is that I have wasted £4. Magazines that are entitled 'Britain's No.1 Cross Stitcher' should not heavily feature textile projects!! Especially when many of those projects require expensive finishings!! I am all for learning interesting new finishing techniques but not for every single project in the magazine!! I used to love cross stitcher, the magazine was always bright, colourful and very clean looking in terms of layout, fonts used etc but now it feels very 'twee' and I can honestly say that although I will miss the Maragret Sherry designs I will not be buying that magazine again and would rather use the money I save by not buying it on more stash I am far more likely to do!! Sorry...will have calmed down by next update!!

Mini Finish

keyword: mini.

Decided to stitch a very simple but elegant design of a teapot from an old issue of quick and easy today. Stitched 1 over 1 on (I think) 25ct Evenweave, bearing in mind this is the first time I have ever used Evenweave before :)

please excuse the blurry-ness, photographed next to a 2p coin for sizing reference :)

Now you may be wondering why I stitched it 1 over 1 and made it so tiny, well its because my mum got given a dolls house for her birthday, she's always wanted one. Hopefully we are going to turn it into a haberdashery/wool shop on the ground floor with a flat above and this teapot is going to become either a picture or a tea tray in this flat. Well thats all for today, I really enjoyed stitching on evenweave and will hopefully do some more projects on it :)

Hand Dyed Threads

I love hand dyed threads. Sure they can be a pain to stitch with sometimes as each stitch should be completed individually but the colours and effects achieved are amazing. Not to mention that the names given to them are just yummy!! The reason I am posting about thread is that I have received a MASSIVE lot of hand dyed threads from the lovely Michelle (literally hundreds!) and I've been positively drooling over them ever since. I've downloaded a chart from Rainbow Gallery called 'fall into autumn'. (massive thanks to Elaine for letting me know where she got the chart from) I'm currently deciding which of my lovely new threads I want to use as amazingly I have none of the ones required. I can't wait to stitch this design as I have the perfect fabric to use to turn it into an ornament which I picked up yesterday so watch this space for a very speedy finish :) Happy Stitching xx

Drip, drip, Drop...

Little April Shower...

Forgot to post photos up yesterday of this last finish :)

Stitches & Stash

October already!! Where does the time go??

It's been such a busy couple of weeks, getting used to a new job and everything, luckily I have been able to do much more stitching in the evenings and now that I'm working on average, 4 days a week, I get a lot more time during the day too!

As you can see there hasn't been much progress with the Halloween Fairy, half of the orange on her skirt and some of the beads (which may have to come out again if they get in the way of the hoop... opps!!)

However work is going very well on Halloween Short Stack, I love the folksy feel of this design and the thread colours are just beautiful! Slightly time consuming as each stitch has to be completed individually rather than working in rows as they are hand dyed threads.

Went to my local fabric shop todayand bought some lovely autumn fabrics & ribbons to use on a couple of finishes I have lined up. I love autumn, the colours associated with this season are so warm and rich, lovely :)

People who have been following my blog for a while will probably know that as well as being an avid stitcher, I am also a bookworm. Right now I am reading Sense and Sensibility, though it pains me to admit it but I am struggling to get into this book. I think it's the language that I'm struggling with more than anything so I'm sure it will get easier the more I read. I wanted to read something of Jane Austin because I really love the 'fancy a Jane day?' chart by the sampler girl but I feel like I can't stitch it without having ever read anything by Jane Austin. I also have Northanger Abbey and Emma to read and I'm also looking out for Pride & Predudice. So wh knows I may become another Austin fan!

Think thats all for this week, thank you for reading and hopefully I'll get better at updating!!