WIP Wednesday

Stitching has been slow this week, despite having Tuesday Morning & Wednesday off. (trip to Hobbycraft with my mum really didn't help lol came back with yet more yarn for a blanket I've yet to start!)

Work has been progressing on Dandy Dreams this week, here is where I am as of today.

Getting there but I can't see this being finished by Friday sadly.

I also missed my Tuesday ORT report but I did take a picture before emptying my container for the week ahead, last few orange threads at the bottom from Nose Garden and the rest are all from Dandy Dreams :)

Needles & Natter Group tomorrow morning, based on the amount for yarn I have waiting to be transformed into Granny Squares for a throw I may just have to take a crochet hook with me rather than an embroidery needle!! But we shall see what tomorrow brings :)

Till Next Time, Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

P.S don't forget to check out Heather's awesome CCN & LHN giveaway, see post below for the link!!

Heather's having a giveaway!!

Go and check it out by clicking here :)

xX Fiona Xx

Mundane Monday

I am in a bit of a slump today, not entirely sure why but I have indulged in some stash enhancement to cheer myself up, I have purchased the three Santa's village releases from CCN & the buttons to finish them, the buttons I'm missing to completely finish Nose Garden & Lizzie Kate's new 'Spring String Snippet' :)

Santa's Village 1~ Santa's House

Santa's Village 2~ Poinsettia Place

Santa's Village 3~North Pole Post Office

Spring String Snippet

Also discovered the Halloween Ornament SAL today which I might just have to add to my monthly stitchings! January's theme was pumpkins which I think I probably won't have time to stitch now but next month's theme is 'Black Cats'. I'm sure I have one or two of these prowling round in my stash!!

Right off to put some more stitches into Dandy Dreams before bed!!

Happy Stitching

xX Fiona Xx

Sunday Stitchings ~WIPocalypse 2013 January Round Up

This year I joined the WIPocalypse SAL set up by Measi, the idea following on from last year which was to stitch as much as possible before the supposed end of the world in December 2012. Since the end of the world didn't happen now is the time to finish off all those WIP's we didn't think we'd have to worry about!

Being something of a 'serial starter' this appealed to me in a big way so I decided to join in the fun!

My WIP's can be found on the WIPocalypse page or by clicking here. All my WIP's are listed oldest to newest and I will add to it as the year progresses, I wondered whether or not to remove finished WIP's but then decided to simply strike through them as they are finished and note the dates so I can see just how long they've taken.

This month I decided to work on some of my Crazy January Challenge pieces from last year because they also (loosly) fitted in with the Theme-a-licious SAL set up by Heather theme for January.

• Snowman 10
• Nose Garden
• Dandy Dreams

So far I've finished both Snowman 10 & Nose Garden, links to which can been found in the right sidebar under happy dances. I'm hoping Dandy Dreams will be finished this week!

I am also hoping to start something new this week, this little kit by Dimensions.

I've had it in my stash for a while now and I realised last week that it'll tie in perfectly with Jardin January (unlike my snowmen finishes so far this month!)

It's actually a really nice kit as it comes complete with the mount & glass clip frame to finish it afterwards.

I'll also be looking for something quick and probably coffee/caffine related to stitch/make for my friends birthday at the start of February. I knit her a 'mug hug' for Christmas & I gave her a Cath Kidson mug last year so maybe a coaster this year?? I don't know, I'm sure Pinterest will give me some ideas!!

Till next time, happy stitching

xX Fiona Xx

Friday Finishes

Despite my lack of stitching on Wednesday/Thursday I have some finishes to share with you!!

First up I finished Squirrel, I omitted the word 'Squirrel' and the acorns near his feet, I plan on stitching this again sometime in grey and facing the other way by scanning and flipping the image in photoshop :)

Secondly I finally finished Nose Garden! I omited most of the backstitch, the buttons and switched from using the charted Six Strand Sweets threads to the DMC's as I didn't think I'd have enough of the SSS's left to finish the picture.

And to round up here is a picture of my progress on Dandy Dreams as of today, the first row of text is finished and I've completed the top border, I'm hoping to have the wording complete by Sunday!

 

Hope everyone has a fab weekend

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

No WIP Wednesday Or Needles & Natter Thursday

Sadly I have no photos to show for these two days.

Wednesday I took out Dandy Dreams to work on, I've not touched this design since starting it for the Crazy January Challenge last year and I was really looking forward to working on it, however as soon as I looked at the chart  I realised I'd calculated the fabric size wrong and my design was not going to fit so I spent Wednesday frogging the small start I'd previously made in order to reuse the fabric.

Luckily I had a larger piece of the same fabric so I hoped to get restarted at my Thursday morning group but when I got there I realised I'd left the chart at home (how I will never know) By the time I got back home it was time to go to work and then I've been at a friends house all evening so have had no time to stitch today!!

 

All in all a disappointing two days, still it can only get better right?

Hopefully I'll get some stitching done this weekend!!

Happy Stitching

xX Fiona Xx

TUSAL Tuesday ~ A weekly ORT Report

This weeks ORT report is boasting a very full container!!

Threads are from LK January Stamp, LK Snowman 10, San-Man Originals Nose Garden & JBW Designs Squirrel.

 

The backdrop for my ORT Report are book style storage tins from Cath Kidson, they were a Christmas present from my parents in 2011, I also have the 'little book of pins' tin :) The pink one is the 'big book of buttons' and the blue one at the top (yes the overflowing one!) is the 'big book of threads'. It's overflowing because I use it as a temporary home for the threads I have finished using.

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx 

Sunday Stitchings~ IHSW Edition

It was the first International Hermit & Stitch Weekend of 2013 this weekend and after my progress throughout the week despite being ill my stitching mojo vanished on Saturday!!!

I did nowhere near as much stitching as I'd hoped to do and as a result I haven't finished Nose Garden, I did manage to do some stitching on Sunday while it continued to snow outside and I'd say I'm about 85-90% done.

Just the rest of the sunbeams to stitch & backstitch before it's finished :)

As I mentioned above it started snowing again on Sunday, it snowed for most of the day but as it was fairly light it hasn't made much of an impact on the snow we got on Friday.

For the week ahead I am going back to work tomorrow, I'm still not 100% better & I still feel lousy but I can't afford to take any more time off work, I'll be seeing the Doctor tomorrow as well as a normal cold/flu would have gone by now.

Stitching wise I plan on finishing Nose Garden & then working on Dandy Dreams & possibly starting something new, a couple of freebie designs have caught my eye over the course of the weekend and they don't look like they'll take to long to stitch up!

Happy Stitching!!

 

xX Fiona Xx

Frosty Friday Finishes!

Well the weathermen promised snow and snow is what we got, a whole 3-5 inches!

view from my living room

 

view from my kitchen window

 

It has been snowing all day and because I am still poorly I have spent the whole day stitching, snapping pictures and playing super mario on the Wii U.

But todays post is not just about the weather, no todays post is Friday finishes and this week I have two to show you. First up is Lizzie Kate's January Stamp, I finished this on Thursday and will will be a small pillow/cushion sometime soon.

 

January Stamp by Lizzie Kate, stitched on 14ct Aida (possibly 16ct) using a mix of Sampler Threads, Weeks & DMC. I subsituted Weeks Emerald for Weeks Bayberry, Whitewash for DMC Blanc & Mascara for Cresents Blackbird.

Second Frosty Finish is Snowman 10 which I finished at about 2PM this afternoon, again I'm thiking some kind of pillow finish, might end up as a cube....

 

Snowman 2010 by Lizzie Kate, stitched on 14ct Aida using recommend threads (switched Weeks Whitewash for DMC Blanc)

Since I finished Snowman 10 I picked up Nose Garden (yet another snowman!) and I've made some real progress with it, this weekend is International Hermit & Stitch weekend and I plan on finishing up Nose Garden and maybe putting some stitches into Dandy Dreams.

 

Keep Warm & Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

WIP Wednesday

Progress is being made this week albeit slowly, I have a fever and have been feeling very light headed these last couple of days and as a result I've not been at work, don't think I'll be going in tomorrow either but we shall see, if I do go to work it'll only be for a few hours in the afternoon as I usually go to my craft group on a Thursday morning.

I have been working on my new start and am very nearly finished (had hoped to have it done by now as it's tiny but I'm enjoying the stitching so I'm not complaining!) Lesleyanne correctly guessed that it was a LK monthly flip-it chart and here is how it looks now

 

He does look a little funny without his facial features but these should make an appearance tomorrow morning and hopefully he'll have a hat and some mittens to go with that rather festive scarf!

 

Snowmen seem to be my theme for this week as I'm also hoping to put some more stitches into Snowman 10, I've started to stitch the main man himself but there's so little to show that I'll leave the photos for another day.

 

Like much on the UK we were hit with snow on Monday but there wasn't very much and it had all melted away by lunchtime, luckily I got a few snaps of our 'sprinkling' in the morning.

 

Not very much as you can see, more is forecast for Friday though so fingers crossed it'll be more that this! This weekend is International Hermit & Stitch weekend & I really want an excuse to start stitching this chart!

 

Till next time, Happy Stitching!!

 

xX Fiona Xx

Sunday Stitchings & Starts

This week has been a good week stitching wise, I have made good progress with Snowman 10, I'd say I'm about 50% finished? The trees, snowflake band and scarf are all finished, just the snowman, hat and bird left to go :)

I ended up taking Snowman '10 and my crochet project to my group on Thursday, good thing too as when I got there I realised I'd left the instructions for my crochet project at home!

My orts for this week are looking good too, all the threads are from snowman 10 except two little tiny ones which I'll tell you more about in a second. The container they have been pictured in is my stitching cupcake, it's a trinket pot I was given for Christmas a couple of years ago and because the lid is slightly padded it makes a fairly good pincushion, once a week I add my orts to my TUSAL jar and I'll show that on the first of each month (following my own rules for TUSAL this year!)

So those two little orts I told you about... Saturday I was hit with a bout of start-i-tus and rather than hope it go away again rather quickly I endulged and after sortingout my basket of small charts into seasons/holidays/month I picked out a chart to stitch that I had most of the threads for (I've had to substitute 2) and late on Sunday I started.

This is my new start (first one of 2013!), I'm not going to tell you what it is until it's finished but this is as large as the design gets, it's designed by Lizzie Kate, is approx 3.5" by 3.5" in size and there are 12 designs in the set, feel free to have a guess at what it is I'm stitching :)

Next week I hope to finish Snowman '10, start hooking up squares for my crochet project, finish my new start and possibly do some work on Nose Garden :)

Happy stitching!!
xX Fiona Xx

WIP Wednesday

This week I have been working on Snowman 10 by Lizzie Kate, so far I have completed the outer border and the Christmas trees at the bottom of the design. I am about the start the snowflake band across the middle of the design.

I have taken photos of my progress but as blogger and my laptop are both playing up at the moment, I will try to get these up later today (it's 2:30AM here and my laptop is begining to bug the hell out of me!)

I was hoping to have this design finished this week but at the rate I'm stitching it's not looking entirely likely but we'll see, I might take it to my group later instead of starting my hooky throw :)

Happy Stitching

 

xX Fiona Xx

playing hooky :)

Last year (or possibly the year before that) I discovered Attic24 a wonderful riot of colour and hooky fun and it inspired me to learn to crochet.

I kept looking at all the wonderful things Lucy was creating and I knew that I wanted to create something just as snuggly and colourful. Luckily Lucy has created many tutorials and patterns for her creations and pretty soon I found the exact one I wanted to recreate.

Summer Garden Granny Throw

 

Then a few weeks later she posted this picture of a bag she'd created and that was it, I had my colour scheme for my throw.

...ok so I can't get the photo to upload but there is a picture of it on Lucy's blog Attic24 here

So this year I promised myself that I'd dedicate my Thursday mornings to this project and this week I plan to start !!

 Very excited to start hooking this up but I fear I may not have enough variations of colours to stop this throw looking too repetative.

xX Fiona Xx

mini blog hop :)

I was blog hoppping a second ago (I literally just go into my own blog then click the 'next blog' tab at the top of the page) and found the cutest little blog, makes me want to play with my sewing machine & fabrics!!

So I thought I'd post it up so anyone can go and check it out!

http://lovelylittlehandmades.blogspot.co.uk

Have a lovely day

xX Fiona Xx

January Theme

So the theme for January in the theme-a-lious 2013 is JARDIN JANUARY: work on something with a garden or floral theme. So with that loosely in mind, my projects for January are:

Nose 'Garden'

Dandy Dreams (dandylion clocks are flowers too!)

Snowman 10 (well you make them in the Garden & there are trees!)





All three of these designs were started last January as part of the Crazy January Challenge but I never picked them up again last year.

Well I'm off to put needle to thread to fabric, I have a three day weekend this week to make up for working over Christmas & New Years so hopefully I'll get something worth showing done :)

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

Happy New Year!!

well as the fuzzy head I woke up with and the sore back from sleeping on my friends sofa seem to be going away I guess it's time to welcome in the new year!!

No resolutions going on here this year, I always feel bad when I don't achieve them or break them very quickly!!
That being said....

I will be finishing off the projects I currently have on the go and hopefully I'll work through some of the stash mountain before adding more onto it!

I will be taking part in TUSAL 2013, WIPocalypse 2013, Theme-a-licious 2013, Santa's village SAL (new stash!) and I hope to be able to have a few giveaways & RAKs throughout the year.

I'm hoping to start work on a crochet throw next week & I aim to have it completed by the end of the year.

I think that's it in terms of what I will be up to this year, I hope to use my sewing machine a lot more, get more creative with my finishing & generally just enjoy my hobby again!

Wishing every single one of my followers a very happy and prosperous 2013

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx