Harrogate 2013 :)

well I finally get a chance to post photos of my Harrogate stash & talk about the trip :) (scroll down if you just want to see stash pics!)

We travelled up on the Friday night after work, dad drove this time as I'm still not massively confident about travelling on the motorway and at night-I'll be working on this next year- We stayed at the Ashley House hotel on Franklin Street, less than a 5 minute walk from the show. The hotel was lovely although the heating didn't work in either mine or my parents rooms and all bar one of the lights in my room were dead-thank god I thought to bring my stitching lamp!

Saturday saw a cold start to the day but we were soon in the queue and through the doors to the show. Mum's back went almost immediately so we (reluctantly) went to the grand hall to sit down and have a cup of tea (I was itching to get shopping but needs must) On display in the grand hall was a 'Knit-ivity' scene (I have photos but they are on my iphone not my camera so I haven't uploaded them yet, I'll try and get them posted over weekend)

Shortly we set off to hall M and the shopping commenced. One day I will learn to pace myself but sadly that day was not Saturday. First stall I visited was West End Embroidery, a reading based stockist of Weeks & GAST threads, and I spent £20 on some Weeks holiday series threads that have been discontinued.

Second stall of the day was Trudy Anne Designs and I spent more money on charts, also bumped into Michelle, Kath & Bev here and made lunch arrangements.

Next stop for me was The Nimble Thimble where I picked up the last few LK jingle charts I was missing and 7 of the CCN Santa's Village charts complete with buttons

Then I was out of cash....so I mooched around with Mum for a bit and then we bumped into the girls for the third time and decided to go for lunch. Lunch consisted of another cup of tea and some flapjacks as we had also arranged to meet Dad back at the hotel and go for something to eat in town. Lunch with Dad was eaten at 'The Den' and was cheesy chips & cider- yum!

After lunch Dad kindly lent me some money and it was back to the show!

I can't actually remember where I bought everything else from, I know I went back to Trudy Anne's to pick up a few charts I had missed the first time round, wool from black sheep yarns and several other bits and pieces from various other stalls.

Soon though it was time to head back to the hotel to collect Dad for a second time as we were travelling to nearby town just outside of Harrogate to visit one of his cousins for tea. Pat was such a lovely character and she collects teddy bears! I was really sad to say goodbye but hopefully we'll travel up again to visit her soon :)

On Sunday we decided to go back into the show as we still had one and a half halls to look round and we'd already bought the two day tickets so it seemed a shame to waste them. I bought more wool and some lovely little gingerbread charms I wanted to turn into earrings to wear over the Christmas period. Soon though we'd finished and decided to get an early start coming home.

So there we go, that's the summary of my time Harrogate for 2013 and to be honest it was all over far to soon, I'd have liked to have had a look around the town itself and spent some more time with Dad's cousin. Now that the words are out of the way I guess all that's left is to show you all what I bought!!

Such cute charms! Gingerbread men will become earrings and the lolly will hopefully be a necklace!

This is a hardback version of two of the 20 to make books 'Christmas Knits' & 'Christmas Crochet' I bought this on Saturday and so didn't have it with me on Sunday when I met Sue Stratford one of the authors :( would have been nice to get it signed but oh well, I guess there's always next year! 

My threads & the fabric I bought from Sparklies, I also bought a back issue of cross stitcher mag for £2 as I wanted another of the wooden stitchable keychains

Measuring tape fabric FQ's, planning on making a knitting needle roll with this as the lining :)

various CCN & LHN charts, I think these were all from Trudy Anne's

various other charts all from Trudy Anne's bar the bent creek 'Snow' & brittercup designs 'britty kitties 2' they were from Sparklies :)

random Lizzie Kate's 

My Santa's Village charts, only need to order the final chart now!

LK's Jingle flip-its, I'm planning on finishing these as individual charts rather than all together 

The wool! Mostly merino wool and mostly DK, the darker blue yarn in the lower left corner is 4ply sock yarn though.

A girl can never have enough scissors!

So there we go, all my stash from Harrogate for this year, not a bad haul but I think next year I'm really going to have to save throughout the year as I had to turn down several charts/yarns I would have loved to have bought! Despite having had a really busy start to the week I've even managed to make something, my gingerbread earrings are complete and ready for me to wear on Friday when the Christmas lights get switched on!

Aren't they cute?

Till next time 

xX Fiona Xx

Sunday Stitches & Weekly round-up

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend :) I am getting uber excited because now I can start counting down the days to the Harrogate show!

My goals last week seemed simple enough right? So how did I get on?? Well...

1. Work on Super Mario & complete section 2 Yes! Section 2 was completed on Wednesday so tonight I am starting work on Section 3!
2. Work on Green Flip-its & finish 'Keep Our Air Clean' Nope, I did work on it a little though, this week I'm aiming to get this chart finished and make a start on the next one
3. Work on Autumn-ation Nope, not a stitch went in
4. Work on Granny Stripe blanket Yes, I've added several more rows and I plan on working on this in the car tomorrow as we are off to Coventry to watch my little brother graduate from University. 

So goals this week are really much the same as last weeks:

1.Work on Super Mario and complete section 3

2. Work on Green Flipits, complete section 2 and start section 3

3. Work on Granny Stripe Blanket

I've left off Autumn-ation this week as I have several late nights at work this week and I'd rather see Super Mario & Green Series get further along than work on something small.

Hope you all have a brilliant week, see you on Tuesday for an ORT Report :)

xX Fiona Xx

Goals for this week

My goals for this week are simple enough:

1. Work on Super Mario & complete section 2
2. Work on Green Flip-its & finish 'Keep Our Air Clean'
3. Work on Autumn-ation
4. Work on Granny Stripe blanket

I started working on Section 2 of Super Mario tonight, I'd say its about half done, much larger blocks of solid colour in this section which seems to slow me down tonight for some reason but I should get this finished in the next couple of days.

Keep Our Air Clean was already about half done last time I work on the Green series so I should be able to finish this chart this week.

Autumn-ation isn't really a necessity this week but it'd be nice to get it finished if possible.

My granny stripe blanket was a new start last week, I got the pattern from Attic24 via Ravelry and the colour scheme was taken from Annie's Place. I already had most of the colours listed so picked up the few I was missing from my LNS and got started, so far it's hooked up really easily and surprisingly quickly given the length of the rows. I'm taking it into work this week and hooking it up during my lunch hour so I don't cut into my evening stitching time.

Happy Stitching

xX Fiona Xx

WIP Wednesday

After much deliberation, the idea of having two large projects finished by New Year's won out over staying head on Super Mario.

Today I worked on the green flip its series by Lizzie Kate. I already had 2 and a half charts finished out of the 6 chart set, so again I've divided what's left into weekly sections; mostly it works out at a chart a week. This weeks section was the border and I stitched the entire thing today, I would have done more I think but it was hand dyed thread which requires stitch by stitch rather than row by row and that always slows me down.

I also changed the wording slightly as the original line was live 'peaceably' and that just didn't sound right to me, it took about an hours worth of re-charting and jigging the letters around to get the spacing to change it to live 'peacefully', but I'm much happier with the result and I don't think it looks too out of place. There are two small yellow buttons to go on the left hand end of the border but I'll wait to attach those until I've finished the chart above it.

And just because, here is an updated picture of Super Mario, the single black line is my start on section 2.

Tomorrow is Needles & Natter Thursday at Rosie's Tearooms and due to the size of these two projects I'll be taking Autumn-ation with me and hopefully putting more than a few stitches into that. I'll probably continue with Super Mario in the afternoon but right now it's time for bed I think!

Happy Stitching!

xX Fiona Xx

Super Mario Musings

Have realized that although I explained that I'd split my remaining pages into smaller areas to finish each week I hadn't given any real indication of how those areas worked out, so I edited an old (out of date) photo to show the divided  sections. This photo was taken shortly after I started section 1.

section 1 was completed today and I started section 2. I am still deciding whether to continue with section 2 or whether to switch to a different WIP for the rest of the week..... I am torn between staying with Super Mario or attempting to make some headway on the green series flip its, another larger scale project I'd like to see finished sooner rather than later.

I have two days off work to sit and stitch now as I am working the weekend again so I think I will sleep on it and wait and see how I feel in the morning.

Happy Stitching

xX Fiona Xx

Super Mario Sunday

Last week I made the decision that even if its the only thing I stitch on for the rest of the year, I will finish Super Mario through the ages in 2013. After completing the top half of page 3 I decided to divide the remaining pages into smaller sections to work on each week and I've decided to reserve my Sunday posts for reporting on my progress, yesterday saw the start of this challenge and I'm really pleased with my progress already!

 Big Picture

 Section 1 close up

Section 1 is almost finished! I just have the rest of that Mario left to stitch and then I can either get a head start on section 2 or stitch on another WIP for the rest of the week, seeing as I'm excited and enjoying working on SM for the moment I will probably continue and get a head start on section 2!

Today was also Daffycat's TUSAL posting day, usually I don't follow the regular TUSAL posting dates, I prefer to do a weekly post, however it has been so long since I've done a weekly ORT report & I already had the camera out I figured I might as well post a TUSAL picture too :)

Mug orts are all from Super Mario, tall jar are my year to date orts :)

The Beanie Baby is one I bought from a boot sale over the summer, I used to collect them avidly in my early teens but now I just have my favorite bears and ones that were given to me as gifts. I do have most of the Christmas bears & several Halloween/Easter themed bears though :)