dear god has it been that long?

my poor little corner of blogland has been somewhat neglected this year as life has got in the way rather more than I would have liked.

Next year will see some massive changes coming to the way I live my life as well as the continuation of the better aspects of this year and I can't wait to get started!

This year I joined stitch from stash and although I forgot to blog about the last couple of months I can happily report that I didn't spend a single penny on stitching supplies for the whole of 2014! I didn't really do much stitching in 2014, finishing Super Mario in the early part of the year seemed to have wiped out my stitching bug completely however I am hoping that will change in 2015.

I aim to continue working through stash mountain (hopefully reducing it in the process) during 2015 and as such have signed up for SFS again however this time I am going to remember to post & to actually get some stitching done.

I am going to follow along with the crazy January challenge in 2015-again its a chance for me to reduce the mountain to a molehill and I really enjoyed participating back in 2013. This year however I may limit myself to smaller charts to start the year off :)

My work bag is currently full of yarn based projects as well as a couple of stitching projects. Rotations never seem to work out for me so aside from my Crazy January smalls I'm going to try and be a one project at a time kind of girl.

I am going to be ruthless with my stash, if I've already stitched the design the likelihood is that I won't stitch it again so I am going to be eBaying off several hundred charts throughout the year (again reducing the mountain) and helping to reduce my debt at the same time.

Yes I have a small bank loan that I have been paying off slowly for the last couple of years, I have decided that since I have proven to myself in 2014 that I can get by without the need to buy stitching supplies I am going to try and go one better and cut out down the games buying as well (limiting myself to preorders and no retro games) and see if I can rid myself of my debts before July.

So there we have it, this is my start to a frugal 2015 (I will be monitoring myself very closely but hopefully I'll be able to have some fun with it as well and rekindle my love of crafting)

Wishing you all a very happy new year & see you in January!

Stitch from Stash September

hi guys!

yet another stitch from stash post and once again I am back to zero spending and zero stitching :(

I am working on a baby blanket in crochet but I cant show it as the expectant grandparents dont want  to know what the sex of the baby is.

hopefully will get back on the stitching horse soon....

Amount Spend: £0

New Starts from Stash: none

WIPs or UFOs worked on: none

Money banked: £225

Fi xx

Stitch From Stash August

finally this post title is an accurate one, why? Because I started something new from my stash!!!

Yes dear followers after 8 months of stitching (or lack thereof) on the projects I had languishing in my project bag (only green series after finishing Super mario) I bit the bullet and started something Ive had kitted up for years!

Tiger Lily by Nora Corbett.

I've been in love with this design since it first came out but I was always too nervous to start it, despite stitching her Halloween Fairy kit a few years ago. I even toyed with the idea of selling the chart and bead pack at one stage but I found myself unable to part with it.

Green Series is progressing a little this month albeit at a snail's pace.... maybe I'll get a few more stitches in to it in September.

I have also added a few more colourful hooky rows to my blanket :) Better get a shift on really, it'll soon be cold enough to use it!

And I cast on a new knitting project (my first ever garment!)

This is going to be a knit-in-one-piece jumper, very simple for a beginner knitter like myself but not using the recommended yarns (100% raw silks at £21 a ball!-no thanks!) Mine uses a very soft 100% bamboo yarn mixed with an angora/merino blend instead :)


And the reason(s) for my slightly more productive month?
1. I liked the comment someone in the group made last month that this is a stash diet not a new start diet.
2. It's started getting chilly this month which always has me reaching for the yarn based projects
3. New glasses!! I can finally see without looking through a very scratched/beat up pair of lenses!!!

So to sum up, still no spending to report (even with the temptation of a market bonus!) and thankfully a bit of stash busting going on!!

xX Fiona Xx

Stitch from stash 2014 July edition

Hello friends (assuming anyone is still reading this blog)

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth I promise, I just haven't felt much like blogging or stitching (my usual summer slump has struck again :/ )

Well July is almost over and with it comes another stitch from stash update, I fear my updates are becoming dull and almost monotone as once again I have spend nothing and started nothing new. While this is great from my stash pile, my bank account remains depleted as I seem to have switched to retro gaming stash buying instead....

Anyway this is a crafting blog and as such here is my overview for July

Amount Spend: £0

New Starts from Stash: None

WIPs or UFOs worked on: None

Money Banked: £175

I haven't even worked on the granny stripe blanket as the weather is just simply too hot for words!!!

Hope everyone is having more luck than me :)

xX Fiona Xx

stitch from stash 2014 June edition

this month we got a bonus £50 to spend after spending our initial £25 and even with that I didn't give into temptation, Mel posting up a poll on whether she should buy Luna or Gigi didn't help!

Although I'm doing well at not adding to my stash I'm also not doing well at stitching from it! This month I haven't really stitched anything apart from a teeny tiny yoda because I wanted to see how well half stitch would work on 22ct over 1, turns out really well but the results are teeny!!

-i do have a photo but it's stuck on my phone and i can't find the cable-

Mostly this month I have been crocheting my blanket in an attempt to have it finished by the winter. The kittens aren't helping so I have to resort to working on it in my lunchbreak at work, I can manage 1 stripe in about 30 mins but I'll have pictures of my progress up on July 1st with Theme-a-licious 2014 so I won't post it now :)

so June at a glance

Amount Spend: £0

New Starts from Stash: None

WIPs or UFOs worked on: None

Money Banked: £150

Themealicious 2014: Menagerie May & June Jolt

Menagerie may has sadly come to an end and I have progress to show!

First I worked on and finished Autumn-ation by Lizzie Kate (see the little crow?)

I replaced the stitched leaves in the pattern with buttons and used french knots for the pumpkins eyes instead of the buttons that came with the kit.

Next I worked on the Green Series flipits also by Lizzie Kate, specifically 'be kind to animals' once that was finished I went back and finished 'keep our air clean'

only two more charts left to stitch!!

So onto June's theme 'June Jolt'. The theme for June is to work on Summer or brightly coloured projects, so with that in mind I have opted to work on 

• June Stamp by Lizzie Kate (WIP)
• Green Series by Lizzie Kate (WIP)
• Summer-licious by Lizzie Kate (New project!)
• Buzzy String by Lizzie Kate (New project!)
• possibly Eeveelutions, a downloaded pattern from Sprite Stitch ('Jolt'eon was one of my favourite Pokemon growing up!)

The downside of 'June Jolt' is that it has made me realise just how many of my charts are Christmas or Halloween themed and although they are brightly coloured, it's just too early to be thinking about those holidays, Summer's only just begun!!

Stitch From Stash 2014 May report

Hello everyone and welcome to another stash free stitch from stash post :)

Yes we are 5 months in and counting & I've still not added (or reduced) my stash!

While I've not yet reduced the stash pile mountain, I have reduced the WIP mountain mole hill.

This month I have worked on Autumn-ation & Green Flipits, both by Lizzie Kate.


I have finished Autumn-ation & made a decent amount of progress on the Green Flipits.

Speaking of Lizzie Kate, I mentioned her new 'Tingles' Series in my April report and I've decided that actually I don't like them as much as I thought I did, I still have the Halloween (not so) mystery sampler, the Christmas 'Jingles' designs as well as the 6 fat men & 6 snow belles to stitch, along with countless other designs so I won't be buying them anytime soon (if ever!)

Lizzie Kate has also announched the lastest 'string' designs and they are cats & dogs themed ones, these I do like but again I have the seasonal strings from last year to stitch before I invest in another string to stitch!

I think this SAL hasn't stopped me from buying stash but it does make me think more about the charts I already have in my stash and for that I am greatful as I have many wonderful designs tucked away in there that I bought with the intention of stitching them and if I had continued to buy with the gusto that I used to I would never get round to stitching any of them. As it stands I have 2 projects in my WIP molehill at the moment and I'm thinking that when it's down to one (next month) I'll be looking through my stash for something new and exciting to stitch :)

So an overview for this month would be:

May
Amount Spent: £0
Stash Starts: None
WIP: Autumn-ation, Green Flip its, June Stamp
Finished: Autumn-ation
Money Banked: £125

Pinteresting Poncho

Just occasionally I love designing my own pattern from an image...Allow me to explain myself

While browsing the Pintrest DIY & Craft board I stumbled upon this image for a Crochet Poncho & immediately fell in love (don't you just hate when that happens?!)  

The squares themselves are fairly easy to construct and join together (click here for a link to making the squares) but the problem I had was how to arrange the squares to create the poncho as pictured above. The link on Pintrest simply lead to someone's Flickr account, a quick Ravelry search proved unfruitful in finding any sort of pattern and I could find any other image apart from original image so what could I do except try and create one myself?

Which is where my cross stitch pattern maker came in! I used a 5x5 block of colour to represent a single square in the poncho and input the squares I could see from the picture then worked out the rest of the pattern layout from that. 

This is what I came up with (I've changed the colours to the colours I'm actually using rather than those used in the picture)

I'm really looking forward to making this poncho up, hopefully it shouldn't take too long but for now it's back to my May stitching goals!

xX Fiona Xx

Furbaby news & a pattern :)

Twiglette had her kittens!! She went into labor on Thursday at around 11am and gave birth to 5 beautiful healthy kittens, 3 black & 2 ginger :)

Happy to say mum & kittens are all doing well, here they are at 2 days old :)

In honor of this lovely event I'm posting the companion piece I designed to go with Lizzie Kate's 'Dog's leave pawprint's' snippet. I used elements from various Lizzie Kate designs to put this piece together so I can't take credit for it entirely :) just click to enlarge the picture.

Threads listed are DMC however I'm going to use the following hand dyed WDW threads instead :)

DMC 740 = WDW Carrot

DMC 3340 = WDW Maddison Rose

DMC 731 = WDW Moss

DMC 334 = WDW Sky

DMC 321 = WDW Liberty

DMC Blanc = WDW Whitewash

DMC 801 = WDW Kris' Bon Bon

Please ignore where the black dot is I'm going to attach a small antique cat charm I found in my stash, I added the dot in to get the placement right.

I hope you enjoy my pattern & happy stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

Theme-a-licious 2014 April Roundup & May Goals revealed :)

May appears to have started without me really noticing.

April's Theme was 'April Showers' meaning we had to work on water based projects. Fine by me, I had loads of water to contend with on Super Mario and my only goal for the month was to get that project finished once and for all.  Which as readers of my blog will know, I did with about a week of April left.

Onwards to May's theme: 'Menagerie May'. This month is all about the animals in out projects :)

Good news for me as I already have a couple of WIPs/UFOs that contain animals.

So this month I will be working on: 

• Autumn-ation by Lizzie Kate (it has a crow on it!)
• Green series flip-its by Lizzie Kate (I need to finish keep out air clean and start Be kind to Animals)
• June Stamp by Lizzie Kate (Bees are animals too!)

I also have a cat themed piece I designed using various Lizzie Kate motifs to go with her 'dogs leave pawprints' chart I stitched last year.

Speaking of cats it's time I showed off a picture of my newest Furbaby.

Meet Twiglette

Twiglette came into our lives about a month ago but was made officially ours about a week ago. Basically she kept coming into our house any time we had the doors open and we didn't know who she belonged to. We did think that she might belong to a woman who lives opposite us who has several cats but didn't want to ask in case we were mistaken.

About 2 weeks ago we noticed that Twiglette was 'rounder' than she had seemed a few weeks before and so we felt we had to asked the woman opposite if she had a cat who was 'expecting' as one kept showing up in our house. She confirmed that Twiglette was hers. We cheekily asked if we could keep her as she seemed very at home in our house and kept coming in. We were told 'we'll see how it plays out' & after about a week the owner came round to see us and said that she'd never seen Twiglette looking so content and happy and that we could keep her on the condition that once the kittens were old enough to be weaned that she has the kittens to sell to good homes. 

We are fine with that as we would have had to give the kittens to a shelter to find homes for but we do get to keep one for ourselves if we want :)

Twiglette is also special to me as she is Gizmo's sister, she was the kitten that the woman kept from the litter we got Gizmo from meaning that Twiglette is about 5 years old. It does feel strange having a cat again after 2 years without one but it also feels like she's always been here.

That's probably enough from me for one night!

xX Fiona Xx

Stitch From Stash 2014~April

Yet another month has gone by already? Where is this year going to?? Guess that means it's time for another Stitch From Stash update!!

April was yet another stash free month for me & I'm happy to report a finish as well! (stash may be bought next month to celebrate but I've not decided yet.)

Lizzie Kate has just announced her new Flip It series 'Tingles' and I have to say I love the designs she's shown off so far....

Anyway on to the stats for the month:

Amount Spent: £0
Stash Starts: None
WIP: Mario Thru the Ages
Finished: Mario Thru the Ages
Money Banked: £100

Now that Mario is finally finished I'll be going back to work on the  'Green' flip it series from Lizzie Kate, but not before I stash dive for a new start!!

xX Fiona Xx 

I have a finish!!!!

I didn't think this day would ever come but I have finished SUPER MARIO!!!!!

yes after 3 years and 2 months I can show it off in all its fresh from the hoop wrinkled glory! (excuse the terrible photo, it was taken at 2am when the final stitch went in). Washed it once I came home from work and thankfully all the red lines disappeared like they were supposed too :)

So happy this is finished!!!!

xX Fiona Xx

Theme-a-licious 2014 March Madness & April Showers

March's Theme was an oldie but a goodie :) March Madness, the plan? Work on something different every single day in March, madness but of the funnest kind.

My March Madness was a little different, for me it was madness to think I'd get any sort of stitching done! At least that's what I thought until last week, however I have been stitching, it's just been on one project.

No photo of progress as there's not much change since my last post however I can talk about April's theme.

April's theme was a mystery theme at first, meaning that one hadn't been picked out yet. Now it's been revealed as April Shower's: work on any water themed stitching. Brilliant, this means I can continue working on Super Mario as I have finally hit the water part of the chart!

My aim for April Showers is to FINISH Super Mario :) 

xX Fiona Xx

an update and a pattern

a friend of mine asked to see my whole mario project so far so I thought I'd post it up here as well

it's getting there!!

Also I realised that I never posted up the pattern for the Yoshi's I stitched for Lee's Valentine gift so here is Yoshi Love in all it's glory :) threads listed are DMC, just click to enlarge the pattern then right click to save it :)

WIPocalpse 2014- March

So this post is about...10 days overdue. Oh well.

This month I have been working on Super Mario thru the ages. I won't post pics as I did two posts ago and not much has changed since then.

Our topic for the month is about where we like to stitch.

Generally I like to either stitch in the living room on the sofa in front of the telly, not always productive as I end up watching telly instead of stitching so I tend to wait until there's a friends marathon or something similar to stitch like this as i don't really need to watch the screen. Its more of a background noise thing.

Since getting my own tv in February for my birthday I now tend to stitch in my bedroom, it's not connected to the aerial yet so I just watch dvd's or netflix through my games console instead of actual tv but I've found its much less distracting and I'm actually making more progress.

Hopefully next month I will post on time and have pictures to share, our topic is going to be about stash organization!

xX Fiona Xx

Stitch from Stash 2014-March

3 months in and I haven't cracked yet!

Yes it's March and I still haven't added to my stash, I've also not started anything new apart from a Valentine's gift but I am making progress on some WIP's so that's something.

I won't show pics of Super Mario through the ages as I showed it in my last post but
I have also been working on my 'Rainbow Road' granny stripe blanket (yarn stash is still huge though!)

So that's it for my SFS2014 March report, no new starts or finishes but some progress made and most importantly, NO SPENDING :)

xX Fiona Xx

Theme-a-licious March Madness, TUSAL & WIPocalypse posts coming soon!

IHSW March 2014

So this weekend just gone was International Hermit & Stitch Weekend. I didn't sign up for it this month as my grandparents were coming down I didn't think I'd get anytime to stitch before going back to work on Sunday.

However Sunday evening I had no plans as I sat down and stitched and stitched and stitched!

This was my progress before I started (excuse the chocs and DS, I sent this pic to Lee to show him what my plans were for the evening)

 And this was the progress I'd made when I stopped! I've finished a page and started a new one, the this blue line you can see at the bottom is the bottom of the design! The end is in sight!

So that's it for my IHSW report, stay tuned for Themealicious March Madness & Stitch From Stitch March posts coming soon!

xX Fiona Xx

Stitch from Stash2014- Splurge weekend report

So this weekend gone was Nashville Market in the States and as a birthday treat Mel at Epic Stitching said we could have a splurge spending weekend with a $100 limit (anything over would be counted as stash spending for the month)

I am happy to report that as I had absolutely no money to splurge I spent £0 - that's right nada, zip, zilch. 

To be honest although I have charts in my wishlist from 123stitch that I would LOVE to own right now I simply don't have the funds to buy them so I'm actually finding it pretty easy to not spend on stash. Once payday rolls round it may be another matter though!

xX Fiona Xx

Where the hell did the month go?

seriously!! It's been almost a month since my last post and that means that I've missed a couple of posting dates for groups! So this will be a catch-up post of sorts

TUSAL was January 30th-thankfully I've not stitched much since then seeing as I finished Lee's Valentine's project before the posting date so here is what my jar looks like-threads from 'secret valentines project' & super mario thru the ages.

Theme-a-licious January came to an end and I didn't work on a single Garden themed piece. Feb's theme is 'Fantasy February' again I have nothing in my WIP/UFO pile that fits the theme and I want to finish Super Mario so I'll be working on that.

WIPocalypse post was Feb 14th (I was in Haslemere with Lee celebrating Valentine's Day but I'll post more about that another time) and the topic of discussion was on 'Stitching habits-rotation or one at a time?'

This is a harder topic for me to pin down as I have tried it both ways. I've tried rotational stitching, dedicating days to certain projects or setting goal based deadlines (super mario in the run up to new year) and for me it just doesn't work, I've tried one at a time as well but I find that I get bored and get the itch to start something new.

I did the Crazy January Challenge a few years ago hoping that the flurry of starts at the beginning of the year would encourage me to finish them all by the year end but all that happened was that I lost interest in the larger projects opting for newer smaller starts.

So I guess I am an anything goes stitcher, it really does depend on my mood, yes I'll dedicate time to one project but if it starts to bore me I will start something new, they all get finished in the end and as long as they aren't for anybody else I guess all that matters is that I'm enjoying the time I spend working on it.

In terms of projects worked on this month, I worked on Super Mario & I finished Lee's Valentine project. Thankfully he loved it :)

Secret Project.....

Can you keep a secret??

I'm working on something special this weekend for the boyfriend for Valentine's Day :) I'm hoping he's going to love it because not only will it be our first Valentine's Day together (of many I hope!) but this will be the first time I have ever stitched him something & I've made the pattern from scratch!

I won't post anything else on here about it just yet, just in case he goes snooping online ;) but I'll be sure to post pictures & the pattern up after Valentine's Day.

xX Fiona Xx

Stitch from Stash 2014 January Check-in

It's almost the end of the month so it's time to check in with Stitch from Stash 2014.

The aim of this SAL is to curb the unnecessary spending and start working through 'stash mountain'. I have a tendency to buy a huge amount of stash in one go but I rarely get round to actually stitching any of it so here's hoping this SAL will change all that.

Off to a good start this month; As I have been broke since payday I haven't really felt the urge to buy anything stash wise. However Lizzie Kate have announced several new charts this month and I'm a sucker for Lizzie Kate designs so I'm hoping I'll be able to resist the temptation to buy them for a little while longer!!

So without further ado here is the break down of my SFS January:

Amount spent: £0
Stash Starts: None
Projects Worked on: Super Mario Thru The Ages

Speaking of which, here's a progress shot!

Sorry it's so small, I downloaded it from my phone so it's a bit of a rubbish shot, hoping to get more of this worked up this week. 

xX Fiona Xx

IHSW January 2014

This weekend was the first International Hermit & Stitch weekend of 2014. Originally I had planned to get some serious work done on Super Mario, maybe finish a section/page & move onto the next bit....

These plans soon went out of the proverbial window because I spent the weekend with my boyfriend instead, he's a gamer too though so he's pretty excited to see this project finished. Despite a lack of stitching for the majority of the weekend, I managed to put some stitches in on Sunday night and this is where I am up to now :)

hope your weekends were a little more successful than mine :)

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

WIPocalypse January Check in

Hello everyone, my name is Fiona and I'm a serial starter....

Today is the first posting date for WIPocalypse 2014 and this is my first year of actually taking part properly instead of following along with it but not posting about it. In this first post we are supposed to write a little about ourselves, our projects and our goals (if any) for the year.

So as I said at the start, my name is Fiona and I am a bit of serial starter. While I do tend to have a bit of a finishing spree every now and then, I have had a couple of projects languishing in my project bag for a couple of years now that I'd really like to see finished and framed by the end of the year.

The projects I am working on as part of this SAL are:

• Super Mario thru the ages
• Green Flip-its by Lizzie Kate
• Autumnation by Lizzie Kate 
• June Stamp by Lizzie Kate

So far this month I have been working on Super Mario thru the ages and I'm hoping to have this project finished by the end of February. Here is where I am today:

I'm not sure if you can just about make out the pencil lines at the bottom of the picture, that's my finish line!

That's all from me today be sure to check out the other WIPocalyose posts over at Measi's Musings!!

xX Fiona Xx

wherefore art thou stitching mojo?

Right now my stitching mojo is nowhere to be found.

I pulled out super Mario this morning before I went to work to see what I would be doing when I got home, I'm further along that I remembered being so that's a plus,when I left for work I was quite excited about putting needle to fabric later.

After my fairly standard day at work I got home, took one look at Super Mario and decided 'no not tonight', a look through the wip bag didn't help either so then I thought about starting something new from my stash, had a quick perusal of my charts only to find that nothing was grabbing my attention enough to warrant a new start.

I was trying really hard to resist the lure of the games console, Pinterest or the mindlessness of the TV tonight as I really want to be more crafty in 2014. In the end I took my stripe blanket downstairs to work on while re-watching Sherlock. I managed one row before I succumbed to looking at the 'Geek' pin-boards on Pinterest & reading blogs on my phone while listening to Sherlock playing on the TV.

I did see a really awesome post from Jen @ Nennie Knits, she's posted yarn stash pics from the start of 2013 and then updated stash pics from now to show herself how much of her stash she's used up in the last year. I really like this idea and I'm thinking of doing something similar for my own stashes, not only would it help to remind me of what I actually have but it would help me organize my stitching/crafting plans with the Stitch from Stash SAL.

I'm thinking of organizing the stitching stash into themed seasonal/holiday groups rather than by designer, fabrics would be by colour with the exception of the Halloween/Festive prints & yarns would be by weight (4ply, DK, etc) but that is definitely a takeover the kitchen table over the weekend type of task. Not a Thursday night because I can't sleep type thing ;)

Fingers crossed my mojo will return as I look through the hoards of stash I've accumulated over the last few years. If it doesn't this will be a very dull blog this year!!

xX Fiona Xx 

Happy New Year! TUSAL Anyone?

Happy New Year everyone!!

The Desolation of Smaug was AMAZING last night, I can definitely see going to the cinema on New Year's Eve becoming a tradition in my house, there were only 9 of us in the entire theater! The film ended at exactly Midnight so we drove home watching the fireworks going off around us ringing in the New Year.

Today was spent at my Grandparents house with my Uncle and his family joining us there. We left my Grandparents at 7:30 this evening and made it home by 9:15, pretty good time actually as the journey usually takes 2 hours, guessing not many people were travelling today due to hangovers etc. 

This evening was spent watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow (pt 2) while we waited rather impatiently for Sherlock to finish recording so we could watch it through properly. Yes I have to say I am a massive Sherlock fan and I am so glad that it's finally back on the TV. I am not happy that in less than a month's time it will all be over again for lord knows how long this time but that's not for a while yet! For the sake of those that haven't seen it yet I won't reveal anything here about tonight's episode but I will simply say how much I enjoyed it :)

This does however it does mean that as today was spend catching up with family & Sherlock, I haven't actually done any stitching this side of the New Year so after emptying out last year's ORTS into the bin (remembering shortly afterwards that I hadn't taken a final photo....DOH) I have nothing in my jar to show for this first TUSAL post of the year! I am using the same jar I have used every year since I started TUSALing (is that a word?) as it's rather a nice size and doesn't take up to much room on my sewing table, although it does get some odd looks from friends when they come to visit :)

Let's hope that the 30th shows considerably more progress!! 

Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx