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

Christmas, Thank yous and The year ahead

Well as today is my first day off since Christmas and I have the house to myself as the family have all gone for a last look at the Pre-January sales I thought I’d better spend some time writing on my blog!

Christmas was a small intimate affair spend at home with my parents & my brother, his girlfriend joined us mid-morning to swap presents before heading to her parent’s house for Christmas lunch. I was given so many lovely things this year, rather than list them all I’ll just share the pictures.

 From my friends Dave & Toni : monsters uni socks, mug & Nintendo e-shop voucher

From my aunt & uncle:

From Kath

From my next door neighbor Margaret & her friend Joan (friends of the family)

From Michelle

From Elaine, Jacqui & Barbara from my Needles knitting group

From the parents :)

From my brother & his Girlfriend

From Karen, Tracy, Donna, Clare, Laura & Conor at work

One present I have to talk about is my new yarn tote-bag from my parents;

within minutes of being opened it was put to use storing the yarn for my rainbow granny stripe blanket. Progress on this is slow going as you can see from the picture below but I hope to get this finished next year!

Thank you so much to Michelle and Kath for your Christmas presents!  Your continued friendship means so much to me and I hope we can meet up sometime in 2014 J Thank you also to my followers both old & new this year, I know I haven’t posted as much in recent months and I certainly haven’t stitched/crafted anywhere near as much as I would have liked this year-console gaming seems to have taken over my free time this year so I’m hoping 2014 will be a little more balanced, I would really like to get some long term projects finished off and get back to reading books again!

I started this year with several projects incomplete and I’m sad to say that although I finished several in January, the rest remain. Super Mario remains a WIP to my dismay as I was so hoping to have it completed by today but I am determined to complete it in 2014 as my shift patterns at work are finally back to normal.

I am setting no resolutions for 2014 as I rarely stick to them for more than a week.  I am setting no targets either, it’s always so disheartening if I miss a target one month that it often ripples into the following month, I am simply going to try and finish my current WIP’s and then try to stitch some of the other designs I have in my stash.

For this reason I have decided to  join the stitchfrom stash 2014 (SFS) SAL. I have bought/downloaded so many lovely & wonderful charts & series over the last few years that I see no need to buy more as I've yet to stitch any of them! I will also be following along with WIPocolyse, TUSAL & IHSW as these are all easy to keep up with along with SFS.

I think that’s it from me this time round, May you’re New Year ’s Eve be spent however you will most enjoy it, I will be spending it in the cinema with my family watching the subtitled screening of The Hobbit: the desolation of Smaug.

Wishing you all a prosperous 2014 & Happy Stitching!!

xX Fiona Xx

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