Ta Da!!!!!!!

Hoorah hoorah I made my goals this month with just an hour to go! I have finally finished Cheryl's Bouquet! This was a lovely one to do although at times I really did have to concentrate on counting stitches. This would have been easier if I had marked off as I went but for some reason I didn't bother to mark off on this one. So now I can set myself some new goals for next month and I am umming and ahhing whether to have a new start or not. mmmmmmm.... So without further ado here is Cheryl's Bouquet. I am going to get it made into a cushion. I am thinking an olive green surrounding fabric.


Have a great week everyone. xx

Oh and I forgot to share this...

Here's a biscornu I made for Louanne as a thank you for the HAED chart she RAKed me with a while ago. I put seed beads in every other circle although its quite hard to make them out. And as is my usual custom, i filled it with lavender.
xx

Lake District

We have just got back from a weekend away at the Lake District. It was amazing and we crammed a lot in. The first thing we did was take Lily to see the World of Beatrix Potter. She had so much fun. Here she is with some of the haracters out of the books, Peter Rabbit, Mr MacGregor, Mrs Tiggywinkle...



We also went on a boat trip and we went to an animal conservation park wich was brill.

After the Animal Park, we went to visit Hill Top which is the house where Beatrix Potter lived and wrote her stories. The house is as it was when she lived there with all the furniture set in palce and ornaments and toys etc... Very special place. Here's one of Lils standing outside the front door of Hill Top.


I did manage to get a little bit of stitching done but not much! I have only got a couple of days to finish Cheryl's Bouquet. So I better get off of here and get doing it!! Hope you all had a good weekend. Have a good stitching week. xx

Good news and an update

Good news regarding the missing threads. Kate got onto Needlepoint inc and they have apologised profusely and are sending out the missing threads straight away! Just so there is no confusion, the threads came pre-packed and rolled in a bundle direct from npi so no-one would have known there would have been any missing. I have also asked Kate if she has any thread cards to put them on as I only had one spare one and it is full. Hopefully she will pop one in the post with it. So hopefully it wont take too long to come.
And here is an update of Dreaming Mermaid:


I actually have about 10 stitches to do on this which I will finish today so it finally looks like I have met my Goall of getting this page finished!! Yay. Looking at todays date, it means I now only have 5 days left in this month to finish Cheryl's Bouquet which was my other goal. Do you think I can do it?? I reckon I might be able too! Victory lol. Then I will definitely have a new start next month as a reward!! Happy stitching, the race to the finish is on.
xx

Oh no!!

First of all I would like to apologise to everyone for not commenting on blogs at the moment. I am struggling to keep on top of all of them as I really want to dedicate more time to stitching and the computer is really addictive and taking my time away. So if I havent commented - I am sorry and I will get round to reading and updating soon. Also, I have been away at my sisters this weekend as my husband has been on a trip to Dallas so I went up to stay for a couple of nights.

Well just got back this morning and got my Thread Bear parcel through of A Most Noble Pursuit!! You can imagine how excited I was opening it up, only to see that the £37 thread pack was all in strands with no codes on that you have to sort through yourself!! Okay, I thought, I'm a pro, I can handle this. So began the task of laboriously counting out strands and matching up the colours with the codes. You can imagine how disappointing it was then only to find about a third of them missing! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! NPI is at fault on this one. Only, now I'm not sure what to do. Have rung TB and I'm awaiting to hear back. It took ages for thm to come and now I expect to have to wait ages for the next batch to come again. Oh well, I wasn't planning on starting it so soon anyway. Just a bit disappointed (sniff).
The fabric and the chart is lovely though!

On a different note - here's some pics of my rabbit Amber that I took of her in the garden the other day when the sun was out. I was wanting one of her with the cat as the cat completely freaks out and goes all bushy tailed at the sight of her before scarpering off up the fence. Please do not tell me she is a hare!!! She is actually an Old English breed with an unusual colouring - I've been told (which prob means she was cross bred!!! But she is far too tame to come from Hare stock!




Have a good week! Hugs to everyone.

Twilight Shimmer Take 2

Well I really did do my best on this April's SAL although it doesn't look like I did much. There was a lot of blocky grey which as Carol puts it "Yawn Stitching". I will be glad to get onto some of the picture of the girl and the fairy. I think there will be a fairy (or it may just show as a glow) in the empty circle bit on the left. Well I am glad to leave it for another month anyway easy stitching as it is. No confetti on this one as yet! Funny thing is, I recently got a nice comment on my webshots about my first pic of this which was a bit strange as its nothing but a grey blue blob at the minute. Don't know who gave me the nice comment - if it was you then thank you but I have a feeling someone perhaps thought they may be winding me up.



Thank you to everyone who left a lovely comment for my dd. She was really chuffed! Happy stitching this week everyone.

My stitching daughter

I bought a small cross stitch kit for my daughter who is four. The kits are aimed at children four and above and is worked on 6 count using wool with the design printed on the fabric. They include everything you need, even the red hoop/frame. I bought it from Daisy Designs from their Early Fun range. I only phoned for it on Tuesday afternoon so its not bad service to get it here today. Here she is. Can't you just feel the concentration? She is not doing too badly with it although my patience is being tested!!


I just think she looks so cute!

Just a quickie

Well the last two days have been glorious weather wise so we made plans to go to the beach today weather still being nice but it has rained all day! How miserable! I've also not been feeling great. Bit of a poorly tummy. And I can't blame chocolate as I've not really had much! We're not big on the whole Easter egg thing but as usual the family have bought dd loads of eggs!!! So there's loads of choc in the house now!
So to cheer myself up today I decided to do something I have been thinking about for a while - I've subscribed to the Gift of Stitching mag. I got the three back issues for this yr too and I must say I am really rather impressed. I think it caters for those with rather fine taste in the needle industry lol! I think there is at least one thing if not more in the four issues I have just recieved that I would stitch. I also like the way they show you any special stitches used in each issue as I am eager to learn new stitches. Time will tell lol.

And now for a long awaited update of Dreaming Mermaid. Still slowly plugging away on page 4 but I think she is looking dreamy now. I love her tail and the colours are wonderful to work with. I really want to get page 4 finished this month. I am on a mission! Hope you all had a wonderful bank holiday.
xx

Two posts in one day!!

Just finished my first ever pinkeep!! Now to all you finishing experts pls don't laugh at my feeble attempt!! As you can see - it's not quite centered and all the pins are different colours and I made the mistake of cutting the backing fabric corners out which made it start to fray a little which I quickly hid with ribbon!! Thank you to Carol for the link which provided the instructions. It's far from perfect but I am very proud of it - even if I may say so myself!

It is a freebie from Carriage House back when they were called Barrick Samplers and stitched x2 on 32 count linen and uses NPI silks. Thanks for looking.

New Stash arrived!

First of all a huge thank you to Tracy (maddixie) for sending me the Patchwork piece she charted for me. It is so kind of you to do it and it will save me a huge job in the future.

Yesterday half of the stash I ordered came from Thread Bear and just as Cheryl said, they cam ebeautifully wrapped in tissue and ribbons. So here is the first Loose Feather's Club chart of the year with the precut fabric and also Polly Wolly Doodle and Glad Tidings.

What I also like about this store is that they have done DMC conversions for all the different types of threads that are coded on some charts like WDW and Gentle arts etc... So I am still waiting for the Most Noble Pursuit chart and the linen and the thread pack of NPIs as they are still on their way from the US I'd imagine. Now I am sticking to my goal of "No New Starts" this month so I will just have to drool over my new charts for a bit!!!

Here is an update on Cheryl's Bouquet. I am three quarters done on this now so I should definitely meet my April goal and get it finished. It's such a nice one to do!

I have been getting back into my Dreaming Mermaid but it is slow going so I will post an update when I have done more on it.
And finally thought I'd post a pic of my other puss Scratchy. She is a bit scatty and it's difficult to get a pic of her at times but here she is. Little cutey!


Hope everyone has a blessed Easter and that you don't get sick on creme eggs (Cheryl!!)!!
Hugs
x

April Goals

Okay just a quickie post today. I have been rubbish at meeting my goals especially my HAED goal which was to complete page 4 of Dreaming Mermaid. I haven't even picked it up since February! So this month I really do need to dedicate some time to it. So here goes:
1. Finish page 4 of HAED Dreaming Mermaid (I will, I will, I will!!)

2. Finish Cheryl's Bouquet (easy this one, I know I can do this)

3. No new starts (this may be a bit more difficult)

4. Work on Twilight Shimmer for the SAL which I'm not sure when it is this month perhaps someone can remind me)

So if I am a bit quiet online this month, you all know why!!
Hugs to everyone who comments and visits my blog. I appreciate you all so much. I so love this community of stitchers!

Hugsxx