The end of a fab year!

This year has been a great year for me stitch wise and other wise and a lot of it has to do with blogging. All the wonderful people I have met through this blog and all the wonderful inspirational blogs I have read have moved my stitching on to a different level. I have learned a lot. I have learnt new techniques and how to finish items into things I never thought possible. I have been beautifully gifted and received some gorgeous goodies in exchanges. My stash has increased considerably as has my wish list and I have more wips than ever!

Obviously I don't know how next year is going to go as I am having my baby in 11 days time. I have plans to stitch samplers mainly esp getting my CDC finished and Patchwork finished and I also want to start the Collaboration Sampler that I have kitted up. I also have a few quaker designs in mind too. I will have to see how things go. I will be stepping down from exchanging for the time being until things start settling down.

I have completed my design for the Frosty Friends exchange and will post up a pic as soon as the recipient rec's it.

Here is one I have started and is coming along at a nice speed. It is the Papillon Creations Simple Little Quaker. It is stitched on 32 count Lavender Mist linen and uses Amethyst Dinky Dyes Cotton.

It is lovely to do and hopefully it will give me another finish before the end of the year.

And here are the wonderful gifts that Tracy sent me.

She sent me some lovely charts with the threads and extras to stitch them with. I love the gloriana. I will use it on my Patchwork.
and here are some gorgeous knitted items that her mum and aunt made for me. Love them all. She also sent me some teddies and a bib and she also sent Lily some card making stuff which I thought was just so generous. I feel so blessed to know you Tracy. Thank you so much. Here is a close up of the gorgeous blanket.


Oh and if you are wondering, the first picture is of my dd and my dh doing her first solo in church. She sang down the mike whilst dad accompanied her on the guitar. A very special moment that I thought I'd like to share with you all.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you will have a blessed and prosperous new year and all through 2008. The next time I post will probably be after I have had baby so watch this space.

Hugsxxxxxxxxxx

I've been gifted!!

I have been the recipient of some lovely gifts this week. First off I got this huge box in the post yesterday from Tracy and it contains 8 parcels!!!!!!! 4 for baby 3 for me and even 1 for dd!! Tracy I don't know what to say. This is toooo much!! I haven't opened any of them yet - it's oh so tempting but I'm going to wait till Christmas day. Thank you soo much. You are the best.


And this is what I rec'd today:

Cathy emailed me to ask if I'd like it as I'd mentioned I liked the design on a forum and she had two copies of it. So thank you so much Cathy. It looks quite detailed so I might have to ask some peole to help me with the speciality stitches when I get around to starting it.

And here are some pics of the needlebook I did for the cross stitcher's lottery:



The design is from the book Repertoire des Frises and uses DMC Variations (another gift from Tracy!!) on 32 count evenweave. I used felt for the inside pages and to back it. A very enjoyable stitch and I am quite loathe to part with it.

And last of all, here's a really naff picture of our Christmas tree!! It doesn't have an awful lot of decorations on it but it looks quite pretty and better irl.

Last SAL!

Woohoo!!! The final HAED SAL and I have managed to stick to all ten months!! I have managed to complete the second page and think I will stop at this and make it up into a little cushion or something. I am not intending to finish the whole design.


And I couldn't resist taking this pic of my dd sat stitching away concentrating ever so hard. She only probably managed to get two stitches in but its still progress. I don't think she has really caught the stitching bug yet!


Sorry I have not been commenting on blogs lately. I have been very tired and quite uncomfortable and so have been trying to use any energy I have to work on the frosty friends exchange and the cross stitchers' lottery. I have finished the stitching for the lottery but need to finish it up. The frosty friends is proving to ba a bit more of a challenge - I had to unpick it once.

I have only 4 weeks left to go now and this baby is proving to be quite active (and quite painful at times).

Latest stash purchases (like I really need more stash right??) are charts from Papillon Creations:
Simple Little Quaker
Sheherezade

and Long Dog's
Foursome Reel.

I also purchased a lovely dragonfly needleminder from Kelmscott designs and some thread rings I thought I might be able to use in some exchanges. I am trying to decide on a nice thread colour to do Simple Little Quaker in. Yvonne at Papillon Creations has also put my pics up in her gallery of the stitchers case I made for Linda in the redwork exchange.

Oh and I had a lovely email from Cathy today asking if I would like her Sampler Cove design of Spanish Rouge as she has two charts. That is very very kind of her and really appreciate it. Hugs to you Cathy.

Well, going to make tea and have a rest. I will try and catch up on blog reading over the next week or so. Hugs to everyone. xx