Merry Christmas one and all

There are so many blogs wishing everyone a Merry Christmas I just don't have the time to get round to every single one of you so this is me wishing you a very special day to each and every one of my fellow bloggers. May you be filled with love, joy and peace and be surrounded by family and friends, good food and drink and plenty of new stash to play with. Here's to a brilliant Christmas. I'll be back soon with a proper post. xxx

Everyone else is doing it so why not?

Oh my gosh I am in a magazine!!!

...and a knitting one at that!!



Sue kindly left me a message last night telling me I was in the Jan 2011 ed of Let's Knit p77. So today I went and bought myself a copy as I was intrigued by how I could have appeared in it seeing as I don't knit that much. Okay I have made a couple of pairs of socks and some scarves and half jumpers that never got finished but I am not a "knitter" by any stretch of the imagination.



Sure enough, there was my blog on page 77. They like me!!! Oooh this thrilled me no end. Weird they picked me but hey I'm not complaining. You start to wonder how in the heck did they actually find me? Very strange. There are much better blogs out there than mine but still - it's nice to be liked.

So... I'm not very well. Lack of sleep and generally run down has made me reach for these:



Oh yes, the chocolate is indeed needful. So I just want to console myself and go to bed.. but I can't. Never mind. I'll just be consoled by the Christmas tree.



Till next time peeps, stay warm. xx

Christmas ornaments of the stitching kind.

Yesterday I got some great ornies through the post. Rachael and I decided to do a private ornament exchange this year and this is what she sent me:



Isn't it beautiful? It is her own design. I love it Rachael. Thank you very much.

Here is what I stitched for Rachael who has let me know she has received it now:



It is the JBW design from the Just Cross Stitch Ornament magazine. I cheated and stitched it over two instead of over one! I believe she likes it! Lovely to stitch too.

Yesterday I also got my HOE Christmas Ornament exchange through from Margaret. I love it! Thank you so much. Again I think it is from this years magazine. Margaret even stitched my initials on the back. Very sweet.



I'm still waiting to hear that my HOE has arrived at its destination.

So I will leave you with my first mince pie of the season. Marks and Spencer rich butter ones with Bailey's cream. Mmmmmmmmm

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post. Need to make more!

More hooky playtime!!!

Woop!!!! I did it. I can't quite believe it but I really really did it. I made one of Lucy's hooky ornaments and she only put up the tutorial today! Mighty proud of meself I am. Just took an evening to make and assemble and I just LOVE it. As soon as I saw them I knew I had to get my Rico wool that I ordered, so on Friday I contacted Lisa from First for Yarns to see where it was. I ordered it in October!! Big delays, she said. Oh no! I got to have that yarn. So without even thinking anymore about it, I picked up a bit of Stylecraft and Hayfield Bonus (all I have left of my dwindling pile) and began a practice ornie. But lookie!! How good does it look? Well I think so ;-). Here are a couple of pictures and if you want the instructions to make one for yourself then head over to Lucy's blog.





Right I'm too giddy with excitement now. I'll never sleep! xx

Playing hooky

Just a quick post because I am super excited that I can make these:



Beautiful star garland that I found on Corn Poppy Girl's blog who had the tutorial link for it here.

And these:



Sweet snowflakes from the lovely Lucy at Attic24. They do need a little blocking and stretching but was too excited. Just had to post them.

xx

Better get a cuppa..

Sorry for myself cakes

...it's going to be a long post.

I have so much to share but recently been in such a blogging slump, I just couldn't get my head around posting. I have been visiting mind you and getting lots and lots of inspiration.

So, SNOW! You want snow? I'll give you snow! And tons of it. Why we chose to live here I just don't know. We live in the Peak District of England. It is beautiful, hilly, rural and very cold come the winter. As we're quite high up and also in a valley, we kind of get the brunt of the bad weather. We were warned. We knew Northumberland and Newcastle had had it bad and that it was heading our way. You just never realise how much until you wake up seeing this:





Oh yeah it is magical, and Christmassy and silent. Have you ever noticed the silence when it has snowed like this? It's like no-one comes out. It's a still, still world for a time. But it is also a pain in the behind especially when the school doesn't close. But it did, today. Thankfully. DD was up at two in the morning throwing up till dawn. Bug. Yuk. So today has been a stay at home day. I ventured out and got my car going just to keep it ticking over and then proceded with two other neighbours to clear our road of snow so at least we can get in and out. It is still snowing though so may get covered over in no time.

So... last week I got a wonderful surprise in the mail. Cathy had a giveaway for some beautiful tatted things her mum had made and no... for once .. I didn't actually win. But I did mention in the comment how I would love a tatted bookmark for my bible and last week, these arrived in the post with a rather special note. I can't tell you how much they cheered me up Cathy. Send my thanks and appreciation to your mum. I absolutely love them.



Today brought another special gift from Berit. Can you believe that Berit was giving away this??



She had almost finished the design but decided not to keep it! So I got the nearly finished (and rather well stitched) design, the chart and the threads and beads! Wow. I love it and am going to finish it off as soon as I get the time. Love it. Thank you Berit. Really needed that little boost today.

What else? What else? Oh yeah... I have two TWO finishes!!! I told you I would. I told you!!

Right, here's the alphabet sampler by La D Da. Loved stitching this and it worked up so quickly. I don't know why I left it for so long in the wip pile.




Stitched on 32 Sassy's Creamy Cocoa with NPI silks.

Next and here's the big one!! Here is, finally, a major TA DA!! Cirque des Cirque. I had a love hate relationship with this one. I started and restarted it several times. First I started it with beads and that wasn't right. Then I had a go with metallic threads, that wasn't right either so by the time I just got round to plain old stitching it, I'd had enough of it. And so I struggled and struggled. Then Rachael set up and Ink Circles SAL this year and I took up the challenge and finished it within the year. No more lingering in the wip pile for you matey. Done. These photos are very accurate of the colour of fabric and threads. I have had a job all year getting the thing to photograph right but it never came out well. These are pretty accurate. You have all been so great with the encouragement to finish this and keep on with it so THANK YOU all for that. It worked. ;-)






Stitched on 32 ct Mulberry linen with Thread Gatherers Silk n Colors silk in Spring Frocks.


I have also had a new start today although it doesn't look much right now. I am doing an SAL with Lisa on Winter Whites by LHN. Tracy bought me this chart last year for Christmas so it seems rather appropriate to do it now the opportunity has arrived. There are some others doing the SAL too with other LHN winter designs and I look forward to seeing their progress.


LHN Winter Whites Stitched on 32ct Wichelt Star Sapphire

It was dd's 8th birthday the other day and we had a little celebration for her. We decide to have a simple pizza and film night for her and some of her friends. I made the cake! Smartie flowers. I saw this on Adamento's blog and shamelessly copied it :( Looks okay though hey? Tasted pretty nice too. And you can see the beginnings of my red room but its still not finished yet but you get the warmness of it though.





Lily is pulling a face in this one! What great friends. They all had a good time.

Now, is there anything left? Well, I am doing my first ever RR starting in January bu tI think I will leave it till then to post about it. There are only four of us doing it and we all know each other so hopefully it should run really smoothly. No, I think that is about all I can manage. Thank so much for your kind comments from yesterday. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Happy stitching this December! xxx

Sorry

I have so much to post about... Beautiful gift from Cathy, DD's birthday, TWO finishes!! Snow. Round Robins, SALs. So much. I am so tired. I have not even had the energy to have my two happy dances yet. Soon, I promise. I'm just in a small slump.

HUgsxxx

Oh my, what a beauty!

On Friday I got this amazingly beautiful scissor fob made for me by the very talented Veronica. It is soooo stunning that at first I thought it was just too good to use. I didn't want it to get lost or broken. However, I grabbed my new Ginghers and promptly placed it on them. Love it. Veronica, thank you from the bottom of my heart! And you know what... she even put a coffee pot on the end which is very apt for me as I don't drink tea - only coffee! Now, how did she know that I wonder??





I have been working away on La D Da's Alphabet sampler which I haven't touched for a good while. As you can see, I have done a fair bit on it. I don't think it will take me long to get this done at all. Maybe a week? Although saying that I do have other things I need to get done - like, 2 exchanges, CdC, Stitch alongs coming up, RR to prepare for, other ornies for DD, DS etc. So you know, maybe I will finish it, maybe I won't. Watch this space.


Sassy's 32ct jobelan Creamy Cocoa using NPIsilks 2x2

That's me! Have a good week everyone. xxxxxxxx

Coffee dying fabric

The other night I turned my hand to coffee dying some fabric using the instructions found on the back of Heartstring Primitives Charts.

I used some odd bits of 36 count Edinburgh white linen and also a scrap of stitching I had done to see how it would look to dye after stitching. I tried using instant and ground coffee and did a weaker solution for a small scrap to see the difference. Actually, the ground coffee I used was a rather special Chocolate Truffle flavoured one from Whittards. I noticed no difference between the instant and the ground coffee to be honest. I then put the linen in the oven to dry off a bit and these are the results:

These were taken in the evening:





These were the same pieces taken in the daytime:





I then had a piece of cream coloured 28 count Brittney which I thought I could dye and see what happens. This piece took a bit of battering. I burned it a bit int he oven as I couldn't get it to lay all flat and wherever you get lines or folds then these places will darken. This can be a good thing if you want these marks but I wanted something more subtle. So I washed out the burned bits and dipped scrunched up areas into a darker coffee solution and put back in oven but then that wasn't quite right so I washed it out a bit again and tried ironing it dry. Iron too hot and caused burn marks as it began to cook the coffee. Washed it again etc you get the picture. Eventually hung it up to dry and this is the final outcome:





As you can see - a more subtle result. So I was a happy chappie and set about having a new start on it. This is Ann Taylor by Heartstring Primitives. I love my new start and my own hand dyed fabric. Squeeeee!!!!!



Love love love it! I'll definitely be doing this more often. A cheaper alternative methinks.

Also just a quick note about another lovely blogging lady who is going to have a fantastic giveaway as soon as she reaches 300 followers. Julia Crossland is a localish artist to me. Please go and check out her blog and wonderful creations.

Thanks as ever for all the beautiful comments. You really cheer my days - oh you'll never know how much they mean right now. Thank you special peeps. xx