The kindness of a stranger..

I got a very unexpected email the other night by a lady offering me some of her fabric as she had seen I had requested some on my wishlist. This lady - Debbie - has no blog so I was taken quite aback! I have no knowledge of her from blogs or from forums or anywhere as far as I know but this dear lady knew me and sought to bless me. The kindness of strangers, especially stitchers, amazes me. I emailed her back and said I would love to rehome some of her fabric and today the most amazing parcel came for me.



There are various cuts, some being quite small which I will use for smalls and ornaments but some pieces are really quite big. I was astounded that a stranger would be kind enough to send me all of this! She said she no longer used 32 count and wanted it to go to a good home. By the looks of this lot, Debbie, you really do know me rather well. I absolutely love it all. And the bolder colours I can see some white thread going on there for christmas ornies. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I have not stopped drooling at it all day.

So, Needlecraft Haven are starting yet another SAL tonight. The Sampler Girl SAL. I have chosen Pride and Prejudice as I have had the chart and threads for a while but I didn't have any fabric. Until now...



I am using this lovely mottled green piece that Debbie sent me. I love The Sampler Girl designs and I think this will look gorgeous on this piece. It's 32 ct but not sure of the shade. I'm away now to start another new project! Bye people. Have a good stitchy week and stay warm. xx

January

I can't believe where this month has gone! I am so sorry I haven't blogged and now, because I have left it so long, I am going to have an extremely long post! Lots of bits of things - this and that. Hopefully it will brighten your day. Feel free to just skim through the pics.

So what have I been up to this month? Well I have been a busy bee, celebrating my ds's 3rd birthday (can you believe he is 3 already???), stitching and crocheting my little heart out as well as trying to keep on top of blog reading. Do you know I am following that many blogs that when I try to add to my list it tells me it is too full to add any more!! So I have been more than inspired by all your lovely blog posts. I love them!

I noticed that quite a few of you had been doing the Crazy 15 challenge. That has been something to see. I have been adding more and more charts to my wishlist after seeing all the lovely ones you lot have been starting. No no no no.. I haven't even been tempted to do that challenge. My life has enough CRAZY in it without adding to it!

I did have a new start though. I decided to break my HAED rule once more and start the freebie SAL they are doing this year. I chose Fragile Heart and here is my start.



I really love this. Big blocks of black filled in with the most gorgeous pinks. Love it. If you haven't seen the picture of Fragile Heart and don't know what it looks like then I am going to surprise you as I progress through it. Watch this space!

And here is my progress on last years HAED SAL Rose SK:



Woohoo a full page completed! This is really coming along and I love stitching on it but I have promised to wait for Tina (no Blog) to catch up before we move on to p2. So that is 3 HAED wips I have on the go now. Shall I make it an even 4???

There were a couple of Christmas gifts I received which I didn't mention in my last post that really deserve a mention.



I got this from my best bud Michelle (no Blog). She bought it for me when we had our trip out to The Nimble Thimble last year. Complete with threads too. I think I am going to stitch this on the green fabric that Tracy bought me.

I also got given this which was a complete surprise from Karan:



One of the charts from off my wishlist. This was such a thoughtful thing to do and I love it. Thank you Karan.

This is my first finish of 2011!




Buttoned up for Christmas Victoria Sampler

32 count Summer Khaki linen Mixture of threads
It was the Buttoned Up chart from our Stitch and Pass it on exchange! I made this for CindyMae who will then stitch it up for Tracy. It was a fun stitch although I agonised over the colours for ages as it didn't give DMC alternatives.

Now, I think that is the stitching part over with and I will turn my attention to my crochet endeavours.

I finally finished a lap blanket which I had been working on for a while. Sooo... here's the reveal:











It measures 36' by 36' and uses the lovely Stylecraft acrylic. It is snuggly and warm and makes an ideal lapblanket. I was thinking of selling it so if you're interested in buying it then please send me an email and I can let you know what I am asking for it. Email in my profile!

The border around the edge of the blanket I found from this lovely book which I bought along with the two other flower ones. I have not tried the flowers yet but the books are sooo lovely.



I can't recommend these books enough. Oh and here's another one I bought myself for Christmas and I let my dd wrap it up for me:



This funky crocheter makes food scarves! T-bone steak, fried eggs, cupcakes, spaghetti bolognese lol. You get the idea. There is a lot of fun to be had with this book and again I can't recommend it enough.

My friend Kathy has asked me to crochet her two boys some blankets and she wanted a rectangular granny - one in blues and one in greens. It was really hard to not go for frilly colours and styles lol. I had to remember, these were for boys! I am using a size 8mm hook and double strands of DK to give it a chunky look. Here's is where I am up to with it so far:



So, dear Kathy, I hope you like what you see so far! The pattern is a really good one and can be found here:

Rectangular Granny

And that's not all the crochet I got up to. Nooooo!! You see this came for me just before Christmas and I had been waiting and waiting for this yarn.



Yay! It's the Lucy pack of Rico Creative Cotton. So I began a bag! But you know I discovered that I need to learn a little bit about colour so although I have made this so far.....



.....I am in fact going to be unravelling it and ordering the colours a little better! Good practice though.

Well I think that's about all from me folks. Sorry again for it being such a long post. I will try to update more regularly and not put it all in one post!

Love and hugs xxxxxxxxx

Happy New Year!

Hectic time isn't it? I have still not caught up with myself but feel the need to do a catch up blog post. I'll probably most likely to forget something though so you might see me posting sooner rather than later.

Well, did you all have a good Christmas and new year? I did. I was very ill though with this Flu bug that has been going around. By the time Christmas day came, I went over to my in laws and collapsed on their sofa. It was all very lovely and nice though although I have to say there was an OBSCENE amount of presents for the children. Way over the top. It is too much to deal with - our house is not that big! Next year I might suggest we go away to a cosy cottage and give the kids just one gift each. It has gotten way too materialistic. Anyhoo, all fun.

My exchange piece finally arrived at Carole's house so she was able to put it on the tree.


Merry Christmas friend by CHS stitched on 40ct Wichelt Sand using a mixture of silk and dmc

I also did a quick finish for dh. I finished it simply so he can take it with him on his travels as a reminder of me! Think Braveheart lol. I think he liked it. Well he said he did but he might have just been being kind.






My Everything The Sampler Girl Stitched on 32 ct Summer Khaki using Caron Waterlilies.

I also made Tracy something as part of her Christmas present.


Sweet Simple Things by The Sampler Girl.

Ruth from the Musing Badger gifted me with the fabric and thread last year and I just think it looks great! It is the first time I have attempted a cushion finish like this and think it's not a bad first job.

Speaking of gifts, Tracy absolutely spoiled me. She gave me loads of stuff including this very special chart form my wishlist including all the threads!!:



She also got me:



Fantastic Silkweavers fabric, BBD chart and these Piecemaker needles which I have heard so much about. I can't wait to try them out. She got me a lovely scarf and toiletries too. Very spoilt. Thank you dear friend. We were just chatting actually about the BBD AotH series and we were both saying how we would like to do them all. Maybe that is something in the pipeline then. That would be a lot of fun SALing the whole series together. I just spent a relaxing couple of days at Tracy's, although she herself was a little unwell, and I was able to get a fair bit of stitching done. I have finished my piece for my very first Round Robin that I am in with Tina (no blog), Clare and Julie. Just the four of us as Julie and myself have never done a RR before and wanted a "safety net". It is being run on a new forum that Clare has set up called Needlecraft Haven and I know she would love you all to join the stitch and chat fun! It was really hard to choose a design that would work ie it had to be a certain size and there needed to be four parts to it. I finally found something which is a bit unusual for me - I wouldn't normally stitch something like this - but I saw potential and so I stitched up my first piece ready to be sent off.


Design from Cross Stitch Card Shop by Lisa Reakes (I think!) Stitched on 32ct Summer Khaki using dmc.

I also decided to get out Mary Wigham. I have nearly finished the first page:


Mary Wigham Needleprint. 25 ct Light Mocha lugana 1x1 DMC

I have decided that I am going to try to aim for stitching a page a month to get this finished within the year. I know I can do this!

Also here is my progress on Winter Whites:


Winter Whites LHN 32 ct Wichelt Star Sapphire mixture of threads.

As usual I have ran out of thread so need to reorder some. I am thinking about doing the words in between the alphabet in a slightly different colour so they stand out a little. Love working on this but it is going to have to be put to one side for a while.

I thought as well you might like to see my dad's progress on I am Half Sick of Shadows:









He has reached the bottom! Not long to go now.

So what is in store for this year? More crochet for a start. I will leave that for another post. I am hoping to start Shores of HRH but need to get fabric and threads sorted for it. Also want to join in the new HAED SAL - I chose Fragile Heart. I also have Hannah Westcombe by Needleprint to start and Helen Bell's Multiplication Table by CHS all kitted up ready to go. I must get on with the Stitch and Pass on as well. Ohhhh sooo much to do!

Well I think that's all folks. Boy I really needed to get that little lot off my chest! Thank you if you got this far down. Wishing every one of my readers and commentors a very special year ahead. xxxxxx