May WIP Update....

Two posts in one day.... wow!  What has happened... well.. I am off work sick again - that's what happened!!

You know the old saying it never rains but it pours - well I think that is me at the moment!

I spent all of last Saturday and half of Sunday in the Emergency Department of our local hospital in the most agonising pain with my gallbladder!  They also hooked me up to a potassium drip for over 9 hrs as my potassium levels were really low.... I couldn't stitch til Saturday night when they unhooked me and then I didn't get much done as I wasn't feeling too flash!  Then on Sunday morning the hospital staff went into a spin as my liver levels had gone on a 24hr skyrocket ride!!  I think I was very lucky that they let me go home at all...

I go back to the Doctor tomorrow afternoon to check on what yesterday's ultrasound scan showed - although the Radiographer did tell me she could see a gallstone.... :o(

So I have been at home all week recovering and praying that the gallstone doesn't get stuck again.   Every twinge I get in my back/chest is freaking me out at the moment....

So while I worry about work.... and my health... I have managed to spend a bit more time stitching that I would normally get done during the week!

WIP updates.....

Queen of Peace - Nora Corbett

Christmas Test Drive - Mosey N Me

Almost done..... 

ABC Chats - F (Les Brodeuses Parisienne)

Stitched on this for "Stitchers in Red"SAL - 24 May 2016

These three are all part of my May starts for the Stitch Maynia SAL and hopefully before the end of May I will have at least one of them finished!

That's it for today... I am now going to go back to my couch and blanket for puppy cuddles and lots of afternoon stitching!

Til next time... happy stitching!
Hugs xx

Stitch Maynia Update

As you will know from a previous post I am doing the Stitch Maynia 15 day challenge (15 starts in 15 days) this month.  So far I have managed to do 9 out of 9 new starts so I am on track!  I showed you the first two days on a post earlier in the month.  Below are pics of the Start 3 through to Start 9.

Day 3 - ABC Chats - F: Les Brodeuses Parisienne

Day 4 - Star Wars (Original Trilogy): The Cloudsfactory

Stitching the design as a bookmark with 2 or 3 characters and light sabers
note the Star Wars needleminder in the photo!!

Day 4 coincided with the "May the Fourth be with you" SAL on 4th May... so this is my Star Wars stitching that event :o)

Day 5 - ABC Chats  - G: Les Brodeuses Parisienne

Day 6 - Faces of Joan Elliott SAL (Dragon): Joan Elliott

I started that tiny bit of grey 3 times on Friday night.... I miscounted and didn't realise til I reached the top, then after stitching it again I realised it should have been the darker grey! So not a lot to show for a Friday night of stitching....

Day 7 - Christmas Test Drive: Mosey n Me

Just Cross Stitch Christmas 2015 issue

Day 8 - Queen of Peace: Nora Corbett (Mirabilia)

Day 9 - Trick or Treat: Pickle Barrel Designs

Just Cross Stitch Halloween 2016 issue

Well over half way there with the Stitch Maynia starts.... probably I will be back onto my ABC Chats tonight but who knows!  I must admit I am itching to get back onto the last three starts so I am counting down til 16th May and all 15 starts are down and dusted!

That's it for now... I have no idea when or if this will even post as there are issues with blogger... so fingers crossed you will see it and it won't end up in the great wide world of nothingness!!

So til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

Spoilers Sweetie!!

I so love that saying.... I don't really have any spoilers unless you haven't seen the latest Game of Thrones episode... which in that case, please look away for a second while I do a happy dance!

Web image

Jon Snow is alive!!  

Not that we doubted that he wouldn't be back one way or the other... 

Did we?

Ok... GoT happy dance is done for today!! :o)

Back to the stitching update....

Friday Frolics
Last Friday night I carried on stitching on the Joyful World SAL "February" by the Snowflower Diaries.  When I showed you "February" last Monday it looked like this:

as at 25th April 2016

I stitched on this most of last week so that on Friday night before I started stitching it looked like this:

After Friday night it looked like this:

I forgot to take a photo of what it looks like after stitching on it on Saturday but I can tell you it is almost done!  So expect another finish soon :o)

Stitch Maynia - 15 starts in 15 days
The (now) annual Stitch Maynia event started on 1st May.  This is a FB event on the Stitch Maynia group.  I tossed up whether to do it this year given all the things that I am doing but then I decided to be smart about it... (hard to imagine I know... but occasionally I do have good ideas!)

I am going to be doing 15 starts in 15 days.... (this is the base model mind you - others are doing more!) So my thinking behind this is:

3 SAL starts that need to done this month....
1 start - Halloween SAL theme (Spiders)
1 start - Christmas SAL theme (Reindeers) - also JCS start is a reindeer (2 for 1)
1 start - Star Wars stitching for May the 4th be with you on 4th May

only 12 to go....

ABC Chats - my Alphabet Club stitching is way behind... I have only completed 3 out of a possible 9 cats! (ABC are done... DEFGHI are late - so there is another 6 starts!)

only 6 more to find now....

Joyful World SAL - Jan is done.. Feb nearly done... Mar, Apr and May are waiting to be started... so 3 more possible starts there..

which leaves only 3 more to find!

Not sure what I will do there but I could get an early start on next month's SAL's... or start 3 new Brooke's Books Advent Animals or a Nora Corbett that I am itching to get on the Q-snaps! Lots of choices for the next 3 starts so stay tuned!

I have pics of the first two starts in May below:

Day 1 - ABC Chats - Les Brodeuses Parisiennes - D

Not a great start... after a day of fiddling on Sunday I finally sat down to start stitching around 4pm and this is as far as I got as I had to take Hubby to Emergency... and that was the end of Sunday!  (I must admit I did think about taking my stitching with me as I knew we would be there most of the evening... does that sound a bit mean??  BTW he is ok now.... just had a reaction to the pain relief that he was taking after his knee operation last week)

Day 2 - ABC Chats - Les Brodeuses Parisiennes - E

A bit better progress yesterday on my "E" start... and after some frogging (which you can see the red glow of...) this is what "E" looked like when I put it down last night.

Before I go I have to show you what my hubby made for me the other day.....

A new project bag!!! The orange embroidery doesn't really show up in the photo... but the front side is "Keep Calm and Stitch" and the back is a kitty! Love the purple batik fabric :o)

That's it for today.... see you again real soon!

Happy Stitching
Hugs xx

Mini Finishes on Show!

Nope... sorry.... no Frolicking was had on Friday.... we went and watched Daniel Craig in Spectre.  I just can't go past a James Bond movie - they are always so good for a laugh, and this one proved to be a right giggle in places! :o)

So I may not have stitched on Friday night.... but I did get some stitching done over the weekend while watching the cricket match between Australia and New Zealand.  I know I should have actually gone to the cricket seeing as it is on at the WACA at the moment.... but then I wouldn't have been able to stitch, especially seeing as Saturday was a whopper of a hot November day - 40 deg C! Hottest November day in years and then we finished up with a couple of wonderful thunderstorms that night. Unfortunately one of the thunderstorms happened right when everyone was signing Happy Birthday to Prince Charles... oops....

Now as my title suggests I have finishes to show.... and I am very pleased to show you my finished Cats and Mice...

First up I want to show you my ABC Chats from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes...

When I last showed you these gorgeous little beauties on my TAC post I had just started on "C"

ABC Chats as at 7 November 2015

Now "C" is finished.....

ABC Chats "C" finished 15 November 2015

I also finally got off my backside and ordered all the missing threads that I needed to finish off "A" and "B"... so that's all three done and dusted!  Right now my TAC ABC Chats afghan looks like this:

ABC Chats as at 15 November 2015

Aren't they so cute?  That is 3 down.... only 23 more to go!!  I must try and make a start on "D" before the month ends.... but somehow I don't think that will happen as I have some other deadlines looming that I must get stitching for!

I have also finished the final mouse from the set of 3 Margaret Sherry Christmas mice that I started way back in January!

Now that they are all done I will try and get around to finishing them into a bell pull or something similar...

So that's it... Cats and Mice finishes..... it does feel good to be able to finally show something that is finished!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

Stitching Cats and Mice!!

Happy Monday.... :o)

I have a bit of a stitching update for you today and even a very small finish!

On my last blog post I gave you an update on my "ABC Chats" afghan - which is very slowly moving along!

Kitty "B" looked like this last weekend:

"ABC Chats - Kitty B" as at 3 Oct 2015

Kitty "B" now looks like this:

"ABC Chats - Kitty B" as at 8 Oct 2015

Almost done....little bit of backstitch left on the kitty and just some filling in of the bow when I get around to ordering the missing thread.  I need to now find the time to start on "C" before the end of the month.....

Now onto my Friday Frolics stitching!  Link to my FF post is here.... but in a nutshell, I decided to stitch on a small on Friday night as I was feeling completely cream crackered after a very looonnngg week at work and I didn't want to stitch on something that I needed to think about (and stuff up) and then frog it all out next time I picked it up!!!

I picked up this cute little Christmas mouse and very nearly finished him on Friday...

Before I started stitching on Friday night....

and after a couple of Friday night wines he looked like this:

and then on Saturday afternoon I finished off the last of the backstitching:

Christmas Mouse (1) finished Oct 2015
Designer: Margaret Sherry

One more WIP ticked off that very long Crazy January start list..... :o)

While I had the trio of Christmas Mice out over the weekend I decided to stitch a bit more on another one on Saturday as well.  The last time you saw Christmas Mouse #2 was way back in January when I first started stitching on him....

He now looks like this.....

He is almost done now.....
Amazing what you can achieve when you sit up til 2am Sunday morning watching the Rugby World Cup!!! (Amazing game by the Wallabies to beat Wales.....)

I will save my Sunday stitching til later in the week as I picked up one of my GG pieces so that I would have something to show on Thursday!! :o)

So that's it for today's update.  Quite a productive week and weekend overall!  (Although some people would probably say that I have been very lazy stitching all weekend!)

Have a great week!  I will try and post tomorrow for my TUSAL update and then I will be back again on Thursday for GG, and then before we know it, it will be time for FNSI and IHSW at the end of the week!  The month of October is just flying by...

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs xx

TUSAL September 2015

Can you believe this... I forgot to post my TUSAL update over the weekend.... so I must make amends rights now!

Sorry for the really uninspiring picture of my ORT's this month... remembering to take photos just before I go to bed at night does not lend to awe-inspiring pictures!!

So there you have them.... a little suitcase full of ORTs since the last new moon... and a big suitcase full of 2015 ORT's so far!  If you're wondering what's in the background - just my iPad and my never-ending cup of tea (wish it was never-ending!) :o)  Told you.... very uninteresting photo this time around!!

While I'm here though, I thought you might like to see an update photo of "ABC Chats" from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes that I am stitching for TAC.  Last time you saw them I had started on Kitty "B".

Well Kitty "B" now looks like this:

Bit hard to see the kitty but I promise you he is starting to appear.... the red has been a pain to stitch if I have to frog as it is leaving red fluff behind.... I am hoping to get back to this one for IHWS which I believe should be happening this weekend.

So that's it for my very quick TUSAL update!

Til next time, happy stitching...
Hugs xx

*********************

If you don't know (or haven't heard) about the 2015 TUSAL, Daffycat is again hosting the fun Totally Useless SAL (TUSAL).  Essentially we stitch and save our ORT's (Old Raggety Threads) and every New Moon those of us participating in the TUSAL post a picture of our ORT's jar, and then leave little msgs for Daffycat on her blog to show that we have been stitching and have posted our wonderful pics.  Please head over to her sign up page and join in the fun!

New Moons - 2015
13th October
11th November
11th December

FNSI & IHSW August Update

Friday Night Sew In (FNSI).... held on the third Friday of every month - hosted by Wendy from Sugarlane Designs.

Friday night saw me putting in the last of the back stitches on my Santa Claus.... You haven't seen him yet as I only started stitching him in the last few days and now he is finished!! Yippee :o) Amazing what a cold, wet couple of days in front of the telly can do for your stitching progress!!

August 2015

This little cute Aussie Santa and mates is my August choice for the Christmas Ornie SAL 2015.  Another task ticked off the list!!  The design is from the Cross Stitch Crazy magazine (issue #171) and is designed by Jenny Barton.  There were a number of Santas from around the world but the Aussie one tickled my Christmas funny bone!!  (I was toying with the idea of putting a red dot in the middle of the spider for the classic Aussie Red Back Spider.... but I don't think it would have worked!) 

If you think he looks a bit strange.... I stitched him on plastic canvas, then trimmed it down before gluing on some felt to the back of him yesterday morning.  I still have to trim the felt down a bit but I will do that later in the week once I am happy that everything is well stuck!

If you want to have a look at who else joined in for Friday Night Stitch In, head over to Wendy's blog (Sugarlane Designs) for sign-up links.

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW).... held on the third weekend (Fri - Sun) of every month - hosted by Joyce (Random Ramblings).

This month saw Joyce have a two part IHSW!  Part 1 was last weekend and....  this weekend was Part 2!

My plan for the weekend was to yet again stitch on "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy.  As the month draws to a close I need to finish my "Black Cat" for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog.

When you last saw this piece I had just finished the "Haunted House" for last month's Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog post:

July 2015

Over the weekend I managed to get 2 box borders finished and 3 sides of the "Black Cat" one stitched.

Tonight I will get that last side stitched and then start on the cat and with a bit of luck by the end of the week I will have the black cat ticked off the To-Do stitching list!

If you are wondering what everyone else did over the weekend, drop on over to Joyce's blog and have a look at sign up post for a full list of who was participating.

So that is it for my stitching weekend....

Now before I go.... I have a quick update on some stitching that I have now started doing for "The Alphabet Club" posts.  August was our first month of posting and but I failed to show a stitching piece... but I can sort of fix that now!!

I have decided to stitch an afghan using the gorgeous ABC cats from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes.  I have admired the designs from this French designer for a long time and finally got up the nerve to place an order.... (and it ended up being a rather large one at that.... Euro to Aussie Dollar is not kind!  I wish I had thought to go to their shop when we were Paris a couple of years ago....) I just love Parisienne / French inspired stitching.... ooh la la!! ♥♥♥

I still have a little bit more of the "A" cat to go before starting "B" but I had to put this down for a while to concentrate on other stitchy things.  I must say stitching on the very soft afghan material is going to be quite challenging I think!!

That's it for today... see you again soon!

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx