FF, FNSI & IHSW Round Up

It's Monday.... and time for a weekend stitching round up post!

First up is Friday Frolics.... nothing to report as nothing was stitched on Friday :o(  Epic fail....   We were out on Friday night and by the time we got home it was a bit too late to even think about threading a needle for a few stitches....

And of course you know what that means don't you??  Double epic fail!

Friday night was also FNSI and while I did sign up for this and I was hoping to be home in time to stitch with everyone... it just didn't happen! :o( :o(

But I am an optimist and I also look for that silver lining.... last weekend was also IHSW and I did manage to stitch most of the weekend!!  Having a cold, damp Spring Sunday helped immensely!

Joyce didn't post a sign up page last week.... but I didn't let that deter me.... want to see what I stitched on Saturday and Sunday?

Saturday saw me rummage around in the Stitching Box and come up with "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy, which was good timing as I needed to stitch and post my "ghost" on the Halloween Ornie SAL Blog before the end of the month.... indeed before Halloween which falls at the end of the month!!!

I am really pleased with my weekend stitching progress... because not only did I start and finish the Ghost square... but I also started and nearly finished the Jack (pumpkin) square!  (If the Argentina/Ireland Rugby game had gone another half hour I would have probably finished that one as well!!!)

So first up... here is the "Ghost" square

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy

After a weekend of stitching on the Ghost and the Jack, the whole piece now looks like this:

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy
as at Oct 2015

Not bad progress for Saturday and Sunday, even if I do say so myself!!  I have only one more square (the witch) to stitch on this one and then back onto the border.....  Before I post my Ghost on the Halloween blog I need to do some Halloween decorating... have no idea what I am going to do but I think a trip to Spotlight is called for, or maybe I should just take a photo of the cobwebs and big black spiders that we have hanging around on the back patio and use them as my decorating!!!

I am going to put this one away now so that I can start on my Christmas Ornie SAL Blog piece for October.  Hopefully I will have something to show you all next week....

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs, xx

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL 2015 - Update #10

Yeah.... I did it! I am on time for my October GG post!

For this month's GG post I decided to devote some stitching time and love to one of my longer neglected pieces....

Moutons de Saisons "Printemps et ete" - Collection Tralala
Gift from Kaye from Kitten Stitching.  The original post of when Kaye gave me these charts is here.

Tralala Collection - Mouton de Saisons

Moutons de Saisons "printemps"
The last time you saw, and I stitched on "printemps" was back in July .... I left my sweet little sheep and his/her rabbit friend looking like this:

Are you ready for the latest reveal of "primtemps"?  Prepare to be almost amazed...

I am so pleased with my progress on this one....  sitting on my backside all weekend and every evening after tea is starting to pay off in stitching progress!  I am almost finished the main part of the design, and then I will be onto the bottom part and the border, and who knows we may even have a finish before the end of the year!

Tonight I will do a bit more on this one, but then alas he will have to go back into the stitching basket as the month is half way through I haven't even started my Halloween Ghost or Christmas Angel/Nativity...

That is unfortunately all I have to show for this GG post.... see you next month!  Don't forget to visit Jo's blog for the link ups to see what everyone else worked on this month!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx 

If you're not sure what this particular SAL is all about.... Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts this SAL - the link to my post late last year about the SAL is here.... but essentially this SAL is about stitching charts/kits or using fabrics & threads that we have received as gifts, won in giveaways or anything that is intended be a gift or giveaway prize... or anything else that you can loosely use the word "gift" for!!  If you wish to sign up for this SAL, click on the button below or the button on my sidebar and you will be re-directed to Jo's blog.

TUSAL October 2015

Here we go for a very quick flyby post.... I have been trying to find time for the last 2 days to get this post written and ticked off the To-Do List all to no avail until now!  I am waiting for a visitor to come and see the boss, so thought while I am waiting I would sneak the opportunity and post!!

Just a photo of the little monthly ORT's this time (I forgot to get the suitcase out on Monday night when I took the photo!)

TUSAL Oct 2015

As it's October, and nearly Halloween, I added some cobwebs to the pic.... and you may also notice the Tardis hanging around as well - that's because Dr Who is back on the TeeVee... and also because my little ORT's tin is bigger on the inside!!

Visitor still hasn't arrived.... but that's good as I got my post done and dusted... and now I can pack up and be ready to go home as soon as the visitor is settled in - yee hah!! :o)

So that's it for my super dupper quick TUSAL update!  Shame I don't have a time machine in real life as I could go back to yesterday and pretend I posted on time!!

Til next time, happy stitching...
Hugs xx

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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
11th November
11th December

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

The Alphabet Club - Detention for Letter "C"

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

Today is the first Saturday in October.... 

which means today is posting day for

"The Alphabet Club" (TAC)

Hello Cobber!  Are you ready to get cracking on the letter "C"?  Here's some words that may or may not be unique to us Aussies, but we certainly use them quite a bit in our every day conversation!

Cactus: useless, broken
Cackle Berries: a chicken egg. (ie "Mum, I'd like two cackle berries for brekkie, please.")
Chuck a wobbly: go berserk
Chuck a sickie: take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy
Clicks: kilometres (ie 10 clicks / 10 kms)
Cobber: a mate or a friend
Come a cropper: to fall heavily
Cot case: a drunk or exhausted person only fit for bed
Cracking: excellent / get cracking - start something
Crow Eater: a fun name for a person from South Australia (that's me, sort of... I was born a Crow Eater... later on in the series of letters I will tell you what I am now!)

And if that wasn't enough for you, how about some of these pretty unique sayings:

Couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag
Couldn't peel skin off a custard (I love this one.... most of the time it gets applied to someone's car when it doesn't really have a lot of power and gets left behind at the traffic lights!)

So now I have to talk about Aussie food.... and sorry but there really is only one food that is worth mentioning on an Aussie "C" Day and that is the Chiko Roll!!

Web image

This Australian food icon was inspired by Chinese spring rolls.  The deep-fried snack contains beef (despite its name, there’s no chicken), celery, cabbage, barley, carrot, onion, green beans and spices (and probably things we don't want to know about!!) in a battered tube.  Chiko rolls are generally eaten on the go and served at local fish 'n' chip shops or by snack vendors at train stations.  Besides the meat pie or sausage roll they are probably an Aussie's favourite footy food!!

I love Chiko Rolls...... but then again I am a child of the late 60's and 70's!!

Ok... so that's the Aussie part of the post over and done with...

So how about an update on my chosen piece that I am stitching for this monthly blog post... "ABC Chats" from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes.

I was hoping to have finished "B" before posting... but that didn't happen!  I have managed to stitch on "B" for the last couple of nights including last night (which was a Friday Frolics night)...

So the last time I showed you "B" it looked like this:

and now after last night it looks like this:

Kitty is now beginning to finally take shape...  I am going to keep stitching on this now for the weekend as I would like to get started on "C" before my next TAC post!!!

Well, that's it for today's Detention post... If you would like to join in the fun of "The Alphabet Club", pop over to Chiara's blog (The Grey Tail) to see what all the fun is about and link up your for post for the Letter "C".

See you next month when it will be Detention for the Letter "D".

Cheerio from me....
Hugs xx