Another Post

Wow Im on a roll this is the 3rd post in less that 24 hours. Anyway I just finished Gigi and wanted to share with you. I scanned it and the colours have not come out very well. Also I made a little boo boo, but decided to just go with it and do the other side to match lol so if its not quite the same as yours or others you have seen then thats why.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

and though the sun keeps peeping in and out and there is a lovely blue sky overhead thats not what Im on about.

The Postie Came and the wonderful man bought my fabric from Sew & So.

The first one is 36 ct Edinburgh Linen in Flax

Next is 32 ct Belfast Linen in Vintage Cream

and last is 32 ct Belfast Linen in Vintage Mocha.

The 36ct Flax is for I Still Do and the 32ct Mocha is for Isabella's Garden.

Not sure what the cream is for but I liked it lol.


And this is my Flax fabric with the CC Hearts On Fire threads that I got from Jaynes Attic.



PS Just heard from the lady and pleased to tell you that Kitty can go to the young lady she was intended for.

Poor Kitty

Recently I read on someones blog that Love Quilts (normally a US site) were wanting squares for a quilt to be made for a young lady in the UK. I went to look and contacted the lady who was dealing with it over here who said thanks and told me to register at the US site for now as things were not up and running over here.

Well you know how it is when you are busy and I was getting things together to go in hospital so I grabbed my fabric (yes I had checked what was required) 13 x 13 inches of white aida, found a suitable design no more than 9 x 9 inches, kitted it up and put it in my bag to take with me. Since I came home along with other bits and bobs kitty has been taking shape and today she was finished and thilled with the results I thought it was time I registered.

Oooops, now I done several things for charity in the past but never before have I had to say what chart I wish to do, where it is to be found etc BEFORE I START, and apparently I should have done :o(

I have sent a picture of poor kitty to the lady in the UK to see if she would still like her but poor kitty might be homeless and all because I was in too much of a rush to do things the correct way. Oh well I am sure AQP or one of the other charities out there will find a home for her if shes not wanted but I had stitched her with this particular young lady in mind (her fave colour being purple hence the purple wool) so I would like her to go to the home she was made for.

Now Im onto part 4 of gigi, and I will let you know when I hear from the nice lady if kitty has a home or not.

Shiona Leigh Rowen

.................was born on the 26th April 1975.

Happy Birthday

Sweetheart,

hope it will be

a wonderful one.

This is the card I have made for her this year.

I have been busy finishing this, this morning and Keith has taken Oscar off to the Steam Rally at our local park. We normally take him together but I dont think Im quite up to walking round for so long just yet.

Its a lovely day here, not really sunny but bright and warmish so I will not complain. We are off into town to pick DDs cake up later and then going to take her cards etc.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

xx

Me And The UFO

I'm back and I want to say thank you to everyone who has sent me cards, messages or just asked after me on their blogs.

I woke to the alarm at 5am on Saturday and though I still felt a little croaky I had no sign of a temperature and my nose had stopped racing for England, so I went off to the hospital with fingers crossed. We arrived at the hospital at 7am and I was shown to my room, Keith stayed for 10 mins then went flying of to Ikea to get a sideboard thing for my DD. It was Ikea's 21st birthday and they had a 21% off day, a saving of just over £25.00 so well worth the effort, lol.

Anyway to cut a long story short by 8.45 I was in theatre having whatever they give you to send you to the land of nod and the next thing I know was I was in bed feeling sick lol. I always have that reaction to anaesthetic so it was something that was expected. Everything had gone as planned and by 10 am the next morning Keith had arrived to bring me home. So it was all really rather uneventful.

I am now recovering really well. I had the keyhole variety of op so three teeny tiny cuts which are all healing beautifully, very little pain, the only downsides so far being a rather multicoloured left hand (shades of yellow, brown, purple and red) and a belly full of gas that makes me both look and feel like a hot air balloon, and of course the normal restrictions where bending or stretching are concerned. On the upside I feel wonderful, I dont think I had realised how much that thing was pulling me down until now. I am bursting with energy, which I am having to hold on a tight rein lol, and I dont fall asleep everytime I sit down. I cant wait to get in the garden and I am noticing alsorts of jobs I really want to get at. I feel like I have been given a new lease of life.

Now for some stitching. I have been doing some cards and things which have been posted off without me taking a picture - sorry, and I have done a little more on my UFO - pic below. I am also working on a Love Quilt square of a cat for a girl in the UK. Hoping to get my daughters birthday card and the cat finished within the next couple of days and then hopefully I can get on to Gigi as I keep seeing pictures of the 4th part and it looks as though it will be quite a quick stitch. By next week I am hoping to get back to my rota at long last. I have decided that I will do the rota in the week and keep the weekends free for SALs or anything else that takes my fancy.

I hope I can get my pictures into webshots tomorrow as last week it was not playing again. Does anyone else have the same trouble, its fine when its working but so often it just gets so far and tells me its unable to upload my pics. I save them as JPEGS and none of them are large so I dont think I am doing anything wrong.

On a last note I am trying to get through all your blogs and leave a comment but its taking so long, there is so much to catch up on from all you busy bees lol, so please bear with me if I dont seem to have visited for a while.

and finally (honest) Kate at Our Red House tagged me to do a meme on why I like blogging, however she expressed it all so beautifully in her blog that I am going to ask you to just visit her and read what she wrote. Please forgive me for that Kate but I cannot think of anything that you had not already said far better than I could.

xx

FOR KARAN AND KAREN

I was reading Teresa's blog and she had been given an award. She invited us to "borrow" it if there was any one we thought deserved it.

Well I can think of several but there are two ladies in particular I would like to pass this award to.

Firstly I would like to give it to Karen who not only made an excellent job of repairing my fob but has done several really kind things in the past which she may even have forgotton about but I havent, I treasure people like her.

The other is for Karan for just being there. I am a very private person and dont talk much about personal things even to close friends but though I have never met Karan she is someone I have found so easy to talk to, so thank you Karan, you are so special.

xx

Double Damn & Geranium

Oh Damn, Damn, and more damns ........... I started with a cold last night. Its not a particularly bad cold as colds go but it is just at such an inconvenient time. After waiting for what seems like years - (nearly 6 months lol) I am due to go in hospital for my operation on Saturday morning and I know if I turn up with a cold they will not operate so I am taking flu strenth Beechams tablets every 6 hours and lots and lots of clear fluid drinks and I am wrapped up like a newborn on the coldest of days. I am hoping and praying that it is just a 24 hour thing and that be this time tomorrow I will be my normal self again.

Now to brighten things up here is a picture of my UFO as it is at this moment in time.

I wish you could see it in real life, the colours are wonderful and some of the flowers almost look as if you could lean down and pick them. There are lots of colour changes - even the simplist petal or leaf has 4 or 5 colours in it - so its quite slow going, and I don't like stitching the ivy which happens to be the slowest growing ivy I have ever come across, but overall I am really enjoying working on this.

All being well I wont be here for a few days after tomorrow so I hope you all have a lovely stitching weekend and I will look forward to spending some time catching up on those blogs and seeing all your progress pics when I am fit again.

xx

Birds In The Roses

I have been stitching a little though I have been very busy the last couple of weeks and have not had as much stitching time as I would have liked.

Anyway at last part 4 of EMS Roses is done and I now have two little birdies to sit amongst my roses. I am really enjoying this, I think mainly because there is very little in the way of colour change so it seems to stitch up really quickly.

I have also been working steadily on my UFO, sometimes (more often than not) just a few stitches but again it is growing. I havent taken a picture of this to show you tonight though as I want to try and get some more done on it tomorrow and then I will take a picture.

It was a beautiful morning but typically this afternoon when I had to take Mum for her chiropody appointment and then on to do shopping it was pouring with rain. Luckily I was able to park right next to the Health Centre in a disabled spot, but when we got to Asda all the disabled spots were as usual taken and though we did manage to park fairly near to the door by the time we got in there we were soaked. If I had been on my own I could have done a run but Mum at 81 is getting a little unsteady on the old pins and there is no way she could have done a run for it lol. And if she reads this I will have a thick ear to look forward to for calling her old lol.

Talking of Mum she has just had a new computer, her old one she has had for about 10 years and it was an old one when Dad bought it for her, but at 70 she decided it was time she came into the 21st century and learnt to use a computer and at the time it was ideal. Anyway to cut a long story short she wanted me to download incredimail for her as this is the way she is used to dealing with her emails and she was finding them confusing as they were. I switched on the computer and hey presto the vista screen had gone upside down. We switched it off and then on again but no it was still upside down. I phoned my DH - you can imagine what he said lol - what had I done to it and it was fine when he set it up - well thats the polite version lol. But he didnt know what could have caused it so told me to leave it until he could go and sort it out. He phoned back 10 mins later, he had been chatting with the IT guy at work and he had told him how to sort if - it really is quite simple as its just a right click on the screen (doesnt work on my computer but works on vista), which brings up a menu and you can rotate what you see on screen, so if you really want to stand on your head to use the computer you can turn the picture upside down or even sideways. Having said it was easy the air was rather blue as with the screen being the wrong way round the mouse was too and its very disorientating going left for right and up for down etc with the mouse.

Well its creeping towards midnight and I am tired out so I will say goodnight and go and get ready for my bed, and I will try and post a picture of my UFO tomorrow night.

And for anyone who is still here after reading all that - thanks you deserve a medal.

xx

Knit-Wit

I have not had a lot of chance to stitch over the last few days but I have been enjoying doing some knitting for a change. It is years since I have done any knitting but when I saw the link to Save the Children on Christines blog I just had to help in their appeal to knit a hat to save a new born baby. I bought four balls of wool - it shows how long it is since I last knit as I was thinking 4 balls would make 4 hats lol think I will get 5 or 6 out of each ball they are so tiny and cute. Also they are so easy I can knit them while talking to Oscar, whereas with stitching I find that its easier to do that after he is in bed because otherwise the frog decides to come and play too.

I am going to keep the knitting wool out until tomorrow evening when Oscar goes home again and then hopefully I will get back to my stitching.

Thanks you for all the lovely comments. In reply to Barbie, I cannot remember the exact colours I am using on the Papillon freebie, most of them are Dinky-Dyes silks but will make sure I list them when I do my next update. I couldnt find a link to your blog Barbie so sorry I havent done you the honour of a return visit.

I have had a number of new people visit recently and I love returning the visit which means I get to find yet another new blog out there (lol to keep me away from my stitching time). I do love seeing what you are all doing though and do try to leave a comment unless I am really in a rush.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Boys Things

This weekend was cold, snowy and wet - not my kind of thing at all lol, Im a sunshine flower. Saturday Oscar and Grandpa left me to do some house type things and went of for a cycle ride. They just reached the park as the rain came down so a visit to the cafe for hot chocolate and gingerbread men (sorry I am told it said gingerbread persons on the menu) was in order. They both arrived home wet but happy.


Sunday we went to Calke Abbey for there annual kite flying day. Although it had been snowing when we woke it was brightening up and there was not much sign of snow when we got there.










They had great fun flying there kite, but after taking some pictures Granny retired to the car to stitch lol.









Granny did get out of the car to go for a nice walk and couldnt resist adding this picture of him running down a steep hill

And lastly no day out is complete without a game of football.

Think Pink

Win this lovely piece of think pink cotton fabric at Stitch Pink.

Red feathers........

I have been so busy over the last couple of days that I have hardly picked up my stitching, I do hope I will get a little time over the weekend.

You may remember this lovely little chickadee I stitched in January. I made him into an ornament but I had nothing in the right red to trim him with. My mum said tinsel would be a nice idea, but as you dont see tinsel very much these days, even at chistmas its not as common as it was but I did rather like the idea. Well a friend and I decided we would have a walk through the park and visit our local market yesterday and I saw a delightful red fluffy trim, so last night with 5 mins to spare I finished him off. What do you think of my little fellow now?



I am thrilled with the results, though I am afraid he has had to go away until christmas time.

My Mojo Is Definitely Back

Yep I am definitely in full swing with my stitching at the moment and catching up on my lost time fairly quickly. Apart from a very quick visit by Mr Frog earlier today, so glad he didnt stay very long, part 3 of the Papillon SAL went well and Im really pleased with it, though it does seem to be taking on rather a blue hue. I havent stitched the daisys in the centre as the bead is attached as you stitch and I havent decided on a bead colour yet, I just know it wont be blue lol.

I have also made a start to night on my UFO SAL and will be stitching on that for a day or two to make up for the time I missed whilst the mojo went on its holiday. No photo as I have not done much and I am going to try and just concentrate on the very boring ivy border. Chiloe will know exactly what I mean when I say "its green" lol.

Thank you for the lovely comments regarding Queen of the Needle and also on the March Challenge. I am not going to take part in the challenge this month. I should really as I voted (though luckily the design chosen was not the one I voted for or I would feel really guilty), but Oscar will be finishing school for two weeks on Friday and will be spending quite a bit of time staying with us, and then with hospital coming up (fingers crossed) I feel that I will be rushing and dont want that mojo getting all upset and walking out again lol.

Wonderful People

I have been on this earth for a good few years and during that time I have met some lovely people, but as a community I do not think I have ever come across a group that are as loving, giving, helpful, friendly and downright wonderful as those in the stitching community.

I am not one to moan, I think life is very short and why waste the little we have on being grumpy and unhappy. I am one of life's Pollyanne's always trying to look on the bright side. But the other day I had a little grumble - oh ok a good old moan, because I had seen a chart that was just ideal for a special event in my life and I felt disappointed that I couldnt have it there and then. Looking back I think my moan was more of a tantrum, but Im a lucky girl and I didnt get my legs slapped - what did I get .... well one wonderful lady out there has let me borrow her copy of the chart, after discussing the colour i thought looked right on the internet another stitching friend is sending me a needleful so I can try before I buy, and someone else contacted me to see if I would like to do a SAL with her.

But that wasnt the only wonderful person today. I recently admired some canvas work that someone was showing on their blog. The person wrote to me giving me details etc, but I said that though I did admire it when I had looked it was rather expensive just to try and my normal stitching seems to take every spare penny I can manage (and a few more but I am sure a number of you know that feeling lol). The lady offered to send me some canvas and instructions to try it for myself and I thought that was nice but I was amazed when all this came myletterbox morning.

I am not going to embarrass either of these lovely ladies but they know who they are and I just wanted them to know how much their generosity is appreciated. We would live if a perfect world if more people were as nice as these two.

And to finally top my day the first of what is now to become a regular monthly treat, dropped through my letterbox (along with both the above). Yep one of those lovely pink packets from our lovely Jayne at Jaynes Attic, and some lovely lovely Dinky Dyes.