Another Happy Dance

Here are my Spot of - seasons which I finished last night. I have so enjoyed stitching this and now I just need to get the four little charms and then I can finish it off.

Having this weekend to stitch what I liked has been fun and so I have decided that I will do WT and ISD during the week and keep the weekends for "me" stitching. I have a few more things that are not far from being done and it would be nice to get them out of the way. This will also give me the chance to pull out things from my rota and even have a few new starts if I feel like it - though I will keep anything new to fairly small things.

Yesterday I went off to my hardanger day and Keith and Oz went off to the National Space Museum. We all enjoyed our day in different ways. Mine was as always great fun though to be honest I was not in a stitchy mood for some reason and I got very little achieved. Still the company was good and we had as always lots of fun and giggles.

Its very dull here today and I have been busy tidying up and dusting round after the weekend. I am now going to pull out WT and make a start. I hope I get on well with it this morning as this is the only day I will be home all day this week so its the only chance I will get to make an impression on it.

NOTE FOR KAREN AND JULIE
(karens place in webspace and julies stitchyknitter journal)

I have a couple of cottages going free in my village. They are next door to each other and every time I see them I think of you two living there. Have either of you any objections to living in my village - I do hope not but let me know.

Thank you once again for to all those who visit and for all the lovely comments which I so much enjoy reading and do appreciate so much.


may all your frogs stay in their ponds

The Flappers Are Dancing....

...Or at least I am because my flapper girls are done at last. I decided to take a little respite from Water Tiger until after the weekend firstly so that I could get Jasmine done; and secondly because I have my grandson here for the weekend which mean any stitching I do needs for my concentration to be divided. Well she was such an easy stitch and I actually got her finished before I went to bed on thursday night (just with about 10 minutes to go until Friday morning).

So may I present Jasmin (with perfume) and Amber (with compact) -

Do you like them, would you like to win the charts for this thoroughly modern pair. If so please state "enter me for the draw" in your comment on this post and I will draw the name for the pair of charts next weekend.

Last night I did this - uh I can hear you saying and what is that meant to be! Well its my homework for the hardanger group this week. I do not like the colour I feel it is far too vibrant for my sort of hardanger, which is why I decided to use it on a small learning piece. Also I hate wrapped bars. I would far rather to woven bars they are so much easier and look so much neater, but alas we have been told it must be wrapped bars. I cannot remember the names of the stitches we are to learn but I will show you the results next time I post.

I will be back to WT on Monday but I am going to use what stitching time I get over the weekend to work on Winter Spot and see if I can have another HD before the month is out.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend doing whatever they enjoy doing. Till next time -

Hugs

may your frogs stay in there ponds

Kathy's New Home

VILLAGE NEWS

I do hope Kathy (Kathys Sit & Stitch) will like her new home. She wanted it to be close to water - a stream was the best I could do, and she wanted a blue front door - well that was easy enough lol. I have also tried to add quite a few nice bright flowers as I know Kathy likes bright colours, but I have avoided pink (she is not a pink lady).

I had several applicants for the bank job (sounds like im into crime) but Angela was the first to apply and so her name is now on the bank. I have also recruited a School Mistress for our village school and Rach (a real life school marm from the Crafty Natter group I belong too) will be in charge of our local children - all very well behaved ones I can assure you.

The Hair and Hat shop is still up for auction but I am hoping my friend Beatrice (Stitching with a View) will agree to take that on as I do think of it as her shop.

Also there are still one or two cottages up for lease.

I am not sure which direction I am going in next. I guess I should return to the middle and finish this side before moving round the corner, but we will have to see - a bit of me wants to go round the corner lol.

GENERAL STITCHING

Well as you can see I have been stitching on The Village but this is not a kitted up project - just a choose the colours as I go along type thing. I have all my boxes of DMC at the side of me and pick and choose as I go but that is quite a distracting thing to do in the evening when I am watching tv and the lack of daylight also means I am not always sure about the colours. For this reason I have been working it in tandem with ISD which being all the same colour is easy and relaxing for the evening time. So here is the progress on ISD this week - two little hearts, an orchid motif, the round motif (under the R), two tall flowers and the flower and ribbon motif. I am really pleased with how this has gone.

I rather enjoyed having the two projects in tandem. One in my den for daytime and one by the sofa for evening stitching, so I am going to continue with that starting tomorrow. This time I will be doing Water Tiger in my den and something of my choice downstairs. The first thing of my choice I have chosen is Jasmine.

and this is where I left her in January. Eyeless and chinless but about half way through so hopefully by the time you see her again she will have lips and eye and chin and her earring finished. If I am really good and the sparkly thread does not give too many hassles then she may have a necklace too but we shall see. I do not like setting targets as if I do not reach them I get disappointed with myself and then start to lose the bug.

AWARDS

I have recently been given a couple of awards but you have not seen them in my blog. I do not want to hurt anyones feelings but whilst awards are meant to be fun and not to be taken seriously there are people who get hurt because someone they thought of as a friend has not passed an award to them. I find it very difficult to choose blogs to give awards too. I have over a hundred blogs in my reader and they are all for different reasons ones I enjoy, how can I choose who to pass these on too. I find I am skitting through looking for people who have not got one and trying to name them so that they do not feel left out. I blog for the same reason I stitch - because I enjoy it and not for any accolade. So please do not send me awards as I find it difficult to turn them down without risking hurting the person who chose me and I just cannot choose five from all the wonderful people who visit me and who I visit. I am sure I am not on my own here - lol maybe we could do with one of those little button things - you know the one that says "I am not obliged to blog" or something.

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts and thanks for all the very much appreciated comments.


may your frogs stay in their ponds

Tigger's First Ear

Tigger now has all of the ear from page 1 which is now complete as I have decided that for the now at least I am not going to do the background. With that in mind, yesterday afternoon I frogged what I had done of the background, which I admit was not much lol. I really did not like the limey greens that were used and as the fabric is a shaded sagey green colour I think I maybe able to get away with out tackling this. Unfortunately on the picture you cannot really tell either the colour or the fact that the fabric is shaded. This is one of the fabrics I bought at the Harrogate show and I think it is probably a manufactured shading rather than a hand dyed but its lovely to work on. He is now going away for a few days whilst I work on The Village and then he will be out again.

No stitching today as Mum and I are off to the garden centre for some retail therapy of the garden variety - shrubs in my case. I am not sure what Mum is after, probably some plants for her pots and hanging baskets.

I am still trying to catch up with blogs from my holiday but please forgive me if I have failed to leave a comment. At the moment its just catching up with all you have been up to and once I am up to date be assured I will leave comments again.

Hugs




may your frogs stay in their ponds.

Quick Report On Investigations....

I was a bit disappointed when we arrived at the address in Friargate to find that it was also a closed down shop. We then (mum and I) went off to the market hall to have a chat with some of the stall holders and one of them was able to give me an email address for the chap who ran the stall. When I got home I sent an email just saying that I was sorry to find they had closed and I wondered if it would be possible to get my stitching back.

Tonight I had a reply from him. He apologised for the delay, due to the close down of the shop things have got behind but he is now back trying to get everything framed at home. He asked me to confirm my telephone number and the best time to catch me in, as they had tried to ring me but had not reached anyone. I wrote back confirming my number and he wrote again saying that as soon as he had completed the framing he would contact me and arrange a mutually convenient time to deliver direct to me.

Tonight I am feeling much happier. Thanks to everyone for there supportive comments and helpful advice, you kept me going my friends.


may your frogs stay in their ponds

Happy Progress Report

Just a quickie this morning but wanted to let you see my progress report on ISD. I was really pleased with what I achieved this time as the heart round the 40 was finished and two more motives added - the two bottom ones on the far left.

Its now back to Tigger but then I will be on to my village which I am looking forward too - it seems an age since I was building there.

I am off into Derby today to see if we can find anything either at the market or at the address the website was registered too, so wish me luck.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and support.

may your frogs stay in their ponds

Holiday, Gifts and Stitching

But before any of that may I thank you for all the support and advice given regarding my missing stitching. I now have the address that the company was registered at and will try there at the beginning of next week. Of course they may have moved from there too but it is certainly worth a try and thanks to the two people who took the time and trouble to find that address for me. I will try with my own investigations first but if they do not work then I will certainly contact the local newspaper and as again advised the local radio station. Your support has made so much difference. I know this is not important in the scheme of things - its a piece of stitching and its not life and death, but none the less logic may tell me not to get upset about it but logic has nothing to do with how I feel inside.

HOLIDAY

We had a wonderful and relaxing holiday spending many hours sitting by the river watching these little fellowsisn't he beautiful. While Keith was happily occupied taking pictures of the birds (this was just one of the four varieties of Kingfishers we saw on a daily basis), I was busy stitching and I achieved quite a bit this holiday. The only downside to the holiday was that going two weeks later than normal it was so much hotter and the humidity was quite high on several days too. Next year we will definitely be going back to our earlier slot at the end of January or beginning of February. We also spent time catching up with friends that either live out there or that we meet in Goa each year so all in all we had a lovely time.

GIFTS

A few days before we went I recieved this lovely coaster from Mylene. It was a blog draw prize and I feel so honoured to have one of Mylenes beautiful pieces in my home and being used on a daily basis.

On arriving home I had two more gifts waiting for me. The first from Susan at Afford Your Passion was these two lovely Lavander & Lace charts which I had won in her blog draw.

I also got this beautiful chart of Winter Blues by Just Nan. This was from Concetta (an Italian Scots Stitching Journal). Concetta stitched this beautiful design a short time ago. Though I am a big JN fan I had never noticed this one before but fell in love with it when I saw it on Concetta's blog. I mentioned it would be going into my wish list and Concetta contacted me to ask if I would like it. Oh what a silly question - I would love it - and I do. So big hugs and thanks for that my friend.

STITCHING

I stitched these three projects from the Shepherds Bush, Be Attitudes Series whilst on holiday, they are Be Nice, Be Busy and Be Sweet. I still have Be Strong to Stitch and I am hoping that will be done soon so they can all be framed together.

Also while on holiday I stitched Spring, Summer and Autumn and made a start of Winter of the Drawn Thread Designs "Spot of" designs. I am stitching them as one big project so I will finish winter before showing a picture of that.

I have not had too much time for stitching since getting home - catching up with family, washing etc have all got in the way, but I did manage a bit more on Water Tiger.

He now has the start of an ear. Although it does not show very well on the picture this is stitched on a lovely fabric that is shades of sagey green. I made a small start on the background but its limey green shades and I really do not like them - I feel they should have been darker, more jungle like greens. I am now wondering whether to even bother with the background at all, so for the now I am just going to concentrate of Tigger himself and will make a decision about that later in the day.

Because Water Tiger is my biggest priority and due to all the confetti stitching I am finding it quite hard going I have decided that it will be my every other project for a while. I am now doing I Still Do and when I have had enough of that will go back to Tigger. So it will be

TIGGER

ISD

TIGGER

VILLAGE

TIGGER

MY CHOICE (*see below)

* I have a number of things that are close to finishing, Jasmine, Spot of Winter, tissue box cover etc. I also have a number of quite small projects I want to get done like the other Be Attitude, and I still have my blogoversary gift to stitch, so they will come into the My Choice section. Hopefully with this section I will get enough finishes to keep me motivated whilst ploughing on with the three big projects.

I think the other things that were in my rota have for now to officially be called UFO's but they have not been cast aside to be forgotton. Each and everyone is something I would like to finish but for now these things are more important, though I may even fish something out from the UFO collection to stitch on from time to time in the My Choice bit.

I am sorry this has been such a long, long post and do hope you have not found it boring.

Thank you for all the comments and especially to the new people who have left comments recently.

may your frogs stay in their ponds

I want to cry....

... I feel so frustrated.

Just before I went on holiday I took my Loopylou Secret Garden in to be framed at Easy Frames in Derby. Today I went to collect it only to find the place had closed down. There was a phone number for people to contact them but unfortunately this seems to be out of use. I contacted Derby Trading Standards who told me I would need to contact the Council (as this was in the Eagle Centre Market which is run by the council) and get an address. Unfortunately the market is run under a blanket licence so they do not hold addresses for market stall holders. They did have a website address but I have just tried that and it is just saying the site is for sale and you can place a bid but not contact the seller.

I left a £20.00 desposit but thats not bothering me its just all that work which appears to be lost and I cannot see how I can contact these people to recover my work. I feel so upset by this and I am at a complete loss as to what else I can do. Sorry for the moan but at least I know the people on here will understand about the amount of work thats put into a project.

If anyone has any idea how I can proceed I would be grateful.