Friday 6 March 2009

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




14 comments:

Cathy said...

Hello Helen
Good to see you home even tho it has been a stressful time and all that.
Hopefully you will have some joy in making contact with the proprietors of the framing company and manage to retrieve your lost work.
You have achieved so much in such a little time I wouldn't worry about certain things being put on the backburner for the time being.
What is it they say about absence making the heart grow fonder - next time you are rummaging for something different to do, the ones you have put aside will jump out and say Hello Here I am, see how interesting I look now lol
Take care
Cathy

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

OH my...such a beautiful bird, lovely! And your vacation sounds like a wonderful, restful time! You've been one lucky girl in all your wins! And your BE Attitude finishes are spectacular! They shall look fabulously all framed together :)

Carmen said...

beautiful bird, amazing feather colors.
the mylene gift is beautiful too.

the bee stitching look so cute, and the tigger is a great and complex work.

have a great weekend.

Chiloe said...

Great you found a way to have their address!!! I won't wait too long though to contact them ;-) Have you tried to contact other framers to see if they know them or know what may have happened to their to be framed pieces. (maybe they are still somewhere in the shop?)

I love the bird !!!

Great winning gift (I still need to send what you won on my blog but I got sick and everything got messed ;-) Hope you are patient ;-)

Sally said...

Oh, Helen, I am so sorry to hear about Looplou piece. I do hope you can find something out and get it back.

Good to see you back and I'm pleased you had a good holiday. Looks like you got plenty of stitching done and it all looks lovely.

Brigitte said...

Yopur vacation sounds perfect to me. So much stitching, meeting friends and watching birds.
The gifts you came home to are all very special. And your stitching progress - great! Will look forward to seeing more of your big projects.

Ranae said...

Helen, That is terrible about your lost stitched piece, What the heck is wrong with people? Don't they realize how much our stitchig means to us, lol.
I am in love with your SB finishes.
You have been lucky to recieve that super nice things. The bird is gorgeous, beautiful photo taken
I pray you get that stitched piece back so very soon.

Andrea said...

Beautiful kingfisher photo. Looks like you had fun with your stitching while you were away.

Sorry to hear about your stitching calamity. Surely they can't just up and leave. If they have ceased trading due to the credit crunch you would of thought there would be a sign up saying so. I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for you.

Julie said...

Lovely gifts. You achieved a lot of stitching on your hols.

jane said...

sounds like a great holiday Helen and you certainly managed lots of stitching - it all looks beautiful. The kingfisher is just beautiful - I love them though I've only travelled as far as Wales to see them..lol

Cheryl said...

I think your missing stitching is every stitchers dread!! I would've cried.
Lots of lovely stitching :)

Carla said...

Hope you can recover your missing piece soon.
Lovely SB finishes; your tigger is coming along great!

Karan said...

Glad you had a lovely holiday but it's great to see you back posting again. :0) Lovely finishes & gifts & good progress on Tigger. :0)

Mylene said...

Good to hear you had a wonderful holiday and i love those SB finishes.