Spring exchange

Yay my spring exchange has arrived from the lovely Ashleigh



The design is filled with lavender so I've already hung it in my wardrobe. I've already decided that I would like to use the orangey variegated thread to stitch a quaker hedghog freebie that I've been watching to stitch for a while.

Its been a good mail day all round as I got the partial Japanese Octagon box kit and the grape thread keeper kit that I've waiting for. I'm going to try and resist starting them for a little bit longer.

Thank you everyone for your comments about my last finishes. They are very much appreciated. I'm trying to make a real effort to do more finishing as I go to stop getting a build up of finished stuff. Recently I bought my very first sewing machine so I will need to practise with it.

And in more good news, I had a pretty good weekend at work as I was on with a good bunch of staff who made it a great series of shift. I'm working again this weekend so hopefully this weekend will be the same.

Stitching the days away

The weathers been pretty horrid the past few weeks here so I've been spending a lot of time in the house stitching. The weekend after my last post, we had about 5-6 inches of snow in one day which is a lot for here. Its supposed to be spring but its still very cold here.
So I've bee doing a bit of stitching and framing. I"ve been working on Taj Mahal garden which isn't quite done so no picture yet. I have finished a new kit that I bought at the Glasgow stitching show (which was so much better than I expected). Its called Love letters and is designed by Shepherds bush

I then finished Be true which is also by Shepherds bush and is part of their current Be Attitudes series. I'm on an automatic for these and I've chosen to get the fabrics with them to make into cushions. I'm going to try to make them inot cushions myself which I've never done before so that should be fun.

And finally I finished Yummy by Waxing Moon. I got this design in November and I manage to find the matching frame at the Glasgow show.

Last night, I was in a framing mood. After I put the waxing moon design in its frame, I then framed Fa La la by Shepherds bush and the 1996 Mirabilia cherub



I'm pretty pleased with my progress last week. I had been feeling like I was having a mini slump in my stitching and knitting was taking over a bit. Over the past two weeks, I've really been enjoying all of the stitching I've done and got really back into it again. In the next few months, I'd like to get my to be framed/finished pile down a bit. I have around 30 or so finished pieces of stitching that are just waiting and some have been waiting for 3 years or more.
Tomorrow I have to go back to work which I am not looking forward to. Work has been truly awful recently for a variety of reasons. Hopefully it will be better this week.

Stitching progress and other stuff

Not sure where the time is going at the moment. I can't even blame work as I'm coming to the end of 2 weeks holiday. The weathers been pretty cold so I've been spending a lot of time indoors, watching DVDs, stitching and knitting.
I'm very proud to show off my two medals. The silver one is because I achieved two of the stitching goals that I set myself during the recent Chatelaine stitching BB Olympic event organised by the lovely Holley.

The gold medal is because I completed the Clapotis that I had challenged myself to knit during the recent knitting Olympics organised by the very wonderful Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot. I should explain that Clapotis is a scarf/shawl which is a free pattern from the wonderful Knitty site. The picture of Clapotis that I shared in my last post isn't very clear as to what it was as I don't have a handy person to model it or take a photo of me modelling it.

I also have more stitching and knitting progress to share. First up is this month's first happy dance - Orchid Cottage designed by Orna Willis. Its stitched using a variety of thread gatherer fibres on small count canvas. Orna Willis's needlepoint designs are fabulous but fairly expensive to stitch. I bought the fibres for the project at Harrogate last year from Wes end embroidery and they give you the chart for free. One day I will stitch one of Orna Willis's bigger projects.

I've also been stitching a lot on Taj Mahal Garden. This Chatelaine project has been a bit neglected over the past few months. I started stitching it when the class had been going for about 6 months so I was already behind and then Martina kept releasing more and more lovely projects. I want to get this finished in the next week as the Japanses Octogon box class has just started and I want to get it finished before my supplies for that class get here as I know I won't be able to resist starting it when they arrive.

And finally, I've finished another pair of socks. These ones are in Lorna's laces shepherds sock yarn in the colour Valentine. They are even more comfy than the last pair. And Jenna, I do wear them with my nurses uniform which is a not so delightful powder blue colour.


Tomorrow I'm off to the Creative stitches/Hobbycraft show in Glasgow. I don't have particularly high expectations for the stitching stalls at the show as stitching is going through a slump over here at present but I know the paper craft andf knitting stalls will be good. On Friday, I've got a busy day too as I'm going to Edinburgh with two of Aunts to research my materal family tree and try to get some information for my Dad's family tree which will be much harder to look into as we have much less to go on.