Something Old, Something New and Something Blue

Unfortunately there isn't a single wedding in sight, despite the title of this post.... but keep on reading to find out what it does actually refer to. :0)

First up is the something old: it was update time on the Weekly SAL blog on Sunday so it's time to bore you with yet another pic of my progress on that. Persevere though, as there's more to see after this. LOL

This time around I filled in a little more of the background area to the right of her arm, knocked off a few more of those confetti stitches in various places and made a start on Her dress. I am so glad I joined the ladies over at the SAL blog with this piece as it's really helping to keep me focused. :0)

As promised in my last post I have something new to show you. Well, actually, a couple of new things, thanks to a new start, an enabling JA/S&S Forum member and a little stash acquisition. :0) First up is the new start of A Bouquet for Cheryl:

Unfortunately I had to take a pic of this on one of the many dull, grey days we've been having lately..... and the digicam objects to taking close ups too. I'm quite pleased with how this is taking shape. The Thai silk is lovely to use and the colours in the variegation work nicely. I worked on this exclusively last night (Sunday) whilst watching Larkrise to Candleford and the Seven Ages of Britain and an episode of the new series of CSI Vegas. Yep, I got a serious case of Stitch Ass! LOL I made quite a bit of progress but the next reveal isn't until the beginning of March so I'm afraid you'll have to wait until then to see it. Sorry!

The new stash acquisition, which arrived last week, was a rather gorgeous piece of fabric from Sparklies called Pumpkin Patch.... so apt, considering the design I'll be using it for:

I haven't yet got the required thread for this so it won't be a new start just yet. I think it calls for WDW but I've spotted another one of those Thai silk threads that might just do the job instead..... am saving a few pennies so I can have a splurge. Well I don't want to go buying just one skein of thread when I can get several for the same amount of postage, now do I? Being a typical Yorkshire lass I do like to make sure I get full value for my money. ROFL

DH and I went shopping on Sunday, once again descending on the Edinburgh Woollen Mills shop within Brigg Garden Centre. This time I came away with two zip-up cardigans (can be used as a lightweight jacket on warmer Spring/Autumn days or cooler Summer evenings), two one-button cardigans (dress up or down type), a dressing gown and for Summer: two denim-look cotton blouses with pretty flower embroideries on them and denim-look cotton trousers. I'm all set for woollies now, so I can now Charity bag the last of the too-big ones left in my wardrobe. Yay! DH treated himself to a DVD and a CD. Whilst we were walking back through the Garden Centre I spotted some Paper Mania BOGOF bargains in the craft section:

As you can see they were just too pretty to resist. LOL I thought they would make great finishing trims for ornies...... so now I just need to stitch ones in appropriate colourways. :0)

And the something blue of the title? Well it isn't any rude jokes or links to porn sites, in case you were beginning to wonder ROFL. It's the stash for yet another new SAL I've joined. Yes, you read that right: another SAL I've joined. I'm not taking full blame for this though...... if Julia hadn't posted a progress picture of her completed first three parts of this gorgeous blackwork piece on JA/S&S Forum and her blog then I would have remained blissfully ignorant and just carried on plugging away at the same old pieces. But she did, along with a link to the Seba site.... so I went along for a nosey (as you do) and ended up joining the site and downloading the parts.... and a couple of other freebies. Of course, once I printed out the charts it led me on to thinking about what colour scheme I'd like to do it in........ which led on to delving in my stash for fabric and threads........ which resulted in this combination:

Another gorgeous variegated Thai silk and a DMC threads and 32ct Zweigart Vintage Blue fabric. The only thing that has stopped me from making a start on this is the indecision on which way round to use the threads: plain for the cross stitch borders of the blocks and Thai silk for the blackwork infill or vice versa????? Maybe I'll just toss a coin. LOL

I had hoped to be able to post a pic of DS's new wheels.... but it didn't stay in the drive long enough in the daytime over the weekend for me to take one. Hopefully next time.

So what else did we get up to over the weekend? Not a great lot. We stayed in Saturday and DH did a little more to the flooring while I did a few jobs and did some catching up with blogs on my reader (still some ways to go with that - I will get round to you all soon!) and some stitching. Sunday was the shopping trip in the morning. In the afternoon DH had a theatre tech meeting to go to for a couple of hours so I chilled with some more blog reading after putting some scrag end lamb chops in the oven to slowly braise, ready for our evening meal. Our evening meal was followed by that serious Stitch Ass session whilst DH laid the first two lengths of edging strip on the flooring. He's not as keen on Larkrise as I am, can you tell? LOL

Today (Monday) has been my regular jobs day and I was pleasantly surprised to realise that my stamina/energy levels have improved some: I managed to do all my jobs and two lots of laundry, then also vaccumed upstairs and the stairs plus made a start on sorting out the pantry (cupboard under the stairs) by binning some tatty old containers and washing a shed load of decent ones. I'd forgotten I'd got some of those storage containers so it was a voyage of discovery..... and there are a few there that will come in real useful for cardmaking stash storage. Score! I'm putting them to one side, ready for when the Craft Room is (finally!) finished and I start organising things as they go in there. If I'm not too tired tomorrow I shall finish washing the rest of the stuff that's still on the slab, wipe it all down and put a few of the bits back - then the rest of the shelves will be tackled later in the week. Slowly but surely this house is being decluttered, cleaned and organised. Yay!

Thank you for taking the time to visit and especially for the lovely comments you leave. Hope you are all having a good and productive time whatever you are doing. :0)

Good Post Days and More Stitching

The last few days have seen me beavering away with my needle and receiving some rather good post so I am in a very good mood right now and I'll share so you can see why. :0)

First up is this weeks update on Sea Stars (taken in artificial light):


I'm still on the same motif as last time but reckon I managed to stitch a fair bit more this week than last, so am pleased with the progress made. Hopefully that motif will be completed next time. :0)

The first good post item that arrived Friday was the lovely Just Nan Boo! chart from Lisa:


Love that card too. LOL Thank you again Lisa - this gave me a boost when I needed it and I shall really enjoy stitching this piece. :0)

Friday also saw the arrival of a couple of pinkies from Jayne. Yay! One contained the final part of the Ozark Mystery piece (not shown, as you'll get to see what the colours were when I've completed stitching the piece) and the other had these little beauties inside:


The latest new threads from Carrie's Creations and the first of the Bi-Monthly chart packs of smalls designed by Christine of Alchemy Stitchcraft. I couldn't resist the cute Santa when I saw him, or the unusual way of finishing him, which is totally new to me. Am so looking forward to making this and seeing what else is in store in the coming months. Any hints Christine? LOL

Friday night I made a start on the Be loved Snowman:

He's the final one of the the three to stitch and is yet another cutie. Whilst the design is lovely to stitch the hassle over the chart has been a nuisance - thankfully my DH has been very helpful with this and has worked the maths out for me (not my strong point) so each section has been positioned properly on the banding. Though I reckon that when the stitching is done, the beads and charms added and the bellpull made up it's going to be worth every bit of that hassle as I just love the whole look of this piece. :0)

The Yule/Christmas theme continued today with this morning's doorstep arrival:

WhoooooHooooo! What a fantastic selection of ornies there are in this years issue....... well worth the extra wait we have here in the UK and I definitely consider it fantastic value for money for what is in there. I had my initial browse whilst sat snuggling under the duvet first thing this morning (hints about breakfast in bed being nice went right over DH's head though LOL) and went back for another look with my afternoon bacon butty and coffee and I'm going back for yet another browse later this afternoon. There are just so many lovelies in there it's taking a while to absorb them all before working out which one I want to stitch first! How on earth am I going to choose? I love the biscornus, the VS house, most of the snowmen ornies, a couple of the angels are gorgeous too and........ LOL What does everyone else think of it? What are your absolute must-stitch ornies?

Tonight is the start of a 7 night Most Haunted Live Halloween Special and I can't wait as the place they are investigating has a lot of history attached to it and looks a right grotty old hole into the bargain! It'll be interesting to see how they (and I) cope with a full 7 nights of investigations on the lead up to Samhain (Halloween). LOL Well, I have plenty of stitching to keep me company and DH will appreciate the extra computer time he'll get. ;0)

Julie: definitely vests but forget the thermal knickers...... it's those sexy longjohns every time for me! LMAO

As we have a few jobs planned for today I'd best go and get on with them.

Whatever your plans are I hope you have a good weekend........ and that you stay warm and cosy throughout. :0)

This and That

Well I managed the SS SAL stitching Thursday night but that early night didn't happen. Despite going to bed earlier I still managed to see 3am in, then had a really broken night's sleep, waking up regularly through what was left of the night.......... consequently by Friday the zombie effect had increased greatly and the yellow snow hole eyes syndrome had also kicked in big time. Just to add insult to injury a big cold sore appeared without warning on my top lip that morning and my body has been trying to fight off a cold and sore throat ever since. Welcome home to the lergy DH! LOL

Sea Stars proved to be a bit of a pain whilst I was stitching it: the fabric wouldn't stay taut, resulting in regularly having to twist the scroll frame to correct it (it's only just wide enough for the fabric so that's probably got something to do with it), plus the threads kept knotting, sometimes badly, so progress was a little slow. To be honest I was so disappointed in the progress made I stitched a bit more on it on Friday and here's where I left off:

Didn't quite finish the first motif but by the time I got this far I'd had enough........ I took some Ibuprofen and disappeared under the fleecy blanket for a while. I was so well swaddled DH reckoned I was trying to do an Egyptian mummy impression........ no, only Matthew's Mummy feeling rough and seriously sleep deprived, said I. LOL I feel much better today (Saturday), especially as the cold sore is now beyond that painful/tingly/annoying stage too. It's amazing what a decent nights' sleep can do. :0)

Looking forward to next Thursday night now: it shouldn't take long to finish the first motif, then start another in a different colour - that will really feel like things are progressing. :0)

In the end I didn't get round to emailing the Friends Count SAL chart or the Challenge link to DS for him to print the charts out for me as I decided it could wait until after DH got home, especially as I wasn't feeling up to a new start yesterday anyway. Consequently today's plan is for DH to go to CRAM to get a new printer/scanner.......... once the Grand Prix qualifying has finished. Well it's now finished and he's been dithering ever since - amazing how much he can find to do to delay going out when it involves spending some money! LOL

Hopefully I shall have some more stitching to share with you in the next day or so...... once the new printer has been bought and installed and the charts printed out so I can get on with it. ;0)

For those who were wondering DH had a good trip to Italy. Apparently whilst he and his colleagues were all walking round in shirt sleeves, enjoying a bit of pleasant late summer sun that occasionally veered towards stickily warm, all the locals considered it as the start of Winter and were wearing thicker clothes. Not sure what happened to Autumn and DH didn't ask. LOL They sat out on the balcony of the hotel Thursday night, enjoying a few grappas, under the canopies whilst the rain came down, thinking it had cooled things off quite pleasantly. The poor barman looked bewildered and kept shaking his head at them........ I guess the mad English men and their antics will be a topic of conversation for a while. LOL He was glad to get home: there was a 20 minute delay setting off from Venice airport, followed by a delay on the motorway on the drive back, due to a minor shunt in the outside lane, all making a long day even longer. One kebab for tea and a good night's sleep later and he's much happier.......... or he would be if it wasn't for having to buy the printer/scanner. ;0)

Christine: A new career for you then and I shall be sure to come to you whenever I want a reliable weather forecast. ;0) Plus I'm with you & Miss Price when it comes to Colin Firth. LOL Am looking forward to next weeks episode especially as I know, via the trailer, that the greasy Mr Collins gets kneed in the crotch! LMAO

Right, I am off to get another Welch's Grape Juice - cold from the fridge it tastes lovely and is bliss to my throat right now - and choose some fabric and thread for the Challenge piece. I will be organised this month! No plans on going out, as it's raining again - everywhere is getting extremely waterlogged but so far there doesn't seem to have been much flooding our way. I hope all in the UK are also staying flood free.

Thank you for all the kind comments, they're much appreciated. Hope you all manage to stay warm and dry, wherever you live, and have a good weekend. :0)