Not A Lot......

to show for the last couple of days really. I started the Ozark motif, as planned, on Monday night but struggled to get a flow going so it didn't get finished. Maybe tonight????

Tuesday night was UFO Night again, so For Amanda came out to play. Boy, is it nerve wracking going back to cut a piece that you've already had one monumental cock up on! Took me a bit to get up the courage to do it, then it went ultra slowly - almost ended up oxygen starved due to holding my breath each time....... not that my brain notices the difference these days. LMAO The bar wrapping went much easier and this is how the heart looks now:

I didn't do any infilling stitches in the end - I decided I would wait until after all the beading is completed, see what it looks like and how many beads are left and take it from there. No beadwork attempted last night as I was too tired to concentrate - I opted for an early night instead. Hopefully the Tacky Bob will get an outing next week....... it's been a while since I've done any beading, so it will make a nice change.

I've stalled on the finishing of one of the ornies today. Well, actually, that barely got started - I cut out a couple of rectangles of card then decided I wasn't in the right mood for it and put it all away again. I seem to have lost my motivation somewhere along the way this week. As my Mum used to say: I need putting in a bag and shaking up. :0)

Something I did manage to do today was putting up the new bird feeder in the garden. There's nothing hanging off the hooks yet (need to go shopping for something suitable) but there are four fat balls in the lantern bit at the top and some water in the dish. It hasn't taken long for three of this years starling broods to discover those fat balls and start squabbling over them but, surprisingly, the ram-raiding sparrows have been much more cautious, preferring to suss things out from the top of the back fence while someone else makes the first move. Going by what I've seen before though, it won't take them long to start diving in there. LOL

DS has had two reasonably good dress rehearsals this week and is feeling a bit happier about the performances to come. Good job, as they start from tonight. He's working during the day and performing in the evening so he's going to be living on adrenalin for most of the time. Fingers crossed all goes OK.

DH announced last night that he has to go off to Italy again next week for a few days and possibly for a few days the following week as well. Good job we didn't book the week in Thwaite, as we had planned to do, or it would have had to be cancelled. Am hoping we can still manage to go off for a long weekend together somewhere before the end of November - perhaps to Hope or Castleton in Derbyshire instead, as it's not that far to travel. It's worth travelling further for a week but not a weekend at this end of the year, what with the weather and the darker nights.

Thanks to Angela the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will be off on the start of its Book Crossing travels soon. (Angela: it's all packaged up ready to go, am just waiting for when DH can pop it to the PO for me). Can't wait to see where this one ends up. :0)

Sally: the LNS is called The Sewing Shop (I think) and is towards the top end of Ashby High Street. Can't say I've spotted any cross stitch items lately but it's got a reasonable amount of finishing items - well packed for such a small place. :0)

Time for me to be off if I'm going to have chance to do some blog reading and get some stitching done tonight.

Thank you to all who visit and for all the lovely comments. Big wave to any newbies - please say Hi....... I don't bite. :0)

Another Tuesday - Yet Another UFO

This week I decided my eyes probably couldn't cope with another session of 1 over 1 stitching so opted for a different UFO and it was the Heirloom Embroideries piece For Amanda that guilt tripped me the most. Just in case you can't remember what it looked like, here's a pic of where I last left it:


Now I thoroughly enjoyed stitching this piece but I stalled when it came to the central heart motif, as it involved some woven and pulled thread work and was totally outside my comfort zone. Last night was zero hour: time to tackle it and put the phobia to bed. The kloster blocks stitched up, no problem, and I started on the cutting......... three sections taken out OK and then my DSis phoned, so I broke off to go for a natter. About half an hour to 45 minutes later I came back, settled down, glanced at the chart and cut out another four threads............ then had that sickening "OMG, what have I done?" moment when realisation hit:

1. I'd cut out the wrong four threads;


2. It was going to be impossible to repair;


3. I can't do the woven/pulled threadwork infill in the heart now.

I put it to one side and told DH what I'd done, then swallowed hard so I wouldn't either start crying or start throwing things. Yes, it's only a piece of needlework but I'm stitching this as a joint memorial piece to my Mum and Dad, so it's got special meaning to it - making such a huge cock up on it hurt and I felt physically sick.

After I'd calmed down I picked it up again and realised that, actually, I can make the mistake work for me: I can forget about the woven and pulled thread work, as per the chart, (which I wasn't confident about anyway) and finish the centre area as a proper hardanger piece with woven bars and a beaded filling stitch. I've already altered the letter M in this piece, to make it a little less heavy than the charted one, so now I'm altering the heart - maybe it's not as Carol, the designer, envisaged it but I guess it will have my personalisation on it. Hope she won't mind.

The mistake was taking out those horizontal threads - I should only have been taking out vertical threads, so the gaps shouldn't be there. A very hard lesson learnt this time round. :0(

This morning the remaining piece of fabric from my last Sew and So order arrived: a fat quarter of 28ct Brittney in Antique White, so that's been added to the rest in my stash. Good service again: received an email yesterday to say the fabric was back in stock and my piece had been despatched and it arrived today, postage free. :0)

I picked out the threads for the next Halloween piece this afternoon and will probably use some Pol's Hot Potatoes fabric again, so that's my stitching for tonight sorted. It's the final part of Lost In Austen too, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that unfolds - there have been some unexpected twists and very funny moments but the best bit had to be this Mr Darcy dunking himself in the ornamental pond at Amanda Price's request. Christine: Colin Firth he isn't but Phwoar! He would certainly give CF a run for the money in a wet cotton shirt competition! LMAO. Poor Jane Austen - she must be turning in her grave! LOL Oooo it sounds like it's about to start so I'm off.......

Many thanks for the kind comments, they're much appreciated. Hope you're all having a lovely stitchy day, free of pesky frogs and mistakes. :0)