No Stitching But.....

that hasn't stopped me acquiring stash, although those acquisitions have been over a couple of months - I've just been really slack at blogging enough to share them before now.

First up is an eBay bargain 99p chart:


I love the version with the wording. The logo of the Alternative Therapy Clinic I go to is a sunflower and I plan on stitching the version with the wording for Jan, my Herbalist, as a thank you for all the help she has given me.... and all the help she will continue to give once I've had my op. She has helped me in more ways than she knows and helped to open up a whole new world for me (I write about that on my other blog), so it is such an appropriate piece. :0)

On the same day I also spotted this gorgeous fabric bargain too:


A large piece of opalescent fabric for under £4.00 and free P&P. Who could resist that? Certainly not me. ROFL I don't have any specific plans for it at the moment but just the right design is bound to turn up at some point.

Another day I was bored and browsing on the same good old auction site, following links to see where they'd take me, when I came across someone selling craft goodies for children...... only when I investigated there weren't just the pipe cleaner type stems but also some sparkly trims that were sold by the metre, ideal for Christmas ornies thought I.


As you can see I succumbed to a few of them. Those yellow stems were a freebie - I couldn't think what I could use them for (so did not fancy making that many Easter Chick legs! LOL) so gave them to my friend Alex, for her children.

Then another nosey around revealed these rather useful pieces of fabric at a bargain price and I was lucky enough to win the bids:


A 32ct fabric in Mocha and a 28ct in French Latte. Another couple of neutral colours that are especially useful as my stash seems to have a large bias towards hand dyes in pretty colours. Much as I like those pretty colours they aren't always suitable for some designs.

When I got fed-up of bargain hunting on eBay I had a wander over to Thread Bear for a nosey as I needed some different coloured backing fabrics. Whilst I was there I couldn't resist the sparkly felts they'd just got in stock...... and the chart was in the Sale section and goes with one from the same range that's already in my stash.


The 28ct is a piece of Lakeside Linens fabric and was bought specifically to stitch the Plum Pudding Salem Sisters piece on. Yes, I had all good intentions of starting this piece for Halloween........... but it just didn't happen. Yup, that mojo packed its bag and disappeared into the wild blue yonder....... again! The current happenings haven't exactly helped either.

Just so you're not left thinking that the Craft Bug had totally disappeared:


Yes, last week my cardmaking goodies came out of their boxes long enough for me to make a card for my DH's birthday. Though they did go straight back in again and haven't been touched since, as I've been busy with other things.

So, what has been happening to keep me busy? Well, I went for my pre-op checks on Tuesday morning and that took way more time than either of us expected. So the questions were asked and the forms were filled in by a very nice Staff Nurse called Gail; blood pressure and blood oxygen levels checked and noted; height and weight checked and noted (and I don't like their scales 'cos they have me 4lbs heavier than Jan's!); then various questions asked and answered - though not too many details wanted or needed about the op itself because I'm a firm believer that ignorance is bliss with that kind of thing as I really don't want nightmares beforehand, thanks; all the consents signed and a parting gift of a cup of pee, for testing. Finally there was a trip down to see the hospital vampires again so they could take four lots of my best red for various tests. Staff Nurse Gail reckoned I looked and sounded fit enough and the checks she did were fine, so - unless the test on the blood or pee turn anything up - it's all systems go, in the best Thunderbirds tradition. LOL

Meantime, I've been keeping up with the laundry and other dreaded H word jobs, trying to keep on top of things before the enforced break happens...... you know men, they aren't going to class things like that as a priority, are they? And I am not going to burst my stitches trying to keep things straight when I come home, so I'm getting it sorted now in the hopes that it won't begin to look like a mess for a while. Yeah, right - not with these two! LOL

Then there's making sure that the clothes I want to take in with me are clean, ironed and packed and the other bits I need are to hand (things have a nasty habit of disappearing into that Safe Place just when you want them). Shopping for enough soya milk and cornflakes to take in with me because the hospital don't have anything I am allowed to eat at breakfast time - plus enough for after I get out, as DH won't have the time to go into town for more. And that the cupboards, fridge and freezer are well stocked beforehand too........... because there isn't a snowball's chance in h*ll of me being able to help do that after the op. Plus I've been making sure my other blog is fully up-to-date (got more posts saved to draft) and doing my best to catch up with all the blogs on my blogger list because who knows how long it'll be before I'll be able to sit up to the computer - I've already been warned that I'll be left wondering if I'll ever be able to walk up straight ever again, due to it being an ordinary incision op with stitches. Thanks for that! LOL

I guess it's probably a good thing the mojo has gone on holiday again because, at this point, I'd probably end up having to frog it all anyways. LOL :0)

Thank you taking the time to stop by and for all the lovely comments you leave. Hope you all have a good weekend...... and all those in the UK stay safe and flood-free. :0)

Good Post

Still no stitchy pics to share with you yet but I did indulge in a little stash buying last week. It's my finishing stash that's benefited again, after two rather nice packages arrived on Thursday (so now you know why I'm spent up this month Helen. LOL). Thought you might like to see. :0)

The first package contained lots more lovely trims and buttons from Thread Bear which I ordered in an effort to further diversify the choices available for finishing. Being in two Challenges and a monthly Christmas ornie SAL means quite a few more smalls than usual are being produced so a much wider variety really is necessary........ as I told DH when he asked what I'd been buying. ;0)


The red ribbon at bottom left is what was used to tie the nicely wrapped package with and I firmly believe in recycling useful things like that. The picture doesn't really do those buttons justice but I didn't want to risk losing any by taking them out of the bag for the pic. Most are Mother of Pearl, some are coconut, but they are all absolutely gorgeous! Everything must have made an impression at Thread Bear because there was a little note inside from Steph that read: Oh what a pretty package! It definitely was. :0)

As usually happens when I go shopping there was something that kept insisting on leaping into my basket and just wouldn't take no for an answer:

All I can say in mitigation is that the chart was in the Clearance section. Who can resist a bargain, especially one as cute as him? Definitely not me!

The second package of the day was from Creative Fabrics, another online fabric shop I like to visit occasionally (have added the link to my side bar, just in case anyone else feels the need to indulge in a little retail therapy at any time). I just happened to call by when they had a special on: a voucher code for an extra 15% off the total. There were also quite a few fabrics in the Clearance section, so I made sure to check those out first. Here's what was in the package:

Looking at that I seem to have a mainly Christmas thing going on. LOL I loved that batty fabric on sight. The pink fabric with the swirl seemed ideal to back some ornies I intend to make for Stitching for a Cure. Again these have nicely diversified my fabric stash...... and with that extra 15% off some of them actually ended up as freebies.

We had the visit to the Kitchen showroom on Friday but it ended up slightly frustrating: the lady we spoke to last time, the actual designer, was off and isn't back until Tuesday....... so we didn't get chance to talk through the plan of the kitchen, although we did come away with a few more ideas of what we would like to fit in there and what style of cupboard finishing we could all happily live with, so it wasn't a total waste. Afterwards we had a quick visit into town, so I could stock up on some bits from the Health Food shop - good job we weren't bothered about going elsewhere as it was heaving with people. Our town centre appears to be having a bit of a Renaissance lately, despite the fact that it's all open to the elements and doesn't have as wide a choice as other nearby towns......... it's good to see it, actually. :0)

When we'd done in town we opted to go to Uncle Henry's for dinner - good choice, as it was nowhere near as busy as town had been. It's always a lovely meal there - everything is locally grown/sourced and prepared/cooked/baked in their kitchen, as well as also generally being available in their shop. We did some shopping afterwards and discovered that they'd extended the shop premises, so they are starting to stock even more produce...... we came away with a bag full again. Home after to find we'd missed the delivery guy bringing our organic veg box. Luckily he'd realised he could leave the box under the front of The Tank, so it was out of the rain and couldn't be seen from the road. :0)

Later on I started doing some cardmaking - inspiration was still sadly lacking, so I was cheating by using one of the Let's Make Cards! packs I've got. These are really good for breaking that horrible mental block on inspiration: the magazine has lots of nice projects inside, many of which can be made using goodies from the pack that's included...... all that's needed are the tools and extra sticky tape etc. I then did a little stitching on the Monthly Challenge piece in the evening.

Today I'm on my own, as DS has "borrowed" DH to help him board out some of the loft at the LTC Guild Room, so I've carried on with the cardmaking rather than venture out into the rain. Using the pack is helping as the card count now stands at nine and I'm slowly starting to adapt projects, rather then directly copy them from the magazine. Yay! I shall take and post some pics to share another time as the light is now too poor for doing them.

So that's been our Easter weekend so far. :0)

Thank you for visiting and the lovely comments. Hope you are all having a lovely Easter weekend. :0)

Just Realised.......

that I haven't posted an update pic of Sea Stars in a while. The original plan was to show you progress for Weeks 21 and 22 in the same post but Week 22 didn't go that great, meaning there was such a minimal amount of stitching done it just wasn't worth getting the digicam out to do an update pic of it. So here's the progress from Week 21, the week before last:

That was after the frog visit which had me taking out all of the right side of the motif and re-stitching it, thanks to being just one stitch out. Think I'm going to have to hire the Phantom Frog Strangler to sort out the pesky little blighter before I pick it up this week!

Other stitching: March's Christmas ornie is stitched but not yet finished - waiting for inspiration to strike but it's taking it's own sweet time about it. LOL I chose the fabric and thread for the JA/S&S Forum's Monthly Challenge and made a start on it on Monday and did a little more yesterday afternoon whilst watching Dawn Bibby's two-hour slot on QVC. No buying, as nothing took my fancy - I was mainly looking for inspiration for two cards DS has asked me to make for the 21st and 25th birthday's of two female friends of his from LTC. Night Watchman got another outing for UFO Night last night but no pic yet, as I want to do a little more on him today.

Yesterday got off to a good start when some of my order from Thread Bear arrived first thing. This time round it's mostly braids and other bits and pieces for finishing items:

That side of things in my stash always seems sadly lacking in variety, which is why I often struggle for inspiration - this little lot should go some way to helping sort that out. There are still a few other out-of-stock items to be forwarded on, so hopefully they'll arrive before too much longer. :0)

Of course whilst I was on the Thread Bear site I had to have a browse through the New Arrivals section, didn't I? That's where I found this gorgeous chart:

It reminds me a little of the robin that occasionally comes to visit my garden so, even though I'd originally had no intention of buying any charts, it had to jump into my basket. How could I resist? ;0)

Today is one of those lovely Spring-is-in-the-air days that calls to me to go outside and spend time in my garden so, once I'd chopped all the veggies and meat for the slow cooker casserole and put it on to cook and had my breakfast, off out I went. Some of the ivy has been trimmed again, dead ends cut off the honeysuckle and the fuschia bushes and lots of dried out moss and other bits trimmed out and put in the brown recycling bin. All that was done to the accompaniment of much birdsong - the ram-raiding sparrows are full of the joys and Poppa Blackbird is in fine fettle at the moment. The snowdrops are mostly past their best but the crocus are still blooming and the daffodils, bluebells and tulips are all shooting, so there's a mass of different greens dotted about. The triffids at the bottom of the garden are now trying to take over the world, not just our garden, so they will have to be cut well back soon.

Here are a few pics of my garden pots and the new Spring growth:



2009-03-11 10:11

So now I'm away for my dinner, then a sink full of pots has got my name on it and then, hopefully, I shall be able to settle to a little stitching on NW before DS and DH get in from work, as I want to leave this evening for getting on with the Monthly Challenge piece.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you're all enjoying the day, whatever you're doing. :0)