A Happy week

Well, this week I have lots to be happy about!!

First, thank you to Lindsay (Caring Stitcher) for giving me this award:



It's the first time I've ever had a blog award, and it really made me smile! Thank you Lindsay!

I now need to nominate 7 blogs, here are the rules:

1. The winner can put the logo on their Blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other Blogs.
4. Put the links to those Blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the Blogs of those you've nominated.

It's taken me a while to think about who to nominate, especially as some of my favourite blogs already seem to have been awarded this! So, in no particular order, I nominate:

Michelle
Sara
Gio
Melissa
Shalini
Jack/Amanda

My other favourtie blog is Dani's - she inspied me to join needle and thread BB and to start a blog, so is definitely at the top of my list. She's already had this award twice now though....

I also have a happy dance to share with you:



It took me a while to finish, as I'd forgotten Amelie's birthweight! Helene, Guy and Amelie are in France, so they took a while to answer my text! I can't wait to give this to them when they return.

We had a great weekend last weekend, and started to crop our veggies:




Everything we ate over the weened had something home grown in - mostly onions, but Ed made a brilliant leek and mushroom tart, using our leeks, and I baked berry miuffins, with a combination of bought blueberries, bought blackberries, and grown blackberries. Yum! We also used our own herbs a lot. We don't have enough room to be self sufficient, but it's great fun growing, and more importantly eating, your own veggies!!

Stitching Olympics 2008

After setting my goals for August I read about the 2008 Stitching Olympics on the wagon - and decided it would be great fun to join in the fun! I'm entering 2 'events' - 'sprint', in which I complete as many projects as possible (and therefore meet my August goals) and 'rotation relay', making sure I work on EVERYTHING i have started. I'm doing quite well for me, but no where near as good as the competition!!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some progress pictures. I've already completed a full rotation, and am working through my second run, here is where I'm at for Wild Fairy Light, Fantasy Triptych and Assisi knot garden:




I'll save an update pic for Benjamin Bunny, as I think I'll finish him tonight...

Necessities Sampler Happy Dance

Well I've been really busy with work recently, so I've not had much opportunity to blog, but I have done a little stitching. I entered the 'Stitching Olympics' on the wagon, but I don't think I stand a chance of winning! It's a great incentive to get focussed with my stitching time.

I finished Little House Needleworks' Necessities Sampler over the weekend. I had to fudge a bit due to a counting error, but I think it looks OK.



Melissa - the Benjamin Bunny sampler was in a magazine - Cross Stitch Crazy I think. I've slightly adapted it for personalisation.

August goals & stitching update

Oooops, looks like I forgot to post goals for July on my blog. Luckily I did post them on Needle and Thread, so here's a recap:

July Goals

1) work on Assisi knot garden
2) work on wild fairy light
3) work on Benjamin Bunny Birth sampler birth
~I'd like to complete one of these pieces~

4) work on Fantasy Triptych on Mondays
5) Milanese lace on Thursdays

Well I worked on everything except Wild Fairy Light during July, but I didn't finish anything. But given I have quite a few pieces close to finishing, my goal for August is to try and finish as many pieces as possible! Those which are up for contention are:

1) Assisi knot garden
2) Benjamin Bunny
3) wild fairy light
4) Necessities sampler (I started this as part of the Little House Needleworks BB SAL)

On Mondays I'll work on FT, and on Thursdays I want to make progress with my lace.

I've already made progress with my finishing many projects goal. I finished this small piece which has been in my handbag as an emergency piece for months - I started it when we stayed with Phyllis sometime last year... I just can't remember why we stayed with her, or when that was!!



It's a Victoria and Albert/DMC kit, but I can't remember the name. I picked it up in a sale somewhere. It's for a pin cushion, but I've not decided if that's what I'll do with it. I'm not keen on the provided backing fabric, so I'll probably change it.

When I finsihed it I picked up Benjamin Bunny again. I've been working on it on and off for most of July. Here's a picture of where I'm up to:



Not far to go now - I expect a couple more good stitchy evenings and I'll be done. I need to figure out the wording though...

Getting close...

I did less stitching on Sunday than I hoped - I had a laundry disaster and needed to buy nre trousers (I think the old ones were just old, but when they came out of the washer they were, well, indecent..). So I had a mad, but successful M&S dash.

I got to stitching late afternoon, and made great progress with Benjamin. I've just got one bunny to go, and then all the BS. Why didn't I do the BS as I went along????



Last night I actually participated in the TW SAL, here's a pic of Fantasy Triptych. Amazingly I did all of that top rectangle of wall on the left in one night - about 2.5 hours total. This really flies when I actually stitch on it :lol

Stitchy weekend

Well, it's rained so muich this week that even though it's been sunny this weekend we can't get out in the garden - the lawn is so waterlogged that we'd trash it if we started weeding, and it's still to wet to cut the grass. I really dislike clay soils... So we decided to have a lazy weekend - so spent yesterday watching DVD's, cooking, and of course I did lots of stitching. I've even got back into Benjamin Bunny, and made lots of prrogress, just 2 more bunnies and a hanky to go, then I'll be onto the BS. I wn't share a pic now, because a) hopefully I'll get lots done today and will share one later and b) I've not taken a photo yet :)

Ruth, just for you, here's a pic of the lunch/tea (I didn't post it before as I had too many photos to upload)


I tried to upload some more holiday pics, but Blogger isn't my friend today....

Did I mention my holiday stash purchases? I found a craft shop that was having a clearnace sale on xs supplies, it was moving in the knitting direction. While this general trend towards knitting really vexes me, I did get some bargains: a Art Nouveau florals chart by DMC, 2 hardanger booklets, TW's Chestnut rocking Horse (all for £1 each - bargain!!) and TW's In a Garden kit for £5. But best of all were the beads. On a shelf there was a basket full of beads, mostly Mill Hill, but some other brands too, with a label '4 for £1'. So I thought, hmm, good opportunity to get a good lot of stash for very little money, and started to rummage. Ed came over to help, and we decided to dig out 1 pack of each Mill Hill seed bead, which meant sorting through the basket. This took a LOT longer than expected, as the basket was almost TARDIS-like in proportions, but Ed vaiantly helped by checking I'd not picjked out any duplicates (it was raining heavily so this was a cunning way of staying dry too). So, when I counted up the non-duplicates there were 88 packes. I thought about going through them again but rationalised that a) they were a bargain 2) maybe the shop keeper thought I was bonkers c) Ed was probably quite bored by now and d) I@d only paid for 2 hours parking, I bought the lot. I've not had change to catalogue and sort them yet though...

I'm back!

We had a lovely holiday in Cornwall, and (for the most part) the weather was brilliant. Over the next few days I'll share some pictures, but I thought I'd start with a stitching update. I took Benjamin Bunny with me - as he's an obligation piece with a pressing deadline I though he needed to progress the most. While on holiday I finished Benjamin on the top left, stitched the lavendar on the left and made a start on the red hanky (top right). We got back late on Sunday, but took Monday and Tiesday off work too, hoping to be able to garden - but the weather wasn't great, so I did a fair bit of stitching, this is where I got to last night:



One of my favourite days on holiday was when we visited St Michael's mount:



We had to travel there and back by boat, as the tide was in, but I got a shot of the causeway snaking along under the sea:



The boatman on the way over clearly had a sense of humour, as his fare list shows:



He even pulled a live lobser out of a bucket to show a girl sat opposite us - she was petrified (her mum didn't fare much better). He suggested it was his pet, but I suspect it was really his tea

The castle was fun - it's still lived in (I'd LOVE to live in a castle... just imagine...). We spied someone's roller blades and a skateboard at one point!! But the highlight was the gardens. The climate in Cornwall is so different to Yorkshire, and some of the plants were realy exotic, here are a small sample of my garden photos (I took loads!):