New start...

I did get started on Birth Band last weekend. I'd hoped to share a picture mid week, but work was against me... So here's a photo now:


Birth Band, The Drawn Thread

Sorry, it's not the best photo - it was so sunny this afternoon I couldn't get any good diffuse lighting - this was taken in the shade!! Anyway I've done the top half already, in exactly a week. The bottom half is a little slower if I remember correctly. Irritatingly I somehow didn't start in the middle. How I could have mis-counted I don't know... Fortunately I left a big enough margin that it won't be a problem, but that was a close call!

I'm in a stitchy mood, but just don't know what to stitch today. So all day I've drifted around in a state of unease, wasting quality stitching time. I don't feel like using the silk threads on birth band, or beading WFS - both too fiddly. I feel the same about Fantasy Triptych. I was really fed up with Peacock Firescreen last week, and the only other thing I have on the go is on aida. NOTHING is calling to me. This is VERY unusual for me. I'm contemplating a new start, but nothing in my stash is calling out either. I hope this isn't the start of a stitching slump. Although I really do want to be stitching. Maybe my brain is too occupied with the start of term??? Aaargh!!! I'm sure this is a one-day thing, I'll be right as rain tomorrow, but it's very annoying. I really have wasted today!

On a plus side, we were watching Monty Python on sky (it's 40 years since it first aired) and saw a sketch set in New Pudsey. It was really odd watching the pythons walk along our local train station platform - before the huge Asda was built. Despite recording the sketch and watching it in slow-mo, we can't work out where the street scene was filmed, but the houses are very 'local' in style!! It's the sketch where innocent people are turned into Scotsmen by Aliens...

Right, finally on to some goals. How did I do in September?:
1) finish you were hatched (I should manage it, there's not much to go other than BS and the dedication) - yes, all finished
2) work on waiting for ships. I'd like to finish the bs, but we'll see - yes, even did a little beading
3) start a birth sampler for Hugh, who was born on the 20th August - yes about 50% done now
4) stitch on something else - yes, I worked on Peacock Firescreen

I also did some more on the Bedfordshire Lace butterfly I'm doing

I don't want too many goals for October, but in the interests of making me stay (at least a little) focused:
1) Finish Birth Band
2) Get more beading done on Waiting for Ships
3) Pick up Fantasy Triptych again
4) Stitch an ornie
5) Snap out of whatever restlessness is bothering me today. Hmm, maybe that should be number 1.
6) get the next wing started on my lace butterfly

Peacock Firescreen

Hmm, I'm just not loving this at all. Maybe it's the anchor thread? Or the fact the bit I'm working on it too peachy? Whatever it is I'm not getting the usual stitching satisfaction from this. Although it was a great piece to focus on this week, when I've been really tired...


Peacock Firescreen, by Barbara Thompson

This weekend I've been slowly coming round after last week's conference - which was a huige success, and I earned brownie points with the boss, 2 bottles of wine and 2 bouquets of flowers... plus lots and lots of verbal, email and even card thank yous! So it can't have been a bad job!!

Anyway, I slept for 11 hours last night, chilled out in my jammies all morning in front of the TV, then had a good browse of the JCS ornies issue followed by a massage this afternoon.... Right now I'm about to find a suitably gentle DVD and start a new project (sadly not out of the ornie issue - I'm trying to find one that just uses DMC until I have enough cash for speciality threads...), and it's takeaway pizza for tea. Perfect Saturday!!

Happy Dance!!!

Just a quick post to share my Happy Dance! - this birth sampler is based on 'you were hatched', with a little bit of 'needle guardian' thrown in for the personalisation:



A huge thank you to Lindsay, who very generously gave me the chart for you were hatched, and the necessary skein of dinky dies.

I tried out the new John James needles, and loved them. But I'm too tired/busy for beading, so didn't get very much further with Waiting for Ships. Anglea asked which fabric I am using. WFS is stitched on PTP's 'fathom' cashel linen - I saw the fabric while in the States a few years ago, fell in love, bought it then hunted down the 'right' mermaid pattern. It just yelled 'mermaid' at me the moment I saw it... I was actually looking for something to stitch Dracolair's Phoenix on at the time!

I've pulled out Barbara Thompson's Peacock Firescreen again, as I wanted something easy to stitch during my conference (1 day to go.... only 140 delegates. Hopefully I didn't forget anything???).

Waiting for ships...

I had a lovely quiet weekend. Did some errands, watched Eddy make blackberry jam (all I did to help was wipe up afterwards!), ate lovely food, much from the garden, and stitched.

Mostly I stitched to Lord of the Rings. I didn't quite make it through all 3 extended movies in a weekend (a secret goal) as at 11.15 last night I decided to give up and go to bed. So I've got about 1/2 hour of Return of the King to watch tonight. I would have managed it, but Eddy and I thought we ought to watch 'Gran Torino' which was the latest lovefilm DVD to hit the doormat....

Anyway, with all that move watching, I had some serious stitching time. I was hoping to finish all the xs and bs on waiting for ships sometime this month... but I did it yesterday...



Then I started the beading. I've had my eye on some John James needles for a while, and was waiting for my last credit card bill to be issued before buying any... this morning I put in a humongous needle order (hey, it's free P&P if you spend £10...) mostly because they get recommended so highly but also because I really like the sound of short beading needles. Especially given WFS uses 6 packs of petite beads....

August stitching, September goals

Well, it's quite a while since I last posted. I've been away twice, to Hampshire (pics and funny stories in a later post) and for a wonderful day at Champney's Spa with Eddy's mum - as a treat for looking after Paul, who has demetia. I have to say I take the 'job' of having to drive Margaret to fun days out very seriously indeed!! Our next planned treat is the Harrogate knitting and stitching show in November.

Anyway, other than that I've been exceedingly busy at work. I'm never, ever organising a conference again. Especially not when trying to finish editing a book (amongst other things). Ususally us academics get a break from teaching (not a holiday!) in the summer, and a chance to catch up on research and admin... well not for me this year!! My stitching time has taken a serious hit, and I've really not followed my goals, just stitched what I wanted, when (if?) I felt like it.. as a consequence I only met one of my (very modest) August goals:

1) finish you were hatched - nope
2) work on waiting for ships - yes
3) work on fantasy triptych - nada

On the plus side, WFS has seen some serious stitching recently:



So, goals for September.. I need to be careful here, as I don't expect this month to be much better

1) finish you were hatched (I should manage it, there's not much to go other than BS and the dedication)
2) work on waiting for ships. I'd like to finish the bs, but we'll see
3) start a birth sampler for Hugh, who was born on the 20th August
4) stitch on something else

and a non-stitchy goal:
5) blog more than twice this month (I'm already half way :))

Summer stitching, summer gardens

I can't believe it's 2 1/2 weeks since I last posted! Well I can, I've been very busy, but all the same...

Thankfully it's not just work that has kept me occupied, I've also taken some leave - it's proving pretty difficult squeezing my holidays in to a busy summer, but if I don't take them before term starts in late September I'll probably lose them! So I've been working long hours to be able to fit the holidays in!

I've also found some time for stitching, but not as much as I would have liked. I usually stitch every day, but there's been a few recently where my bum has hit the sofa and I've barely had the energy to channel hop...

Anyway, I took these pics before my last break, in the hopes I'd have chance to share them before I went away:




I've actually done a little more on both since I took these - I took you were hatched away with me, and spent about an hour or so working on the border one evening. I picked up waiting for ships again last night, and have had some quality stitching time today, listening to the test match (I'm still in shock that we got so many runs...) - cricket for the non-Brits out there! I'm hoping to hare another progress pic tomorrow, when I've got a little more done.

As for August travels... the weekend after I went to Edinburgh Eddy and I decided to take the Friday off work, and visit RHS Harlow Carr, just outside Harrogate. Given how much we love gardening it's a bit shocking we'd not been, given we've been living 45 mins away from Harrogate for 5 years! Here are some photos:









We had lunch at Betty's (very traditional English tea shop with excellent cakes), had a good meander, and on a whim bought another apple tree when we left... not that we know where to plant it yet. It's in a very big pot getting lots of water for the time being! When we went apple tree shopping at Easter we really wanted a bramley apple, but having a small garden we wanted M27 (dwarf) root stock. After lots of searching we read in a book that you don't get M27 bramleys, so got another apple tree instead (bountiful - another cooker, but a little sweeter, apparently). Anyway, we should have known that the Royal Horticultural Society would have M27 bramleys... and there it was with 20% off. Sadly we had to pick the smallest tree (we only have a small car) and it was the only one without apples on, so we'll have to wait until next year to get fruit!!

We've been eating lots of veggies out of the garden recently - potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, artichokes and green beans have all done brilliantly. The peas didn't produce much, and we got tomato blight. We have picked the unaffected green tomotoes and plan on making a chutney, using my friend's 'not mango chutney' recepie. My rose garden has been looking fabulous too, this photo was taken a couple of months ago, I don't have a recent one as I only ever think of taking a photo just after I've dead-headed and there aren't many blooms!



Happy stitching!

Edinburgh

I had fun in Edinburgh, although had a few snags here and there! Work went smoothly, analysed a very, very interesting skeleton, which I hope to do more work on in the future... I had a migraine on Friday though, which really wasn't fun. I felt really nauseous, was 3 flights of stairs away from the nearest loo, and really needed to get lots of work done. The museum staff were wonderful though, and although we were kicked out of the store at 1pm (it closes early on a Friday) I got lots of useful stuff done.

On Thursday the archaeology store closed at 4, so I went for a wander. Sadly the LNS was closed when I got there at about 5pm, so no new stash (thank goodness says the visa card), but I had fun walking about and got a few nice photos:


The Royal Mile, with the Firth of Forth visible in the distance


Edinburgh Castle (from the back!)


These stands are for the Edinburgh Tattoo, but they reminded me of a Quidditch tournament...