Merry Christmas!!

Wow, December has been a whirlwind. As usual work took over my life, some nights I barely had enough energy to stitch... Our term finished on the 18th, but work seemed to increase as then end got nearer, not decrease. So I took all this week off as holiday. Saturday we did various jobs, not least getting all of our parcels and cards in the post - just before the last posting date (again). Sunday we travelled to Birmingham to see Ed's parents. The weather was NOT on our side, at one point it took us 25 minutes to drive just one mile (though the snow near Huddersfield - a snow hot spot that hit the headlines that night).

We had a lovely time with Ed's parents, and headed back yesterday. A long drive (traffic this time) followed by manic food shopping and a rather bargainous tree - £10, reduced from £40... so there is a plus to last minute tree shopping!! Today we cleaned, tidied and decorated the tree. And watched the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, and the Muppet's Christmas Carol (our favourite Christmas movie). I'm shattered! But a lovely curry later and I've found time to blog. Luckily Ed brought his laptop home, so I've been surfing the web in front of QI. I'm spending my Christmas and birthday money on a laptop, so TV/surfing combos will become more common...

Anyway, this is what I've been stitching over the last month (it's a month since I last posted... not good!!):
First of all, a photo of the finished Waiting for Ships:

(c) Mirabilia, stitched on 28ct cashel 'Fathom' by Picture this Plus, in DMC and Krenik


I then started a new project, which I designed myself. It's Postman Pat - not my usual style, but a request from my friend Leanne, as a birth sampler for her nephew (I did Bob the Builder for her other nephew):

I'm not really enjoying it, but it's quick (and good for when I'm tired), and is my only outstanding bit of obligation stitching.

I also stitched a bit more of Dracolair's Gaelic Banner:


I took this with me to work on in Birmingham. But we packed so quickly I forgot the page of pattern I was working on, and worse still, the key. Ed was a star and suggested we went out on Monday and got me something to work on. The little independent shop in Solihull, which I have used occasionally, has closed down, so we ended up in Hobbycraft. £25 later I came home with the DMC Wild Thyme flower fairy. After just over 24 hours I finished the dress, proving I'd have been a nightmare to be with if I'd not had anything to stitch in Birmingham... I'm not good at sitting still! I did a little bit more last night and today, here she is (after just 4 days of stitching):


Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!

Busy!

Wow, life is busy right now. About to head out to London to see Michelle and Julian...

I had a great time at Harrogate, bought lots of stash, and met Kate and Amanda from the UKstitchers BB, which was lovely! I also caught up with Phyllis and Richard. Margaret had a great time too.

On Monday night I hosted another stitch and bitch:


Emma


Me, Sonia and Louise


Sarah and Fiona


Jennifer (known to everyone other than Sarah as Avivah)

It was lovely to meet Jennifer (Avivah), who has come over from New Mexico to stay with Sarah. Odd girl really likes the British rain though.... She was knitting an amazing lace shawl. Well, not sp much knitting as swearing at it - knitting complex patterns with jetlag appears to be bad for one's stress levels!

A knight in shining armour

I finished the knight on FT last week (well, apart from his face which is over 1):


Since than I've been ornie stitching, but as these are for exchanges I can't share any photos.

Life is pretty busy right now, so not much time for blogging, but I do try and read my blogs when I get chance... This week is VERY hectic. Last night I gave a public talk in Masham to a local group about some skeletons from the town which we've been working on, tonight I have a seminar to go to, tomorrow I should (in theory) make lace and on Thursday I'm going out for a curry with last years' masters students (our last get together before they all head off to various jobs/courses etc). Not bad - or it wuldn't be if Margaret wasn't coming to stay on Friday. Not sure when I'll get the necessary cleaning done! But it's wonderful that she's sorted respite care for Paul, and we can go to Harrogate knitting and stitching on Sunday.

Thank you for all your kind comments on the last post.

Happ stitching everyone!

TW stitching

Well, I think it's fair to say that the xs world or at least my little corner of it) was rocked by Teresa's announcement that she was giving up designing. I've made lots of comments about this on various BBs, so I'll just say I'm sad to know that there will be no new TWs released, but I've got plenty to keep me going. This is a tough time to make a living from many crafts, including designing.

Anyway, it was odd timing for me, as I had finally picked up FT again - I've not worked on it since our holiday to Wales! As you can see I've made significant progress with the Knight:




Fanstasy Triptych, by Teresa Wentzler

On Wednesday I came down with a flu/virus thing. Probably not swine flu, but I did have a temperature (and major shivers). I came home at lunchtime and curled up in bed, Thursday I was a little better and parked my bum on the sofa all day - I managed a little, supposedly simple, xmas stitching,but ended up frogging several bits - clearly the virus had affected the stitching part of my brain! Friday I was feeling mostly better, so went in to work and did some gentle admin!

Today has been a day of chores - I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, attacking areas of mold etc. We then replaced the toilet seat (a hinge had broken) and are in the process of resealing the bath. We then encountered unexpected areas of mold on a blind, and on the curtains in the spare room, and mildew in the spare wardrobe.... it's not a damp house, but we don't have a tumble dryer and we do get lots of condensation. I had a random idea about getting a dehumidifier about 2 hours ago... we had a look online, and I think we'll buy one tomorrow. Maybe that will solve the problem.

Right, back down stairs to pick up FT, watch some rugby and order takeaway pizza...

Birth Band Happy Dance

Here's a photo of the newly-pressed Birth Band, which I finished on Friday:


Birth Band by The Drawn Thread, stitched in Needlepoint Inc Silks on Edinburgh linen

I have to say I really enjoyed this - even though it's the second time I've stitched it this year!! Amanda said how much she liked it when I stitched it for Monty, so it was an obvious choice when Hugh was born!! I hope they like it as much in the flesh!

Dani asked about our pumpkins - we did all use the same seeds - we bought a pack and split it 3-ways (and also scanned and printed off all of the growing info on the packet) - so it was a fair contest. Except we were rather late planting everything this year, as we didn't build the veggie patches until Easter... plus quite a few seedlings were eaten by magpies and slugs this year... I can't quite remember what happened to the pumpkins, but we were pretty certain we wouldn't win! We fed it with bottled organic plant food and home-made compost. And we took all the smaller pumpkins off the one plant, so it focused all it's growth energy into our largest pumpkin. I'll have a good web search for feeding techniques if we repeat the competition!!! Diane and Nial have won twice now!

Last night we tried out this recipe for pumpkin tart - after a search on the BBC food web page we decided this one sounded lovely, and wasn't too tricky. We served it with ice cream, not the ginger cream in the recipe, and it was delicious... we gave half the tart to our neighbours, who hadn't had a pumpkin tart/pie before - I've not seen them yet to see if they enjoyed it.

Yesterday and today I did a little bit of Fantasy Triptych, but the frame was a little wide with us both sat on the sofa, so I switched back to Dracolair's Gaelic Banner, which I am really enjoying.

I hope everyone else is having a lovely weekend!

Halloween Harvest

Today seemed an appropriate day to harvest our pumpkins:


Our pumpkins - scissors for scale!

We don't tend to eat pumpkins, but grew these as a copetition, between us, Diane and Nial, and Mandy and Carl. I think Diane and Nial won - our largest pumpkin weighed in at a measly 7 kilos. There biggest was 22 kilos... so unless Mandy and Carl have a pumpkin monster in their garden.... Tonight we are going to make a spiced pumpkin tart (recepie from BBC food webiste).

On the stitching front, I finished Birth Band last night, but it needs pressing, so no photo yet. I picked up Fantasy Triptych, which means I almost met my October goals:

1) Finish Birth Band yes
2) Get more beading done on Waiting for Ships yes
3) Pick up Fantasy Triptych again yes
4) Stitch an ornie yes, the Mill Hill kit (which also soved goal 5)
5) Snap out of whatever restlessness is bothering me today. Hmm, maybe that should be number 1. yup, see above
6) get the next wing started on my lace butterfly yes (after 1 false start!)

So goals for November:
1) Finish waiting for ships
2) stitch an ornie
3) work on Fantasy tripych
4) work on Gaelic banner
5) a new start, yet to be determined!

Happy Halloween and happy stitching!

more beads...

I've spent a lot of my stitching time putting beads on to Waiting for Ships, as you can see, she's coming along nicely:



I've also been getting on with Birth Band, maybe I'll actually finish it this week. If I do I'll have one more goal outstanding for October, If I'm focussed I may actually meet them all this month!