My stitching chair

This is where I usually stitch. Craig usually sprawls out on the settee and never ventures into my chair for danger of sitting on a needle or pin lol! I have mostly everything I need around me and my floss and some WIPs are under the coffee table not too far away.

My pet spider!

It seems we have a pet spider in our house. We saw the same size spider in our bedroom last week but then scared it away. Today I went to get the hoover from the corner and there it was again, same huge spider! This time I managed to snap him before he ran off. Seriously this spider is HUGE!

Anyway, today I started with the best of intentions. My new goal - to iron, iron, iron. My ironing pile is all the clothes we own apart from what's ironed and put away, about half dozen items in the laundry basket and some in the dryer. Can't you tell I hate ironing!!!

Anyway, I'm not moving any of it until it's all done and put away. Even if it takes me the rest of the night! I got way laid earlier and cleared out and re arranged the cupboard in the spare room. Which is also one of my goals but for another day. Oh well, it's done now. At least I managed to get all the holiday stuff in one place on top of the wardrobe. All the 'memory box' stuff in the cupboard along with my various folders and finally, the bottom of the cupboard is my new hiding place for all the stuff I keep for crafts/junk modelling. Craig hates me keeping boxes and bits. Now he won't notice. He never goes in that cupboard lol!

Well I better start on the ironing or Craig won't have no where to sit when he gets home!

Lottie & Lulu Dolly

This is a picture of the kit I wrote about in my last post. So you can see what I mean. This is the best pic I could get. :(

Well it's Monday again....

...time for a small update. I got a little bit of stitching done since my last update. I did a bit more on Feathers & Friends and I started a new one this week. I shouldn't have really but I wanted something dead easy to do while I was waiting for Craig to come home on Thursday. I started my Humphrey's Corner Lottie & Lulu Dolly. Craig bought it for me for Xmas. It's actually a children's kit so the material is binca and it's stamped. I've started it using the thread as it is (6 strands) and well, I think it looks awful. Even Craig commented on how it wasn't covering the fabric properly. So I've left it again until I decide what to do with it. I can't decide whether to:

1. Scrap it and just use the chart and threads on some aida fabric instead.
2. Finish it as it is. It might turn out fine in the end.
3. Frog everything I've done and start again using more thread to cover the fabric.

Any suggestions, ideas etc. welcome via e-mail/comments.

I also spent quite a bit on stash. I got Monopoly which I already posted about. I got some Caron Watercolours floss for my floss exchange on ILCS. I also found out about a sale at an ONS Shimmering Dewdrop so I spent just over £10 there on beads and Kreinik braid that I want for some charts I will eventually buy. It would have cost me over £20 normally so I thought it was an offer not to be missed but now I feel guilty cos I still couldn't really afford it. Never mind...I don't *need* to pay the bills ;)

Oh and of course most important of all. I FINSHED WINDING ALL MY BOBBINS!!! YAY!!

Anyway, that's all for now. I need food....

50 Project Challenge

I've just being reading my friend Meari's blog ( Hi Meari! ) and found this - the 50 Project Challenge. So hey I thought how cool and am jumping right in with her. I've not got that much stash though so I'm just doing a 10 project challenge. The purpose of the challenge is to reduce the amount of patterns I haven't stitched and stash not used.

The Rules:

1. Have fun reducing my stash.
2. There is no time limit.
3. Thou shall not purchase any new patterns until 10 projects have been stitched. Pattern size does not matter.
4. Exemptions - the goal of this challenge is to reduce stash so too many exemptions will sabotage these efforts. These are my exemptions: gifts, gift cards, trades, exchanges, RAKs, patterns bought with gift money and supplies for projects stitched during challenge.
5. Freebies count as part of your total and you can aquire them at any point.
6. The offical start date of this challenge was Sept 1, 2006

I'm not really bad at buying more stash than what I can stitch because I don't have the money at the moment. I do though have a ridiculous amount of projects started and not finished. Hopefully this challenge will solve that! I guess I better get stitching...

Stitching frenzy

I've got quite a bit of stitching done this week for a change. I did some more on Moonlight Bay and gave it it's own folder in my photos. I also did pretty much all of the dark skirt I could within the hoop on Feathers & Friends. Though I did frog a little bit cos I wasn't concentrating properly. I still haven't bought bobbins so haven't finished that yet. I will by Monday!! I did buy a very cool chart though. MONOPOLY!! Loads of people on the group have been chatting about it and so I finally had a look at it this week and thought it was pretty cool and so did Craig so we went mad and got it on Ebay. It came to $20 ish in the end. Bargain!! All I need now is an American Monopoly set so we can use it as a game board when I've finished it!

More bobbins and a UFO

Well I managed to wind and arrange all of my DMC threads into boxes. I only have duplicates/triplicates left to do and I need to buy more bobbins to do that so off to my LNS tomorrow. I'm dead proud of how neat they are so I'm showing them off LOL! And no, I didn't use a bobbin winder I did them by hand. The pics actually look real cool as a desktop background too. I took some close up pics of the floss and it looks good on my screen. It won't last long though because Craig will want it off as soon as he sees it!
Anyway, last night well, this morning actually at a stupid hour, I got the urge to work on my UFO Moonlight Bay. Don't ask me why cos I don't know! I can't remember the last time I picked it up. I stayed up til 4am stitching and did a little bit more when I woke up. I spent quite a bit of time marking off on a working copy where I'd got to so I don't have a whole lot to show stitching wise but here's a pic anyway:

This is what it looked like before:
And this is what it's supposed to look like finished. I bought this years ago in a sale for £4. I'm not so keen on it anymore and have no idea what I'll do with it when it's finished but who knows maybe it will grow on me.
Anyway I think that's plenty enough of an update for now. Have a good weekend everyone!

Winding bobbins

Well this week I'm trying to reach a few major goals. One of them is to wind all the floss I have lying around onto bobbins. Last Saturday I spent the entire afternoon sat out in the sun winding bobbins and now have a nice tan on my arms! The last few days I've been winding them while watching tv or checking e-mails. I'm getting there slowly. Anyway, I'll be well chuffed when they're done cos that means I've reached one of my goals!! The others aren't really stitchy related so I won't go there. I'm getting ever nearer to finishing the first half of Heart Strings. For such a small piece it's taken me ages and ages to do. I've just got some backstitch and the wings to finish and then it's off to the framers. I can really get going on the second half then. I want to get back into stitching Feathers & Friends too but we'll have to see how everything else goes. Anyway I'm gonna go and get on with winding my bobbins.

If you're Craig DON'T LOOK!!

I'm SO excited! Friday I went and had my wedding dress fitted. I haven't seen my dress in ages so it was really nice to see it and try it on again. It needs quite a bit of length taking off it as I'm such a shorty LOL! I got to bring my veil and tiara home too. My veil is even nicer than what I remembered. I haven't got pics of my veil yet but I will at some point.Here's a pic anyway:

White Cliffs of Dover

So last week we went me, Craig and his mum to visit his bro and family. It was the first time I'd met them. I had to get used to people calling me Auntie Azzie or Auntie Angharad! My niece to be, Sydney, is an absolute gem! She's so polite and very sweet! She's coming up to 3 years old but you wouldn't think it from looking at her. Here's me, Sydney and her mum Claire at Dover Castle:

We all had a wonderful day at Dover Castle. It was the only day when the weather was glorious! I also got the chance to ride on one of Claire's Shire horses! They're huge! It's the only thing we didn't get photos of actually. It was a really nice break away altogether. Oh and we were fed really well!! His bro is a chef and Claire is a great cook too. It was like I'd died and gone to food heaven! Anyway, I'll try and upload all my photos to my album tomorrow for people to nosy at!

Apart from that I'm having a real horrid week but I won't go there or I'll be here all night. 'Til next time enjoy the view: