A big thank you to Cleejoow who nominated me for this award.  She's right...some more followers would be nice...lol.

Some background: Liebster is a German word, meaning favourite, dearest or beloved and the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers, who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

1.  Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.  
2.  Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them. 
3.  Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites.  Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.
4. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you. 

Well in no particular order, here are 5 blogs that I have discovered recently.  Mostly from participating in Theme-a-licious and WIPocalypse this year I think or from recommendations on other blogs. 

1. Taffy's Treasures - she has some very pretty designs both finished and in progress.
2. Needles pins and dragonflies - another lovely blog with lovely stitching and quilting.
3. Melissa's Miscellaneous Adventures - lovely stitching and Melissa and hubby have just got the cutest pup!
4. A few of my favourite things - not always stitchy releated but always a good read.  
5. Charbella Stitching - Wow!  Have you seen what she is stitching at the moment?  It's gorgeous!

So that's my 5 blogs.  It was hard to choose.  There are so many amazing blogs out there but many of them already had the award or more than 200 followers.  

Five random facts about me.

1. I work as a learning support assistant in a primary school.
2. I support Brighton and Hove Albion FC - someone has to.  Now I live in Manchester though I don't see many games.
3. I don't like going out.  I don't mean out of the house but anywhere I have to socialise with other people.  I never go on works night out because of this.  
4. It is nearly 15 years since I gave up smoking.
5. I would cut off my arms and legs if it would cure Rachael of Type 1 diabetes.

I will be posting later on for my giveaway(s) for my blogoversary.  I thought as it's 4 years blogging I would do 4 giveaways!

stash, exchange and other news

Well, Manchester has been basking in glorious sunshine this weekend.  What have I been doing? Sat at the kitchen table all day Saturday and all day Sunday writing and assignment on safeguarding and resilience.  The only sun I have seen is when I have brought a line of washing in so I could put another out!  I'm sure it will all seem worth it once I have my degree...

Please see my previous post about Rachael and Luke raising money for Sport Relief.  They are both swimming a mile each and would love any sponsorship or messages of support you are willing to give them - even £1 or $1 would be welcome.  As the advert says "Every little helps".  Rachael has written a little bit about the challenge she faces and why she wants to do the swimathon.

Anyway - there has been some stash deliveries this week.  Firstly, 2 designs to stitch for Luke.  He wanted a cushion stitching for him.  I couldn't decide which to get him but found these 2 so got them both!  I have already started stitching the larger one for him and there is a photo of progress so far.  This is after about 2 hours stitching on it.

new charts for Luke's cushion

after about 2 hours of stitching

I had to buy a piece of fabric to stitch the cushion.  As it's for Luke it needs to be pretty hard wearing so I have opted for aida instead of evenweave.  I was using my sewandso voucher so treated myself to 5 fat men. (Yes I know it is 6 but I already had one given to me for my birthday!)  I also got one of the JBW designs charts that was on my wish list too.

birthday stash!!

I have also done a little tiny bit more on Rachael's bookmark.  I am finding it really hard going with trying to see the very pale grey on the white fabric especially when it is one strand and half cross stitch.  It will be worth it though - she will be so pleased with it!

Rachael's bookmark

Finally, I received my exchange piece from the exchange on Tiny Treasures Too.  My exchange partner was Liz who stitched me a lovely scissor fob for my Union Jack scissors and a measuring tape.  She also sent a lovely card where she had stitched onto the card.  They are all beautiful - but I will let the pictures do the talking!

TTE2 - one side...

...the other side

with the card

The picture above is my offering for my exchange partner.  I really hope they like it!
Tomorrow (Monday) is my blogoversary.  I will be announcing a giveaway to celebrate.

Rachael and Luke are doing the Swimathon

Rachael and Luke (as it says above) are signed up for the swimathon.  This is the first time they have done it so they are just going to do the one mile event.  Then if they want to, next year they can do the 2.5K one.  They are both really excited to be doing something to help others.  The money raised goes to Sport Relief and Marie Curie Cancer Care - both great charities.  Below I have added the links to their personal fundraising pages.  If you could spare just a pound/dollar, they would be so grateful.  If money is tight could you leave them a good luck message at the bottom of their pages.  Just knowing there are people supporting them would mean a lot to them.

If you are able to support them either financially or by motivating them then thank you so so much.

(Edited - for some reason Luke's link doesn't work but if you copy and paste it into a new browser window, it works fine.  Not sure what the problem is.)

Rachael's link is http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=386501&langPref=en-CA

Luke's link is http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=386496&langPref=en-CA

Thank you!!

A birthday, some stash and some stitching

Rachael's science teacher was absolutely fabulous when she had a bad hypo in the lesson. Rachael wanted to get her a little present and asked if I would make a card for her.  I asked her if there was anything her teacher liked. Rachael said giraffes and so I stitched the little Mouseloft giraffe kit that I stitched previously.  Rachael's teacher was really pleased with it by accounts.      

Giraffe card for Rachael's science teacher
Mouseloft kit

A little progress on She Sells Seashells but not much! Apart from this there isn't much else to show for stitching progress this week.  I have been busy working on a scissor fob for an exchange so can't show that yet.  It looks great though!

She sells seashells              

This is my gorgeous birthday cake that Colin and the children made me. They make me one every year.  Under the icing is a rather delicious chocolate sponge.  They were very kind and only put 10 candles on - it would have taken too long to blow them all out otherwise.

And finally here is the lovely stash I received for my birthday.  There are 2 Tiny Treasured Diamond Halloween kits, a fuchsia chart by The Silver Lining - fuchsias are my favourite flowers.

There were also 3 little charts too - a LHN, a LK and a JBW designs one, all of which were on my wishlist.

My birthday was on Thursday and Colin's is the day after. We went to Frankie and Benny's to celebrate Colin's.  Colin asked me what I wanted for my birthday meal and I chose spaghetti bolognese.  This is something that I normally make with the children and both of them do a really good job of it.  It was an absolutely gorgeous dinner and the cake that followed was scrumptious!  I am very lucky to have 2 kids that take an interest in cooking and at least I know they won't starve to death once they leave home!!

Wipocalypse update (8th March)

Sorry this is late - Thursday was my birthday and Friday was Colin's so I wasn't on my laptop.

I'm not going to post pictures for this as I am currently in March madness for Theme-a-licious which means I am trying to stitch on a different WIP each day.

Since my last update I have:

• completed the RR piece of which finished the RR. 
• Stitched a card for Rachael's science teacher - Mouseloft giraffe
• stitched quite a bit more on Roots and Wings
• made progress on I Love Cross Stitch book mark
• put stitches in HAED's Spring, Mirabilia's Sunflower Fairy, Summer in Sussex.

So with the exception of the giraffe which was a new start and the scissor fob exchnage everything else is in my WIP / UFO bin.

Theme-a-licious February round-up

Ooops...a day late with my Theme-a-licious update.  SORRY!  There hasn't been a lot of stitching this month and when I have stitched I've been in a funny mood.  I have found it really hard settle to any particular project.  Madonna of the Garden (Mirabilia) was going to get some love, it got about 6 stitches which is why there is no photo.

Below is my progress on Roots and Wings which is nearly done now.  I am not going to jinx this project by saying I will get it finished.

Roots and Wings
progress as of 29th February

The flower

The words!

Next up is my shhhhh...secret project that Colin mustn't  know about.  Don't tell him!  This one was first shown a couple of weeks ago.  As a bit of fun I wondered if anyone knew what it was from the wiggly line that was showing.  Unsurprisingly, no-one did.  How about now?  Any guesses?  I will put any correct answers in the proverbial hat and draw a winner on 15th March when I do my next Theme-a-licious update.

Who am I?

Any ideas?

Onr thing I really wanted to finish was Garden Shed.  The one thing I really couldn't settle to working on this month?  Garden Shed!  Even though I picked it up a few times in the month, all I managed was a thread or two in the last couple of sections to be stitched and about 2/3rd's of a page of back stitch.  So annoyed with myself but I just didn't feel like working on it at all. Hopefully March will be better!

I love the theme of March.  Try to stitch on a different design every day of the month.  Well I definitely have enough WIP's for that...so I'm up for the challenge!

Today is World Book Day and at work we had to dress up as a book character...oh joy.  Now don't get me wrong, I love books...couldn't eat a whole one but that's another story.  I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate (get the picture?) dressing up.  Anyway, I settled on a book by Jacqueline Wilson called 'The Illustrated Mum'.  Rachael and Luke had a whale of a time this morning drawing all over my arms with felt tips.  For those of you not familiar with Jacqueline Wilson (a) where have you been for the last twenty years and (b) the illustrated mum has loads of tattoos - hence the felt tips.  This is what I looked like after a day at school.

The story is about a mum called Marigold with 2 daughters called Star and Daisy.  So that's 3 of the tattoos covered.  The others are ones she designs but I can't remember why.  Rachael drew the dolphin and a Star that was on my hand.  Luke drew the snake and the daisy.  I managed the heart, marigold and eye myself!  Thankfully it is now over for another year but I am really hoping the pen scrubs off tonight!