Happy New Year

I just wanted to wish you a very 

***** HAPPY NEW YEAR *****

If 2012 was a good year for you then I hope it continues.  If 2012 was not so good then I hope all your problems, issues etc disappear and things improve for you.  I wish everyone a year of good health, good friends, great family and as much money as you need to keep the wolf from the door. 

I hope you never have to frog, that all your stitches lie flat, that your floss never runs out and the fabric doesn't crease so badly that you can't iron it out. And if we can throw a prayer for world peace into the mix, it can't be a bad thing, can it?

***** HAPPY NEW YEAR *****

Not quite new year...

I just need to show these 2 finishes before the end of the year.

This is a chart I picked up years ago and it really appeals to my sense of humour. I will do it again for myself one day and hang near the front door for visitors to read.  This time I stitched it for Julie's RR as she wanted humourous sayings.  I hope she will like it.

This one was a Christmas present.  I started it Christmas Day and completed it this morning as I realised I hadn't sewn on the little key charm.  It is stitched on Steph's Fabbys Chocolate Milk which was lovely to stitch on.  So nice, I ordered a large piece of it to do Santa's Village on!

For the rest of the day I am going to work on Henry VIII and his 6 wives.

Friendly Stitchers Christmas/Winter Exchange

Mylene is home from her travels and let me know that the ornie I sent her has arrived.  This is what I made her...

  They are absolutely amazing.  It is the first time I have stitched a Victoria Sampler design but then I stitched another one for Nicola for the giveaway.  Nicola will take a photo of it for me when she has time, I forgot...doh!

First of all I thought I would do a quick Christmas round up.  These are the yummy mince pies that  I made with Luke.  I explained the steps to him, he did the work.  Definitely the best way to do the cooking!!  The photo must be a little dark as they definitely weren't as dark as the look.  There is a close up of one of them too.

Something you don't often see is a picture of me.  This is us at the Christmas table.  Excuse the big plastic jug  at the front of the shot.  We don't have a gravy boat.

This is all the presents under the tree ready for opening.

This is the lovely stash I received for Christmas.  There is CCN - Needlework Shop, LHN - Chocolate Shoppe, Sue Hillis - The Key to my Heart and CCN - Santa's Village which is on autoship from The Patchwork Rabbit with the buttons and speciality threads.

We had a very quiet day but it was really nice and chilled.  The children were pleased with their presents which is the main thing.

Merry Christmas

**** Merry Christmas ****

Christmas blessings to everyone and if you don't celebrate Christmas just enjoy a day off work and have a rest.  I hope you are all having a peaceful day and that you and yours are safe and happy.  Thinking of all the people not at home or with their loved ones this year and especially the people struggling with flooding in the UK at the moment.

photo from http://catholiclane.com

ornie exchange, advent calendar and our tree

This is the gorgeous ornie I received from Mylene for The Stitch Specialists exchange.  I am hoping mine has reached her but I know she has gone to visit family for a couple of weeks so I won't find out for a while.  This is so cute and has pride of place on the front of our tree now.  The finishing is beautiful.

PS Snowman
from Mylene

This is a close up of the advent calendar, well 2 sides of it!

Here are the next 3 days of the advent calendar - days 5, 6 and 7.  All photos are copyright of Amanda Loverseed

Day 6 door

Day 5 opened

day 6 window

Day 6 opened

Day 7 window

Day 7 opened

This is our Christmas tree this year.  There are a few cross stitch bits on there.  As you can see it is nowhere near as wonky as the one I posted on Jo's calendar!!  However our poor angel took a tumble yesterday after one of the cats climbed half way up, shaking the tree quite violently. 

Jo's Advent Calendar - 5th December

Woohoo - it's my day today!!!

I spent ages looking at all my Christmas designs before settling on this one.  It is only a small Mouseloft kit which I made into an ornie.  There is something about this though that always makes me smile. I don't know if it's the precariously leaning tree or just the funky look about it but it is probably one of my favourite ever finishes.

In our house Father Christmas stuffs the stockings that hang at the end of each child's bed.  The latest he has ever stuffed them is 3.30am but usually he can stuff them around 1am!!!  He also visits the lounge where he can get his mince pie and glass of milk and put the carrot we leave for Rudolph in his pocket for later.  He then leaves Rachael and Luke's main present near the tree for them.  Both children know that Father Christmas only leaves the stockings and the one big present. As we don't have a chimney, we have a special key that we hang on the outside of the front door.  He lets himself in and on the way out, locks up and put the key back through the letter box for us!!!

The stockings can be opened when the children wake up.  This usually wakes us too so they bring them onto our bed to open.  When everyone is dressed they can go down and open their Father Christmas present.  This is all they get then until breakfast is eaten and teeth are done.  We then take it in turns to select a present from under the tree for each person and watch each other unwrap these before moving on to the next person.

Colin always puts a couple of little presents away which he brings out after Christmas dinner.  We don't go to church on Christmas Day we go Christmas Eve - to Midnight Mass at 7pm!!

My Advent Calendar

This year I discovered Phoenix Trading, well I say I discovered but actually Jo at Serendipitous Stitching send me a gorgeous card of theirs and I was hooked!  When I got a copy of their Christmas catalogue I admired the 3D advent calendars.  Colin 'treated' me to the Townhouse one which we are sharing between us.  It is so gorgeous that I thought I would bore you  share each day with you.  As today is the 4th I am going to share the first 4 days all at once.  After that I hope to share one day at a time.

Day 1 - before opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 1 - after opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 2 - before opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 2 - after opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 3 - before opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 3 - after opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 4 - before opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

Day 4 - after opening
copyright Amanda Loverseed

it is...

...The Turtle Trot SAL over at Bap Attack.  That's what I signed up for!!!!   Doh!!!!  A big thank you to Linda at Stitching with my Furbabies who is now my nominated replacement brain as she knows exactly what I should be doing!!  Thank you Linda!!

The Turtle Trot is for people like me who don't finish anything!  So all you have to do is pick 13 projects as it is 2013 and work on them as and when you want to through the month.  On the 13th of each month post your progress to your blog and of course post a link to it.  If you want to sign up, get yourself over there!!

Tomorrow (5th), is my day to post a piccie for Jo's Advent Calendar so feel free to jump over and have a look at it so far!

I had some good luck the other day.  I was lucky enough to win a prize in Nancy's 25 days of Christmas giveaway.  The chart I chose was Jolly Reindeer which is really cute, I think!

photo from Nancy's blog
victorianmottosamplershoppe.blogspot.co.uk/

I've got a problem...

Don't worry it's nothing personal!

I signed up for a SAL 'somewhere' and I cannot remember who it was, where it was or what it was all about!  I know it's not the LK Snow Belles/6 Fat Men as I have that in my sidebar.  So what was it?

It definitely wasn't Nicola's Scarlet Letters or Santa's Village (but I wish I had done that one now but it's full!)  It's nothing to do with HAED.  So I have absolutely no idea as to what it was.

Honestly I swear I have got to be going senile!

MIA - back again!

Gosh, what a long time since I have blogged!  Well I managed 15 days of NaBloPoMo which is much better than my paltry 3 last year!

Hard to see in this pic but Luke's nose is very swollen
and bruised.  He has been a real star about it though!

The last couple of weeks have not been good health wise in our house which is why I haven't blogged or stitched much.  A quick run down is 2 bouts of tonsilitis for me with 2 different courses of antibiotics of which I am still taking the second lot.  A quick question - when you have a throat that feels like someone has shoved a couple of golf balls down it, why do doctor's insist on giving you the biggest tablets they know how to prescribe?  Colin has had some mystery bug that actually caused him to have a day off work and to admit that he shouldn't have gone in the next day either.  Rachael has had a bad cold and injured her back - not together!  Poor Luke found out today that football boot + header = broken nose.  The poor lad currently looks like he went 10 rounds with Mike Tyson!  The hospital said it is too swollen to tell if it is broken and to come back in 10 days when the swelling goes down if it looks mis-shapen.  We are keeping him dosed up with Calpol and Calprofen so it doesn't hurt too much at the moment. So all in all it's not been great although thankfully everything is minor in the grand scheme of things :)

On to stitching news...

I signed up for the Santa's Village autoship from The Patchwork Rabbit.  Karla was really pleasant to deal with and I got the first installment this morning.  It looks even cuter in real life and I will be sorting out some fabric for it later.  Once I finish Nicola's 'thing' (not giving anything away!!), I will stitch the first part.

The first installment of Santa's Village!!!

In terms of actual stitching I have worked on an exchange piece which is winging its way 'somewhere' in the world, so I can't show that.  I am working on Nicola's 'thing' so can't show that either.  I have worked a few stitches on a RR which is shown below and a little of Confetti of Hardanger which hasn't seen enough progress to make it worth a photo - 3 more eyelets, that's all.  There is a little progress on ATW but again not a lot. Cinderella got a little progress too.

RR stitching

ATW - part 5 completed

ATW - so far

The other night Biskey and Smudge were curled up on the sofa.  So cute...

Biskey and Smudge....awww
Smudge is black and white