Just Nan SAL

Sadly my Just Nan SAL was as productive this month as it was last month.  There is nothing to see here people, move along...

Stitch from Stash - April update

This is my free month!!

Colin 'allowed' me to buy the silks for Gardens of London which cost a fair bit.  I got them from several different companies as some were cheaper than others.  If you need any Gloriana threads, I can highly recommend West End Embroidery for them.  They were over a pound cheaper than sewandso which surprised me.  Their service was very good too and threads were received within a couple of days.

Here are a couple of photos of my progress so far on it.

Stitching Bandits Chatelaine Challenge

Seeing as Roses of Paris is on my Turtle Trot list I thought this might be a good challenge to join in with. Then of course with having started Gardens of London...well...

The SAL/challenge started on 1st April, which is coincidentally the same day as the first part of Gardens of London was released too!

Here is my progress on both designs for this month...

Roses of Paris
Chatelaine Designs

Gardens of London
Chatelaine Designs

Weightloss

As any of you who have ever seen me in a photo know, I am overweight.  Probably the medical profession prefer morbidly obese or some such phrase but I don't particularly like it.  I am not living in denial that I am thinner than I really am or anything like that but I just really dislike the phrase.  I think possibly the start of my problem with the phrase was when I moved to Manchester.  I went to register with my new doctor and was told that at 11lb over my 'ideal' weight that I was obese.  That really irritated me and so I hate the word obese.  Anyway, since last June, I have been going to Weightwatchers to do something about it (and believe me it is a lot more than 11lbs these days.  Just after Christmas, I had lost 4 stones in total - well 56.5lb's to be exact.  Sadly since then I have lost my way, motivation and been eating too much of the wrong stuff.  Last week I had a shock on my scales and decided there was no way I was piling it all back on and got myself back to WW.  I have started a new blog that will chart my journey and hopefully find me some supportive weightloss buddies/followers so we can support each other, share tips and our trials and tribulations.  Colin is really supportive of my lifestyle change and bought me a few of the silks for Gardens of London for Easter rather than chocolate and will happily? weigh out my food for me and usually makes good food choices for our meals.

So anyway, if you would like to support me and anyone else I meet on my weightloss journey, feel free to visit it.  If not, stay here and enjoy my stitching instead :)

My 'other' blog is Shebafudge - The Lighter Side.  It has already been renamed at the suggestion of Colin!

WIPocalypse

I didn't actually work on any of my WIPocalypse WIP's this month with studying.  I have until May 22nd to do my final assignment and then hopefully I will have completed my degree.  Then stitching in earnest can begin!!!

WIPocalypse 'challenge' for this month was to show our stitching stash storage...grab a cuppa.  I think this will show why I need a craft room all of my very own :)

First up we have 2 plastic drawer units.  On the left there is one drawer for small cuts of fabric, one for charts and a drawer of oddments.  The right hand one has a space where my WIP drawer should be, one for kits and 2 drawers of odds and sods.  The top of this one lifts and has a shallow tray where I store needles, threaders, kreiniks and other bits and bobs.

On top of those units are a couple of small bits.  First is my collection of Six Stranded Sweets which needs the ones I received putting on bobbins

Then there is a box of random threads and silks which I have accumulated by exchanges and 'oooh, that looks nice' type shopping!

There is a small unit with CC, WDW and GAST in it, again with random threads in the bottom drawer.

I have a tub with all my backing fabrics in.  I need a bigger one!

Some smaller boxes with ribbons and other trims for making up finishes.

This is my spare bag of DMC. In the bag there are more bags with the floss separated into bags by each 100.

Then there is another tub with larger cuts of fabric in.

 10 boxes with stitch bows in for every colour of DMC apart from the latest colours.

Bead storage definitely needs improving!

WIP box with som of my WIP's in.  The ones I am working on this year are downstairs in the lounge on a bookshelf.

So there you have it!  

Grrrr...or how can I be so thick?

A while ago, I had a giveaway and Rhona won.  I'm making her a 'little something' which Gaynor over at Stitchersanon very kindly designed for me.  I have been stitching the 'something' and finished a skein of red thread.  Without bothering to check what thread I needed I rushed upstairs to my spares and found a skein of DMC321.  I knew it wouldn't be from the new .321 as I have had it in my stash a while.  I dashed back downstairs, pulled out a length, snipped, threaded and started stitching away. After \\\\ (yes I stitch the other way, I'm left-handed) I squinted at it and said "blast" (or words to that effect!)  It is a completely different red to the one I had been using.  This morning I went to see if I had any more DMC321 and found another 4 skeins.  Amazingly, they were all the same as the last one I had got out.  Drat!  Well I had done too much to unpick and red thread is horrible to unpick as well as it leaves fluff everywhere so I decided to start again on a new bit of fabric.  I got my DMC321 out and started the design again.  After a few stitches, well about 50 or so, I looked at the stitches so far and thought - this would look so much better in DMC666.  I carried on stitching and then wondered what shade the other red in the design was.  I looked at my chart, ahhh, the other red IS DMC666 - ahhh, actually the colour I should be using is DMC666 - sooooo no wonder the 321 was the wrong colour, it was the wrong shade.  Guess what?  When I got a new skein of 666, it matched perfectly!  So the moral to this story is check your chart regularly, even the legend!  Thankfully, it means I can go back to the original piece of stitching and continue as this was much further along!  Doh!

March Madness - Theme-a-licious update.

Well, it did start off quite well...at least I think it did.  I'm pretty sure I stitched a little on each of these in March but there is absolutely no way on this earth that I managed to do 31 different projects.  That was due to it being assignment time and lots of reading for the module.  I can't wait to have all this free time to stitch!

Joan Elliott - Unicorn

All through the Night - Oh Christmas Tree

CCN - Santa's Village

JBW Designs - A Very Merry Christmas

CCN - A Place we call Home

Nora Corbett - Faerie Spring Fling

HaED - Santa and the mouse

Mirabilia - Touching the Autumn Sky

 

Praying Hands - Footprints

I think I stitched on all of these in March.  Hopefully April will be a bit of an improvement!

Husband for sale

Anyone want a new husband?

On the plus side he is VERY supportive of cross stitch and needlework and makes the right noises at the right times when being shown new charts, threads, fabric and WIP's.  Very rarely, he will ask if I ever intend to finish anything.  He has just permitted me to kit up Gardens of London with most of the silk threads.

HOWEVER,  he also decided the sofa is a good place to stand a cup of tea on and oh joy! It fell over!!! Now we have two 3 seater sofas in our lounge.  One always has been and always will be for me and my stitching - I have the left hand seat, stitching has the middle seat.  It's been like this for 11 years, it's not something new.

Mr Numpty Brains therefore decided to spill his tea over Gardens on London (I was in too much of a shock to get hysterical), the chart for it, 2 surprise pieces of stitching (they're for a surprise, not I was surprised to see them as I had forgotten them - I don't have that many starts!) and their charts too.  Cue a mad dash to the kitchen sink, water and copious amounts of Vanish stain remover, a quick prayer that the tea wouldn't stain and one VERY relieved husband that I was too busy washing fabric to yell at him.

I did tell him that people use tea to dye fabric and that my threads might run which would necessitate a new piece of fabric from him.  I think I forgot to mention that when tea dying fabric it generally is done with a cup that has had the teabag wafted in the general direction of the cup (he has it so weak, that a teabag would last a week if he economised!)

Upshot is though, he is now for sale...any reasonable offers?

PS, he is a great cook and washer up if that helps to seal the deal?

Turtle Trot update

I have been busy studying (one more assignment to go and it's all done!!!!!!!) and have had very little stitching time.

I did stitch a little bit on Roses of Paris but as that was in my last post, I won't bore you again with the photo of it.

Apart from that, there has been no stitching on anything Turtle Trot related - sorry :(

Paris Roses update

I have managed to do a little bit of stitching and this is where I have got to with it. I signed up for Gardens of London too and have been working out where to get my silk threads from.