Crikey......busy week!

There has been a lot happening in our world lately. Nothing major or earth shattering but just busy, busy, busy.

The SAT for CSC finished last Sunday so here is the progress I have made for the week on my Cotswold design. Obviously the top one is the starting point and the bottom one shows how much I got done. I think I stitched around 3000 stitches for the week this time.

As you may have noticed it was Ash Wednesday this week. The children attend a Catholic school and I work there too so we received the ashes from the priest in a special assembly. Rachael has decided that for Lent she will give up chewing her nails - so far so good. Luke is challenging himself and going for giving up bars of chocolate, fizzy drinks, helping around the house more and behaving better in class. He is brilliant with the chocolate and fizzy drinks so far and refused to have chocolate when it was offered round! Unfortunately, I don't have his willpower. I decided that I would clear my purse out at the end of each day and put all my change in a for JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). Hopefully by Easter there should be a fair bit in it!

One of the jobs that has kept me busy and stopped me stitching this week is an application form. I have decided to apply to Manchester Metropolitan University for the Foundation Degree in Supporting Teaching and Learning. I have already applied to Tameside College for their version of this which is done through Staffordshire College and I'm waiting to hear if I get an interview. The application forms are long winded though. The one for MMU is 9 pages!! It's more thorough than most of the job applications I have filled in!

Rachael got her level 11 in her swimming this week too. Now she only has one more level to complete and she will be done with swimming lessons. Hurray!! She is thoroughly enjoying the swimming club she joined recently though and is making huge progress. Luke is loving it too and is in a small group of about 4 or 5 for teaching. He is really doing himself proud too as most of the others spend more time messing than swimming (you wonder why the parents pay!!) and he is working hard and not allowing himself to be drawn into their silliness. Maybe there is hope for him yet!!

Rachael and Luke went to their grandma and grandad's last Friday so I have had the house to myself for a few days, well so long as you don't count 3 cats!! I spent Saturday and Sunday scrubbing the house and getting all the jobs done that are MUCH easier to do without 2 little helpers! I love it when the house looks all sparkly with all the paintwork washed and fresh curtains up etc. But enough of housework........what a waste of 2 days stitching time!!!

On the stitching front, it is the Crossstitchcrazy SAT this week. I am keeping the Cotswold design as my focus piece for the SAT's this year. On Monday I was REALLY lazy. I sat on the sofa all day and stitched my way through several episodes of Little House on the Prairie and the first two Lord of the Rings film (extended editions.) Unfortunately though I spent as much time watching as I did stitching so my total for yesterday won't be that great. It was lovely to just have a day doing what I wanted to for once and not be worrying about what the children are up to, what Rachael's blood sugars are like, who needs feeding, watering etc. That said, I can't wait to see them both tommorrow!!

I was lucky enough to win a chart in a drawing on Lindsay's blog recently. It is a really lovely crocus chart which I think I will kit up and take into work for my lunchbreak. Thank you Lindsay!

I can't post pics of anything at the moment though as Colin has the camera.

Teresa Wentzler design help needed

I'm sorry for the begging post but I have seen a design that I have fallen in love with and NEED! It was discontinued YEARS ago and the only place I have found it is an ebay seller in US who will only ship within the US. If anyone knows anywhere I can get it or anyone else that is selling it or has it to trade, I would be ever so grateful if you could let me know. (edited to add - I suppose it helps if I tell you the pattern. It's TW's Floral Bellpull)

On the stitching front, not a lot has been happening lately. What with the children back to their activites now the holidays are over and trying to get some coursework done too, there doesn't seem to be much time. I have been working on How does your Garden grow and am about halfway or maybe a bit more through part 10.

This week is the CSC stitchathon and I am going to work on the Cotswold design for the week. The before picture is in my post for my yearly goals a bit further down the page and I will post after pics next weekend.

Luke had his Beaver's belated Christmas party last night. His Beaver's group closed down a while before Christmas but the leaders decided to organise something so that all the children could get together again. We had a really lovely night with lots of games organised for them and a lovely buffet. Luke is adament that he doesn't want to join another Beaver group and we are currently fighting to get the group reinstated.

Cross stitch crazy SAT

This was last week and I had a fabulous week. Colin was on holiday so I was able to stitch much more than I would usually for the SAT. I managed a grand total of 4220 stitches!!

I am posting a couple of pictures of what the Cut Thru Shed looked like before and after the SAT. My target was 1000 stitches and I hoped to finish another page of the chart. I actually completed 2 pages of the chart in the end although 1 page was pretty small.

Before.........

After.........

There is a scary amount of backstitch to do on this design but it will really come alive with it. I have now done about a third of the actual cross stitch.

Crossstitchcrazy stitchathon

This week has been the crossstitchcrazy stitchathon for the month. My totals for the week are:

Monday - 529 stitches

Tuesday - 201 stitches

Wednesday - 466 stitches

Thursday - 85 stitches

Friday - 546 stitches

Saturday - 870 stitches

Sunday - 699 stitches

Below is the progress I have made this week during the stitchathon. The first page is now completed and next month for the stitchathon I will be moving up to the top of the design. This page is actually the only page that is solid stitching. I decided to leave all the backstitch to the end so that it keeps the sharpness at the end. There is so much of it that it will be a real challenge to complete it.

Rachael has been on her pump for nearly 2 weeks now and is loving it. She has "missed" over 50 injections and is doing all of her own set change with the exception of actually inserting the needle herself. Last night we had a bit of a disaster. For some bizarre reason we couldn't reattach the tubing after her bath. Between me, her and her dad we spent about 20 minutes trying. Eventually we gave up and did a set change. This time there was blood all through the tubing and when we whipped off the set quickly there was a pool of blood on Rachael's leg. Considering how scary it was, Rachael was really good about it. We had a little chat about it afterwards and explained to her that a pump is similiar to injections in so much that sometimes things don't go as smoothly as we would like and that sometimes injections were painful for example. Rachael really is a superstar!!

Luke has been a bit poorly this week. Wednesday night/Thursday morning he was vomitting for England. He is ok now though I don't think he will be wanting baked beans for a while though!!

We had a lovely day today (well I'm not sure that the children would agree!) We have been clothes shopping for our holiday. We went to the big Asda Walmart at Eastlands, they had some great stuff for fab prices. Unfortunately, next door is a big Next with a clearnace shop in it. Although their stuff is really well made and wears well they are a lot more expensive than Asda. Still the children were pleased with all their bits and pieces.

Tadpoles and Jestique

Today we had a Tadpoles outing to a place in Marple (Stockport) called Jestique. Tadpoles is a Diabetes UK linked support group for children with diabetes. We meet at Edgeley play centre in Stockport on the last Friday of each month. It is really friendly with a good range of ages. Contact me if you would like further details. Jestique's a great little shop where you can do craft activities without having to clear up afterwards. Rachael did jewellery making and made a fantastic necklace which is below. Luke made 2 mirrors using decopatch - which is kind of similar to collage. He had the basic mirror and tore up bits of paper to decorate the mirror with sticking them on with PVA glue. He made one for his room and one for Rachael's. They both had a really enjoyable time of it. There are other activities on offer too which include pottery painting, wooden model building, scrapbooking etc. They also do parties, both there and coming to you.

I have been participating in the Crossstitchcrazy stitchathon (SAT) this week and keeping a record of my stitches for the week. They have been:

Monday - 182

Tuesday - 301

Wednesday - 0

Thursday - 92

Friday - 384

Saturday - 643

Sunday - 794

I feel quite pleased with this. I have never counted before so I am surprised at just how many stitches I do in a week. It also gives me hope that I could actually finish a large design in a reasonable amount of time if I put my mind to it and knuckled down. For instance a design with 46000 stitches (I have one as a WIP but can't remember which off hand) would only take me about 6 months or just over to stitch and not the 2 years I think it will!! For the SAT I started off with Madonna of the Garden but changed to start a new design from Bothy Threads when it arrived in a stash package earlier in the week. It is Cut Thru Garden Shed. It's great and I am really enjoying stitching it so far. Not so sure about when I reach the backstitch though! There is a photo of my progress so far below.