Trick or Treat?

Well I have made a good start to this one I think and so far I am enjoying her. I made a hash of her face and had to unpick and restitch it. The fabric is lovely to stitch on. Unfortunately it's back to work on Monday after 5 weeks off for the summer holiday so stitching time will be severely limited. All the childrens activities resume too so back to running around left, right and centre.



It's not a very good photo and the fabirc looks darker than it actually is. Interestingly the fabric looks more like I wanted it to look. More like a twilight sky. I am still missing 3 Kreiniks and DMC451 so I will have a trip to Hobbycraft tomorrow and try to pick them up.

First ever biscornu finished

The threads came in my new stash and so yesterday I finished off the biscornu. I had ordered some stuffing as I can never find any when I need it. Sew and So had it in 250g bags. "Oh that won't go far" I thought so I bought 2!! Well I could use the bags as pillows now........so........if you are ever short of stuffing, you know where to come!

The biscornu design is a Polstitches design and the fabric is Countrystitch's Christmas Eve. I was quite surprised at how big it was. For some reason I expected it to be smaller once it was made up. I am planning on using it as a pin cushion to TRY and stop me putting my needles in the sofa cushion. I don't want to use it though really.

Oh yes.............ummm..........guess what I started? Trick or Treat just accidentally fell onto the scroll bars. I have no idea how it happened.......tee hee.

Great stash day!

You wait weeks for your stash orders and then 2 turn up at once! Today I got my fabric for trick or treat fairy from Picturethisplus. It's called Monet which is a purply colour. It is not as dark as I was hoping for but is still an absolutely GORGEOUS colour. It is the first time I have ordered from them and the service and communication was great.

The second stash package was from http://www.juliesxstitch.com/ which had most of the metallics and beads for trick or treat. Unfortunately I forgot to order a few so I will have to get those another time. I cannot praise Julie highly enough for the service I have received from her with this order. She has bent over backwards to help me get what I wanted that was out of stock and suggested a good substitute when she was unable to get it (discontinued). Julie kept me really well informed all the way through and even refunded some of the postage because the order was so light. If companies in the UK matched this kind of customer service and had the prices to match, I would be more likely to use them. Thank you Julie!!

Rachael arranged all the stash in the picture so you can see what was there. I'm not sure if this is how she wants her pumpkin carving this year or not but it looks scary!

Rachael had her op ok yesterday and is absolutely fine. She was really alert after the op and I was very surprised. The teeth went under the pillow last night and the tooth fairy duly left £5. We have kept up the ibuprofen and paracetamol today just to make sure she doesn't start with any pain. It's probably easier than trying to get rid of it if it does start.

Lots of you have left some lovely comments on my work etc and I just wanted to say how much I truly appreciate them. I know I don't always reply but every one is treasured. Thank you all very much!

August's update/September's goals

This is being posted a bit early as Rachael goes into hospital tomorrow to have her teeth out and I don't know if I will be blogging for a few days. Rachael has something called enamel hypoplasia which basically means that some of her teeth have no enamel on at all. These are the 4 back molars that come through as adult teeth at around the age of 5 or 6. She is also due to have 2 of her front baby teeth out because of overcrowding but one of these has fallen out and the other is loose so I will ask if they can leave that to fall out naturally. The poor girl is going to have nowhere to eat in her mouth for a few days until it heals a bit. Unfortunately as she has diabetes to throw into the mix with a general anaesthetic, I am worrying more than I should be about it. Her diabetes nurse is unfortunately on her holidays too so she won't be there to hold my hand!
September's goals are to.........

• complete and make up the biscornu if the threads turn up.
• work on Madonna of the Garden as much as possible until the end of September.
• Stitch part 9 of How does your Garden Grow? when it is released middle of September.
• Complete another Snapper month.

August's goals were to......

• finish stitching on the biscornu. (waiting for thread to arrive.)
• make up the biscornu. (as above.)
• stitch part 7 and 8 of "How does your garden grow?" (done)
• complete another month of the Snappers. (completed May and stitched a bit of Jan, Feb and Sept)
• stitch 1000 stitches in the crossstitchcrzy SAT. (completely and utterly smashed this one! 4220 stitches in total! Obviously the school holidays have helped!!

I had another little finish, 4 in one week - must be a record!

Luke's very nearly finished bedroom

Well after a huge saga over the new carpet, Luke's room is finished bar the uplighter. When I originally started I didn't envisage having to put 4 coats of solo paint over an orange ceiling. Who on earth paints a ceiling orange??? Now I know why it had paper over it!

Luke wanted a Manchester United bedroom, sooooo..............here we go! The carpet was a nightmare. The first time the fitters came they fitted the carpet and then I discovered it had a huge stain on it. How on earth they missed it I don't know. The second time there was a fault in the carpet itself. Finally the third carpet was fitted and although not totally perfect we are going with it. That's the last time I buy cheapish carpet!

This is the view looking from the landing into Luke's room, which is an L shape.

This is round the L.

This is the flag that we put up on Luke's bed so that underneath is a little den for him.

This is his cupboard/wardrobe. I have been looking for a red voile to hang up as there isn't a door on the cupboard.

This is the litter bin that I "made" for Luke. I couldn't find him a nice Utd one. In B&M I spotted a red leatherette one for £4 so I snapped it up. I used some of the leftover border to decorate it and Luke was thrilled to bits with it.

Help me decide which one please

I have nearly finished the Bent Creek Snappers series - at long last - and today went shopping for fabric to use for making it into a wall hanging. I chose 2 that are autumnal colours, mainly because I felt that any other colour would be too bright for a seasonal piece. The colours of the designs are quite muted too. Anyway which would you use for this? I love the one with the leaves but thought it might be too busy and detract from the stitching. The marbly one isn't so bright in real life it is more browny orange. I am going to set up a poll for this and see what wins.

Piece A



Piece B

And........another Christmas ornament

This is the one that Colin chose which took a couple of days to stitch up. It looks much better in real life. For some reason I couldn't get the camera to really make the beads pop. Now to decide if I carry on with some more or go back to something else, like the Snappers!

These are quite addictive!

Another little Christmas finish!

Well after doing Luke's tree ornament, I had to do Rachael's too. Hers was a really quick stitch as it was all beading apart from the metallic threads. She was really pleased with it this morning when she came down.

Colin has chosen one for himself now so that means I am doing another one. Rachael went through the rest and decided that she wants another too. Well never mind perhaps I can get them all done and have them on our tree this year.

I love these Mill Hill designs. I think I will have to have a look and see which ones I don't have yet!

A little Christmas finish

A while ago I bought a load of Tiny Treasure Diamonds by Mill Hill off a seller on ebay. Both the children chose one that they liked and I said I would stitch them for their Christmas trees this year. I had the one that Luke chose in my handbag but it wasn't a very good choice really as you can't bead on the move! When I cleared out my old bag last week when I bought a new one, I decided to get it finished at home. After 2 days stitching and beading, here it is..........

Luke was a little superstar and helped with beading the final piece of fringe, only dropping 2 beads! Not bad for a 7 year old who is clumsy at the best of times. Then he helped me to shred the filling and to stuff the ornament. Well done Luke!

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.