Oh bother

My latest update, but I've now fallen out with it. I had done a lot more, but I was visited by the little green critters that go ribbit last night and consequently, spent as much time unpicking as I spent doing the stitching in the first place. As such I'm glad that I can now put it aside for two weeks and hopefully will be a lot less annoyed with it (and lets be honest, myself) when I next go back to. However, despite the frogs it is looking much more than it was when I last finished. I've finished the fourth page, technically the fifth (there were about 20 stitches) and am now on the sixth page so I'm well over half way now.

In other news, we've had a plumbing nightmare this last week and a half. We haven't had a shower for the last week and a half, we chased this up a couple of days ago and are now getting a new bathroom, which is very exciting. Then the day we found that out I managed to snap the top off one of the taps in the bath. I'm not that strong so I'm swearing that it was already rusted or similar. So, despite the fact that we're getting a new bathroom, in the mean time we had a plumber out yesterday replacing the tap that I snapped so that we do at least have somewhere to wash that produces warm water.

The development of the brown shmush

I've just eaten the biggest dinner and am now so fat and feel so full, but it was wonderful. We've got a lovely Thai restaurant at the end of the road and we recently discovered that they also do takeaway, so Ben randomly suggested that tonight would be a good night for a takeaway, and who was I to complain? So I've just eaten the biggest portion of lemon chicken and rice noodles with spring onion and pork, and consequently am refusing to feel guilty about just how fat I currently feel!

Anyway, a brown shmush update, it's looking better, it's definitely starting to look like something, albeit it in quite a vague way. This is the top right corner, as you can probably guess, and consequently is made up of wall and window arch, but it's really developed since my last update of it, so I'm quite chuffed with myself really! Having said that, I think this is about 20, maybe 24 pages, so as I think it's about 21 hours worth of work so far, and I haven't even finished the first page yet, I think it's going to be a while before I finish this project, although, as my aim was to finish the first page by the end of the year, I think that, unless a major catastrophe occurs, I should be able to finish that and much more.

This is also my Internation Hermit and Stitch day update, I think about five hours went in this weekend (thank goodness for Ben working in the morning and watching the footie in the afternoon), not as much as I've achieved previously, but still a pretty hearty chunk!

Notwishstanding by Louis de Bernieres

I've been reading this for ages, becuase it's all short stories it's something that you can pick up and put down without worrying that you'll forget what's already happened. There is a vague link between the stories and there will be vague references to things that have gone before but not so much so that it'll be a problem if you've forgotten something.

As with anything that's a collection of short stories there are some that are better than others, and there's quite a selection here, some are happy, some are sad and personally, one that really freaked me out, I don't know why exactly but one of the stories really got me and it took me ages to get to sleep after reading it.

The general premise of the book is that it's set in the village of Notwithstanding and basically tells the tales of many of the people that live there, mostly concentrating on their little habits and foibles. Some characters re-appear, albeit briefly, in other characters stories, and others are only ever side characters. Personally I really wanted a story about the mad nuns but they never made it to centre stage, they were always just careering round corners far to fast with little regard to other road users, but I really wanted to hear more about them. 

I did enjoy it, although as I say, some more than others, although, having read it I don't think that I'd bother going back to it to read it again. If you've read anything else by Louis de Bernieres then this might come as a slight surprise to you, if felt very different to anything else that I'd read by him, not quite so lyrical, although that doesn't necessarily make it worse, in fact I found this much easier to read than previous books.

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend

It's that time again, are you joining in this weekend?

It's International Hermit and Stitching weekend this weekend coming (I know, I'm really late reminding people of this), so are you going to stitch with us?

Head on over to Joyce's blog and leave your address so we can see what progress everyone has made over the weekend.

I'm quite looking forward to it, I've barely had a chance to get any stitching done this week (ie the brown shmush is still looking pretty shmushy) so I'm quite looking forward to getting some done and actually hoping to see some progress. And if I don't get any progress, it's nice to see that there are other people out there making better progress than I am.

Talking of progress by the way check out Gizzimomo's blog. I've declared her to be the fastest stitcher in the west (if you think you're faster, let me know :-) ) she's done nearly a full page of her new HAED in a week.

And on an unrelated but it popped into my head, do you ever think about what'll happen to you stitching in years to come and even after you've gone? I have, which is why I raise the question, if you think about it, we're always seeing things to historical homes that young girls did hundreds of years ago to learn their needle skills. WIll people look at our stitching and talk about what it shows about the era? Will our stitching last long enough for this to happen? It's just a thought that amuses me sometimes!

A little bit of gap filling!

It's a little green, and I don't really know why, camera must have had a funny five minutes, sadly I think it always has five minutes all the times.

However, there's been a lot of gap filling this week, so it's starting to look like it may, one day turn into a piece of solid stitching. I thought I'd done loads this week, but now that I'm looking at it there doesn't seem to be as much progress as I thought there had been, I'm most disappointed.

What you have created, if it has a name, is some green

I don't know, it just seemed like an apt description of this weeks' stitching somehow. It's not looking to bad considering that it's only had a couple of evenings on it. Even better when you consider that I'm probably about halfway through this page already, there's a little bit of green left (basically just filling in the gaps) then a flower and a half, one on the left on that little off shoot and one at the top finishing the flower from the page above. This one is stitching up nicely at the moment, so I think my New Year resolution of finishing this should be a nice easy finish.

I was asked what I had on the go the other day, it's the three on the right hand side of the page, Winter's Majesty, the brown shmush that will eventually turn into Lancelot and Guinevere, and of course, Little Snap Dragon, and I'm hoping to get two of those finished this year, although I'm not convinced that it'll happen.

TUSAL of February

I swear it's actually got emptier.  You can see a bit of green in there which is from working on Little Snap Dragon last night, I'm working on a new page.

There will be a picture posted of the stitching later in the week, after Ben's rugby with the boys night and consequently my stitching night tomorrow.

Have fun every one, enjoy your stitching!