Ooops, TUSAL Time already

Where does the time go? It can't be this time already!

There isn't much difference in mine anyway, a bit of cream and one solitary thread of gold I think, doesn't seem to have achieved that much stitching in the last 4 weeks.

I'm also just going to give a plug to Shirl's lovely blog. She's got two and I've plugged the other one in the past. One is dedicated to her card making and the other is what she refers to as her 'other blog'. This contains other craft stuffing including stitching where's she's currently working on a really cute kitten kit by DMC!

The full size of it

You can now see the full size of Dictionary of Tea, and I've only got four left to do. I am still really enjoying it, it's so lovely to work on, I even enjoy the backstitch because it's very simple and easy to follow, unlike other kits I could mentions (Tatty Ted - grumble, rumble!).

I can see the end of this one now, it's about another four weeks worth to get it finished, although I am now going to put it away for a couple of weeks and work on some other projects, Winter's Majesty is feeling neglected and I'm missing Dragon Rider, so I'm going to go back to those over most of August I think then make a concerted effort to get this finished over September so I can start the birth sampler with a January finish deadline. (Eek, when I say it like that 2012 is perilously close, how did that happen?)

In other news, Ben and I went to Barcelona last weekend and had an absolutely brilliant time. Beautiful city, I've got so many lovely photographs, I might put a couple up over the weekend, but there's currently nearly a hundred of them, so I might need to do a little editing and trimming first.

And my legs hate me, I've missed Zumba this week, and my teacher is away next week, and I've eaten too much chocolate so in a moment of guilt I decided to go for a little run when Ben went to work (and believe me they really are little in my world), I'm not a natural runner and I don't have the stamina so it's half run and half walked, and I was still only out for about 22 minutes, but it's a start, and it's eleviated some of the chocolate guilt! Talking of which, I have photos of cool chocolate from Barcelona, I'll defintiely put some of those pictures up as some point.

Happy stitching all!

Memory's Wake & IHSW

I know I've got quite a few HAED fans following my blog, so that possibly means that I've also got a few Selina Fenech fans following my as well. Personally I really love her work, as you can tell by the fact that Bubbles is my avatar and Lancelot & Guinevere was my first ever HAED pattern that I started, talking of which, I really must go back to that at some point soon, I've been missing it!

But, anyway, for those Selina Fenech fans that are reading this, did you know that she's recently released a book? Memorys Wake, written and illustrated by her fine self. I'm a fan of Selina on facebook and follow her blog and I can tell you that the art work is gorgeous, and I've read the first couple of chapters and am now well and truly hooked and am going going to have to read the rest as soon as possible. If you're interested in knowing a bit more about it, or in getting hold of a copy yourself then why not check out her website at http://memoryswake.com

In other news, I didn't post for this months International Hermit & Stitch weekend, because I managed about 50 stitches in cream and you can barely seem them so it would have been a pointless post.

Happy stitching (and reading) all!

EDIT: Just remembered, mdgtjulie asked me about how the theory test works in the UK for those who care read on... if not, just stop at the last sentence and pretend this bit doesn't exist.
I've actually been learning for a while, the test in the UK is split into three, but you can start driving on the roads (as long as you've got an instructor or someone who's over 21 and passed their test 3 years ago or more in the car with you) before you've done any of the tests, so I'd had nearly 15 hours of lessons before I did my test this weekend. I did 2 parts of the test, a multiple choice and a hazard perception (they show you videos and you click when you see a hazard), so now I'm just continuing with my lessons and waiting for my instructor to decide that I'm no longer dangerous and agree to me using her car to do my test! And I think she's starting to be convinced so woohoo!

Yup, definitely a banner!

Finished the banner, which is good, because that's what I was aiming for this week. I haven't had much time for stitching this week because life has got in the way a bit, but my extreme slackness can be justified, and I'll explain in a moment. In the mean time, yup, definitely a banner, finished it last night. I was debating whether the writing looked odd because it's in one strand when the writing on the squares is in two, but I think it actually looks okay. It was pretty simple, after doing the outlines for the three shades of blue, and doing the capitals and spoons it was all simple filling in.

So, the reason for my slackness... after far too long I restarted my driving lessons a few weeks back and had to re-take my theory test, which was this morning, so I've been revising for that all week, but I passed, so that makes it all okay.

And in other news, I need to get the Dictionary finished and off the frame because the frame needs freeing up again, because friends have just announced that they're expecting in January. A chart has been chosen for them, so it's simply a matter of getting the Dictionary finished and off the frame and making sure that I've got the supplies I need for a new chart. Poor Little Snap Dragon, he's always getting evicted for other charts that need completing, and this time he's not even going to make it back on to the frame, he'll be replaced straight away.

Anyone else having serious trouble resisting the HAED sale by the way? I'm contemplating a little congratulations present to myself!

Oh yeah, and in answer to comments after my post last week, I don't think that there's anything wrong with my blogger dashboard, it just looks like it's been completely redesigned and I don't like it at all. To my mind it's more fiddly to use, especially when it comes to scrolling through and reading other people's blogs, but I don't seem to see a way of changing it back to the old dashboard.

The beginning of a banner

What's happened to blogger? I don't like the way the Dashboard looks and I now can't find anything, help! And it looks weird! (If you could hear the petulent tone in my voice right now...)

Anyway, in other news, Dictionary of Tea update, I aim to complete a section every week that I work on it, so I've finished my section for this week and started next weeks section as well, considering how busy the week's been I've actually had quite a successful stitching week.

My aim is to finish the banner this coming week, as I'm counting that as a section just the same as one of the squares, I figure it's roughly the same amount of stitching, and once I've finished that I'll be half way through. 4 squares and a banner done, and 5 squares left to do.

Happy stitching all!

There's a difference, honest!

I know you can't see much difference between this and last week, but honestly, there is a difference, I have done more stitching on it since my last update, honest! There's two and a half colours been added since last week. But I've been busy this week and so haven't had as much time to work on it as I did the week before. But I still love it, it's such fun to work on.

You can see the tree still (like it was was going to disappear), and you can finda see the background castle developing more, there's a little bit of stonework appearing now. But, much to my disappointment he now needs to go away for a while so I can work on some other projects.

In answer to a few comments that have been made about my updates on this over the last couple of weeks... I keep saying that I'm going to try stitching the 10x10 blocks but I never quite get round to it because I like doing a colour over an entire page. There are pros and cons to it, I like seeing the picture develop when I stitch like this, but it does occasionally mean that I miss a couple of stitches in each colour and have to go back and re-do them. However with the 10x10 blocks I can't be bothered with re-threading my needle everytime I change colour again, which is going to be a lot in a confetti area, and I'll probably just end up tangling my threads anyway.

In other news, if the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain ever tour anywhere near you, go and see them, they are absolutely brilliant. We saw them on Wednesday and they're sickeningly talented and really funny!

First TUSAL of July

You can see some gold fuzz this month because of my little falling out with Winters Majesty, but I've also managed to get some greens and browns from Dragon Rider in there as well, all in all, despite this week not being particularly awe inspiring, it's not been a bad stitching month all round