IHSW and a finish

Well, I had a productive International Hermit and Stitch weekend. Much to my surprise I managed to finish Little Snap Dragon, and I think he's rather sweet.

I've been working on him (on and off) for fifteen months, although there was a seven month gap in there, so I've actually only been working on it for about eight months.

I didn't enjoy it very much when I started, and I wasn't quite convinced with the shading, but in the last few weeks when I've been working on it the shading's all started to make sense and it seems to have stitched much faster, possibly because I was finally pulling everything together.

I've also promised Ben that I'll mention him in this post and how the fact that I finished it is partially down to him.

Having had quite a busy Saturday (his final family Christmas shopping, a two hour power cut which involved me trying to finish off a stitched Christmas card as part of his secret santa for his works do in the evening) on Sunday he glanced over my shoulder while I was looking at other blogs and noticed that it was International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. As such he declared that I wasn't allowed to help him with the chores that he had to do and that instead I had to stay home to do some Hermit and Stitching as the weekend declared. He also then agreed to watching Miracle on 34th Street while I stitched later on in the day. Which I thought was very sweet of him and meant that I got Little Snap Dragon finished around 10 o'clock yesterday evening.

I hope everyone else had an equally lovely and successful International Hermit and Stitch Weekend.

Now I'm debating what to put on the frame to replace him, I think I've decided that it's going to be the Fairy Tale Sampler and fabric that I bought a few weeks ago from the stitching fair, but mum's agreed that I can have these off her for Christmas (I couldn't really justify buying it), so I can't do anything with that for a week.

Happy stitching!

Another week... hopefully!

He's getting there, and I'm hoping that one more week (I've got next Friday off and currently nothing planned) will be long enough to get it finished!

He's got a a torso now (do dragons have torsos?), and he almost looks like he's attached to his wings now.

The flowers and stalks are all finished, so all that's left is the dragon himself, which is very exciting because it means that I can see it all coming together now.

Oh yeah, and it's International Hermit and Stitch weekend. I don't know how much time I'm going to get this weekend, but I'll give it a show.

Happy stitching!
Oh yeah, and I'm still useless with commenting (think I might have to cave in and get a new computer in the new year), but I'm going to make a concerted effort to comment on as many blogs as I can over Christmas and New Year, just to prove that I haven't forgotten anything.

The end is in sight

I've done two weeks on this and was going to put it away to work on something else, but when it's so close to being finished I haven't got the heart to put it away. So hopefully, in the next couple of weeks I should be able to show a final finish for the year.

I was planning to get a lot more done yesterday because I had a half day. Unfortunately I had the half day because I had my wisdom teeth out, so I spent more of yesterday feeling sorry for myself than I meant to, so I didn't manage to do quite as much stitching as I was hoping to, but I did a little bit, so that's better than nothing.

There's a definite dragon shape appearing here, but right now he doesn't quite seem to be attached to his wings, I'll have to work on that this weekend, so it looks like it's actually all the same thing. There's not much left to do, the last couple of colours to finish the stalks, half a flower above his snout and of course the rest of the dragon. End of the year? Yeah, no problem!

Little Snap Dragon is Growing

I can't believe how quickly this is stitching up. More to the point I can't believe how slowly I used to be working on this. I've only got a page and a half left to do and I'm done, and I've done three half pages this week. It's completely possible that I'll have this finished by Christmas. Why was it taking me so long to stitch this last time? Getting used to working on HAEDs has obviously done wonders for my stitching speed cos I'm suddenly so used to working on quite fiddlyh stitching. The only thing I'd say about this is I seem to be changing colour all the time, even more often than I feel I do with a HAED, don't know why that is.

Oh yeah, for HAED fans, have you seen Selina Fenech's three new pin up witches? I really hope they get charted, they're just lovely. Oh yeah, and I crumbled on the HAED sale again, I am a bad person!

Anyway, I better get my ass into gear and out of the house, I'm a volunteer usher at my local theatre and it's my first shift doing the Panto today, so I better get ready for that. Happy stitching everyone.

Oh yeah, and I apologise for not commenting much at the moment. I've complained about the vagaries of my computer in the past, so I won't go into that again, but I'm also having some problems with blogger that when I try to comment it tells me that I don't have permission. It's happening quite randomly, some days I can comment on one blog and not another and the next it's the other way round, so I apologise for not being more chatty, but chances are I've tried to comment and the computer's refused to let me!

Little Angel is FINISHED!

 Right then, a miracle has happened, I've managed a second finish in 2011, I really didn't think that that was going to happen. Here's Little Angel by Maria Diaz.

I've got mixed feelings about this one. It was quite an easy stitch, although I really did get sick of the sight of cream, as it felt like that was all I worked on for two or three weeks. It does look really effective now that it's finished, although I do have to say that it's really not to my taste, I've only stitched becuase it's a present for some friends who are due to have a day in new year! In fact Ben's even declared that the mum on this looks a bit like our mum to be, although I'm not as sure that I can see it. But it does make it look even more thoughtful than it actually is, so I'll go with it if that's what he thinks!

Of course, the fact that Little Angel is finished means that the frame is freed up and Little Snap Dragon can finally go back on to a frame and I can stop feeling guilty about the fact that I've been neglecting him for nearly an entire year! I love this piece, I settled down to work on it again last night and am back in love with him. It's such an easy stitch. I have a vague memory of thinking that was a bit confetti based when I was stitching it originally, but after working on a couple of HAEDs this is suddenly really simple to work on.

I was going to work on Dragon Rider this week, (Ben's away so I've got a day of stitching goodness ahead of me) but now that I've got Little Snap Dragon back I just want to keep working on it, I reckon I can get the wings page finished today, and hopefully the stalks on the bottom page as well if I put my mind to it and really work on it today (and this week of course, but it may be a busy week this week).

In other news, it's the knitting and stitching show in Harrogate today, and seeing as I live about 5 minutes walk from where it's being held I couldn't not go, so before my stitching marathon can start I'm going to see if I can test my will power and see if I'm capable of spending an hour or two in a room with that much stitching stuff and not buy anything... I suspect that I can't, but you never know, I could surprise myself.

If you squint, you can see wings

The more I look at it, the more I realise that this is quite a funny looking page, with the blank central page. You've got to really hope that I can count otherwise the centre page is going to be an absolute disaster when I do get to stitch it. But you can see my usual stitching style, do the most interesting page last (ie the bulk of the dragon), because it stops you from getting bored when you're coming to the end of a project.

I haven't managed to get much done this week, I've been out pretty much every evening this week, which hasn't really left much time for stitching, but at least I can see some progress and it doesn't feel like I haven't achieved anything at all. But I'll have to try harder this week, because I'll have to do more on Winter's Majesty to make it look like there's been actual progress. Wish me luck.

And finally, the giveaway - the winner is... Just Flo. If you want to drop me a message with your details I'll post the little package out to you.
On that subject, a few people asked where the scissors were from, it's a website called Anita's Little Stitches and she's got some gorgeous scissors.

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.

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.

Okay, so this is the final post of the day

I know, I said yesterday was going to be my last post of the year, but I came to a good stopping point so I thought I'd take the picture and put it up. I've finished the top row of Little Snap Dragon, and I can definitely see the dragon now, so I'm quite excited. The top row is now finished, with a little run down on the right hand side where I was finishing cottons off because I didn't want to cut them off when I didn't have to. So, in theory, I'm now a third of the way through little snap dragon and I'm very chuffed to see the little curled wings making an appearance.



Look, look, look, a dragon!

I have the hiccups! That's completely unrelated to anything that I'm about to write, but it's annoying me, so I thought that I'd share!

Another progress on Little Snap Dragon! I haven't done as much as I hoped to this week, just couldn't quite settle into it really. Was hoping to get this page finished this week, but that hasn't happened. However, I think the next time this gets a weeks worth of stitching I should finish the top row of pages, cos there isn't much to do on the third page.

Also, look look! The dragon is appearing, those two little lighter curls at the bottom right of the page are the beginning of his wings (I was half way through this page before I realised that) so I'm well chuffed to see him start appearing.

Ben's got a boys afternoon/night tonight so I get sole control of teh remote control, and hopefully the return of my stitching mojo, and I'll settle and get some done, possibly the return of Winter's Majesty!

Still no dragon I'm afraid

After two weeks of page finishes, this week is a page start instead, which I guess rather stands to reason.

I used practically every light in the house in an attempt to stop the flash going off and bleacing the colours, but it still decided that it needed the flash and so looks a little washed out. And why don't I just turn the flash off I hear you ask? Because, for some reason that I have yet to fathom, when I turn the flash off, it all turns my anti shake off. If anyone knows how to make it stop doing that please do let me know.

We're away this weekend, which is why I'm posting my weekly update practically part way through the week. It's Ben's cousin's birthday so we're heading off to Centre Parks for the weekend. I'm a little intimidated if I'm honest, there's a lot of Ben's family, and I find myself turning into the quite one that hides in the corner and doesn't speak when I'm around them. Plus it's going to be a very sporty, active weekend, which I'm not really. So, if I survive, I'll be posting noxt week.

Update on Little Snap Dragon

I've had a very productive evening, but that doesn't make for very good update pictures. So far I've stretched a piece of stitching ready for putting in the frame, just as soon as I find where my gummer tape has gone... or failing that gone shopping on lunch tomorrow... what do people usually use to stick their stretched piece to their mount board? I couldn't do the mount board to size and just slot it in, as the fabric in the kit wasn't big enough.

I've also mended a pair of trousers and put a button back on a jacket, so it's all been very productive!

But I do also have a stitching update, as you can see, this is the first page of Little Snap Dragon done, 1st of 9 and think, and not all of them are full pages, so its quite a big percentage of it done it quite a small period of time, by my standards anyway.

Not getting to get much stitching done again this week, but I'll try and put an update up at the end of the week.

Little Snap Dragon is Growing

Well, technically the dragon isn't growing, because I haven't started stitching him yet, but the flowers are growing, and I'm loving how fast this is coming along, even my other half has just looked at this in surprise and gone 'that's really going'. I think it's starting to look like something now, although that's possibly because I know what it's going to look like, so I know what I'm looking for.

I had quite a productive week actually, I like it when I'm at the end of the week (okay, so it's Saturday, but I don't know what chance I'm going to get to post) and I can see a definite difference between when I lasted posed a picture.

Talking about not being sure of time, I'm quite excited, we're going to see Les Miserables tomorrow night. Our local cinema is one of the ones involved in the Live Theatre projects so theatre performances are broadcast live to the cinema, and the 25th Anniversary edition of Les Miserables at the O2 is being shown on Sunday so myself, Ben and his mum and dad are going to see that, which should be good.

I'm actually feeling a bit guilty, I've been looking at my writing in the last couple of days and thinking that I ought to give some time to my writing instead of my stitching, it's difficult, I love both and whenever I'm doing one I fell guilty for neglecting the other. I did contemplate assigning days to one or the other, but I think that that'll back fire because if it's a day when I'm just not in the mood I won't achieve anything anyway. Anyone got any suggestions?

A shiny new start

A shiny new start, which makes me very excited, but does mean that I am, once again, posting pictures that don't really look like anything.

It also means that I've got three projects on the go at the moment, two of which I'm still on the first page of, and all three of which still don't really look like anything. Although I think this is currently the prize winner for not looking like anything.

He will be Little Snap Dragon, who will be very cute when he's finished, it's a really nice pattern, that I fell in love with and bought on impulse a couple of years ago, I've cut the material a little small, it's big enough for the picture, but I haven't left much of a border, so I don't know what I'll do with it when it's done, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!

Hello to my new followers by the way. You can tell that I'm still quite new to blogging, I still get excited when I get new followers!