My first (and probably last) finish of the year!

It's finished! Yay, I got a finish in 2011, I was starting to think that that wasn't going to happen! And it is, almost certainly going to be my only finish of the year, so I'd better make the most of it!

I finished the Dictionary of Tea, and this makes me very happy. Now I have to contact the friend in quesiton and get her to come and collect her present for one of her friends as this was (technically) a commission piece!

I loved working on this, Bothy charts are such beautifully easy charts to stitch, it's all whole stitches and it's the easiest back stitch that I have ever done. And it really makes the pictures pop out where they didn't really look like much without it. Also, love the fact that you actually get 10 little projects or finishes when you do the Dictionaries.

So, this finished, next project sorted and about to be started. We have friends who are due to have a little dude in January so I'm doing a Maria Diaz chart which I think is called 'Little Angel' but I seem to have thrown away the page that had the title on it, so I wouldn't swear to it.

A saucy little pot

Here it is, the penultimate teapot, only one more to go. And it has to be said that I rather like this one. I saved my two favourites till last (as is often the case with my stitching, I think I've had this rant before - start with the boring bits/the back ground and it helps to stop me from losing interest because I've still got the best bits/the central focus to look forward to!) so here's my second favourite tea stitched, and I've only got my favourite one left to do. My plan is that by this time next week it'll all be finished and I'll be able to call the friend who asked me to do this in the first place to tell her that's it's all finished and she can give it to the friend that she bought it for a few years back. And in turn I can start on the birth sampler that is beginning to stare accusingly at me whenever I go anywhere near it.

I have really enjoyed working on this kit, it's the first time I've done a Bothy Threads and it's been most enjoyable. I'll probably do a little review of the kit etc next week when I post my finished picture of it... I will finish it by next weekend, if I have to stay up until all hours to do so... and I've just realised that this is a rather foolish promise as I'm busy next weekend and pretty busy this week. But I want it to be finished so one way or another this will be achieved.

And in other news... why would Michele have another sale on the HAED site, it's good for neither my will power or my bank balance. I ended up with another 3, Raven's Treasure by Meredith Dillman, Rapunzel by Linda Ravenscroft (she looks so grumpy and yet I still love it for some reason) and QS Genevive by Hannah Disney... they're all charts that are on my bucket list at least. And I was thinking about it the other day, cross stitch (even taking into account the seriously addictive nature of stashing), is quite a cheap hobby really. Yes it can be a bit of a painful outlay when you first buy the kit or kit up your chosen chart, but think how long that then lasts you. If you worked it out at cost per hour I'd be surprised if it was even close to a £1 per hour, it's probably only a matter of pence per hours fun and enjoyment, in which case, pretty cheap hobby, especially when I consider that a couple of hours at the cinema is £10, an hour at Zumba is £4, an hours badminton £12 and a couple of hours at the theatre £15. And just think, once you've made the initial outlay your hobby is then free for the period of that kit/chart! See, suddenly that few pence per hour on your stitching, not so bad. Check it out, justified out stitching addicition (and even the stashing to a certain degree) in one simple paragraph

After a gap - a new tea pot

I've been quite for a week. We've been on holiday and got back and some unnatural hour in the morning on Sunday morning, so that's why I haven't been commenting etc!

Here's the latest teaapot, and I'm not sure that I like it as much as the others, I don't quite like the writing on it for some reason, it looks oddly uneaven, and that's after I altered it slightly. It's improved a little from how it looks on the chart, but still doesn't quite look right to me somehow. Only two teas left!

I'm just in the process on catching up on everyones blogs for the last week, but I don't know how well I'll do, so I apologise if I don't manage to comment on all the blogs like I normally do.

Calami-tea

Another tea pot has been completed, and it looks pretty cool, even if I do say so myself, and there are only another three left, so I'm so close to finish on this, which my friend will be very grateful for, because it'll mean that she can get it framed up (should I be generous and offer to do it for her?) and give it to her friend, as it's always been intended for! About another three weeks worth left on this, but I'm going to put it away for a couple of weeks now, as the call of Dragon Rider has just been too strong.

I packed this up when I finished the back stitch last night and got Dragon Rider out and thought, 'Well, I might as well just decide which colour I'm going to do next... Well, I might as well thread the needle up so it's ready for me to start tomorrow... Well, I might as well do a couple of stitches, just to attach the cotton... Well, I might as well do this little block here... Well, I might as well do that block there now that I've decided which way round I'm going to go..." and so on, you know how it is. I'd pakced Dictionary up because I was going to go to bed, and then I lost another half an hour to Dragon Rider, ah well! So, two weeks on this, including International Hermit and Stitch Weekend next weekend, where Ben's away so I really am going to hermit and stitch, hoping to get the second page finished, where I think I'm a little under half way at the moment, it's possibly a little ambitious, but it'll be fun!

Oh yeah, and I'm about to go back and edit my Bucket List (again) and add yet another 4 on, I think that puts me over 60... it's looking less and less likely like I'm going to finish this list, because I just keep adding to it.

And on that note I think it's time to set some mid-year targets... I've just looked at my new year targets and I'm basically gonig to throw that out of the window.
1. Another page of Lance and Gwen
2. Finish the page I'm on and do the half page below on Dragon Rider
3. Next two pages of Winter's Majesty (that might be ambitious)
4. Finish Dictionary of Tea (easy)
5. Birth sampler for friends. (it's picked, but I need to finish Tea to free up the frame, and to make sure I've got all my threads)
I think it's mostly do-able, but Winter's Majesty might be my down fall as I'm a bit on off with her at the moment.

Check out the monster post... right, I'm off to decide what to spend this months audible credit on!

Wish me luck (in all of it)! Happy stitching!

Kim x

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!

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!

A Choice of Teas

We now have a choice of teas and I'm a little under a third of the way through, with 6 teas to do and a title!

I'm quite enjoying this one, it's like working on lots of little projects, so I'm getting lots of little finishes, which is fun and gives me a sense of achievement on a regular basis.

Considering just how much I hate doing back stitch (and don't we all!) I'm actually pottering along quite nicely with this one, I've never done a Bothy kit before but it's quite nice,e asy back stitch, not ending up randomly in the middle of stitches or anything like that, which is what I always dislike about backstitch, a stitch rarely goes across more than three stitches at once. The most fiddly to date has been oddity for back stitch, although it looks brilliant now that it's finished!

More tea on display

Just a quick update this week, I haven't really done much stitching, and what I did do was last weekend. I'm onto the second tea picture, this one is frui-tea, but as you can see, it doesn't really look like it yet. Its just been a busy week one way or another, and I haven't had much time.

I did get to the launch party of a new musical though, which was really good, got to hear a couple of the songs.

I think I've got a couple of localish followers so, if anyone lives near Harrogate, keep an eye out for 'Boiling Frog' It's running 14th to the 16th July at Harrogate theatre and looks as though it's going to be fab, so head on over if you're in the area.

Multiple updates

Good afternoon, I know that I'm a little late on my update this week, but this is due to the fact that I've been out with some college friends this afternoon (haven't seen them it years, it was brilliant).

A couple of weeks ago I inherited a kit from a friend. She bought A Dictionary of Tea a couple of years ago intending to stitch it for a friend's birthday present, did a little bit of stitching on it when she first got it and hasn't touched it since, so a couple of weeks ago she asked me how I'd feel about taking it on for her and seeing if I could achieve more than she had.

So, Ben was away last weekend and I decided to spend some of my time working on this, as she'd requested. I haven't done yet, but I've managed to complete the first square, seeing as it wasn't my main project for the weekend I'm actually quite proud of how much I did manage to get done. It's about 10% done, so that's not bad for a start, and apparently she's quite happy with the progress so far.

However, as I say, that wasn't my main project last week, in stead it was Dragon Rider, and I'm also quite happy because I managed to get all the confetti done on my first page of Dragon Rider, and all I've got to do is finish all the black now.

I was actually quite disappointed with it because it really wasn't looking like much, but I'm looking at the photo as I type this and I'm starting to see the picture appear. If you're not sure what the blue, black and green smush you're looking at is, allow me to explain. It's the light shining through the trees, you can just about make out branches and stuff appearing, and the sky is pretty self explanatory. There's also a little brown splodge to the top right of the photo, that will be the beginning of the dragon's wing so, woohoo, the dragon has appeared in the stitching.