A surprisingly productive week

As the title says, I've had a surprisingly productive week (and a strange inability to spell productive this morning, I've had to correct every time I've typed it). First up is Tale of the Red Swans by Aimee Stewart, and this is actually my target for the year achieved, which is a little disappointing, because it means that I've now put this away to work on something else. This is four partial pages, which I'm claiming adds up to roughly one page. Unfortunately is doesn't look like much yet, but you can just see the beginning on the clouds in the top right, and also the tiny beginning of what I'm assuming will be a fish on the 'top' left. 

Secondly I've finally finished the third page of Pride and Prejudice. This is a lovely design, but most of this page has been cream. I like one colour stitching and it's been perfect to take to craft group where I don't really have to concentrate on, but I just seem to have been working on it for ages. I suddenly realised last craft group that the patch of white was finally getting smaller and so when for a final push this week to get it finished! 

And finally Heather by Hannah Lynn has returned to the frame, finally! I love working on this and have rather missed her. I've set myself a target of another row on this this year, and the page that I'm on this week, which seeing how quickly she normally stitches up (one of my few tent stitch pieces) I think should be totally achievable, so much so that I've got it into my head that I want to add one little accent of colour, just one strand of her hair or the hair ornament as well. Anyway, we'll see how I get on. I'm off this week with nothing major planned so I've set myself some (by my standards) fairly ambitious stitching targets. With any luck I'll have another productive post to make last week to show for it!

Pride and Prejudice reappears

Finally, an update, I've been very bad with my updates recently!

I took Pride and Prejudice on holiday with me so I actually managed to do some work on it! The rest of this page is cream, so it's easy stitching to finish this page now!

In other news it was my birthday yesterday (the big 30, sigh) and one of my friends got married on Saturday, so it's been a busy weekend. One of my presents from Ben was a pair of bamboo needles, so impressed bless him! Also a gorgeous bag, a framed print, latest Studio Ghibli (he knows me so well - I'm slowly collecting them all, this gets me up to 4) and Folio Society of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, it's like he's lived with me for 5 years or something! Then I went shopping and bought the shoes that went with the bag - Irregular choice, so dangerous. And a cloth bound edition of the Once and Future King... all in all a fantastic weekend and I'm now skint!

Computer working update - picture heavy

Picture update now that I've finally got a working computer again (although it doesn't seem to be liking blogger for some reason)!

First I have Heather, next page finished, and now put away for a while so that I can work on some other, much ignore projects! She sure does have a lot of hair, although she also has goggles now, which is very exciting to see. I've now got one and one partial page to finish the row, so I'm pretty comfortable that I'll achieve this New Year Target

Lancelot & Guinevere hasn't had any attention for far too long, probably the best part of a year, I've also decided that, as it only has 50 colours so I'm using it for another attempt at parking, and the top row has now been completed! I've really enjoyed it, as it's so long since I've worked on this it has novelty value, and I'll get the beginning of Lancelot & Guinevere on this page, which is exciting!

 I've managed to complete the second page of Pride and Prejudice, which I'm really happy with. I always fall back in love with this when I'm working on it, it stitches up so nicely and so quickly!

And finally, because I've decided that I'm not going to finish Chakra Fae (I just wasn't enjoying it, and didn't like the way it looked, so I took the hint) I've got a new start, Snowdrop Fairy by Joan Elliott, I've been promising myself a Joan Elliott start for ages, so I finally have... not much to show, I know, but isn't the fabric gorgeous? It's Lady of the Lake for Steph's Fabby from a RAK event at Christmas, and it's great!

 

Pride and Prejudice

Not much to show I'm afraid, I haven't had much time to stitch since posting my IHSW pic. Hope everyone else has had a more successful week!

February IHSW

My update for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, not as much as I was hoping for, but not a bad showing all the same. I've only worked on one colour this weekend (my stitching is rather monochrome at the moment, I think whatever I choose next, I'll have to make sure that it has some colour in it), but there's quite a lot of that colour, I've still not quite finished down the right hand side. I hope everyone else had a lovely IHSW and I look forward to seeing all your progress over the next couple of days.

Pre IHSW update

Pre-International Hermit and Stitch Weekend progress update. Firstly, I managed to finish the second page of black on Heather last weekend. I'm starting to think that my six page target on this might not be as overly ambitious as I originally thought. I do love working on the black on Hannah Lynn's, they're so easy to stitch and stitch up so quickly, especially as this is tented, making it even faster than usual.

 

This is what I'm going to be working on this weekend. I'm just starting to see this page take shape rather than it being a random brown shmush. To be honest, this page is mostly hair, so there isn't really much to see anyway (hmmm, bit of a theme here, today I have mostly been posting about hair). Ben's reading over my shoulder as I type this and has just asked "So, does that mean it's International Hermit and Stitch Weekend this weekend?" When I said it was he replied that "It's also FA Cup Weekend." So it looks like we're both going to get to do what we want this weekend. Happy stitching all, I look forward to seeing your IHSW progress in the week.

Pride and Prejudice has returned!

I've started the second page of Pride and Prejudice and I love it, there's only 2 colours in and you can already see his head taking shape! (Okay, I know it's still a bit of a shmush, but humour me).

It's such a lovely project to work on, but I have an admission to make, I've been distracted by another project (yeah, like I needed another start). I started it this week but don't have much to show yet, so I'm going to wait to post an update. It's International Hermit and Stitch this weekend, so I'm hoping that I'll have a bit more to show and will be able to unveil my exciting new start on Monday!

Happy stitching all

I finally finished the page

I finally finished the first page of Pride and Prejudice, and I love that it's finished becuase it makes such a difference, and has really bought the page together. I actually finished this while watching Persuasion, so not quite right, but it was close. I do love how this is turning out actually, it'll look great once it's finished! I can see the beginning of his eye now, and that's her forehead at the bottom. It seemed to take me quite a while to do the easy stitching on this page, but I love the outcome so it's all good.

Secondly, an update on the Passione Ricamo SAL, there's not a massive difference since my last post, I've basically done some more blue! The advantage is that the blue is very easy stitching, and I should get the rest of the blue finished today (if I dont' I'll be seriously worried about my stitching speed). It's International Hermit and Stitch weekend this weekend, and Ben's away, so I'm planning on having a proper hermit and stitch. I want to finish this page (including the start of the wing on the right, which'll probably stray into the next page as well), and then planning on moving back to Dragon Rider who has been long neglected and feeling unloved.

It's been a long week so I've been really looking forward to this weekend. It's been my first proper week in my second job this week, so that's been three evenings working to 10, then we went to see Jack Dee in York after Ben's parents bought us tickets, then it was Harrogate Craftwork Group on Thursday, where we all (I hope) had a lovely night gossiping and crafting, and Sandra kindly offered to jab me with her needle everytime I dozed off, which is how I was feeling by that point. So a weekend of napping, dvds and stitching is in order I think. Along with Merlin and Stirctly Come Dancing of course... Ooh, I did a bad thing. I bought another kit from Serenity Designs. I've been umming and ahhing over another kit from Serenity Designs the last few weeks, and I got some money from my folks for my birthday, so I ordered the Merlin kit, and I'm so tempted to start it during Merlin tonight, but I really don't need another start. I've also ordered some beautiful fabrics from Polstitches from the same generous family given money, so I'll post of photos of those when I get them. Jo's away at the moment at a craft fair so she won't be able to post until Tuesday ish, but I'm already stalking the postman because I want to get my beautiful fabrics, I know he won't have them yet, I'm just getting some practice in.

So near and yet so far

I've been saying that I'm going to finish this page for hte last couple of weeks, so hopefully I'll actually manage it this week, it's this pesky second job that's the problem, it's eating away at my stitching time. Hopefully you can now see a bit more of what it actually is, I know my last couple of posts on this have been a bit of a brown shmush but I'm now absolutely determined that I can see what it is, and I've put a picture up in the right bar of what the finished picture will look like, so that might help you to identify it.

Thank you by the way, for all the birthday wishes last week. I had a fabulous in Bath, where Ben took me, we went to the Jane Austen Centre, and did a walking tour of Bath which pointed out all the Jane Austen landmarks, we ate far too much and I was thoroughly spoiled, had a brillant time!

Not quite a page finish

I was hoping to have a page finish to show this week, but it hasn't quite happened. However I am nearly finished, a decent stitching time this weekend and I'll get this page done. There's no counting involved on this page, the back ground is one colour and the remainder of the hair is another, so it's mindless. I got loads done last night as Ben and I have a bit of a film sesh... RED (Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman) which I loved, it was action, silly and cheesy but very enjoyable, the Two Towers, which I love anyway, it's a good stitching film. So hopefully I'll get this page finished tomorrow.
I've got loads of pages that I'm half way through so I'm trying to get some stitching tidying up done at the moment. Ben's away for International Hermit and Stitch in a couple of weeks so I'm planning on really hermitting and stitching that weekend, I want to get loads done.

It's my birthday next weekend, so my progress may be a little late next week as Ben's taking me for a Jane Austen weekend in Bath, so excited! I'm debating getting some pretty Polstitches fabric for my birthday. I've been day dreaming on their site and over Joan Elliott's patterns for ages so I think that it might be time to take the leap and do both at once (although I really ought to finish something else first, but I'm not guaranteeing that that'll happen!)

My first Pride and Prejudice post

You may remember that I couple of weeks ago I posted about a lovely kit that I'd bought from the lovely Anna at Serentiy Designs, well here's my first progress pic. I'm loving working on it, it's a lovely easy stitch, the shading looks lovely and it seems to stitch up really quickly. I haven't spent much time on this and I seem to have managed a chunk of progress already, and that's including the fact that I'm an idiot and missed out a row of stitches then had to frog loads. I know it doesn't look like all that much just yet, but I can already see what's it is and what it's going to turn into, and that makes me happy! If you're not sure by the way, this is the top of Darcy's face and his hair!

Also, as I've admitted before, I'm really struggling to put Clara down for any period of time, so of course there's yet another update to show for her as well. I've not reached the far right side which is great, because it means that I know how big she's going to be, and I'm still completely in love with her.