Mouhaha!

I did it! I did it! I finished the page!

She's suddenly come together this week, and is actually starting to look like something rather than just being a shmush! I can see arms and hands, and even more excitingly, there's the beginning of a neck and face. So yay, very happy!

So, what to work on next...

Long weekend for us Brits, 4 day weekend for the Jubilee, but I don't think that I'm going to get much stitching done. My dad's been organising a festival this weekend, so we're helping them out, probbly fairly long days. Although Shirl's said that she might be able to help me with my crochet if we've got some quiet time, which when thus far I've only mastered chain stitch, will be very helpful!

Happy Stitching!

Slowly but surely

I've been a very remiss blogger and stitcher this week. I have done some, and I can see the difference, but I'm willing to accept that if your nose isn't 4 inches from it you might not be able to. It's been a bit of a busy week (and especially weekend), and I've been trying to learn to crochet after the girls at Harrogate Craftwork Group inspired me, but so far I've only mastered chain stitch, via the use of books and youtube, in my defence I think left handedness is counting against my a bit... and I'm trying to make sure I can do a halfway decent chain until I move on to the next stitch. That's my excuse anyway!

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend

Once again, there really is a difference, you can see it a bit more now than you could on Saturday. Unfortunately some of the stitching is almost exactly the same colour as the fabric, so you can't really see it. Hope everyone else had a productive weekend!

Another tiny update

Well, you know what I'm like with Winter's Majesty, it takes me a lot of work to actually get anywhere with it. I honestly have worked on it this week, although not all that much. It was our craftwork group on Thursday, so I tend to take something a bit more portable with me for that, and I just don't seem to have had much time for stitching this week, although I don't have a decent excuse for it. However, it's International Hermit and Stitch this weekend, so I'm hoping to actually make a dent into it this weekend.

And on an unrelated note, Gizzimomo has made another gorgeous finish. I'm quite envious of her stitching, so I thought I'd send everyone else there to make you all a little green as well. She's an incredibly fast stitcher (although she does always insist that it's just that she has the time to stitch), so while I'm labouring through this page at the moment, I'm especially jealous!

Tiny Winter's Majesty

Just a little update this week, because I was working on QS Clara up until Monday (yes, it was Clara, well done those who guessed. I'll put a picture of her up in my WIP pictures as well!

So, here is my update, it's basically just a little bit of blue filling in, but because it was filling in, it looks like more than it actually was.

In other news, how do you change your settings so that you get your comments via email? I've got it set up on this blog, so I must have worked out how to do it, but it's not set up on the Harrogate Craftwork Group blog, and I've just been in and can't remember how to do it.

Thanks

Happy Stitching!

A Multiple Update - shock horror

I've got a selection of updates this week... the odd thing is, I'd say that I actually haven't done much stitching this week, because I hurt my neck at the beginning of the week (thank goodness for living with a chiropractor), and so I couldn't stitch for a couple of days, because I couldn't bend my neck. So suprisingly I've got a lot more progress  to show than I thought I would. First up is Winter's Majesty, which is the latest rotation piece, started after I put Chakra Fae away last weekend. I've only put a couple of colours in, but it seems to have made loads of difference. And there are no white flowers on this page (woohoo!) so there's a chance that I might actually enjoy this page rather than threatening to throw it across the room, although it's still quite half stitch heavy. But after injuring myself I had to put this away for a few days as I just couldn't work with the huge frame balanced on my knees like I normally do.

Secondly, Come to the Dark Side, which I think might be the most popular thing that I've ever worked on. As I've mentioned in the past, he doesn't get much love (and even less update posts), because he lives under my desk at work for rainy lunches but I bought him home last night so I could do the colours that only had half a dozen stitches (cos I didn't want to take those to work for just a few stitches). I do love him. Don't think it'll take much more now, it's only the greys on Vader and the moon, then the blue border, but it depends on how many rainy lunch breaks I have in the next few weeks.

And finally, because I couldn't work on my projects on big frames, and because Vader had been left under my desk at work, I needed something a bit smaller to work on in the mean time. I haven't done much, because even then I couldn't stitch for long (this week has been absolute hell for me... I didn't realise how much time I spent stitching in the evening... I've spent a lot of time playing Castleville on facebook this week), so it's only a tiny update. Can anyone guess what it is? If anyone does I'll be absolutely stunned. I'll give you a clue, she's a HAED! This will be my new travelling pattern once Vader is finished, and so will possibly be living under my desk at work and will defintely be going to craft group with me.

Winter's Majesty's a little closer

Another page finish for Winter's Majesty. I'm only doing little pages on this because I get frustrated with it quite quickly, and I don't want to fall out with it again. I'm going to wait until I do the next page across before I do the backstitch, and I'm really surprised by how fast this page seems to have stitched up, not that I'm complaining. With it stitching so fast (Okay, so it was already partially done), I'm starting to realise that I might actually finish this one day, which I was beginning to suspect wouldn't happen. I suspect that more than I do about my HAEDs.

I'm loving the new rotation system of a page at a time, I'm seeing progress much more quickly. I can't imagine that I'd have finished three pages already this year if I was still working on my week by week rotation, I just feel more productive this week.

Tiny Little Update

I don't have much of an update this week, due to it being a busy week, I've been out a couple of times, then tired because the out has involved late nights, and I'm only any good at late nights if I can have the late morning the next day to make up for it, thus why I shouldn't go out on a school night. I'm hoping to the this page (half of the vaguel stitched area) finished this week, because I've got it in to my head that I want to be working on Dragon Rider when Ben's away at a conference next weekend. I've got a couple of nights in, plus not much on this weekend, so I'm hoping that it's possible.

For those that are wondering by the way, the yellow/mustard is new, as are the snowflakes. If I don't tell you, you're really going to struggle to notice it.

And who else crumbled like a digestive in hot tea at the latest HAED sale? Four! I really wasn't intending for that to happen. I bought three, then Michele bought another one out that day that I just had to have. Thankfully it was a QS, so it only cost about £3.

So Many Books, So Little Time

Jinxed

QS Clara

Charka Fae

I've also joined the SAL on Facebook for Chakra Fae, but they've currently agreed to let me stitch vicariously through them, because I can't start another one yet.

Happy Stitching!

Return of Winter's Majesty

She's back. Although I haven't done much on her, as I only picked her up again on Thursday evening after posting my Dragon Rider post. However the rugby is on today, so I'm hopnig I can get plenty done while Ben's watching that. Especially as I've got a couple of nights out this week, so I don't know how much time I'm actually going to get this week, so it's today or not much I think.

By the way, the word verification on blogger now are awful. After getting very confused trying to work out how to turn it off, I've come to the conclusion that I actually never turned it on in the first place. So, please. If you leave a comment and it insists on word verification, could you let me know, and I'll have another go at turning it off.

Filling in some blue

I'm a bit late posting this week. I somehow ended up covering for one of Ben's receptionists when she couldn't make it into work this morning. Gulible? Moi? I guess I must just be a loving girlfriend.

I've managed to make a fair bit of progress though, there are who sections that I practically filled in now. Although there are also whole sections that don't actually have any stitches done. But, as predicted with the end of the evil little flowers, my love of this piece has returned, and I am rather enjoying seeing the shape of her actually appearing now.

And now, for International Hermit and Stitch weekend and the following week I'm back on to Little Angel, which contains a lot of cream. I've just had to go and buy a second skein!

Nearly finished the flowers!

I know, it actually doesn't look like much, but this is a big step for me, I've nearly finished the evil flowers on this section, which means that my love of this piece has returned, because that's the bit that I really don't like working on. You can almost see this page taking shape, so it's a start!

I actually want to make a bit of an apology today. I'm not commenting on people's blogs at the moment. My computer is going through a bit of a tempremental phase (I think it's telling me that it's going to break soon - must remember to back everythin up!) whenever I try to open a second page then it keeps freezing my computer, so I am reading most people's blogs I think, but I'm always worrying that clicking another link to comment will be the one that causes the freeze! I'm debating gettin a tablet for internet browsing, but I'm undecided at the moment, so generally I'm just potterin along.

Also, I may go a bit quiet through out November. I've signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writin Month), which means that I'm meant to try and write 50 000 words in November. To be honest, I'm not convinced that I can see it happening. But if by some fluke it does, if I disappear, that's why!

Return of the Evil Flowers - The Evil Flowers Strike Back

For some reason that I can't quite fathom the colours haven't come out on this quite as well as I would have liked, but then I also didn't get as much stitching done on this as I would have liked, so perhaps it's just one of those weeks!

You can see the beginning of the next set of evil little flowers (hence the title) down the right hand side, and that's mostly what I've been working on this week, along with a little bit of the fur trim on her cloak.

International Hermit and Stitch again this weekend (it seems to have come round really fast this month. Is everyone joining in? I've got a few plans for today but hopefully that will also involve some stitching time, and I haven't got much planned for tomorrow yet, so hopefully so progress will be achieved. Dragon Rider is coming out again, I've only got half a page left to finish the first column, so I'm keen to work on that and try and achieve it, start to give me an idea of the size of a completed HAED. Unfortunately the latest Terry Pratchett novel also arrived today, so there's a chance that I'm going to get distracted from my stitching by that.

In other news it was my birthday on Thursday so I had a day off, and Ben took me out to lunch (local pub/restaurant called the Pine Marten, really nice), and we went to see the Three Musketeers in the evening at the cinema. I'm getting behind in my reviews, but I might try and get round to posting a review of that this weekend when I want a break for squinting at 25 count. And what did I get for my birthday? Ben got me a purple ukulele! It currently sounds like I'm torturing cute furry animals when I try to play it, but I'm going to try and play it (well practice chords at the moment) a little each day until it stops sounding like the torture of cute furry animals, and starts sounding like something that vaguely resembles music.

Have a fun weekend all, and enjoy the stitchathon if you're joining in!

Winter's Majesty Lives!

Winter's Majesty has returned, and while I enjoyed working on her I got bored quite quickly, so I think it might be a long time before I manage to finish it! But there's quite a difference (I think anway). I've done all the back stitch on the bottom third (but most of it's gold, so it doesn't photograph very well. And you can see shapes beginning to take place on the page above. the blue/grey is the beginning of her elbows, and the red to the right shows the beginning of the shape of her shoulders. She's gone away again already, but I'll come back to her soon I'm sure. I go in fits and starts on this, so I'm sure I'll have another fit on her soon enough!

A Moment of Indecision on Winter's Majesty

I had a moment of indecision about my stitching this week, as the title suggests. I started stitching on the third page this week, then decided that I really ought to do some of the back stitch instead because the idea of doing all the back stitch for this at once is just wholey depressing!

So, you can see the red smuch where I started on the third page, when you can't really see where I've started doing the back stitch on the bottom right page. I looked at the chart and though 'ooh, actually, that back stitch doesn't look too difficult, I was expecting it to me much more complicated', what I didn't notice was that a lot of it's in metallic gold :-( It's not fun! Then I fell out with it, because the chart says you should use two strands of the gold, so I started doing that, and decided that it looked far too bling and was far too difficult to stitch, it was shreading my stitching and shreading the gold thread as well so I unpicked that (that was fun) and re-did it with one strand. But I'm now trying to work  out whether I've done it in 1 strand or two because each strand is made of two strands and I'm basically very confused by it all and decided that I'm just going to do it my own way!

In other news, it's International Hermit and Stitch this weekend so let us know if you're joining in and have a happy stitching weekend. I'm back onto Dragon Rider this week for my hermitage, woohoo!

And finally, Bev has got annoyed with blogger and moved over Wordpress and to celebrate is having a giveaway so why not go and check out her new blog here and sign yourself up for her very generous giveaway.

IHSW and a page finish - woop!

I finished the page, and all the evil flowers (well, on this page at least, that's for that Joyze :-) ). Thank you for all your support and encouragement on the flowers, I got there eventually, and I've finished the page as well, which makes me very happy. It's odd, because when you look at this page, you can't really see much or what it is or is going to be, although, as is often the case when I (metaphorically) take a step backwards and see the photograph that I'm posting as opposed to the tiny little bit that I've been working on, I actually start to see the picture develop where I couldn't see it before. I can see her elbow, and that's the first time I've noticed that, despite the fact that that's actually on the page that I finished a few months ago. But this is the first time that I've looked at it as a whole instead of a stitch at a time.

Did you get involved in International Hermit and Stitch Weekend? I didn't do as much as I wanted, but a page finish will do me. What progress did you manage?

I hate the little flowers!

The title pretty much says it all! I hate the little blue and white flowers. I go in fits and starts on this piece, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it, and that generally coincides with whether I'm working on the horrible little flowers or not, and at the moment, I am, so I hate it!

To be fair, I haven't done much this week, I don't seem to have had much time in the last few weeks, so what little progress I have made was done in about an hour and a half last night, so not much at all really.

It's International Hermit and Stitch this weekend though, so hopefully I'll get some done, as I've done so little I'm going to give it a second week in the hope that I'll actually get some visible progress, in fact I'm hoping that I'll manage to get this page finished this week. If you want to sign up to Hermit and Stitch then pop on over to Joyze's blog to put your name down so people can see the progress that you've made!

International Hermit and Stitch progress

So, did everyone have a a fun International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. I didn't get as much time as I was hoping to, but then I've done more than I was expecting to so it's all worked out really.

I think I only managed to put in 3 or 4 hours altogether, but it seems to have really pulled this piece together, and suddenly it's looking like this page is nearly finished, I don't really know how that happened, but woohoo. There's only about 3 colours to go into this now. The centre of the red ribbons and the centre of the flowers and I'll be done, so can I get it done this week? Not sure, but I'll give it a shot.

I've loved all the progress that I've seen over people's work this weekend, and if I haven't seen yours yet, I'll make sure that I pop over and have a look soon

The tiniest update in the world

It's the smallest update that the world has ever seen, but I seem to have had no time for stitching in the last couple of weeks. This progress picture has an entire hours worth of work since the last picture, and that was done last night knowing that it was Saturday and due an update today, but it's something, and after a two week drought that was a good hour.

However, it's International Hermit and Stitch weekend this weekend so I'm hoping to get some done. Expecially after a conversation with Ben this morning.

Him: You know it's the match this afternoon (Man United & Man City)

Me: You know it's International Hermit and Stitch this weekend.

Him: Oh.

Also, we've got a couple of long weekends coming up, and Ben's going camping for one of them, so I'll probably hermit up and stitch as well. Especially as I'm inheriting a commission from a friend. About two years ago she excitedly told me how she's bought a kit that was perfect for her friend and she was going to make it for her. This week she admitted that she hadn't touched it since she told me about it, and would I consider doing it for her. And it's a Bothy, and I quite fancy trying a Bothy, so it's all good.

Have you all seen that HEAD has a sale on by the way, you can get 50% with the discount code, so yes, I caved, Lady of Avalon by Fenech has now been added to the 'to stitch' pile.

Happy stitching everyone, especially those of you who have joined International Hermit and Stitch weekend, I look forward to seeing everyone's progress.

Look, it's starting to fill in

I'm strangely chuffed with this weeks progress, despite the fact that I haven't actually got that much done, but what I have done has been little bits of gap filling and (to me at least) it's made a massive difference. I've now got a couple of areas that are completely solid stitch.

I'm progressing with this much faster than I did the last page, and much faster than I expected to, probably because the last page was SO slow and fiddly.

Haven't really been able to get much stitching done this week, there's been a fade in the mojo, however, I'm relatively sure that's it's a temporary lull that's simply because I've got a lot on at the moment. I've got the flat to myself today, so I'm thinking that it's time for a day of stitching, dvds and chocolate (whoop whoop) which should get my mojo back. Now, what to watch...

Happy stitching everyone.

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.