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

I Stitch therefore I am

Do you ever feel like that, that you spend far too much time thinking about or working on your stitching, or is that just me!

I'm pretty proud of my progress this week actually, having moaned at the weekend that I hadn't achieved much during International Hermit and Stitch Weekend I then had quite a productive week. I had a day off during the week and apart from a couple appointments had nothing that I had to do, so I got stuck into my stitching, and it's actually starting to look like something, which makes me very happy. There's definite tree development, it's a lovely twisty oak tree and you can see the trunk taking shape now. And you can also see, which I'm much more excited about, the start of the castle in the background. To be fair, if you don't know what you're looking for you probably wouldn't spot them, but I do and yay! For those that aren't sure, the red smushes to the right are the turrets of the castle and you can see the beginning of the grey stone work, although I only started that colour last night, so there isn't much of that yet.

As is always the case, I've spent a week on this and got completely addicted to it again, so it's going to get a second week. I'm going to have to get back to Lancelot & Guinevere eventually (and I will, I haven't fallen out with it) but at the moment I'm indulging my addiction to Dragon Rider.

In other news, do you ever get really surprised when you see yourself mentioned in someone elses blog? I see people mention each other all the time, recommending sites or showing off the work of their friends etc, and I've mentioned other blogs in the past for no other reason than what they're working on is pretty and I want other people to see it, but I get strangely surprised and really excited and flattered when someone mentions me, especially if it's completely out of the blue. As you may have guessed from my ramblings (there's a reason why my blog was originally called Random Ramblings) I had that happen this week by the lovely Norwegianstitch so I'm going to return the favour and give her a mention. She's got some really cute kits at the moment!

And while I'm talking about random referrals, I'm going to give another one, have you ever checked out The Manbroiderer's blog? He does some absolutely gorgeous stitching and so fast as well, definitely worth a visit. Perhaps I ought to start doing a blog of the month, this month I have mostly be following... And Fast Show fans out there here the voice when they read that?

Anyway, after quite a long and rambly blog, have a lovely week, I'm enjoying seeing everyones progress, I'm actually feeling a bit guilty because I discovered you're only allowed to follow 300 blogs so I had to delete a few no longer used blogs from my list before I could add some new ones. Anyway, happy stitching!

Dragon Rider and IHASW

Another International Hermit and Stitch Weekend has been and gone, and unfortunately I didn't manage to get much done. One way or another it was a busy weekend so I didn't get much of a chance to. You can see a small smush which, I believe, it going to be a tree trunk, so at least I know what I'm stitching! I try to start these pages with a colour that's relatively spread across the page so I've then got something to count against when I'm adding more colours in. I know it doesn't really look like it at the moment, but this is actually two different colours, although there isn't much of the second colour in there now.

Did everyone who joined in have a good International Hermit and Stitch weekend? I've seen loads of progress so far and I hope left comments for everyone that has posted (if I've missed you I'm really sorry), and everyone has made me feel quite ashamed of my tiny amount of progress.

Having said that, I'm off to do some stitching now, have fun all!

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.

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!

Can you guess what it is yet?

Another page finish, woohoo! And once again, I'm seeing the picture more than I can when I'm actually working on the stitching so, here we see the moonlight shinning through the trees, and a tiny little bit of dragon wing on the top right hand of the page - I'm all excited because there is definite dragon showing on this page, but I'm now going down rather than across so it's going to be ages before we see any more of the dragon!

This page has taken me about (and this is quite approximate) 42 hours (5 more than Lance & Gwen because it's been so much more confetti - and I had to frog one colour three times), which is a bit scary, because it makes me realise how long this is going to take me to finish it. It's 21 pages, but only 12 of those are full pages, at a rough estimate that means that I've got a little under 700 hours to go. Not even vaguely scary!

I've had a little flurry of page finishes just recently, which means that it's now going to be absolutely ages before I get any page finishes at all! So I'm going to have to keep coming back to these posts, just to remind myself that tehy do happen!

I'm re-organising my rotation a bit, I've decided (for now at least) to have two focus pieces and they will be this (Dragon Rider) and Dictionary of Tea, due to the fact that these both have intended homes, whereas everything else I'm just stitching because I like them, hopefully one day they'll look nice or my wall. So the plan is a week on this, a week on DoT a week on Lance & Gwen, a week on this, a week on DoT and a week on Winter's Majesty, repeat adinfinitum (spelling? It looks weird!) until I either finish something or get bored and change my plans.

I haven't had much opportunity for commenting this week, due to a major falling out with my computer, so please be assured that I have be looking and that everyone's stitching looks incredible!

TUSAL of June

And while I'm on the subject, how is it June already? I seem to have mislaid 2011!

I don't think it's got much fuller this month, which is odd, because I thought I'd managed a decent amount of stitching, but never mind.

Here's to a better, fuller month this month!

Oh look - a bit more black!

The title says it all really, I've added a bit more black to the stitching and it's getting gradually bigger. You never know, I might actually finish it eventually, it seems like I've been stitching black for ages, and it doesn't really seem to be getting any bigger.

Having said that, I haven't really had much stitching time this week, so I'm going to give it a second week and try and get this page finished this week, look, a flying pig!

You may notice the colours and detail are a little different to my usual pictures this week. I've just inherited a new camera and it's a lot posher than my old one!

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!

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.

TUSALly goodness

And that's pretty much all I have to say about that.

There's quite a lot gone in this week, it's been a surprisingly productive stitching weekend. Pics to follow

A page finish - woo!

I'm really excited (it's probably quite sad how excited actually) because I've finished my first page of Lancelot and Guinevere, and it's actually starting to vaguely look like something, although possibly only if you know what you're looking for.

1 page down, another 18 to go (although 4 of those are minor pages).

This was actually my target for this year on this particular project, I set myself the goal of finishing my first page because I didn't know how long it was going to take me, so it turns out it was quite a low target and I probably should have set high. However, as it was my target and it has been achieved I'm thinking of putting this away for a while to work on some other targets. I've got 3 other projects on the go with a lot of work to be done so I think I might concentrate on those for a couple of months, especially as the kit I inherited off a friend because she's never going to get it finished for her intended friend so I need to work on that as well.

And in other news, did you see the wedding yesterday? Judging by a lot of the posts I've seen already then a lot of people did. I did see it, although, despite being in the UK I'm afraid that we hadn't travelled to London to see it, but we were invited to a street party by a friend so she invited us over to to watch the wedding with her first then went to the street party.

The dress was very pretty, as was her sister's maid of honour dress. There seem to have been some nice moments, and a couple of funny ones (did you see the cart wheeling verger and the police man leading the crowd in cheering?) Whatever you were doing yesterday, hope you had a lovely day.

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.

Quick TUSAL update

Quick TUSAL update, it's not gone up much this month because I've mostly been working on my HAED and I don't get many random threads left from that, although there were a couple of frogs to contend with.

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.

Give Away

As promised, I hit my 100th post (and got a new job), so I'm having a little giveaway to celebrate these facts.

I'm afraid it's not the most exciting in the world but there's a selection of DMC variagated threads. There are 28 threads altogether, some bobbins and some skeins, but as far as I can remmeber none of them have ever been used. 4 of them, I'm not sure if they're DMC, but I don't buy Anchor so I can't think what else they could be. There's also a really cute (I think anyway) pair of scissors.

Normal rules apply, please be a follower and leave a comment on this post if you want to enter. If you want a second entry mention this giveaway in a post of yours and mention in your comment that you're going to do that. This will close 12.00 (GMT) on Saturday 3rd of April, and will be picked in the very technilogical manner of all names in a hat (bowl) and pick one out.

I'm happy to post outside of the UK if you want to enter.

I think that's everything, good luck

A smush of Dragon Rider

So, here it is, my last Dragon Rider update before it gets put away for a few weeks as I work my way through my other rotations.

I am quite chuffed with how much I've got done, each time I've put a picture up I've really been able to see the difference between the latest and last updates, so that makes me happy, although the fact that I had a week off between jobs really helped that. I'm starting to see shades in it now, which I wasn't for a long time. You can see the greens and browns at the bottom and the splashes of brighter blues look great.

You wouldn't believe it but I've had to do one symbol three times (which yes, means I've had to unpick it twice). I don't know what it is that I had against this symbol, but I kept stitching it in the wrong colour. The first time, I can almost understand my mistake, the symbol was a 6 but I did the colour that was the symbol for 5, but the 5 was directly below the 7 in the list, so I think I saw the shape and asumed that it was the 6. Stupid, I know. Then, took it out and replaced it, only to find that I'd done the wrong colour a second time because apparently I can't read across in a striaght line. But never mind, it's all corrected now.

I am a little disappointed because after two weeks you can't really see anything, it really is just a smush. If you're interested this is the top left page, so it's tree, with light shinning through it, but at the moment it's smush. But I am quite excited because I can see it developing, and I'm already looking at what will be the next page (the page below this one) and there are bits of that that I really want to get onto, but I'm being good and finishing this page before I move on.

In other news, I've now started my new job, I'm settling in and think that I'm learning my way round and working out what I'm going to do. So woohoo!

And finally, I'm thinking of getting Kindle (e-reader). Does anyone have one? What's it like, what do you think of it? Is it worth it? Personally I'd only get a WiFi one, not bothered about the 3G, I'm thinking that they might be quite useful for travelling and holidays. But at the same time, I am a great lover of proper books and I just can't decide.

And really finally - this is my 100th post, so I will be doing a giveaway, but, one of the things that I want to do, I'm waiting for it to arrive in the post, it was posted from America about a week ago so hopefully it'll be here soon and then I can get it all sorted.

Are you a Disney fan?

Then have a glance at this, it might amuse you

I've never tried to put a video into my blog before so this may not work at all. I love the chorus. And whether you're a fan or not, you've got to be impressed by his versitility.
Just in case it doesn't and anyone's interested, here's the link One Man Disney Medley

International Hermit and Stitch weekend

Did you join in with International Hermit and Stitch weekend this weekend?

I actually managed more than I thought I was going to, so I'm quite chuffed, there's actually a noticeable difference. Although having said that it's still a smush that doens't really look like anything. To be honest I'm not convinced that this page is going to look like anything, I think it's going to take hte addition of a second page before you really start to see a picture forming in this one. But it's getting there, not bad for only my second week on this dude.

It's a funny page to stitch to be honest, there's loads of confetti, but half of it's the same colour (black) so once the confetti's done the second half will absolutely fly through.

A New Beginning - look at the smush!

Ooops, a new start, how did that possibly happen?

This gorgeous new design is/will be Dragon Rider by Randal Spangler (there's a picture to the right if you want to see what it's going to look like). I talked about my plans for this one etc so I'm not going to bore everyone with that again. It's going to be a present, I've not told the person in question but it's also not a massive secret. She's not a follower on here, but she knows of it's existence so if she seens it happening I'm not massively bothered.

Believe it or not there are five colours in this so far. I know they're in there and I can still only count three in this picture, and Ben's just flat out refusing to believe me. You can see the black, the green and the blue, you can't see the navy blue and the dark brown though, but trust me, they really are in there. Gotta love the shading and confetti - I know it'll be worth it in the end. I love the turquiose actually, it's a gorgeous colour anyway, and it's such a lovely splash of colour in what is a very dark page.

I'm updating a day early today because I've got a couple of things that I want to get done tomorrow that may get in my way. It's also International Hermit and Stitch weekend this weekend. I'm cheating slightly, I am looking to be a little busy this weekend so I'm going to have my weekend today instead and see what progress I can achieve. As is often the case, as this is a new start it gets to be worked on for a second week so I should be able to get loads more done.

I've finished my old job now, it was my last day on Wednesday, and I'm going to start in my new job next Wednesday which is quite exciting, but also a little nerve wracking.

Oh, and has anyone seen the gorgeous new chart on HAED? Lady of Avalon? She's absolutely gorgeous! I know, I shouldn't have been looking it's Dorothea's fault, she added it to her wishlist and it's stunning. And there's a sale on at the moment - this is just a dangerous thing.

Ooh, and I'm coming up to my hundreth post, so I'm debating a little giveaway to celebrate that and my shinny new job. So keep your eyes out. I've got to wait for something to arrive first but once it has and I hit 100 then something will happen!

Check it out

There's a gorgeous and massive give away over at Rhode Island Stitchers. So pop on over if you link many shiny and beautiful things.

In other news, I only have two days left at my current job, it's quite exciting

Look, a window!

I'm seeing a window arch, and this makes me happy. However, I also thought that I'd done more than I actually have last weekend, so I'm a little disappointed. Despite that there is quite a bit of progress so it's not bad, but I was aiming to get this page finished this weekend, which, to be fair, was possibly a little optimistic on my behalf. I don't seem to quite have the speed and time that other people have.

I am still really enjoiyng stitching it though. There's just under 30 hours gone into this so far, which is a little scary really. I've done nearly 30 hours and haven't managed to finished the first page yet. Be afraid, be very afraid, but as I say, I'm enjoying it, and that's the most important thing.

This weekend, Ben's on yet another conference so I've got another weekend of stitching and dvds ahead of me. The more eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that another picture appeared in my WIPs pictures on the right a couple of weeks ago, Raymond Spangler's Dragon Rider (another HAED, oops, how did that happen?), so my plan is to start and work on that this weekend. I say plan, I did actually start and do a tiny amount last night so it's already started. I've now got an odd sort of frame which blocks out the size of the first page. More than 50% of this page is the same colour (black, oh joy!) so I did all the black on the outside line of the page to give me something to work around seeing as I don't grid at the moment.

In other news, it's my last day at my current job on Wednesday. I was told I was being made redundant a few weeks ago. I've not mentioned it on here because it was never my intention to use this blog as a big heart out pouring, I'm not really good at things like that, plus, when I was a little worried myself I'm not good at people being nice to me, I'm much more likely to get upset about people being nice to me than I am at the thing that I'm actually worried about so I decided to avoid that happening. However the future is now rosey, I know that a job is there for me and all is good in the world again, woohoo!

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.

Another month's TUSAL

It's looking much fuller this month, mostly full of greenness due to teh frog incident, but at least it looks like there's something in there for the first time. It may have been a disaster, but atleast my jar's looking fuller!

Gridding?

Has anyone tried that DMC ready gridded fabric. I'm afraid I've completely forgotten what it's called. Two strands are dyed red so that it's ready gridded for you, then when you wash it, the lines fade, at least their meant to.

I bought some 25 count because I thought it would be good for HAEDs, thankfully I decided to do a test piece first, and I'm so glad that I did. I did a square of black and a square of white to test the two extremes and the white has picked up a pink tinge where the reds faded, and it hasn't completey faded so it's completely useless anyway.

Has anyone else tried it? Has it wored for you? I'm just wondering whether I've got a dud batch or whether it's something that I've done wrong, any ideas?

On an unrelated note, for the first time in goodness knows when, I hit my writing target last month, woohoo!!!

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.

The development of the brown shmush

I've just eaten the biggest dinner and am now so fat and feel so full, but it was wonderful. We've got a lovely Thai restaurant at the end of the road and we recently discovered that they also do takeaway, so Ben randomly suggested that tonight would be a good night for a takeaway, and who was I to complain? So I've just eaten the biggest portion of lemon chicken and rice noodles with spring onion and pork, and consequently am refusing to feel guilty about just how fat I currently feel!

Anyway, a brown shmush update, it's looking better, it's definitely starting to look like something, albeit it in quite a vague way. This is the top right corner, as you can probably guess, and consequently is made up of wall and window arch, but it's really developed since my last update of it, so I'm quite chuffed with myself really! Having said that, I think this is about 20, maybe 24 pages, so as I think it's about 21 hours worth of work so far, and I haven't even finished the first page yet, I think it's going to be a while before I finish this project, although, as my aim was to finish the first page by the end of the year, I think that, unless a major catastrophe occurs, I should be able to finish that and much more.

This is also my Internation Hermit and Stitch day update, I think about five hours went in this weekend (thank goodness for Ben working in the morning and watching the footie in the afternoon), not as much as I've achieved previously, but still a pretty hearty chunk!

Notwishstanding by Louis de Bernieres

I've been reading this for ages, becuase it's all short stories it's something that you can pick up and put down without worrying that you'll forget what's already happened. There is a vague link between the stories and there will be vague references to things that have gone before but not so much so that it'll be a problem if you've forgotten something.

As with anything that's a collection of short stories there are some that are better than others, and there's quite a selection here, some are happy, some are sad and personally, one that really freaked me out, I don't know why exactly but one of the stories really got me and it took me ages to get to sleep after reading it.

The general premise of the book is that it's set in the village of Notwithstanding and basically tells the tales of many of the people that live there, mostly concentrating on their little habits and foibles. Some characters re-appear, albeit briefly, in other characters stories, and others are only ever side characters. Personally I really wanted a story about the mad nuns but they never made it to centre stage, they were always just careering round corners far to fast with little regard to other road users, but I really wanted to hear more about them. 

I did enjoy it, although as I say, some more than others, although, having read it I don't think that I'd bother going back to it to read it again. If you've read anything else by Louis de Bernieres then this might come as a slight surprise to you, if felt very different to anything else that I'd read by him, not quite so lyrical, although that doesn't necessarily make it worse, in fact I found this much easier to read than previous books.

International Hermit and Stitch Weekend

It's that time again, are you joining in this weekend?

It's International Hermit and Stitching weekend this weekend coming (I know, I'm really late reminding people of this), so are you going to stitch with us?

Head on over to Joyce's blog and leave your address so we can see what progress everyone has made over the weekend.

I'm quite looking forward to it, I've barely had a chance to get any stitching done this week (ie the brown shmush is still looking pretty shmushy) so I'm quite looking forward to getting some done and actually hoping to see some progress. And if I don't get any progress, it's nice to see that there are other people out there making better progress than I am.

Talking of progress by the way check out Gizzimomo's blog. I've declared her to be the fastest stitcher in the west (if you think you're faster, let me know :-) ) she's done nearly a full page of her new HAED in a week.

And on an unrelated but it popped into my head, do you ever think about what'll happen to you stitching in years to come and even after you've gone? I have, which is why I raise the question, if you think about it, we're always seeing things to historical homes that young girls did hundreds of years ago to learn their needle skills. WIll people look at our stitching and talk about what it shows about the era? Will our stitching last long enough for this to happen? It's just a thought that amuses me sometimes!

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.

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.

TUSAL of February

I swear it's actually got emptier.  You can see a bit of green in there which is from working on Little Snap Dragon last night, I'm working on a new page.

There will be a picture posted of the stitching later in the week, after Ben's rugby with the boys night and consequently my stitching night tomorrow.

Have fun every one, enjoy your stitching!