New Stash

Sadly this is not a post where I get to show off my Fairy finished.  I am way behind in schedule as I wanted to have the rocks and backstitch done by the end of tonight but I have only just started the rocks and no way that is going to be finished by tonight.

Scary because I bought the scotch guard yesterday (boy is that can expensive) and I read that you are suppossed to spray two layers and there is a 12 hour drying period each time.  So protecting it is going to take 24 hours out of the schedule.  I am going to be hand sewing the aida onto the cushion cover by hand because I don't have a sewing machine.  Hubby sais that it is not correct to get myself a sewing machine when I will only use it once or twice a year and unfortunately for me, he is right.

Now all who read my blog know about the mishaps I have had trying to make a HAED.  I just can't work on 28 count fabric with my eyes and I bought a magnifier only to find out, once it got here, that it is only X1.5 and my eyes still hurt when I used it.   My supplier only has 14, 18 and 28 count fabric and I just didn't want to do it on 14 or 18 count.  So my last option was to save up to buy a proper magnifier that is X5 and this was going to set me back R500 + !!!!  I went into the fabric shop in town yesterday to buy a small box for my WIP threads to be carried around in:

The owner and I got chatting and it turns out that she also does cross stitch.  So of course I asked her where she gets her supplies and she said that she buys kits and makes those but she herself sells aida.  She shows me this roll and tells me that her supplier told her it was 14 count but she doesn't think it is.  I looked at it and it definately wasn't 14 count.  I then asked her how much for a metre and wait for it..... she told me R60!!!!!  I almost swooned when she gave me that price because I pay R200 per metre for 14 count aida from the one shop.  Of course I had to buy one metre as it was a steal and when I got home I immediately checked and it turns out that her supplier must of been smoking something because it's 20 count.  I have never come across 20 count before so I immediately rushed back to her shop to buy myself another metre.  I asked her how much she has left and it looks like about 2metres and I have asked her to keep that for me and will go back on Monday to buy it.  So as soon as the christmas stitching is complete I will be adding my Dire Wood HAED to my WIP list and it will be bumped up to the first thing I start stitching.  I will have enough for at least another few HAED designs and if her supplier gets it wrong again I will buy a heck of a lot more 20 count from her and if he actually sends her 14 count this time I will still buy lots of it.  You don't let a good thing like this slip through your fingers.

Thoeria, another local Sout African stitcher ( http://sunshineincyberspace.blogspot.com/ ) was giving a few items away and I put up my hand in her comments section and my selection arrived in the post yesterday.  I got such a lovely suprise when I opened it as there was a Christmas Card in there and I felt so speciale as I have never gotten a Christmas Card before.  Isn't this too darned cute:

I just love it to bits and can't wait to make it and hang it up in my kitchen so that it will make me smile everytime I am in there.  I must say I looked at all the other yearly charts and the other one I would love to get my hands on is the August Cat.  For one it's my birthday month but it's a cat lying in a beach chair and the words at the bottom say:  I don't do busy.