Passione Ricamo A Fairy Mistery SAL

I cannot believe it but I have just signed up to do this year long SAL.

It was touch and go there for awhile as I had to get hubby to do the payment as its his paypal account and he isn't too impressed with me when I told him what a mystery sal is.  He told me that he thinks I'm bonkers for wanting to do it and then he asked me if I'm bored perhaps.  So he is a bit sore doing it but he did it and now I get to enjoy waiting for 1 July for the first part to come out.

Its my first SAL ever and I'm really excited.

I don't know what time zone they are on so not sure exactly when it will be emailed but I will be checking my email a lot.

http://www.passionericamo.eu/SAL2012.htm

Hunk No. 1

I have seen a few blogs where they add pics of Hunk once a week.  Seeing as my blog has been not too exciting in the last while, I decided to jump on the bandwagon.  We all have different tastes and goodness knows that there are enough men out there so we don't get bored.  I don't have a plan on how long I will do this... maybe just until I can't think of any other men that I like to look at.

My pic for today is:

Ian Somerhalder

I know him from Vampire Daires and have never watched Lost so don't know what kind of character he plays in that one.

As I am writing this I have this fantasy in mind... now if you have never watched VD then I am sure this will go over your head.

These eyes:

And that smile:

Kk you got that??? Now add those two items together staring at you while he dances like he did on one of the episodes with Vicky just before she turned.

Now I am not a girly girl but that image even manages to make my knees go week.  This guy is going to make some girl very, very, very, VERY Happy:-)

And as if he isn't lucky enough ( in looks) turns out that he is like a fine wine.  He just gets better with age...

No idea how young he was here but definitely very cute.  But I got to say I like the slightly longer hair.

And my two cents on whether I am rooting for Damon or Stefan to end up with the girl.  I feel that she should be with Stefan.  They have two much history for her to just ignore him and be with Damon.  Plus as far as the character Damon... he has had a pretty bad handout as far as love etc goes that I think it would be totally good for him to find someone who loves him and only him and who isn't trying to change him the whole time.

Ok enough said.

A Very Late June TUSAL

As usual in my life, I took the photo on the right day but just didn't get a chance to upload it until now.

As you will notice I have a few new bottles and I got them specifically to to Tangled Threads Jar Topper.

tangledthreadsstitching.blogspot.com

I have finished on so far and its on top of my TUSAL Year Jar.  I am currently working on another one for the smaller jar, which will hold my markers, scissors, extra needles ( I loose them like crazy) etc.

So heres a small finish:

Piglet

I worked on Fairy Hill:

A tiny little bit on Autumn Flowers:

And (if you read my rant about our local CNA) then you would know my happiness when I got a phone call and was told that this had come in.  It was just a month late but at least I got it.  Luckily I have no extra fabric and no plans on buying any until more WIPS are at least near completion, otherwise I would of had a hard time not starting her.

I apologise for the absolutely horrible photos.  Usually they are not that great but this time I really outdid myself on taking horrible pics.

A Technique Question

I signed up for the HAED Sal last year and chose to do SK Forbidden Doorway but never started due to lack of knowledge. But I have decided to finally ask for help.

I don't think I'm one for having tons of threads hanging all over so I would have to do cross country stitching. This causes a phobia in me because I like to thread my ends to make sure that I won't have stitching coming loose.

So my scenario is: you come to the end of your thread and you have just done 1 or 2 stitches in the middle of nowhere. How do you secure your thread in a manner that wont come loose?

An Update At Last...

It's taken ages for me to do this post as life just got so busy.  Although it would seem most of the blogging world is busy as there have been very little updates on the blog list.

I took these photos a few days ago and so my Fairy Hill is a bit further on than it was then.

And heres a close up of the toadstools just because I think they are so cute.

I have been having a hard time with my stitching lately, as I just love working on this designs so much, but I have come to a happy medium I think.

I realised that seeing as most of the stuff I am making is for me personally and I am making them just because I want to, it doesn't matter if it takes me five years to compete a design.  Hubby is a bit of a fanatic about the house and how everything must mesh with everything else and so I do not hang up my work in the house.  We have a flat that he is using as his workshop atm but soon he will put all his stuff in the garage.  The flat is just a small two room (lounge and bedroom) with a bathroom.  So we will convert the bedroom into a storage area for stuff we only use on occassion and the "lounge"  will be turned into a craft room for me.  So I will be painting the walls a lovely warm light yellow and will have bright blue curtains and lots of storage for cross stitch stuff that I will accumulate in my life.  And tons of wall space to hang all my work on.  But I digress....  So for now I will keep Fairy Hill as my main WIP and I will then have one other WIP that I will work on Sundays as that is generally the day I can get away with stitching all day.

For now this WIP is Autumn Flowers which is to be a present for my MIL's birthday at the end of the year.  It just looks like blobs at the moment but I am sure it will become clearer as more work is done on it.

Just a side note: Its weird how a project will always retain a memory. Everythime I look at Autumn Flowers I think Of Aliens VS Predator 2 because that's what I was watching while doing the gridding:-)

A Rant!!!

I am so unhappy right now due to a chain store bookshop.

I live in a small town and so we have a CNA but its not a big one.  As an example we had to go out of town to buy the first few books on George RR Martin and now going to have to either order online or wait to go out of town to get the 2 A Dance with Dragons books.

But we do have 3 Cross Stitch magazines on our shelves.  Now due to the costs involved in getting the mags from overseas they make them expensive.  i generally buy a mag if there is one or two designs in there that I know I will stitch.

Joann Elliott has her Fairytale series and I have been excitedly waiting for Sleeping Beauty to come out in CSG. About a month ago I rushed down to get it and was suprised that it wasn't there. Was told that maybe it would come in the next week and so I went back and no mag. We went out of town last weekend and hubby actually drove me around Durban because I just want this mag so bad. We were told at every shop that it was sold out. On top of this I found out that there are actually about 7 cross stitch mags that are available and I never even knew this. But I was good because I kept hoping that one of the shops would at least have 1 copy and I had to keep my money for that.

We came back to town and on Tue I went to CNA again and still no mag. I was told that this is probably due to headoffice feeling that not all the mags sell and so they just stop sending them.

Now I think this is total bull as there has been a few times that I have grabbed the last CSG on the shelf. And maybe they could send like only 2-3 of the mags so that we can at least have a chance of getting it.

Now just have to hope that JE will offer this as a Chart Pack in the future and also her Rapunzel.

Its just so sad to know that I will no longer be able to get one of my fav mag anymore. I hope that they have plans to go digital like Cross Stitch Collection and then I can subscribe to both.

Gizzimomo Competition

Gizzimomo is having a wonderful competition on her blog.  it is a huge haul so very exciting to see who the lucky winner will be.

She started entries today and it runs for a week.

I do not have the best luck winning competitions... actually I have never wone one before but that never stops me.

Go take a look as it really is a lot of stuff:  http://gizzimomosstitchyplace.blogspot.com