First Ever HAED Page Finish and Stash

I can't believe that I finally have my first page completed on my first HAED.  It's been a long time coming as I started it in September of last year but I did put it away for a few months and didn't touch it.

Luckily for me my stitching is not goal orientated otherwise I would always be failing miserably.  I thought I would of finished this last week but it took me until today to do it.

I was to have been working on Christmas Decorations this week but I think I will sit down tomorrow morning and decide what I am going to make for my swop partner and spend the rest of the weekend working on it.  The swop package has to go out my the latest 1 July, but seeing as my partner is all the way in France, I think I want to send it out a bit earlier.

Even though my rotation was a bust this week, I think I will stick to it, and work on my HAED next week and the Christmas Decorations the week after that.  Should be interesting to see how the next page develops seeing as I am pretty much done with this side curtain.

I got my stash purchase in the mail and now I can share it with you.

First are the two QSnap frames:

I read somewhere about a lady who bought two different sizes and then used them to make other size QSnaps and that is what I did too.  So now I am sitting with 2 frames that are both 8" x 11".

I have enough threads and beads to do at least 3 Joann Elliott designs and I plan on buying alot more.

Where do bloggers go?

It's always good to clean up your blog reading list every once in awhile, otherwise it would just get longer and longer, but I find it a sad time for me.

I made the decision long ago to keep all inactive blogs till they hit the 1 year mark from their last post.  But it's sad because alot of those blogs I really enjoyed reading and liked the bloggers and I feel like I'm loosing a good book that I never got to finish.

Manbroiderer is almost at the one year mark and that is double sad because he used to do such beautiful work and I lived through the speed that he stitched and got to see many of the Joan Elliott designs that I have on my list being worked on.

I think it would be nice if bloggers decide that if they will no longer blog to at least make a final post stating so as it would allow us to conclude (for lack of a better word) our enjoyment of their work.

Everytime I delete a blog off my list I wonder if they will all of a sudden decide to start blogging in future, and I will no longer have access to knowing that.

Bothy Threads Cut-Thru' Cottage

I started a new Bothy Threads on the 10th and stitched every day until today and this is as far as I got:

I was hoping to finish the pantry during the week but either theres more stitches there than I thought or I didn't stitch as much as I thought I would.

Now for this week I will work on Mini Ariadne.  I started her in September last year and I have not even gotten a page finish yet.  Am hoping to at least complete Pg 1 before the end of the week.

I looked at it and it seems like I should be able to manage but we shall see.

Heaven And Earth Designs and their Temptations

HAED are having their Mother's Day sale and it's a whopping 50% off.

So of course I had to go to their site and look around a bit and I saw a new piece that I just had to have.

Remember this design that I already have?

Well I saw a new release that I assume is a companion piece to this one and it's called

The Fortune Teller

I was very good though and only bought the one as the Rand to Dollar exchange rate at the moment is extremely high.

Plans Were Put On Hold

I was planning on a new start and then things were put on hold for awhile but for a very good cause.

We are a bit unlucky as far as Cross Stitch shops are concerned in South Africa and I usually get to live vicariously thru other stitchers but that changed recently.

A new online shop has opened and now we can get almost anything that we want.

http://www.crossstitchsupplies.co.za

She has just started and so it's not as stocked as a normal shop could be but she is doing a stunning job and has some fabric orders and other stuff that she is waiting on.

She is also fantastic in the sense of you are able to request things from her and once a month she places an order with suppliers and includes anything we want if they supply it.

This month I behaved myself and only ordered two items but they are both items that I have wanted for a long time:

A Q Snap and that pink heart is a needlekeeper/minder.

The frame is what put my stitching on hold as I didn't want to start stitching on one thing and then move to the Q Snap and have my tension be different.  Now that it has arrived I will probably start tonight and see how it goes.

I also placed an order of my own with the lady and I won't go into too many details about what I ordered but I will say that I splurged in a big way and look forward to getting my items sometime at the end of the month.  I will say that I ordered two more smaller Q Snap frames and some Thread Heaven but I will leave the rest of the loot for when I get it as I'm sure pictures will show it better than words can.

She also has a facebook group for her shop and she is very chatty on there and usually gives sneak peaks and just interacts with her customers.

She is also getting an order in of some hand dyed 14 count at the end of April and boy am I going to be broke for the next couple of months.  She already has 32 count hand dyed in her shop but that's just too small for me... though I have hinted to hubby (in the sense that I sent him the link) of a nice combo lamp and x5 magnifier available on amazon, and if he does order it for me, then I won't have the problem anymore.

Though I do love my 14 count and will probably only go for a smaller count for specific things like the TW design that has a huge amount of fractional stitches in it.