Beginnings

I learned to stitch when I was 16.

I never had a relative who did it so it was pretty much me teaching myself.

It was my 16th birthday and I think my one aunt didn't know what to get me, so she got me a kit of two cards with butterflies.

I totally buggered it up!! The kit didn't come with "beginner" instructions and I only ended up with one very badly made card and the other one I had to chuck.

Then a few months later my other aunt (who I lived with) bought me another cross stitch kit.

This one actually turned out better and I did complete it.  I was never happy with the face though.
I then made a clock for my then boyfriends mother for her birthday as he requested me to make it.

When I finished high school I went off to college and the stitching stopped due to no finances at all to indulge my hobby.  Sadly my aunt died soon after I started college and due to family politics etc all my stuff was then thrown out to make room for her husbands new girlfriend and her children.

Sadly my completed project was one of the things thrown away.

Fast forward to when I was 23, married and just had my daughter.  I made three biggish designs to go in her room and then found knitting, which led to spinning and that lasted for a few years.  About three or four years ago I came back to my first love and I haven't put the needle down since.

But I found that I always wished that I could still have that first successful piece that I had made.
Then yesterday I was in the child welfare shop and guess what I found!!!

 

That is the design that my aunt bought me and that got chucked.  I may not have the original finished piece but at least now I can re-stitch it and it will always remind me of my aunt.

A Giveaway!!

Karen at My Stitchy Ramblings is having a fantastic giveaway to celebrate 100 Followers at her blog.


If you love hand dyed fabric you definately should check it out, as she has some gorgeous ones in her giveaway!

TUSAL Update and 2nd finish of 2013

Firstly here is my March TUSAL Report:

Sorry for the use of flash as it's a dreary day here, and autumn is in the mood to give us a taste of whats to come.

A Friend Like you was the piece I worked on first since I implemented the 10 hour rotation and by the time I got to 10 hours there was only the backstitch around the middle basket and french knots left to do.  So instead of putting it away, I decided just to finish it.

So 12 hours took it from this:  

 To a Finish:

Now I will just have to find a frame for it and then do the framing and I will be able to give it to my friend.

KSP (the new kitty) is doing very well.  We have had her for a week now and she is so well behaved and so loveable that it really is wonderful to have her here.

She has already become my stitching companion as she keeps me company and sits on my lap while I work.

I got a question in my last post about what the numbers mean on my sidebar.

Well the ones that are numbered 0 are ones that don't have a specific place in my rotation.

Granted I don't even have two of them started yet, as every time I wanted to buy fabric to start them, the money was needed for something else.  But I have enough to work on so all is good.

Anything from 1 and higher is the numbers of my rotation.  I worked on A Friend Like you, and so after 5 hours of Literate Dragon, I will then work on Summer Fairy and so forth.

Now to go finish cleaning so that I can sit down with Literate Dragon.  The 2nd page has come out already and I haven't even got half of page 1 done.  But it will get there eventually.

A New Addition To The Family

We got her yesterday and my daughter named her Kitty Soft Paws, KSP for short.

She is 7-8weeks old and a very busy kitty.

I have been a very bad blogger lately and life has just been so busy with many things I want to do.

I have been reading and trying to teach myself to sew my own clothes as I am just tired of trying to find nice clothes in shops when I don't like the current fashion.

The sewing has been a bit of a headache as I made a mistake near the beginning due to the pattern not mentioning whether the ties had to be on the wrong side or right side and now almost half way finished I realised that I put them on the incorrect side.  So right now it's in time out and will have to wait till I am in an unpicking mood as it needs to be fixed.

With the way things are at the moment I have been stitching some day and not other days and decided that my current rotation won't work now.  I used to keep a piece for two days and then move onto the next.

Keeping it that way will mean little progress made on each piece before I moved on, and so have now decided to try the 10 hour rotation again.  Yesterday I actually managed a whole hour of stitching (yay for me) and will hope to come back soon with some actually stitchy progress.

Thank you so much for everyone that left me such lovely comments in my last post, much appreciated, and Linda Hocus Pocus is not from a magazine... it's from the Joan Elliott book Bewitching Cross Stitch

TUSAL February and Stitchy Updates

I can't believe that it has been awhile since I posted but I do have a good reason.

The husband bought me a Kindle soon after my last update and I have been spending alot of time reading   We live in a small town and do have a bookshop/stationery shop but they tend to carry a small selection of books.  Normally I had to order books online and then wait about 3 weeks to get it, or buy some books when we were out of town.

Now I decide what book I want and five minutes later I have it.  Its wonderful but it has been a hard choice between stitching and reading in my free time.

Ok so today is the February TUSAL report and here it is:

I have been back to stitching the last five days, although it has also been in between reading so probably not a lot of progress made, but anyway here was Hocus Pocus before:

And after four days of stitching:

And today I worked on QS Literate Dragon and I managed to finish the second column:

In the land of hopeful thinking, I hope to finish the third column in the next three days.  It just might be doable as it has alot less confetti in it and more sections of the same colours.  We shall see if I manage it.

Finally delving into the worlld of HAED

I have been saying for ages that I wanted to try one of these and now I have two started and two more starts planned, as soon as I buy 2m of 16 count aida.

It has been a hard thing to get into as I am doing them on 18 count and it is not easy for my eyes, and also progress is alot slower and one gets a bit frustrated with it.

First up is QS Literate Dragon (the BB year SAL).

It doesn't look like much, but I have worked out how many stitches per day I need to do to get this done during the year, and I am actually a few days ahead of schedule.

My new start is Mini Eternal Promise.  This one really doesn't look like much but once again I am ahead of schedule for my goals for the year.  I want to finish Pg 1-6 this year.

I will leave my 2 starts as a surprise till I get the fabric and actually start them.

TUSAL 01 and Updates

Here is my first TUSAL post of the year.

Lots of stitching being going on here:-)

 Here is what my Fancy Fairy looked like last time she was worked on:

And here is my progress now:

And lastly here is my QS Literate as of yesterday:

Yesterday I spent all day working on this.
It amazes me just how fast other people manage too stitch on a HAED, as it's so time consuming and I wonder how fast they stitch.