Getting Back Into The Groove

Wow I seem to be getting back into the stitching, and really enjoying it.

I sort of finished the 4th part of JE Mystery SAL... or as far as I can get as I don't have the metallic thread called for and need to order it.  But it will still be awhile before I do as I need to wait till I have more items needed to order.

 

I then pulled out Winter Fairy as worked on her a bit.

Here is what it looked like last time:

 And now:

Sorry for the crumpled fabric.  It was in my Q-Snap and I didn't iron it before the pic.

Thank you for all the lovely comments about my HAED and I have decided to continue working on it.  But I think I will still order all threads needed for the next HAED design before I start it.

Finally an Update

I was not stitching for a month or two but finally picked up the needle due to the JE KAL on facebook.  I had completed Part 1 before life got hectic in time, but then Part 2 and 3 came out and I never touched it.  Part 4 was to come out on the 9th and I decided to try catch up as best I could before then.  I never managed it but luckily JE had a hectic schedule and it was delayed by a good few days.

Here is Part 2 complete:

 

And here is Part 3 that I finished today:

 

I need to touch up a bit on both parts as one of the beads on the necklace keeps insisting on laying down when all the other beads are standing up and I don't like the way the french knots turned out in kreinik in the cats eyes and I need to redo them.

Here is a view of both together:

 

Sorry for the crummy pics as I didn't realize how bad they were until I uploaded them.

I got a  old FO framed.  It is called Art Nouveau Lady and I finished her in 2012.

My HAED is going to be chucked due to circumstance.  I know the fact that DMC states that their is no differences in colours in their threads and I do know that this is not true.  It's not a thing that happens often and I have only encountered it in one threads in all my years of stitching.

So due to the cost of DMC threads I only have one full set of their colours which took me about two years to accumulate.  I didn't go out and buy all the colours needed for my HAED and stitched the same way I always do.  When one colour runs out, I just go buy another one.

Sadly this did not work out too well and the last time I stitched I noticed a big difference in colour.  It is very noticeable as I work down in colums so it shows as a distinct line:

 

I placed a slight yellow line where it shows.  The left hand side is slightly lighter than the right hand side.  It is not as noticeable in the pic as it is in life but you do still see the difference.

It's depressing due to the work I put in, the cost of the fabric but mostly I'm just not happy with myself.  I think I need to spend the next few months buying a full set of the threads needed for another HAED and all the duplicate colours needed as well.  But I think I will work on a different chart and come back to this one in the future.

A Sad Loss Indeed

I know I'm a bit late in finding out that we have lost a wonderful person.

I have not been online lately due to life being hectic and stressful and so when I logged into facebook today I was absolutely stunned at the post I saw about Debbie passing away.

I don't know how it's going to be not seeing all her fantastic projects on her blog.  She was an inspiration and, if I may say so, a good online friend.

I admired 3 designs on her blog and she was soooo kind enough to offer the patterns to me once she was done.  I have not started any of them yet but they will become so precious to me now and I think I will sit down tonight and decide which one to stitch in her honor.

She has always been a favourite blog to read and usually the first I looked for on my blog list.  It's really not going to be the same without her.

RIP Debbie and may your family gather strength to get through this time.

Finally an Update

It's been awhile so this might be a bit of a mash up of a update.

Firstly I have finished 1.5 pairs of socks but didn't take a pic as I know most of you are not here to see knitting.

I was also very lucky enough to sign up for the Joan Elliott Mystery SAL on Facebook.  As far as I can tell it's going to be faces of designs that she has previously designed but she is working them to fit into this frame, and we have no idea which faces she has chosen to put into it.

We got our first part beginning of June and the 2nd part should be out any day now.

Here is the first part:

I also worked on my Cut-Thru SAL and got a bit done on Cottage:

I also completed my Swop piece which was supposed to be posted out by the last day of June and I feel terrible because it's still here with me.  I got the flu and felt absolutely awful and then as soon as I started feeling better I had passed it on to the husband and the daughter:-(  As I knew that I didn't want to go anywhere when I was sick, I could not expect the daughter to be dragged to the post office when she was sick either.  But I will definately pop it in the post tomorrow morning as we are going away for our annual week long holiday in the Drakensberg and so it has to be done tomorrow.

I will update pics of what I am sending once I know my partner has received it.

Two weeks ago we went down to Durban and just so that we could go watch this:

It was absolutely fantastic and we had a blast.  Even the daughter, who said she didn't understand how going to look at cars would be fun, ended up loving it and she said the whole day was her favourite moment.

Their stint was driving around in vehicles that had to be made out of kitchen parts and I was stunned to see that every single one of them actually ran.  I apologize for the pics but it's really difficult to get good ones of moving objects.

The ironing board won:-)

And lastly here are some pics of my darling 2nd baby just because she is too adorable:

She absolutely loves her hot water bottle and every morning and evening I make her one because she actually comes to look for it and then right before I go to bed I make her another one for her to use during the night.

And here is a pic of her using it the other morning as well:

As I'm typing this she is lying here on the couch next to me curled up on the bottle even though it's cooled down by now.  Time for me to make a new one for her and also time for me to go to bed.  Got a busy morning of packing enough stuff for 3 people to last 7 days and also make sure the house is tidy.

And lastly here is a pic I took while driving down our street the other day.  And yes I did pull over before taking the pic:-)

Oh wait.... actually the following is lastly.  Not sure how many of you have heard of Grumpy Cat??? I have no idea what part of the world it lives in or who it belongs to but I just know that it's a famous cat and rightly so.  I actually have the first pic as my desktop background.  So imagine my pleasure when I came across the second pic!!!  Two absolutely gorgeous beings together and boy did I get jealous of Grumpy Cat when I saw this:-)

I think I will go to bed now and maybe be lucky enough to dream that I am grumpy cat in this exact situation.

No Updates and Why

I have pictures and I have updates but we went away this weekend and I came back with the flu.

For the last two days I have done absolutely no stitching but rather picked up my knitting needles and have been knitting socks.  I started knitting a pair about a year ago and finished the one sock last night but I can't find the other ball of yarn to do the second one.  Hopefully it will turn up soon.

But today I picked up some of my handspun and started a new pair.  It's something easy to do when I am feeling like this as it's only a small bit of rib and most of the rest of the sock is plain st st.

I normally knit socks in winter as that's the time that my feet appreciate handknit socks the best and usually will churn out about 3 pairs during the winter though I'm hoping for a bit more this year at least.

Right now I'm running a hot bath and will go lie in it for awhile because I can't stop shivering and feel like a frozen cube of ice.  I absolutely hate colds as theres nothing you can do to help make you feel better.

After that it will be time to make dinner and then more curling up with hot water bottles and knitting.

Hopefully I will start feeling better soon.

For The Love Of Thread...

I had the weirdest experience today while out buying some DMC that I had run out of.

There are two places that stock the threads in my small little town and I am grateful for it but geeze could it get any weirder???

The first shop is the one I always buy from if I can due to the fact that I really don't like going to the other one and which will become clear in a bit.

Shop #1 isn't a cross stitch shop at all but more a "little of this, and a little of that" craft shop.  He mainly stocks wool and knitting supplies but also a bit of other stuff aswell as Herbal Medicine.  Granted he has a smallish shop which has two smaller rooms aswell.  He has put the cross stitch stuff in one of those small rooms and today when i went to go buy threads I walked in to find the room full of boxes.  I literally had to climb over one box, squeeze myself into a corner and bend over the other boxes to be able to reach the threads.  Unfortunately he was out of stock on 4 of the colours I needed so this meant a trip to the other shop.

Shop #2.  There are a few reasons I don't like buying from this shop.  Firstly they fix sewing machines in this small shop and the threads smell very strongly of the machine oil.  This is not a problem on it's own and threads can always be washed and I always wash my cross stitch when I complete one.  I bought threads one time from them and was winding them onto the bobbin and the thread just kept breaking.  Obviously something had been at their threads and had caused weak spots and I had to threw all of those away.  But the absolute worst thing about it is that way you get treated.

On the few occasions I have gone in there, because I had to have the colours urgently, I always walk straight to their stand, paper in hand and start pulling the colours.  Yet it never fails that the lady will stand up from her desk, walk up to me saying not a word and stand right by me staring until I'm done.  Today she came and stood at my back slightly to my left and watched my every move.  It makes me feel like I have thief written on my forhead and makes me highly uncomfortable to say the least.

Yet next time I run out of some threads I will happily clammer over boxes and feel like a thief just so that I can carry on with a project.  Makes one wander what else we would put up with all for the love of our stitching.

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.