Oh dear...

If I say that I've been far too busy to post, would you believe me? No? No, me either... :-)

Mind you, I have been a little bit busy recently, what with trying to stitch Christmas squares for Granny's Quilts and some to make up into cards for MT's craft fayre next week. I'm also baking like crazy for the fayre and I've been stitching on BPQS and a new square for Love Quilts. Hmmm... maybe I have been busier than normal...

Good news that Mam's now settled in the home, though she's starting to forget me a little bit. I'm more concerned that she's contented in Argel, to be honest. She's chatting away to the staff and seeing as they're around her 24/7 and I visit once a week, I'm happy about that.

Right, on to the pictures. Stupidly, I didn't take any of the cards before I sent them off (and I know that two of them have already sold!) but here's Beatrix as she was about an hour ago...

I'm not too sure about that brighter blue but I'm not frogging it and I'll try to limit its use. Still really enjoying stitching on this, I'm glad to say :-)

Another oops!

Well, my plan of posting regularly has obviously gone out the window but I'll try and do better in the second part of the year.

Have done quite a bit of stitching on Beatrix, which I'm thoroughly loving:

I've also done a couple of squares for SOLAK, for a quilt that will hopefully go to my Mum! Photos are fuzzy but hopefully show off the leaves. I've stitched these a couple of times now - they're fun to stitch and look really lovely.

Another update

I'm quite surprised at myself at how much I'm managing to stitch on this piece - shows how much I'm enjoying it!

I'm currently watching Joanna Lumley's program about travelling down the line and I can feel myself getting itchy feet! I haven't been away on holiday since 2005 and wouldn't mind just a few days away to somewhere like Malta or Guernsey, though my dream holiday is an Alaskan cruise. Ah well, maybe when my mortgage is paid in 2014...

Oops!

I completely forgot about TUSAL so I'll post both March and April here. Wonder if you can see any difference!?

I've done a bit more on the Beatrix Potter sampler, too. Still thoroughly enjoying working on this!

I've actually finished the motif that's part-started on this photo and I've almost finished another. Feeling quite satisfied with myself, even though I'm not stitching half as much as I'd like...

I won!

I very rarely win anything, so a big "Thank you" to Viv of Too Busy to Stitch blog who pulled my name out of the hat first :-) I've finally got round to taking a photo:

 From left top to bottom - a flip-flops beaded magnet, six Gentle Art fibres in autumnal colours, a pansies bookmark and a snowman bellpull. I love them all but especially the fibres as I have very few GAST threads.

Thanks again, Viv!

Stitching-wise, not a lot has been done over the last couple of weeks though I'm concentrating whatever stitching time I have on the Beatrix Potter sampler and still enjoying it. Tomorrow is  update day on the BPQS blog so I'll post a photo here too.

I've done a little bit of knitting, but not enough to really show off. I need to sew up one of the dog jumpers which I finished knitting a few weeks ago but keep putting that off as well...

I've also got big plans to spring clean the house, even if I just do a little bit here and there every day. One reason is that I'm planning a car boot/table top sale for the animal rescue some time in the summer so need to sort out a lot of stuff for that. Considering I've only been in the house for just over two years I really shouldn't have as much clutter as I do!

February TUSAL

Not much fuller than a month ago...

More pics!

Now for the stitching. I have done more on Spanish Sampler but won't show a photo until I've finished the current part. I've done a bit more on the Brushstrokes butterfly:

The Beatrix Potter Quaker Sampler has had a few more stitches in it too, though after taking this photo I realised that I'd missed a bit so had to frog some of the newest motif!

I'll post my TUSAL a bit later...

Some pics

First off, my knitting; both for Many Tears. Yes, the colours of the dog jacket are that bright!

This dog blanket was started a few years back for Battersea Dogs Home but it can go to Many Tears now, instead. It's a lovely soft DK and very easy to knit.

Crikey!

I hadn't realised that it's been a month since I last posted!

Today has been good and bad - good, because Wales beat Scotland (just!!), bad because Southampton lost to Portsmouth in the FA Cup (sob!)

I also found a knitting UFO while I was half-heartedly tidying up the box room. It's a rust-coloured dog blanket, very simple k4, p4 pattern but it's looking good so far. Another item to be sold for the animal rescue, hopefully. I'll take a photo tomorrow in natural light.

I've done a bit of stitching over the last few weeks, too, including starting a new (large!) project.

Thoroughly enjoying this weekend's Poirot extravaganza on ITV3, even though I've seen them all before - some of them numerous times! How sad am I... :-)

Had a lovely surprise yesterday - I've won a giveaway on the Too Busy to Stitch blog! One of the reasons I was in the box room earlier was to find a couple of items for my own giveaway so I'll have to go back in there tomorrow and hopefully not get distracted by UFOs next time...

Stitching again!

It's so nice to have three new photos to show. One thing about not having internet access is that I did stitch more over the last few weeks. I just have to keep that up now!

First is the brushstrokes butterfly that I'm doing in Anchor 1345 for the Breast cancer quilting group. I think that this will be a fun stitch even though I'm not a huge fan of variegated threads.



Next up is a card I'm stitching for the Many Tears animal rescue. It'll be a cute little dog once it's done :-)



And finally, something for me. The Spanish Sampler is now at part 5 (of 11) I need to concentrate on this so that I can get to another of my larger WIPs or UFOs but the smaller designs are so tempting...



I'm going to try and get into the habit of taking photos every Saturday so that'll be incentive to stitch during the week. That's the plan, anyway!

TUSAL01

Here's my first Totally Useless SAL piccie - it would have been a bit fuller but I stupidly threw away some yarn which I'd used to knit/sew up a dog jumper :-)

I'll be posting a few more photos of the pieces which caused these threads over the next few hours.

Yay! I'm back!

My faithful 8 year old Dell died a couple of days after Christmas so this is the first time I've been able to blog since. I've bought a nice shiny new Acer which is about a third of the size of the old Dell and which boots up in about a minute, unlike the Dell which was taking 10!

I had to order a wireless router from Virgin because they wouldn't be able to support any make of router which they didn't sell but unfortunately they lost my first order (well, I did place it on New Year's Eve!) It finally arrived today and I got the thing up and running fairly easily (though Virgin had somehow mixed up the password which I set up with them a couple of years ago.)

What bliss to be on the net and "meeting up" with friends again :-)

Not much news, otherwise. I ahven't seen Mam for over a week because of the weather though Kevin went to see her on Thursday and reported back that she was better than she'd been for quite a while. She's eating a lot better now... and asking for chocolates when we walk in, so that's a relief. We've got a family meeting with the medical team on Monday so we'll see what they say then.

A few stitchy things to post but that can wait until tomorrow. Ah, it's nice to be back :-)