Ch..ch..changes...

Seems like I just can't leave this one 'as charted'. hehe...The chart calls for little gold stars, but rather than trawl the interwebs looking for them I decided to lob on some swarovski crystal bicones instead. As always, crappy photo sparklies don't show up blah blah... ;-)

I've been putting some more time into Christmas Sampler. For some reason I'm really into Christmas stitching at the moment, which is kinda odd because I'm not feeling remotely festive in any other sense! There's some pretty white beads on there now although they don't show how sparkly they are on the photo. I used delicas instead of Mill Hills.

Having so many WIPs already, obviously what I really needed to do was...start yet another one! LOL This is my start on Stoney Creek's 2009 Christmas Sampler. I've made some changes here...some intentional and some...er, not! ;-) Rather than buy more threads when I already have so many, I went stash diving to see what I could come up with, and so except for the GAST Poinsettia all the overdyes have been replaced with Vikki Clayton mystery silks. I had a bit of an oopsie though and accidentally mixed up the 2 greens in the top section. I think it looks ok though 'as is' so I won't be ripping it out and doing it again. I'll make sure I get it right for the rest of the design though! I also haven't added blending filament to the white bits, mostly just cos I don't like stitching with the stuff. There's still some swirly backstitch to add to the top...

Continuing with the Gingerbread house - a window and a whole bunch of backstitch...



And in line with my current 'quick and fun' mood, I dug out an old UFO...I started these a couple of years ago and got as far as April. I put it down and just neglected to pick it back up again...sigh. I have too many WIPs! Anyway, I've now added May and June. The seasons are all back to front for me of course, but that's pretty much true of all seasonal or month projects. The flash has washed the picture out - the white bits show up better in real life although the fabric is a bit light for this project - I had to go round the white bits with backstitch to make them stand out! I left the beehive off May because I like it better without...

Well, I'm delighted to be able to tell you that, after having been missing for 5 days and worrying us half to death, Chequers strolled in - right as rain, completely unconcerned. A bit hungry, but none the worse for wherever he's been. I doubt we'll ever know, but he's been sticking very close to home since he got back, so I don't think it was intentional...

A little more of my gingerbread house. No backstitch or anything yet though. I love gingerbread designs, and I've had this one in my stash for ages. It was in one of the UK mags a few years ago but the chart photo wasn't too good - the fabric and the mats they used to frame it kinda took away from the design. I have to say that stitching this on an opalescent lugana has reminded me of just why I prefer my opals to be linen...



And I thought you might like to see an up to date picture of Suki, now 11 weeks old -

Still no sign of Chequers...he's been missing 3 nights now. I'm getting really worried about him. Ringo is missing his pal too, and sits staring out of the window waiting for him... :(

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by my WIPs lately...I have so many big projects on the go with no end in sight for any of them. So I decided to start something smaller, something cute and fun...I will be extremely surprised if anyone guesses this one correctly -



Stitched on a pink opalescent SW Solo.

In other news, much of my weekend time has been eaten up with helping Pete to dismantle the ...er, 'thing' at the back of the house. I'm not quite sure what to call it - it started life as a pergola, but some previous owner roofed it over with mismatched oddments of corrugated green fibreglass, and filled in the sides with old doors and bits of plastic sheeting. The whole thing was rotten through and through and leaked like a tap whenever it rained, so we decided down it had to come and we'll be replacing it with a nice verandah.

This is how it looked before we started work - (note the plants actually hide a lot of the horribleness)



That's astroturf on the floor - mouldy and faded and generally yeuch...we decided to keep the fountain but we've moved it further into a corner. It's so heavy we had to use an engine hoist!

Here's Pete most of the way through dismantling it...



And here's how it is at the moment (we left the..er...'railings' for the moment to stop Suki accidentally going over the edge - there's a 4 foot drop to the terrace)




And when it's finally done, it will look something like this (except the posts on ours are cream. The gutters are still red)



Ours is 7 x 8 metres though...we had to lug it all from the front lawn where the delivery men left it all the way through the garage to the back. You wouldn't believe how heavy those roofing sheets are, let alone the roof beams!

Some WIP progress

Well, the frogs have been and gone,and I started to restitch but I'd had enough by this point so I put it away again. At least when I come back to it there will be no frogs waiting for me and it shouldn't take long to get back to where I was. I tink I'm going to leave the medallion alone because I really don't think it'll be all that noticeable by the time I've finished and to be honest I don't have the heart to rip all that out as well.



It's been a while since you've seen this one I think...

I keep picking it up and plodding away at it a little at a time. It gets kinda old kinda quick stitching in plain black, but I will finish this if it kills me!

Even longer since you've seen this one!


It's been over 2 years since I last worked on this!! Too much over one stitching in this one to hold my interest for long, but every now and again it gets a little love. I've finished the sword block (except for the beads) and made a start on Arthur. I changed the yellow DMC in the crowns behind the sword for metallic...I have far too many long term WIPs like this one.

My tuxedo kitty Chequers is missing :( He hasn't been seen for 48 hours now. This isn't the first time he's gone AWOL - you might remember he went missing a year or so ago and turned up after a couple of days safe and sound, so we're hoping that's what'll happen this time. Please keep your fingers crossed that he turns up soon!