Stitching Update

I finished another section of Castles in the Air by Papillon Creations.  It is half of part 7 done.

Close up of finished part.

Overall.

I purchased three Mill Hill kits from sewandso. Two were half price and one had 10% off, bargain! 

I have started one of them:

I always think they look weird without the beads and backstitching on lol.

I have dug out one of my HAED's (Heaven and Earth Designs) out, The Green Man. This is what he looks like before I start stitching on him again:

And what he will look like when completed:

I am thinking of either purchasing another HAED chart or kitting up a Mystic Stitch chart that I have. I am very undecided which to do!

I have only recently taken up stitching again and before that, Yahoo stitching groups were very active but now most of them seem to have died a death and not many people post. I'm not sure why this is? Has Facebook killed the groups or people not stitching anymore? It is such a shame too. I also have noticed that not many stitchers blog or comment on blogs either. Again, such a shame as lots of inspiration and encouragement lost.  I am thankful for the groups that I do belong to that do have people that post be it sporadic on one or two of them. I miss doing exchanges as well. Oh well, I guess times change huh.

To those who do read or comment on my blog, I really do appreciate it xxx

A Long Weekend and Stitching Update

We had a lovely long weekend here in the UK as Monday was a bank holiday. I am shattered as I was out on the Sunday and Monday performing with Section 5 :)

I have two stitching updates. First my Vervaco bookmark.

I really like how this one is turning out. It is very pretty and looks so much better than the photo on the packaging it came in.

Secondly my Castles in the Air by Papillion Creations.

It's not a brilliant photo so the colours don't show as bright as they should. The part I have stitched since starting again is the green diamond bit. I will take some close ups soon and post them here in my blog.

Every May Bank Holiday at the beginning of May, Hastings celebrates Jack in the Green. The whole town heaves for the weekend. 

Me waiting for the procession to start.

Getting ready to drum up Croft Road which is a horrendously steep road!

The tall man is my partner Colin.

Myself, Ray and Jules.

Section 5 Drummers in the procession.

My fella Colin.

This one was taken on the Sunday. We are heading off to our annual drum off with other groups.

The drum off at Butlers Gap.

Me, Jackie, Bev and Sam.

In the procession.

I had just the most amazing time. I ache so much today and  my head feels a little delicate. I am not a big drinker and I consumed quite a lot over the last couple of days.  Mainly neat spirits from my friends hip flasks!

Big Update

I am a Nana again! Lily Lisa Marie Baker Was born on Sunday night weighing 6lbs 11. She is grandchild number nine :-)

Castles in the Air

I finished part 6. I love the way this one looks.

The finished part.

How it looks overall.

Natures Vision

Although it is looking pretty good, I'm finding it hard to stitch on at the moment..............I am having trouble getting into it. I have to make an effort on it though as it is for my son Ashley.

Oriental Lady

This is a bookmark that became a UFO. I needed a small project to be able to do when I have my grandchildren so I fished it out. I had to frog the fan as I started it one stitch too high. I am back stitching as I go as there is an awful lot of it.

New Start

I purchased the first part of Around the World in Eighty Days when it first came out. I love doing speciality stitches and thought I might as well start it seeing I rarely have new starts seeing nearly everything I stitch is huge :-/

The fabric is Honeysuckle Pink Joblean but it does not show up very well in the bottom of the two photos.

An Amazing Bargain!

A bargain in England I hear you say when everything is so over priced? A bargain in RIP OFF BRITAIN? Very much so! Mother in law to be picked me up this from a car boot sale for £5! Yes you read that right, £5!

It is Lavender and Laces Celtic Summer. The chart has it's original price tag on it of £8.99.  It contains absolutely everything. Fabric, beads, threads, needles, original chart and photo copies of the chart. How amazing is that for £5! Thank you Mumsy!

It will have to wait for a while as I have L&L's Angel of the Sea to do first :-)

Monday was a busy day for me as it was a bank holiday and we drummed at Battle Medieval Fayre. It was such a beautiful day and I got severely sunburnt even though I was wearing a high factor sun screen. It has been raining since then. We are having crazy weather. I am beginning to wonder if we will even have a summer this year.

Castles in the Air

It has been a while since I worked on this and I needed a change from my other stitching.

This is so large that it is very hard to get a descent photo of it.

I finished this area and started the next:

I just love doing the speciality stitches.

I have worked on one of my HAED's and Natures Vision as well but there's not really enough done to warrant pictures this week.

Stitching of Different Kinds!

I finally got around to doing a little stitching. I picked up Castles in the Air. The piece is getting big now and hard to take a good picture.

Here is a close up of the are I am working on:

Lots of embroidery stitches. I love to do them but find it slow going.

Next up, I finished a crochet blanket for my granddaughter Doullie.

It is quite large. I did flower granny squares. I sewed them together using a chain stitch and then did trebles in rounds around the outside.

I have also been doing some knitting.

I love these two colours together, they are so pretty!

I am making boot cuffs! If I like they way they turn out, I can see myself knitting several different designs and probably a few in black and red for when the drumming starts up!

I have decided to grow lots of different veg this year, so spent the last couple of days preparing the garden ready for sowing in a couple of weeks. I will be growing a lot of the produce in containers as it is surprising just what you can grow in them. I have seeds in window propagators for tumbling tomatoes, chives and oregano. Tomorrow I will be staring seeds off for sweet peas (flowers) as they will climb nicely amongst green beans. I am going to grow spuds in bags and have beetroot baskets as well.  I am not sure whether we will plant carrots this year as I don't think we have time to try and find some old planks on the cheap or free to make raised beds for them, but who knows.

This time next year hopefully we will have built a chicken coop and we want three chickens which will produce around  10 to 15 eggs a week. They are cheap to feed and make funny pets. 

Monday Update

I started a new project called Snowy Owl by Joan Elliott from her Bewitching Cross Stitching book. It is for my MIL. Although she stitches herself she fell in love with it so I said I would stitch it for her.I am on a tight schedule as she is coming to visit this next weekend and I am trying to get it finished for then. It also has beading as well as back stitch and French knots.

Next up is Dragon's Lair. I was really getting into it but stopped to stitch the owl.

Last but not least Castles in the Air.

A close up of the area I am currently working on.

My Spirit HAED hardly got a look in this week, so no point doing an update on it for just a few stitches.

CITA Part Five Finished!

When it comes to reading my updates, my blog is rather like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get, (as said Forrest Gump lol ).

I really wanted to spend this week exclusively on Green Man, but I had a massive urge to stitch on Castles in the Air.

Here is a before picture:

Here is a now picture:

A close up view of one of the areas just worked on.:

I love doing speciality stitches, the more intricate, the better!

Well until next time my lovely people!

Love and stitches one and all!

Update on The Green Man and CITA

I finally started The Green Man by HAED. I need to get some more threads for it so at the moment I am stitching on my other HAED 'Spirit', which is a story keep.

So far I have done 600 stitches all in blues, greens and black.

Castles in the Air

This is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:

It is slowly coming along.

Colin and I have joined a drumming group. We play at festivals, carnivals, private functions etc which we raise money for the special baby unit at our local hospital. We are called Section 5 Drummers.

Its great fun and relieves a lot of stress at the same time lol. I love watching little kids faces when they see us playing. They get so excited.

As you can see in the above picture, beer is a necessary part of an event before, during and after we play lol.

Update

This is my progress so far on Castles in the air. Nearly finished part four now. I'm trying to put a few stitches in most days to try and catch up.

This is Sue Hillis's 'Another Day Another Ship'. It is stitching up quite quickly. 

Sunday I met up with Sophia and Jenny, two local stitchers who advertised for other stitchers in one of the cross stitch mags. We are going to be stitching together most weeks, so should be fun.