Shock , Horror !!!

I forgot to post my projects for last year ,lol.

 Never mind we are still only very early in the New Year.
So in 2015 , I finished 42 cross stitch projects , 25 of those were Love Quilts squares and 4 were for another quilt that is to be made for a music cradle at a respite centre. I also spent most of November working on my current HAED , so not too shabby.

 Books wise, I only read 70 last year . This is lower than the year before and way down on previous years. I kind of lost my way with reading towards the end of the year and couldn't decide what I wanted to read so ended up with nothing. Anyway , hoping to at least equal that this year , but it would be nice to improve.
 Already made a start with my first book finish .

 My lovely nephew bought me this and two other books for Christmas . Have to say , it is quite bizarre , but still an enjoyable read .

  Also had a couple of stitching finishes.
Started this New Years Eve , it's a cover kit from World of Cross Stitching mag. Hubby will be receiving this tomorrow as we will have been together twenty years (makes me feel old).
 We have had some pretty tough times over those twenty years , but got through it together, and I wouldn't change what we've got. We have two amazing kids and are very happy together .

 And I finished my Daughters' tiger . Love it now it's done , but it did get me down a bit at times.

 Have to say I was spurred on a little by the arrival of this:

Now I can kit up my next two HAED starts. Very excited , but still determined to finish those UFOs first. I think I will be eagerly stitching on them very soon so I can get to the next ones ,lol.

 Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath

Not a lot

of stitching going on , but I do have some other pics .

I have been stitching , but it's mostly for exchanges and though the stitching is done , the finishing isn't , yet , and anyway , no pics until it's received .

It was my birthday last week , so I thought I'd show some of the lovely handmade cards I received , aren't they great.And just look what Lainey sent me . A gorgeous birthday hanger , and the JCS Christmas mag , how fab is that. I was gobsmacked ,to say the least ,and have found lots I want to do.Aside from my exchange stitching , I've also done this . I won the bunny from Cross Stitch Crazy as a prize for being Angel of the Month at the beginning of the year , but had to wait until now for someone we knew to have a baby boy. And here are a couple of pics of the views from our house of late . Lots of lovely sunsets , but I'm usually putting the chooks and kids to bed so don't have much time to take pics.We also get "spooky mist" in the valley , which I think is great . We live at the top of a hill so the view from our house is great ,and on Autumn mornings we get lots of mist in the drop opposite our house . It's weird to see the tops of trees and telegraph poles just sticking up from nowhere.

I've added a new list thing on my side bar where I will post any new giveaways that I come across , then I'll delete them when they're done . I'm hoping this will make it easier , lol.

Thanks for dropping by,

Cath

I'm back .

Hi everyone . first of all , thank you all for the lovely comments . It makes me smile every time I receive one. Sorry I haven't been around for a while . I have not been feeling at all creative . My stitchy bug took a long and unwanted vacation without me , so I was not impressed. I have just been doing lots of reading . Thank heavens for the local library , as I have been getting through books at an alarming rate this past few weeks . I've read 52 so far this year , most of them my own . I'm also helping to keep the local charity shops in business lol. I have made a few more cards , though didn't photograph all of them due to having to get them to the birthday people , but here are a couple .

These are for my Husbands' Grandma and my cousins' daughter .

And , finally , I have started doing some stitching . I needed to get another scroll frame for the project I want to do , so this is what I started to keep me going while I was in the mood lol.

It will eventually look something like this :

This charts is from an old , old magazine called Classic Stitches , and is actually a chart for tapestry , and is charted in Anchor tapestry wool . I contacted Anchor to see if they had a conversion to stranded cotton , but they don't . So one day last year I was running around Hobbycraft with a basket full of Anchor tapestry wool and a notepad and pen , trying to match the colours to DMC stranded cotton ,as I prefer to use DMC .

I matched them the best I could , so the picture will look a little bit different , but hopefully will turn out ok .

This is hopefully going to be a present for my Sister-in-law as many years ago there was a sculpture in Past Times called Moon Gazing Hare that she really liked , so I hope she will like this picture.

I got my other scroll frame yesterday , so will soon have another start to show . I've been getting some stick for starting and not finishing , but I don't have loads of projects on the go . My Christmas one and the Owls and a couple of small squares is all . I don't think that's too bad .

Anyway , I'm all excited as I've won a prize in Michelles' blogoversary giveaway , so looking forward to that . And , next month I will have been blogging for a year , so watch this space for my own giveaway .

Wimblebees are closing down and are selling everything off at 50% discount ,so go and have a look before end of August . Guess a little stash enhancement has helped my stitchy bug to come home lol.

Thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

Green eyes? Look this way ....

I am going to make you soooo jealous .

A while ago I entered Gaynor's draw to win a RAK of something handmade by her . she let me know on Tuesday of last week that it was in the post , so I was on tenterhooks waiting for it to arrive . Boy was it worth the wait .

Look at the lovely package I received. I've got to admit , it got me quite emotional .

The gorgeous stitched piece is backed with the fabric shown , which Gaynor kindly sent as well ,and she included the chart . How cool is that . I totally love it , and can see myself stitching it more than once in the future . So , a BIG Thank you , once again Gaynor for such a gorgeous RAK . I absolutely love it. This is the first stitched thing other than bookmarks that I have been given , so it's even more special .

If you are interested , Gaynor has just offered up her next RAK , so go over and put your name in .

I am still open for people to let me have their details if they want to possibly receive a RAK from me at some point. just let me know.

Other news ,still no stitching to show , but I have made a few more cards

notice a trend here ? lol .

Thanks everyone for your comments , I do appreciate them very much.

Thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

Cards

It was my eldest sisters' birthday last week , and her eldest daughter passed her driving test the week before , so I had a card making session for them

I have a few more birthdays coming up this month , so will be busy again . I quite like the dress one ,and it was easy to do so will probably do a few more of those. Loads of birthdays in July , so I will be really busy lol.

Thanks for dropping by,

Cath

Cards and a giveaway.

My husband is away this weekend at an Advanced Squad Leader convention .For most of you not in the know , it's a tactical war game which is played on board mats with lots of little counters.

Anyway ,it's two of his buddies birthdays around about now , so he got me to make up cards for them , using copies of the boards and counters. So , just to show that I do make cards (lol) here are some pics

I quite enjoyed making them , and it seems that they've gone down extremely well , so worth the effort.

I've got to say , I will be glad when he gets back tomorrow. After being out in town all day with the kids , shopping for my husbands birthday which is later in the week, I truly appreciate why I like it so much more to go on my own when they are at school. My nerves are a little frazzled right now. But then again , I was woken up pre 6.30 today and yesterday (and I'm not a morning person lol).

Thank you everyone for your lovely comments about my stitching. I can say that someone will be getting a little stitchy gift , but will leave you hanging at that , as there's still a chance to enter my little competition .

My decision about what to stitch next has been taken out of my hands , as I found out yesterday that one of the teachers at my Sons' nursery is leaving at Easter. Both of my kids love her to bits , so I will be trying to make something for the kids to give her on the last day. I'm thinking one of the LK teacher charts made into a cushion or hanging pillow, but I'll see how it goes.

Finally , if you like Carriage House Samplings charts , here is a great giveaway of the chart for Alphabet Blocks : http://carolyn-justonemorestitch.blogspot.com/ .

thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

Done !

Well, my Christmas cards are done ,and pretty much sorted . Just a couple more to post , which are waiting to be added to , and a couple to hand deliver to people we will be seeing this weekend.

I found it a real bind again this year , just couldn't get into the mood for it .I even ended up buying some ,which I haven't done for quite a few years.I still made a lot of cards though. Some were stitched , mainly for stitching friends , and the rest were done with stamps, peel offs and special papers.

So , these are my stitched cards. A couple aren't pictured , as I was so engrossed in getting them written on ready to send, I sealed the envelopes before thinking about taking photos.

And these are the rest

These were made using some Bentley Bear stamps that were free with one of the card making mags a while ago.(The only reason I bought it).They're cute , and I like Bentley and plan on doing some stitched pics of him next year. Typically , I have some cards and components left over , so I'll have to try and remember where I've put them for next year , and remember not to send them to the same people lol.

So , not much progress on my Christmas stitching , though I have done a bit . After all that card making and writing , I felt like a bit of self indulgent stitching , so yesterday in between going out for new fairy lights, I did this

It's from the latest issue of Cross Stitcher , and just me. Just need to decide whether to mount it or make it into a bookmark now. I'm leaning towards a bookmark , but who knows.

Thanks for dropping by , and to all who read this blog, A very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and frog free New Year. I would have liked to send out cards , but don't know your addresses on the most part , so please accept my very best wishes.

I'll hopefully be back to waffle before the man in red comes though ,lol

Cath

Rudolf,Witzy,Kimono and a freaky egg!

Well ,with a title like that , you've got to be interested lol.

First , Rudolf : This is a kit with this months' Cross Stitcher mag , I have it on subscription so got it a couple of days early. I've changed the back stitch a bit and added beads instead of the stitched stars. Now , I'm going to do another one in slightly different colours and make them into stockings or goody bags for my kids.

He is just so cute , I can see myself stitching this chart a few times in the future.

Auntie Jane at Stitch for Charity was given an unfinished round robin to use on the quilts or cut up to make cards. It's a shame to cut it up , so I offered to fill in the missing section and it will be used as a centre piece on one of the quilts.

I love Little Suzy's Zoo ,especially Witzy so this was lovely to stitch. Though had to use a hoop as the fabric was so big and floppy.

This is the section I stitched , and I think he fits in well with the rest .

The kimono part is a birthday card I made for my cousins' daughter. It was quick and easy , but very effective and I like it.On to the freaky egg .

We have four hens , they are rescued ex-battery hens . We got them in May and a couple still have bald patches , but they quickly adapted to outside life and soon showed natural hen behaviour ,which is good as they can have lots of problems. One of the hens has always had problems with forming the shell on the egg , she can't seen to retain enough calcium to make the shell , despite being given shell supplement with the feed. We don't mind too much , as we have more eggs than we need so a couple of "squishies" don't cause any problems , we just clean them up and leave her to get on with it , she's happy enough and thankfully the soft eggs don't seem to cause her too many problems , as they can be more difficult to lay.

Anyway , this is what I found the other day when I went to check the coop

The shell hasn't quite formed properly , so a bit of the membrane was sticking out . It looked so weird. I used the egg pretty much straight away to avoid bacteria getting inside , and it was fine , just not quite finished lol.

Thanks for dropping by , have a good week,

Cath