Mermaid , cakes and cats.

First off , Happy 4th July to my US friends , hope you have a great celebration.

 Yesterday saw me finally starting my next Heaven and Earth cross stitch design. I have chosen to do QS Rosita , and she will eventually look like this

  This is where I am at the moment , after a couple of hours yesterday and about the same so far today . I think I have done roughly 600 stitches , hey , only another forty seven  and a half thousand more to go. This is my biggest ever project so far in my stitching life , and I am a little scared of not completing it. But, with all the other charts now in my stash , I'd better !

  At the moment, I'm leaving my chart next to the stitching area , so I don't have to look at that big expanse of empty fabric .

  See, puny .

  Before I sat down to stitch today , I was busy in the kitchen . The kids' school is having a Coronation Fayre tomorrow, and each class is doing a stall. My daughters' class is having a cake stall , so I volunteered to make some cakes for them .

  Frosted cupcakes and chocolate crispy cakes. I do not know any kid that doesn't like crispy cakes,

  My boy has been a little clingy lately, if I'm in any room for any length of time , he is there with me . He lay in the kitchen while I was cake making , and when I sat down to stitch , he decided I had to stay put for a while.

  You can just see Finley laying on the carpet , but Fraser had to lie on me and hug my leg. Gotta love the boys .

Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath 

Pretty Butterflies .

Yep, today at 2.03 pm saw the last stitch go into Butterflies.
 I am happy it is done , but to be honest , it's a bit of an anti-climax after so long feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere. It doesn't help that there is no-one here to admire it. Hubby at work (probably until late) and kids at school ,so I have come to show off here.

Excuse the wrinkles , she is fresh from the bath ,lol.

 I will hopefully get better pics when she is dry and ironed , though she will then go away for a while waiting to be framed .

 I will not be starting another one straight away , though the urge is there. I want to try and get my WIP/UFOs cleared up, though making no promises ,lol.

 Thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

Birthday Cuddles.

Yesterday was the boys' 3rd birthday ,and for the first time in ages , they were snuggled up together,

 Finley didn't really get a choice in the matter , though. Fraser just climbed on him and that was it.

  Fraser spent most of the day suffering with a tummy ache , so maybe that's why he felt the need of a brotherly hug . I only feel a little bit sorry for him , as it was probably self inflicted. He has a terrible habit of eating things that he really shouldn't .
  Luckily , he felt better by tea time and was able to enjoy his saucer of chicken as a birthday treat. The kids insist we have to celebrate ,lol.

  I have managed a few sessions of working on Butterflies over the last couple of weeks . Probably around ten hours give or take . This is where I'm at now .

I've spent about four hours on it today , and though I know I've done quite a bit, it feels like not a lot to show for it . There are lots of odd single stitches and fiddly bits now I'm on the last leg .
 There is no organisation in the stitching any more , I just choose a symbol and try and do all of the stitches in that colour . Of course ,as soon as I start the next colour , I find one or two that I missed previously ,lol.
 Still hoping for a finish soon though.

SPECIAL REQUEST
 If anyone has stitched LHNs' Needleworker chart and no longer wants to keep it , I am interested in buying/trading for it . I love the chart but am not keen on CC threads so would want to choose my own.
 Also looking for LK Promise Me , but will probably buy that anyway as I want to stitch one each for my kids .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

New Faces

 Yep, I've gone and done it again. I succumbed to the charms of the Heaven and Earth Sale. Shame on me!
 The worst thing is , it means four charts have come off my wish list , but about five more have gone on .
  I am doomed.

But , you have to admit , they are pretty gorgeous.

Cath x

Bug days .

First of all ,a big Thank you to everyone who made such nice comments about the quilts. For me , it is an honour and a pleasure to be a part of something so worthwhile. Stitching the squares is the easy part in my mind ,the making up of the quilts is much more work , and I am in awe of the talented ladies who put their time and effort into doing it.

 So , it is supposed to be spring ,though with the temps around here at the moment , it would be hard to guess. We have a lot of flies in the house though . I spray every couple of days , and yet they never seem to decrease in numbers ,despite the bodies littering the window sills ( I do clean them up) . But , on the nicer side , it's time for the prettier creepy crawlies to come out .
 My boy found this little friend the other day , and both kids spent an entertaining hour or two watching it closely and giggling as it tickled their hands .

 As today is an inse(c)t day from school ,they wanted to keep it , but were persuaded to put it back in the garden, though we did have some tears .
 So , with days off and half term , not much stitching will be happening here over the next week or so , so I will leave you with a current pic of Butterflies .

 I am guesstimating that there is about 1500 - 2000 more stitches left to do. I am hoping for a June/July finish , but we will see.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Butterflies and snails (not in the garden).

After finishing Hello Kitty , I needed a small project again, but instead of looking for a new chart I decided I needed to get some of those old WIP's out of the way . I aim to have no old WIP's or UFO's hanging around after this year, hmmm.
 Anyway, it's about time I got my sons' snails finished , so I have been working on that .

 So far , I've done the leaves on the top right hand side and the lower branch. It shouldn't take too long to be finished, but I have been a little distracted with Butterflies.

I have got back into it big time. A couple of afternoons last week and some time yesterday have left me here. Some more green added and lots of the darker outlines . My plan is to do all of the dark blue and then fill in the other brighter colours. I am hoping that when all the blocks are done , I will be so close to a finish that I won't mind doing all the confetti and annoying odd stitches ,lol. Yes, that is the bottom of the chart .
 I am loving it again , and want to just pick it up now , but alas, I have to enter the pigsty of my daughters' bedroom and clean and tidy, which I am expecting to take all day , so maybe tomorrow.

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath.

New HAEDs

How very lax of me , sorry Sally ,lol.
 My new charts are shown below .

QS Genevieve

QS Rae

And QS April Fairy

And , there are yet more on my wish list. I must stop looking at the HAED site . Yeah , like that's really going to happen ,lol.

Cath

All three.

Finish , start and progress .

 First , I finished the last of my dragonfly charity squares .

 And here are the three together . I love how they have turned out, and it amazes me the difference it makes just by changing the colours used.

  A little bit of progress on Butterflies , but not as much as I would like. I spent ages wanting to get back to her , and when I got the chance , I didn't really enjoy it. I think the stitching ADD is still in force a bit,lol .

 I intend to do more next week as I  really want it finished so I can start a new one . And HAED have got a sale on at the moment ,so I have bought a couple of new charts .
 And this is the new start ,

  and also another finish .

This will probably be a charity square as well , not totally decided yet , but my daughter is not a big fan of Hello Kitty. I just fancied stitching it .
 Now I need to find another small to work on when I don't have time for the big projects ,lol .
 thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

This and that .

Hi everyone , sorry I've not been around for a while .Lots going on , and hence I have had a bit of stitching ADD lately.
 Not really been able to concentrate on butterflies, though I realised that I haven't shown a truly up to date pic , so here it is . This has not been touched for a few weeks , and won't be for at least another week as the kids are on holiday , so not enough peace ,lol .

  I started a Honey Pots Bears design and got the balloons completed before I received my ordered fabric for some charity squares .

 This is for a charity quilt . The design is a freebie by Kirsten Schmidt and can be found here .

She has some totally gorgeous designs on the site . I have two more of these to do , but will choose different colours for each one .
 Hopefully things will settle down in a few weeks , until then , I will try and get more done to show , lol .

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Brrrr ,it's cold !!!

And I have been made up with cold for over a week now. It is just not funny. I've had enough. With last week being half term too , it made for a pretty boring week for the kids. Most of the time , it was too cold/wet /miserable to do anything. though on one of the finer days ,we went for a (muddy) walk around the local park . I was pleased with a couple of my photos .

  Love this one of the gull flying, it was pure luck as I've got lots of other shots that are all fuzzy or missing bits ,lol .

  Some idiot had thrown prawn crackers in for the water birds to eat.

  And i realised that I haven't shown any recent pics of my boys. It has been so cold ,they have had to resort to snuggling up together, lol .

 I've made a fair bit of progress on Butterflies . This is where I got to before moving the fabric up on the frame .

  Here's the before :

And the after .

 This is where I am now . Not done any for a few days with having this rotten cold and the kids being off. Got the shopping done today , so hopefully tomorrow will be a stitch day .

 So , last week I managed to finish of this cat . It was started in 2011, and was originally meant to be a charity square for a quilt , but the quilt got made earlier than the deadline and so this got left  .

 I quite like it , and think it may well end up going in my sons' direction ,lol.

 I like to have a small easy to pick up project on the go as well. At the moment I'm stitching a small All Our Yesterdays cover kit , but it should be done fairly quickly.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Three cheers .

Happy Valentines Day everyone , especially if you are doing something special .  We don't do Valentines. We say "I love you" pretty much every day , so no need to make a special day for it . It has been very sweet though , as my six year old son has made two lovely pictures with hand written messages for his sweetheart at school , and he brought home two pictures from her , which has made his day ,lol .

 Anyway , on to other things. The other day saw the arrival of the last of my stash .

 This had somehow gotten missed from my order from Anita, so I e-mailed her and she very kindly sent it on. Looking forward to stitching these later in the year .

 I had a little finish last week . Whilst sorting out some stuff I came across this just started cover kit and decided to finish it. It's nice to have something that is easy to pick up and put down as well as a main project.

 Not sure what I'm going to do with him yet, though I'm maybe thinking of making up a little dolly bag , we shall see .

 And , I am up to 200 followers - yahoo!!!, so that means a give away is coming up . I am going to leave it until next month , as it's half term next week and there are things going on etc, plus I would like to know what people would like to win , so I'm going to put a poll up on the sidebar .Please either vote in the poll or leave a comment with what you think would be a good give away prize .

The other big news , is my progress on Butterflies Galore. The face is done !
 The confetti was a pain in the derry , and to be honest , I'm not totally sure a lot of it was necessary. That said , I am loving stitching her and already looking forward to the next one ,lol .
 So , I'm hoping you want to see pics .

  I have done a little bit more since taking these photos , but you get the idea. I am really pleased with how she is turning out .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath