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

Ringing the changes.

  Hope everyone had a good Christmas . Ours was lovely . We had the day at home and visited family before hand as hubby was back to work Boxing Day . It does feel like Christmas was cut short and I am ready to tale down the decs , but will leave it until next week when the kids are back at school .
  The kids best Christmas presents were Minecraft for the X-box, google game play cards so they could put Minecraft on their tablets , and slush cups ,lol.

   I got no stitchy stash for Christmas , but I got money so will put that towards crafty stuff. Hoping to get one of my finishes framed with some of the money, I have been doing more charity stitching than anything else for the last few years and I got to thinking that maybe it's because I have finishes lying around and at least my squares are used and appreciated. Bearing this in mind,  my plan for this year is to do more personal stitching. I don't do resolutions , but I do have "plans" ,lol. I will still stitch for Love Quilts , but will be working on a lot more of my own projects.

 So , no new year start for me , instead I plan on finishing. I have two small (but big) projects on the go .
 This one is for my daughter.

 and this one is a LQ a/c square.

Both were started in October , but put away while I did the HAED challenge in November.
 I also have my two OFOs,
 Christmas Recipe

 and Three Little Maids

I will finish these early this year , as I want some new starts and I've promised myself no new starts until these are finished.
 And there is Rosita to work on .

  Some of my Christmas money is already gone as I placed an order for fabric and threads to kit up these .
 Play With Me

 and TT A Pale Comparison.

Other than LQ squares , these will be my first new starts this year . Can't wait .

 Picked this up from a charity shop on Tuesday when I took the kids out to spend their money and book tokens. I think I have it , but not sure and can't find it , so also plan to sort out my stash this year ,lol .

  Last years' orts, all squished in the jar

 and spread out a bit.

 And my new ort jar all ready to be filled through out the year .

Thanks for dropping by , and a Happy New Year to you all.
Cath

The End

So , yesterday we had to post our final picture for the HAED challenge of at least 100 stitches a week for four weeks.
 This is the pic I posted on there :

 however , I managed to get some stitches in yesterday , bad weather halts play when you don't have a car ,lol . And ,as I started on the Sunday , it seemed fair to carry on yesterday . Even taking those stitches out though , I still got way over 100 stitches in last week . So , this is where I stand now

 and this is where I started before the challenge began .

 I am pretty chuffed with the progress. Rosita will be going away for a short while now as I kind of want to get a couple of UFO's finished up before the end of the year. Then , I am probably going to have a new HAED start next year , I have a couple in mind , but we will see. Next year I want to do more personal stitching. I do love doing the Love Quilts squares , but I have so much stash I really must make use of some of it.

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Week three

Well, last week was a bit of a bust as far as stitching goes. I managed to get more than 100 stitches in , just , and not much else was done . Appointments, busy days and feeling grotty as the end of the week led to more snuggling and reading than stitching. Still, any progress is good and I have higher hopes for the coming week.

 End of week two

 End of week three.

I am wanting to work on other things now , which isn't helping , and still wanting to start loads. Still resisting the urges though , for now ,lol .
Thanks for reading ,
 Cath

Week two .

Week two of the HAED challenge has passed. I am quite pleased with the progress I made , especially as I didn't stitch on it at all for a couple of days.
 So, end of week one

 End of week two.

 I am still really enjoying stitching on this ,but I am getting startitis , I really want to start a few new projects. So far I have been good as I have a couple of UFOs as well as the WIPs , so we'll have to see how it goes.
 Thanks for reading ,
 Cath

Week one

I have completed the first week of the HAED challenge.
 I haven't counted the stitches , but there is definitely more than 100 done this week. Probably close to 400 , so I am happy .

 Before

 After.

 This is the first time I have had the pictures together , looks like more progress than I had originally thought .  I am loving stitching on her again . Looking forward to the next three weeks
 Thanks for reading ,
Cath .

Heaven and Earth

 I recently joined the new official HAED page on Face book .
 Michele has issued a challenge for people to do at least 100 stitches a week for the nest four weeks and then show photos of their progress.
  I have been wanting to get going on QS Rosita for a while , and this is the incentive I needed , so here is where I am at now.

We have to post a progress pic on the FB page on the 28th November , but I'm going to try and post a pic on here every week to see how much I can get done . I am hoping for more than the asked for 100 stitches , but we'll see as I also have a couple of other projects on the go .

Thanks for reading ,

 Cath

HAED Sale !

Heaven and Earth have a 50% off sale at the moment.

I decided to take advantage and treat myself. Haven't bought any charts from them for over a year as the styles they were producing weren't to my taste , but a few of the newer lovelies have caught my eye .

 These pretties have come to be stored and eventually stitched ,lol .

The bottom one has been on my wish list for longer than the others ,and there are plenty left on it , I aim to live for a very long time ,lol.
 Cath x

Time Flies

Whether you're having fun or not ,lol .

 I can't believe that it has been a month since my last post. One of those times with not a lot to say I guess.
I have been stitching , but not a lot . Time has seemed to have been in short supply lately.

 I have made a little progress on Rosita , wish it was more , but there you go .

 The only other project I have been working on is this .

It is a square for LQUK, but as the chart is fairly large , it is on 16ct aida instead of the usual 14ct , and it is taking an age to get done . I am thinking about another 1500 stitches then all the back stitch. Hopefully this week or next will see it finished so I can get on to other things.

 I have also been taking some time to try and organise my stash. At the moment this involves lots of looking through old magazines and removing usable charts .Hopefully this will create more space to enable me to organise everything else , but it all takes time.
 I also got very engrossed in a set of books ,so didn't stitch for over a week while I ploughed through them ,lol.

 Well, that's all for now , the kids are on Easter holiday from school , so a second visit to the library this afternoon , for Easter craft. Swimming lesson and ice skating party tomorrow, who knows what Sunday will bring.

 A quick aside , Thread Bear did indeed refund the postage from my order .

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Take care ,
 Cath x

Prickles , fur and crosses .

Just over a week ago (Friday 19th) me and the kids were walking to school when someone told us there was a hedgehog running around on the road a bit further on .The kids were pretty excited , so off we scurried to try and catch a glimpse of it. It was just entering someones' driveway and going under the car ,so we left it alone and carried on to school .
 On the way back , I saw it again , running along the road , and getting pretty close to the main road. I was very worried as it was past 9 am , and already getting pretty hot , plus I did not want to come back and find it squished on the road . Luckily , I had a biggish fabric bag with me , so I scooped up the hog and put it in my bag and brought it home. Then it had the joy of being put into a cat carrier and left in my daughters' room (the coolest in the house) with a saucer of water and some cat biscuits.

Later that day , we took it and let it go in a field behind the houses where I found it , so hopefully it found its' way home again . It was lovely , as I remember feeding and looking after hedgehogs when I was a kid , so it was nice to relive it with my own children. They thought it was amazing .

On to the fur , just wanted to share a couple of pics of my boys ,lol.

 Fraser having a lazy moment , and Finley giving me "that" look. (He does it a lot .)

Stitching time , yay !

Here's a finish I did for Gaynor I have not yet decided how to finish finish it though .

 And , progress on Rosita. I am almost finished with the first page , but have decided to have a little break .

Still loving this one though , so pretty .

 This is what I decided to stitch over the weekend. It for a charity quilt. The theme is hearts and the person it is for loves purple , and also loves food . I am thinking it needs something else to fill in though , it looks a bit bare to me. Thinking of  putting some smaller hearts around the cupcake , what do you think ?

I have also sent and received packages in the Birds , Bees and Butterflies exchange through Stitched with Love Exchanges , but can't show those yet .

 And, I have posted out parcels to Cucki and Julie. So sorry for the delay in sending out your give away prizes ladies , but I hope you like what you get .

Has anyone looked at the "Pimp your Blog" section ? I am wondering about just having scheduled posts about new blogs rather than having it on the sidebar .

 Thanks for dropping by , not sure when I will be back with it being school holidays , but hopefully soon .

 Cath x

A little update .

Hi everyone , not much stitching getting done due to the weather. Sorry to all you sun lovers out there , but I have had enough of it now . Way too hot , and making me feel ill .
  Here is a shot of where I left Rosita last night.

I spent most of yesterday stitching , after not picking it up for nearly a week . Lots of school events and warm weather made it fairly difficult to stitch .
 I have also finished up a small for an exchange , but can't show that yet , so you will have to wait .

 I have changed the blog in my "Pimp your blog" section , over there => , and will try to do so every week , so please keep checking it out, you may find some new and interesting blogs .

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Old, new and in between

Welcome to my new followers, hope you enjoy your visits here. Please feel free to comment and if you have a blog ,let me know so I can pop over.

 Also , a big thanks to everyone who went over to Marshas' blog. She now has well over 100 followers. so I'm really pleased for her.
 In light of this though , I am going to add a new little bit to my blog . Over on the sidebar a new section will appear called "Pimp your blog". Every week (or there abouts) I will list a new blog for you to check out , it may be a new one , or an old one with fewer followers or even a well known one with lovely eye candy , we will see ,lol.

 Anyway , on to stitchy stuff. when I finished Butterflies , I wasn't quite ready to start my next HAED straight away. I needed to make a cover for my scroll frame so I don't end up with grubby stripes across the fabric, I did still want to stitch though , so I got out my old WIPs I guess they should be called UFOs now. I stitched a motif on Christmas Recipe , just need to do the back stitch on it .

 I really want to get this one and my little owls finished this year , so I have kind of promised myself to stitch on them at least once a week , ahem , not quite managed it this week yet ,as I have just wanted to stitch on Rosita , and this is where I am now .

 I do love seeing the squares coloured in on the chart .

  And now for the new . Heaven and Earth are running a reward programme , so I sent in pics of Butterflies and got a free chart . I chose QS Sunny , as I have liked this one since seeing it on someone elses' blog ages ago .

Not sure when she will get stitched, but she is mine , all mine.

Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath

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