No stitching

Been very busy , so no stitching to show this time round . Lots of shopping and sorting (though a lot of it has been done on-line this year), organising and running around.
 Thanks to my lovely daughter , over the last week I have made nine scarves in four days. I love it when she has these bright ideas for presents ,lol.
    The pink and black ones are for my daughters' teacher and TA respectively , the two purple ones are for two of her friends .

  For two more friends

 For sons' teacher and TA

 And of course ,while I was making them , my daughter herself had to get in on the act.
   These ones were fab to make and only took about an hour , the others took longer.

I will be glad to get back to my stitching as soon as I can , though not sure when that will be , lots more going off in the coming week, and next week will be even busier.

Thanks for checking in ,

Cath

A mixed bag

Well ,we are getting some very mixed weather at the moment. The other day we had hail/ice which covered everything .

 Straight after this , the sun came out and there was glorious rainbow.

Today we have snow , not as much as last time , though it is still trying . The day is very grey. Had a very disappointed hubby and kids this morning when they realised there was not enough to stop them going to work and school .

 I'm lucky to have my Christmas pressies to keep me warm . My lovely mittens .

 Hand knitted socks.

 And snuggly scarf . This pic was taken in the last lot of snow .

Latest finish .

 This is for my daughter and will be made into a cushion cover .

And these are the butterflies I have been working on for another charity group. They will be put together with other stitched squares and made into comfort pillows.

 These are a few waiting for their bodies , I will do them all together.

I am planning a bit of a stitchy day today as I didn't get any done on Monday or Tuesday. Monday was busy tidying and clearing out and yesterday I was in school until lunch time listening to the kids read. It was kind of unplanned , I just offered to help sort out a problem which got solved anyway so then kind of got volunteered to do reading. I always said I wouldn't go into a class that one of my kids was in , but my sons' teacher is struggling to fit everything in and only has a couple of part time TA's she also has quite a few children that require extra attention.
  First time went ok , so I will see how it goes.

Still snowing a little , and I am meant to be having an extra school run today as DD is supposed to be staying for Handball club , so we shall see.
 Take care everyone ,
 Cath

Nearly New Year

Hi everyone ,hope you all had a great Christmas. We ended up having our dinner late due to waiting around for other people , so I got a bit fed up , but otherwise it was good.
 The kids received some lovely gifts (so did I) and had a lovely time.
Both kids had new scooters so we went out Boxing Day afternoon for them to have fun . Just in time as later we got a heap of snow ,which is still here and looks like staying for a while as it is very frozen now .
 Both kids have had great fun sledging , they have been wanting snow for a long time .

 A couple of crafty finishes before the year ends .
 I did manage to complete the two scarves , which were given as gifts. Have not heard from the recipient yet , but hopefully they are liked.

 My latest stitchy finish . I have started another one in the series , and am hoping to get it completed before the end of the year , but no guarantees .

  See how deep the snow is ! Luckily I had gotten myself some wellies and the kids new snow boots just a couple of weeks ago . Boy am I pleased about that .

  Sledging fun . This is the only view you will get of my kids until they are much older. I am OTT about internet security things when it comes to my babies.

  Pretty views.

 Ice crystals on the snow.

 So , stay safe if you are out and about in these conditions , our roads are terrible, I am fairly sure that not one little bit of grit/salt has been put down since we had the snow . Hubby is taking me shopping tonight , I don't drive much now with only having the one car , so am not as confident as I used to be .

  I will be back soon with a re-cap of the year and hopes for the next one .

 Take care ,
 Cath

Must make more time to blog .

I have things to post about , but keep putting off actually doing it ,lol.
 The time of year is not helping , I have so many things to do and it's hard to work out what to do first so mostly end up doing not a lot.
  We are almost done with the present shopping , hubby and I are taking a day out to get each other some things , looking forward to the day more than the shopping ,lol.

 I have been busy for LQUK again , pretty squares .

This picture will not go the right way , sorry .

  Any child squares .

  A friend bought a stuffed toy kit for their daughter , thinking it cam with bits of fabric to put together . Wrong ! It came with wool and needles for the bits to be knitted up . They didn't have a clue so asked me if I could sort it out .

 I quite enjoyed making it up , over three days but with lots of time doing other things. A nice little kit really .

 This was our sky this morning . Lots of frost , but it was better than yesterday which was black ice everywhere . It was a bit tricky on the morning school run I can tell you.

 More news coming soon . Stay safe and warm peeps. I have had the heating on all day for the last couple of days . The cats are much happier ,lol.

There is still time to join in with the sister stitcher exchange for next year if you are interested .x

Take care ,
 Cath

A tale of two thread orders .

Most of my stash is bought using money that I get for my birthday or for Christmas .
   Last year , I bought a couple of LK charts that I wanted to kit up , so I checked out a few ONS' to find out the best prices of the threads (GAST AND WDW) . It turned out that two different stores were cheapest for the threads ,so I ordered one from one store and the other from the other. Even with two lots of postage , it was more economical.
 The GAST I ordered from the Patchwork Rabbit. Very fast turnaround , no problems at all and I was very happy.
 I placed both orders on the same date , 27th December last year. Within a week I had received the GAST .

The WDW I ordered from Thread Bear. Now, I have ordered from them before and always been totally happy.I knew that the store had been taken over by new people, but as the website and everything had stayed the same , I assumed that the service would be the same.

WRONG!

I placed my order on the 27th , got a confirmation back straight away which said (as usual) that they would be in touch in a couple of days to let me know what was what. I know that they don't carry everything in stock so I might have to wait , but as nothing was desperate , it wasn't a problem. By 5th Jan , I still hadn't heard anything so sent an e-mail to check if there was a problem.
 Got an e-mail back on the 7th stating that as it said on their site they had been off for Christmas until the 4th. OK, they would have to order a lot of the threads , but had a few in stock if I wanted them sent out straight away.
 I got right back to them and asked how long it would take for the threads to come. Two days later , they reply that it takes 10-15 working days.
 So , I replied that it was OK to wait and send all together.

Fast forward to 18th Feb, still not heard anything and I was going to give them until the end of that week and tell them not to bother.
 On the 20th , I got an e-mail to say it was being sent out that day . I had to e-mail back and ask what the postage cost would be as their site adds a huge charge on , but they do not take the money until the order is processed and then just add what the postage costs.
 The reply said £3.50 , which I thought was a bit much , but wait and see.
Two days later the envelope arrives and the postage cost was 90p .

 Unimpressed does not even begin to cover it. I sent an e-mail asking how they justified it and to be fair , I got a reply very quickly saying that they had charged as a package when it actually got through as a large envelope. I know the post is tricky to calculate now , but they didn't then go back and sort it out.
 They have agreed to refund all the postage , so just got to wait and check if that has been sorted.

 The whole thing has left a bad taste , and really put a downer on a stash acquisition ,which should be a fun thing, right ?
 In fact , until today I haven't even looked at the threads ,at the time ,I just stuffed them back in the envelope in case I decided to send them back and tell them to stuff it.

 So , they have lost a customer. Even if they are cheaper than anywhere else , I will not use them again.

Anyway , here are the threads .

Just hope it doesn't put a downer on using them.

 My latest finishes for LQUK

 And a couple of scarves I made over the weekend.

In other news , the bully has been at it again , but had a go at my daughter this time , so I had to have a word with a teacher , again. Getting pretty fed up of it now.
 A lovely day today , dry and sunny . Let's hope it stays that way .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Feeling Blah .

My blogging mojo seems to have taken a dive somewhere along the line.

 The last couple of weeks have been so hectic with one thing and another, I am very tired . Lots of family birthdays this month have kept us busy evenings and weekends , with not much time to relax. The kids are taking a while to get back into the swing of school , and are not enjoying homework much at the moment , lol.
 My boy has done very well though , he has been chosen to be a school councillor , received a head teachers award and is now a reading buddy , mentoring the class below him . He turns seven next month , so not too shabby for a six year old.
 My daughter got two prizes from her teacher within a week of going back to school . Very proud of both of them  .

Craft wise , I have been stitching , but nothing to show . One finish is for my give away ,so there will be a reveal later , and two others are secret stitches to also be shown at a later date .

 My daughter is studying the Aztecs this year and wanted some multi coloured wool to do some weaving . I found some out and remembered that I bought it to make a scarf for myself , so got on with it last week.

 Close up to show the lacy pattern .

 After my baking marathon ,the kids wanted to make something too. My daughter had seem something in a comic to make flip flops using rich tea fingers. You are supposed to sandwich two together using icing , but I bought finger creams thinking it would be easier , not realising that they were squared off at the ends. We had a go anyway .
   My daughters' messy plate

 My sons' slightly neater one.

 And some pictures of the daft cats.
   Finley .

 And Fraser .

Hopefully things will get back to normal soon. I am really hoping to get some serious stitching time in this week , but the best laid plans and all that .

Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath

Giveaway winner.

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay ,we have had a busy week , so without further ado :
 I put all the names in a box and asked my daughter to pick one out , and she chose.....
 
     CUCKI  ,

  and as anyone with kids knows , if one is doing something ,then the other one has to , so my son was also asked to choose a name . So the second winner is ...

JULIE 

So , ladies , if you could please drop me a line with your postal details , a few ideas of your likes/dislikes , favourite colours / designers etc. , and any ideas if you would like something themed to a season or holiday , or just a surprise , that would be great . Thanks to everyone who entered , and welcome to my new followers .

 Now for a quick update. Not much stitching going on over the last few weeks . I have had a lot on my mind and find it difficult to concentrate , so mostly I have been knitting.
  My MIL goes to a group where someone was giving away yarn , so she grabbed it for me. My daughter immediately nabbed it , and requested a snuggly scarf with hand warmer pockets , so this kept me busy for a few days .

 And of course , then the boy wanted one too . This was finished just last night . The pics don't show the true colours, but I can't get it right with the grey weather we've got at the moment.

On Saturday , I finally felt like doing some stitching , so pulled out this chart .

Finished it on Sunday , and then started this which I got for my birthday last year from Bekca .

I didn't have the called for threads for either of them , so just used DMC variegated to suit . Not sure about the chick , but I'm really happy with the LK one .

 Still not quite ready to go back to Butterflies ,so you may well see a few more smalls .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

End of year catch up.

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a good Christmas . Thanks for the good wishes , we had a lovely time. It was different but good. We went to MIL's and I cooked dinner there at tea time instead of lunch time , but we had a relaxing day and the meal turned out great, which made my day as it was weird being in someone elses' kitchen ,lol .

 I have so many things to catch up on , hope I remember them all , so in no particular order :

 The scarves , I ended up making four as Christmas gifts , all done in time and well received .

 I didn't remember to take a pic of the other one before wrapping , but you get the idea. It was soft mossy greens in colour way , and a little shorter .

 I sent a couple of gifts to friends ,
 For Lainey

  For Barb.

This is what Lainey sent me , gotta love the birdies .Lainey kitted up the bird chart for me , so this will be started soon hopefully .

  From another stitching friend , Dawn . The kids have already chosen which birds they want , so I'll be doing a robin and thrush first .

And this is what I received from my lovely friend Bernadett . A gorgeous shawlette that she made herself , isn't it beautiful.

Picture , calendar (Bernadetts' own design) and lovely brooch

And she made my kids a couple of lovely hats ,

Owl brooches ,

and also two gorgeous ornaments with their initials on, which I don't have a picture of .
 A big Thank you to my special friends , as these were the only gifts I had to unwrap . Me and hubby didn't buy for each other with money being very tight , and I got cash from family , so having these gifts was a lovely thing for me.
 I will be spending a little of the cash on the HAED sale , wish they would stop tempting me ,lol .

 I also sent a RAK to Peggy Lee , but can't find a pic right now , and sent a little gift with Barbs' prize from my magnetic bookmark/needle holder giveaway.

 Thanks for dropping by , I will be back soon with a year re-cap and hopefully some goals for next year and anything else that I've probably forgotten ,lol.
 Take care ,
  Cath