A New Year !

Means time to re-cap .

 So , 2017 was a bit of a flop stitching wise , I had 32 starts and 29 finishes , 21 of which were squares for Love Quilts . No big finishes and not as many small ones as usual. I fell into a bit of a funk towards the end of the year , mainly due to stress and jury duty ,but thankfully things are improving now .
 My Orts for last year :

 My jar was emptied ready to start afresh .

Books read last year came to a grand total of 133 , quite a bit more than previous years but with not as much stitching , I had to be doing something , right? 

  Christmas saw a big enhancement to my book stash .

 And these were purchases from the charity shop  , so I am set for a few weeks ,lol.

I have been busy stitching since the holidays.

   This was started last year , but finished on the 2nd of Jan and is a sign up for Love Quilts.

This one was started 2nd Jan and finished on the 9th , another LQ sign -up. They have both been posted now along with the Green Lantern logo which was originally an a/c square but has since been used for a sign-up.

 After Mickey , I stitched this for my daughter. It was complete , but she's now decided that she wants her name and birth month putting on , but it shouldn't take too long to do .

I love doing my Love Quilts squares but I really do need to start doing more of my own stitching , my stash is languishing and has been for far too long , so I am now stitching on a personal project which is quite different to what I would normally do , but I'm loving it . I will show that next time .

 I did have a teeny bit of stash for Christmas , I ordered it before hand as I knew I would be getting mostly money , so just a few bits. Most of my cash went on new clothes as I have lost over a stone in the last few months and I was getting a bit fed up of my bottoms falling down ,lol .

So , Happy New Year , here's to a year full of stitching , stashing and reading and whatever else you would like .

 Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath

Out with the old.

In with the New.

Happy New Year everyone , I know I'm a day late . I was going to post last night , but then hubby asked if I wanted to watch a DVD with him while having cheese and crackers . Can't turn an offer like that down , so blogging had to wait ,lol .

Anyway , time for the recap and plan post , so here goes.

 Last year , I read 114 books , a huge improvement on the last couple of years , so I'm pretty happy with it , especially as it did not look like I'd get anywhere near that at the start of the year.
 I had a lovely pile of books for Christmas to help me get a good start in this year .

I've already read the two on the right and made a start on the third.

Stitching wise , I had 44 starts , and 48 finishes , which again I'm quite impressed with especially as some of those finishes were old UFOs .

 I stitched 28 squares for Love Quilts , and a card  , a card for hubby , 4 bookmarks for my lovely kids , two other finishes for me , and two UFOs finished ,and one of them was finished on the 30th December , so you haven't even seen it yet !

 I have one WIP , which will probably be left for a while as I had a new start yesterday , but that comes in with the plans bit ,so more in a short while . First , the ORTs !

 My ort jar from two angles , lots of pretties in here , but it's now been emptied out all ready for a new years worth .

So , my big finish at the end of last year was my oldest UFO , started in 2009. I was stitching on it when my cousin was killed in a car accident and just put it down . I've picked it up on and off occasionally , but decided that it needed to be finished . After I finished up my owls earlier on last year , I admit I did put this off a bit , but once I got going it wasn't actually that bad . I have changed a couple of things ,and added some personalisation , and overall I'm quite pleased with it.

Forgive the bits of paper , I don't post my familys' names on line. It is also in need of a good press , but as it's going to be put away for a few months I'm going to leave that until I'm ready to have it framed , probably around my birthday  ,then it will be ready and waiting in time for next Christmas.
 I'm quite excited about it now it's done , this is my first seasonal stitched piece .

Plans ,well , I don't make definite plans , just have ideas of what I'd like to do .

My new start yesterday was a HAED , which I'm doing for the FB challenge of stitching a page between Jan 1st and April 7th . It was going to be until 3rd March , but they extended it . I'm stitching TT A Pale Comparison for my Daughter , and she's quite excited about it.

This is my progress from yesterday and today .

My other plans are really to do more personal stitching . I do love stitching for Love Quilts and will continue to do so , but I need to get more of my own projects done . I have so much stash , it's shameful . Also , I want to do more for my kids , so once this one is done , I'll be starting a HAED for my son. I'd also really like to complete Rosita, so three HAEDs on the go ,lol .

I am planning on stitching Pumpkin Patch Inn this year too , and hopefully Holmseys' Winter Wonderland , and probably Promise Of Spring by Silver Creek Samplers which I bought from the lovely Mouse .

 So , looks like I'm going to be fairly busy this coming year .

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

Another Year .

Wow , time really does pass quickly as you get older ,lol .

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas time . We certainly did . After all the rushing around prior to
Christmas, the event itself was very relaxed and enjoyable . Apart from the lack of sleep that is . My daughter finally settled off to sleep at around 4.00 am , and was up again around 7 .That said , it was a lovely day visiting family , eating a lovely dinner and chilling the afternoon away.

 I got absolutely No stitching gifts .But I did get lots of cash , so you know where a lot of it will be going . Already ordered some threads, and will be searching for other goodies no doubt .

 So , another year pretty much done and dusted. Guess it's time for a quick catch-up and review , then some info about next year.

 A couple of projects not yet shown . I was thrilled to be asked to stitch a square for Sallys' special birthday quilt .

 Sally loves it , and Mouse did such a great job with the quilting .

 My last two squares for LQUK this year .
    The butterfly is my own design , but it changed drastically from the original chart. Still quite pleased with how it turned out though .

  A cute little owl .

  My squares have gone down to the post office today , but it seems I missed the (early) last collection , so they will start their journey on Thursday .

 So , 2013 , well a reasonable year stitching wise .
 I started 42 projects and completed 37. Out of the 37 , 15 were charity squares for LQUK. My main finish of course was HAED Butterflies Galore . Still love it , and still need to get it framed ,lol .
  I also read 114 books, I am down from last year , as my total was 120 for 2012 , but some of the books read this year were biggies ,with one being almost 1000 pages . Quite happy with the total anyway.

 I am sure I have missed things from the end of this year , but if I remember I will add them at a later point .

On to 2014 .
 I don't make resolutions as such, just have hopes and plans .

 Stitching wise , I am going to try something different next year. Something I have never done before and never wanted to do . I am going to try a rotation !
  I started HAED QS Rosita in July, stitched like mad on her for three weeks and have not picked her up since. I really want to get her finished in 2014 and at least start another one , so to try and do this and keep up with other things , I am going to give rotation a whirl .
 The plan so far is for the first week of the month , work on HAED .  second week will be charity squares as I still want to contribute to LQUK as much as I can . Third week will be for other charts/kits that I have , with the fourth week/ end of the month being UFO/ free choice. I have a couple of UFOs , some carry over WIPs and lots of stash so that will hopefully keep me occupied.

  It may not quite work out like this for January as I have a couple of things I need to get stitched up asap.

 My last start of 2013 will be my first finish of 2014. I am stitching the ABCD by La-D-Da which has been a travelling pattern , and I need to get it done so it can go back. Don't want to show a pic yet,for two reasons , one , I haven't taken one ,lol, but also , it is stitching up pretty quickly so hopefully it will be a finish pretty soon.

 Also , 2014 , I am hoping to organise a Christmas in July exchange/secret Santa ,so if anyone is interested ,please bear in mind as I will be posting April ish .

And now ,all that remains is to wish everyone a Very Happy New Year , I hope 2014 brings all that you wish for  and all that I wish for you , health , happiness and plenty of stitching .

Take care everyone ,
Cath x