Happy New Year !

Better late than never , lol .

Apologies for not posting a Christmas greeting , I was ill for most of December so Christmas happened in a bit of a rush here , I was still ordering gifts the week before Christmas , the tree went up a couple of days before , but we got there in the end.

 So , last year was a bit of a mess really , lots of life getting in the way moments . I have not really stitched since September . I am really missing it , and hope to do some soon , but now have another reason for being distracted.
  My orts for last year are rather disappointing ,

My daughter took some out and screwed them up into a little ball , I was most unimpressed !

  Stitching wise , a let down , I had 15 finishes and most of them for Love Quilts .

  This year , I just want to stitch . I would love to finish at least one of my HAEDs and start a few more ,lol and there are lots of other projects I want to do , but I'll have to see how it goes.

 Reading was more successful , I read 102 books last year , but have a feeling the number will be reduced this year .

  The main reason for lots of the changes is this

This cute , crazy little creature came to live with us in November. His name is Flash and he's an English Springer Spaniel. I love him to bits , but wow , it's like having a baby again , including getting up in the night to do potty duty. We can start taking him out for walks on Thursday and I can't wait. He's getting bored and frustrated and so are we ,lol.

 Sad news is that we lost one of my sons' lovely gerbils yesterday . They are all getting old now , but still very sad . Popcorn will be very much missed by us all .

Hopefully this year will be a better year all round , but particularly for stitching .
Best wishes to everyone .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

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

And then it was gone .

Went to bed last night with the world still white with ice and snow. what a change when I got up this morning .

   Warmer weather and rain had taken most of the snow away . The rest has gone this afternoon. We now have wind and rain . Lovely !
 
 I didn't quite get my last finish of 2014. The last of the back stitch on this was put in this morning , so an early finish for this year .

   And here is my orts for 2014 . Hoping to have a new container for this year , but my son needs to eat more snowies ,lol .

So ,a quick round up of 2014 , I had 44 finishes , and most of them were squares for LQUK , I stitched 34 squares , 16 sign ups and 18 any child(spare) squares.

 Book wise , I read 85 last year  ,which is down on the last two years , but I did stitch more , so not too bad .

 For this year , my aims are to do more personal stitching, I love doing LQ squares , but have promised to stitch more for my kids , and I would like to get more done on my HAEDs and other projects . Reading wise , I'd like to equal or improve on this years numbers .
 However , I have another plan for this year which could have quite an impact on both of these aims , so we will have to wait and see. I will share more later when hopefully things will start to happen .

 So , I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year , and as someone very special said , may your smiles change the world , but the world not change your smiles .

Cath

Happy New Year !

I remembered some more bits from last year (seems weird saying that ,lol.)
 Anyway , I little finish for my boy. This only took a couple of hours ,if that. I plan to put it in a key ring for him .

 I also stitched this up with the intention of making a notebook cover for my niece. I fluffed up on the final finishing though , so held it back. I will stitch it again and it will either be a just because gift or for her birthday , depending on when I do it .

 Orts ! I don't join in with the Tusal posts , but do like a show of orts at the end of the year . The kids graffittid my tub , so need another one at some point ,lol.

 Out of the jar .

  And a very special Christmas gift from a friend. Isn't this just gorgeous ? I love it so much and am going to display it on my shelf when i gets cleared of bumpf .

  And these lovely hand made earrings. So precious ,and a totally unexpected gift . For the last couple of years I have run a Secret Santa for my hubby and his blogging buddies (they paint and play with little figures). This year , his Santa also sent me a gift for organising things , how sweet is that. And , they were made by Mrs Claus , very impressed. Hubbys' other Santa (two different rounds) also sent me a big tub of Fruit Pastilles ,lol .

  A little bit of stash . Still waiting to hear about the rest of the threads I ordered. Must chase them up.

 I was thrilled to find this at the weekend . Had to take the kids out to spend their Christmas money and came across this mag . I looked all over for it a couple of months ago and couldn't find it , so it came home with me .

 As always, thanks for dropping by .

Cath

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!

 And an end at the end .

 After feeling that I hadn't accomplished much this year with my crafty finishes , I set to yesterday , late afternoon and all evening to stitch on LK ABC Lessons , and... finished it! The last stitch went in at 11.21 last night, and made the end of the year for me .

  I am really happy with the finish. I made a few small changes with colours, but overall it is as charted.
 I have to say though , that I was unimpressed with the threads. The colour variegation was hardly noticeable at times, which was a little disappointing. Lettuce Leaves was very blue , I hope I never get lettuce that colour , lol , and at least three times the thread just snapped as I was stitching, the ends also got very fluffy .
 I did end up with over a full skein of Cocoa Bean left , so if anyone is stitching this and buying the threads separately, if you are careful with thread, you will only need four of these .

   So , this brings my stitching project total for the year to 41 completed.
 They are , two large, LK and Calm Seas , three squares for LQUK , three medium projects and the rest are small or small-medium. Less than in previous years, but I haven't been churning out the charity squares as much , and there have been a lot of times when I haven't stitched for weeks on end , so not too bad .
 I have read 120 books in the year , and made seven swirly scarves .

  And here is my ort pot for the year , now I am hoping to start again today with a new project ,lol .

 I will be back soon with hopefully pics of that new start , plans for the year and pics of the new stash ,lol .

 It has taken me over two hours to read all the posts for the last 24 hrs, everyone has been busy ,lol .

 Take care , and enjoy the start of the year.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Orts and ends.

Just realised that I did not update my ort pot for last year. I don't participate in the TUSAL , but I do like to keep track of my bits and bobs.

So this is my orts from last year . Now ,I admit that not all of them are from last years stitching , at one point I was clearing up a bit and dragged all the bits of thread out of the cover kits that I'd stitched etc, so there are some stragglers. But, I also filled a box with usable bits of thread , whether I will actually get round to using them is another matter ,lol .

Got some more bargains just before Christmas , with these two kits at 1/4 original price. My kind of stash. I went out for a couple of hours me time the other day , and picked this up from one of the charity shops. I have the first one already, and there are some nice charts in here . My kids have already picked out a few. This year I am hoping to do more things for them , as they have been very patient and understanding while I have been stitching for charity. I also called in at my LNS and picked up some fabric. A friend recently gave me these rolls of lace , they are a bit stretchy, but look really pretty so I'm sure I can find a use for them ,lol . And this is my newly started ort jar for this year . I am busy stitching away , but can't show anything at the moment ,as I'm working on some RAKs. I have four stitched,and two of those are made up , and now I'm working on the fifth . I'm really enjoying it ,and it's nice to stitch what I want when I want .

Thanks for dropping by ,

Cath