OK , Who stole May ?

Wow . time really does fly , even when you're not having fun .
 I guess I've got lots to catch up on . I have thought about posting on many occasions , but kept putting it off until tomorrow. Well , they do say tomorrow never comes , so here we are . I need one of those all elusive things , a round tuit . I will get many things done when I get a round tuit .

 So. I will do a few catch up posts . First off ,the rest of April. Best go and have a look where I got up to ,lol .

 Ok , so I was a very lucky lady and received a gorgeous knitted bunny from  Chris  . Her name is Rosa and she is just lovely . She sits on the back of the settee so she can keep an eye on my stitching ,lol.

 Details of her lovely dress .

 And look at those adorable shoes .

 Thanks again Chris , I am still enchanted by her .

  Stitching wise, I completed this cat for my Daughter

 And this Koala ,

 Owls a/c square for Love Quilts.

 My Daughter has recently got into Design a friend dolls , and has bought a few (helped by me and e-bay ,lol) This is her first one (from Argos) in a couple of outfits hand made by yours truly .

So that's all for April. Watch out for May and early June posts coming up, lol.

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Fed up

Hi everyone , I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment.
 My ankle is improving , but slowly . still swollen and bruised and still painful , but I can get around . Some days are worse than others.
 Hubby had Monday-Wednesday off last week to ease the pressure, went to work late on Thursday so he could take the kids to school first. He got sent home from work because of the snow and got back in time to collect the kids from school at lunch time, then they had a snow day on Friday .
 Since the weekend , both kids and myself have started/had the rotten cold that is going round.
Snow showers and ice have made it very slippy and I will admit to being scared to go out in case I fall and hurt my ankle again .
 That said , I have made the school run every day except Wednesday when both kids and I were feeling too rotten to bother ,
  I am really ready for Winter to do one now , and usually I don't mind the cold weather .

 Have managed to get some stitching in . I decided to just rummage through my charts and find things that I would like to stitch . Here's what I came up with .

 Any child squares for Love Quilts .

 This was going to be an LQ square too , but my Daughter has claimed it . Not just that , but Son-shine wants one too , so I will be stitching another one but in a different colour .

 Hubby and Son went to a war games convention on Sunday and Daughter wanted to make something. I was thinking an owl or something small ,but she wanted to make a snake .
  We went through the fabric stash and she chose some that she liked . I drew a quick pattern and we cut out two pieces . I can't use the sewing machine properly with my dicky ankle , so did a bit with the opposite one and showed my girl how to use it and she did the rest .
  Have to say , I was very impressed as she did what she was told and did it very well .
  Here's what we came up with .

Now, she want to go on the sewing machine at every chance ,lol, but I have said we will wait until half term and do something then .

Hope everyone is well , We are still in the middle of a cold snap with threatened wintry showers and/or heavy frost . Not nice .

 Incidentally , I am having a small problem with the comments. Not all of them are going through to my e-mail , so if I haven't replied to your comment it's either because of that or because some people still have their profile set to no reply..

Take care, 

Cath

Lots of squares.

Hi everyone ,
 sorry for the absence. School holidays tend to leave little time for other things. Looking around , it seems I am not alone in losing a little of my blogging mojo either. Let's hope it all comes back soon.

 I have been quite a busy bunny since my last post.
 Rapunzel was finished .

 Before back stitch

 and after. what a difference it makes.

 Over the Easter weekend we spent a couple of days in Somerset with a friend of hubbys'. They had a lot to catch up on , and also wanted to get a quick ASL game in , so I took my stitching and almost finished this  lovely. The last stitches were put in at home .

 Then I went on to this pretty butterfly .

 And then Wallaroo , I nick-named him Arnie , lol

 Finally , finished just Sunday night ,a Cyberman . This was a lovely chart to stitch. The design is from The World in Stitches. Colleen sells on etsy and e-bay and her charts are fantastic. Love this one .

I also made up a cover for my frame , which turned out OK .

I will be making some more of these to sell for LQUK ,so if anyone is interested ,let me know.

Right now, I am stitching Mr Potato Head , but Rosita will be coming out for some attention later in the week.

If you haven't already , please could you click on the link and vote for LQUK to win some funds.

Thank you.

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitPromotions/BigBreak2014/Pages/CauseDetail.aspx?CauseId=642

Cath

Doggy fashion .

 My friend got a puppy last year, and has bought lots of stuff that I did not even know existed for dogs ,lol .
 Especially the likes of this .

 It's a doggy bandanna , which you thread the collar through. OK , they look fairly cool , but she paid £7 each for them. This one was grubby after a  couple of wears and washes ,so I said I thought I could probably make some. She wanted a few , so I cut out loads of fabby and set to work. I made ten before running out of thread for the sewing machine .

 She likes them and has bought four off me , and wants to take some to her workplace with the idea of selling them for me. I am looking at selling them for 2 for £5 at the moment . What do you think ? Would you buy bandannas for your dog ?
 Cath

Show and tell . (Lots)

Well ,after not much at all to blog about , I now have lots to catch up on ,lol .
 First off, I received a lovely e-mail from Marilyn , to let me know that she had received her giveaway package , and she likes it , thankfully . Then , Sharon posted on her blog that she had received hers , so just waiting for Lynns' to arrive and we're all sorted.
 This is what I sent to Marilyn :

 And this one was for Sharon .

I had to order the charts and wait for them to arrive , so it took a wee while .
 I will show what I sent to Lynn  when she has received it.

 Secondly , it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago , and the lovely Bekca of the Stitching Lion had chosen me to receive her birthday RAK for September . Look at the lovely goodies she sent me .

 There were also a couple of packets of sweets. but they disappeared with my Daughter ,lol .
I also got a new kit for my birthday from my lovely hubby .

 It is much prettier than this photo shows, I can't seem to get the colours right at the moment. I mostly got money for my birthday , hence the debate on the lap stand. I'm still undecided ,lol .

 And , this is what I was up to most of yesterday .
 My Daughters' friend asked me ages ago to stitch her a Pokemon , and this is the one she chose. I finally got round to making it into a little pillow for her ,and as it was her birthday yesterday, wrapped it up and gave it to her .

 I'm quite pleased with it , and my hidden closing seams are getting better .

  Also made up the cushion covers for my two . They chose the fabrics themselves , but didn't know I was doing them yesterday , so got a nice surprise this morning . It took me ages last night to sew on the closing snaps.

Almost lastly, progress on Calm Seas .

 I have almost finished this cliff , only two more and the beach to go ,lol .

 Notice my needle minder in the top right corner ? I was browsing around wilkos and spotted these .
 I wouldn't use them for bookmarks , but they are perfect for needle minders .

They hold the needle really well ,

and are strong enough to hold scissors too.

 I like them so much , I went back and bought some more to share , so I'm going to have a little competition .

 If you would like the chance to win some of these fab little magnets, leave me a comment on this post only, telling me how many projects you have on the go right now. I mean projects that you are actually working on , not just things lying around .
 This is open to followers only ,though new ones are welcome to join in too . I'll leave it open until the end of the month , so feel free to comment until the 31st October , and I'll let you know who wins sometime after that .
 If you are still reading , thank you , it's a very long post ,lol .

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

I'm back !

Not entirely sure what was wrong with my computer , but it seems to be OK now.
 It would get so far in starting up , and then freeze. The mouse was still working , but nothing else would respond , not even shutting down .
 We found out that it would work if started up in safe mode , so did that a few times , then did a full virus scan , and here we are . No virus showed up , but everything seems to be in proper working order , for which I am truly thankful .

 Whilst my computer was offline , I borrowed hubbys' occasionally, but then his got hit with a virus bomb, so I wasn't commenting just in case. Both PCs are now seemingly OK , let's just hope that they stay that way .

 Well, while I wasn't able to waste lots of time playing daft games on line, I made up for it by stitching and sewing .

 I ended up stitching Tramp whilst doing the wren for MIL , so one happy little girl , but now I need to make a cushion cover or two ,lol .

 After finishing and framing the wren , I wanted to do something for me , and got to looking through some of my mags that I have hoarded for years. I found quite a few charts that I'd mentally book marked , and decided to go for it , so started this one .

  It is called Galah by Jill Oxton , and it's from Jill Oxtons' Cross Stitch , issue 33 . I have quite few of these magazines, and most of them have at least one chart in that I would like to stitch . I do love Jills' animal charts , they are fantastically realistic , and mostly only whole stitches with a tiny bit of back stitch for detail .
 This was my start , and where I was when the computer decided to play up .

  And here it is finished.  (started 26th June , finished 8th July) . I love it , just got to try and find a frame for it now .

  I have started another of Jills' bird charts , but this is not one that will be expected ,lol . I will show pictures next time .

 I have also been working on ABC Lessons a bit too . This is the latest progress pics ,though I have done another line and started the next one since these photos were taken .

  I did change the colour of the little bird here , to keep in with the bird further on in the chart .

  I cannot believe that school is over for the summer. My little boys first year at school has gone so quickly , but he has come on so much .
 Both kids were on the same team for sports day , and their team came second , so they were very excited about that .
 We had a special assembly on Tuesday , and my son got a super star award , one of  five in his class, for progress and effort through out the year . And , both kids got attendance awards , so we are very happy and proud parents at the moment .


 So , end of term means teacher gifts . Funds are still tight , so there were some home made gifts this year . I made a couple of cute "things" for my daughters' teaching assistants . The teachers got mugs and bag holders.

 My sons class had chicks in this year , and we also took our chickens in for a visit , so I made some little chickens for the teachers and assistants .

  They all seem to have gone down well , so hopefully the staff will have something to remember the kids by .

 I wonder if I will get as much stitching done now that the computer is back on ,lol . Mind you , the kids are now on holiday , so I will no doubt be kept busy entertaining them . Both kids want to do some stitching though , so that will be interesting .

 I have also been chosen to receive a travelling pattern , which has arrived ,so I will shortly be posting a pic of that too .

 Thanks for reading , I will hopefully be back to commenting now too , yippee !

Take care ,
 Cath