Time flies

Whether you're having fun or not .
 The last few weeks have been pretty busy, so not as much stitching time as normal . Plus , with hubby being at home my routine has been shot , and lots of other things going off.
 No news on the job front , though an interesting proposition has been made . If it comes to anything , it will mean some fairly major changes to us all , but we need to learn a lot more .

 So , stitching , I finished Cinderella

 I have also stitched a wolf for my daughter , but strangely I don't seem to have a picture of that . will remedy it next time .

  Went to craft group at the beginning of the month and someone was giving away loads of chart books , so a lovely stash enhancement was made .

 Can't wait to make good use of these . Still plugging away on  butterfly square at the moment , it is taking much longer than anticipated , but as I said , busy , busy .

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Still here

and pootling along .
  Done a bit of stitching ,
Love Quilts square for Donna

 Love Quilts square , any child . Hearts is a very popular theme for girls , so I'm sure this will be put to good use .

 Doggy for my boy .

I am currently working on Cinderella. Hoping to have her finished by the weekend, but we will see. Progress is slow at the moment. My ankle and knee are playing up , so very achy and uncomfortable at the moment. Plus , on a downer as hubby came home at lunch time yesterday . He has been made redundant , so everything is up in the air yet again. So , not much done yesterday and today was spent going to the job centre , what a waste of time that was and sorting out a few bits. 

 Fingers crossed for something to be sorted soon .

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

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

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

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

Stitching and stuff

Wow , lots to catch up on as usual .
 I am quite behind on showing my stitching finishes with posting about outings and other things.

Still doing lots for Love Quilts UK .

For Daniel .

For Courtney .

Any child .

For Meghan. This one was only finished last night and so needs a quick wash .

It took quite a few hours , but was well worth it . I love this design . Credit must go to the designers . The chart was produced by Rainbows Invites and can be found on e-bay .

I have also received a couple more cards for the birthday thread exchange. Thanks to Nicole and Vicky  .

The card from Lonneke will be on its' way soon, but she has been ill and had a lot to cope with . Hope you get well soon Lonneke . Nothing yet from Bernadett and no message either . She has really let everyone down with this exchange ..                                                                                                
Thanks for dropping by .

Take care ,
 Cath x
                                                                                                                                                                 

Lots to catch up on.

Wow , time is certainly flying by this year .

Firstly ,welcome to my new followers , it is great to see you here  ,especially when I am posting a bit sporadically at best ,lol.

Lots going off at the moment , end of school year always leaves me with very little time to myself . Two separate sports days , celebration assemblies (two again) , trips , school fairs and other things all conspire to take my time away . Not that I am complaining too much , it is a joy to be able to share these things with my kids , especially the assemblies as pretty much every year , one or both of them receive at least one award. I am very proud of their efforts at school .

Anyway , on to other things. you may know that I organised a birthday thread exchange to start this year . It started out great, and on the whole has run pretty well with a few hiccups .
 Mary Jane has no blog , so I said I'd post her pics on here .

Thanks for the photos Mary Jane .x

  Lonneke unfortunately had a couple of her beautiful cards go missing in the post , so she was a superstar and sent out replacements. A big Thanks Lonneke . The only fly in the ointment has been that Bernadett has not been sending . Sharon and Mary Jane have only just received from her ,and their birthdays are March and April and everyone else who has had birthdays since then have not received . I have tried many times to get in touch with Bernadett to no avail . To say I am disappointed is a huge understatement , but I will leave it at that .

 On to stitching , I have been still stitching squares for Love Quilts UK . I have enjoyed every single stitch . I am working on one at the moment and have three more sign ups to do . After that , I think I will be taking a bit of a break as I am getting a strong urge to do my own stuff .

  Love this Lion , I nicknamed him Jon Bon because of his lovely mane.

 SuperMan for a super young man .

 At the moment I am working on a Formula 1 car , which is a huge stitch . 120 x 100 and it is all stitched . I really want to get it done asap but with all the school events , it  is probably going to take a while . I will show a pic next time , which will hopefully not be as long ,lol.

  I have other bits and bobs to catch up on , so will be back soon.
Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath x

Hello again .

Wow, I can't believe it's nearly the middle of June already. soon be time for the summer holidays and bored children ,lol.

 So ,what have I been up to ?

 Well, just coming to the end of a ten day course of penicillin for tonsillitis. No sore throat, croaky voice or cough , just swollen manky tonsils and swollen glands. To be honest , apart from the swelling going down a bit , not much has changed. The boy had it too and we went to the docs together , not that we got to see a doctor , you get to see a nurse if you're lucky. Anyway , he is also nearly at the end of his meds and thankfully is much improved. Two days off school is more than enough for me ,lol.  Got the girl at home today with tummy ache, though I think the main problem is tiredness as she seems unable to get to sleep before 10pm at the moment.

 Anyways , on to stitching stuff .

 Lots of new LQ squares have been produced, I am loving doing them at the moment.

 Mr P. for a named quilt .

 Lots of Witzys . (any child)

 Cute li'l owl

 Butterfly

 At the moment I am working on a lion for a named quilt and have three others signed up for so planning lots of stitchy time before the summer holidays which will curtail it somewhat while I spend time doing things with the kids. Both of which have taken a fresh interest in stitching , which is lovely. My daughter can read a chart so can be left to get on with it for a bit, but the boy need lots of help , so my time is limited. Hopefully we will have some nice days out to look forward to ,too.

 Hope everyone is well .

Thanks for dropping by ,

 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