Saturday 29 August 2015

Jon is back!! Yippppppeeee


Hello happy friends :)
I am happy today as jon is back home.... Yes back from his week assessment at the hospital.  We will now wait for the report, but we know the outcome already!  I think I already mentioned... He is now on a long long road of recovery they think 10-15 years to help improve him.  We shall see!  But he is back home and happy... Just like me! Lol I did miss him... Pleased he is home now.

Well I have been trying to do some stitching... Yes I have done some! 

Working on The Scarlet Letter Mary Gail, stitching on 45 count fabric with DMC threads. 


I really like the way this is coming together, and now Oooh moving onto flowers :). I still am quite shocked I am stitching this, I am stitching this!! Wow!! Ha ha 

I missed the link up, because I am actually useless... For the Gifted Gorgeousness sal (link in margin) but I should mention this one, the scarlet letter design the chart (on loan!) and fabric was gifted to me and the Strawberry Theif (sorry Jo I can never remember which way the I and e go for the spelling of this word! Ha ha darn dyslexia) was gifted to me too. I am so happy that people gift me things, it's so very kind and thoughtful and I cannot thank them enough.  It's wonderful as I get to stitch things I simply cannot afford or would never get a chance to.

Here is the Strawberry Theif (thief) lol ... Update....


Close up.... Yes I am rubbish at taking photos! 


For me this is the biggest project and my first Haed I have ever done.... It's very daunting.  And does not look like a lot, but in that tiny bit there are loads of stitches! And yes... Incase you think I have lost the plot I am stitching it upside down! Ha ha it's because I put it on the large frame and it's too far away the right way up! I cannot sit on the edge of the chair, still hurts my coccyx and knee so for now I am stitching it upside down! It's not like yo can tell from the design! Ha ha

My health has unfortunately got in the way of something that I love to do... Yes blogging.  I have made so many lovely friends over the time I have been blogging, I am sorry this year I have been a rubbish blogger.  I do hope things will improve and I update more, I really like to!  My health is just so unpredictable from day to day, this is what annoys me.  I will never just stop blogging so don't fear I am not going anywhere! If I get rushed off somewhere I will get Han to post an update... Oh yes Han... Check out her link in my margin, some photos from London when she went recently.  Blogging and stitching keeps me sane! Lol

Ok so I am going now as I need to stitch more! Ha ha 
Smiles to you all :)


Tuesday 25 August 2015

Ooooooh lucky me!!

Hello wonderful friends....

I have been keeping myself busy.  Early hours of this morning Jon left on transport to Stanmore hospital for his weeks assessment.  I have spoken with him, he has Internet!! He is being put through the mill with a load of tests being done on him.  He is enjoying it as he is hopeful of the outcome... They have already said he will be going back for a 6-8 week reabilitation program, this is great news.  But he told me not to get my hopes up as he has been told it's a long long road to recovery he is on, with no guarantee that he will even regain 50% mobility/posture back.  Anything is a bonus!!

So like I say I have been keeping busy...stitching! 

Han and her friend went to London today, for a day out.  And I got some nice presents!! Lucky me!! I would of liked to of joined them in London but there was no way I was up to it.  So instead Han brought me back the most amazing present!! 


Yes an actual Liberty of London bag!!!! Eeeeeeeeeek!!! 


Ooooooooh now I am so excited at this point.... Could not hardly believe it!! Fabric???

Not just any fabric.....Liberty of London fabric!!!


Han chose the fabric herself and thought I would love them! Doh! Yes I love them!!!

Close up.... And they are huge pieces!!



I am over the moon with my present :)
I have always wanted to feel, touch and smell Liberty fabrics... They are so smooth, quite silky and smell divine! Now I have some!!! Omg! What shall I do with them? A very special project I think! Or will I just keep them in their bag and take them out now and then to feel?! Ha ha

And that is not all....


Apparently this is from the actual shop where macaroons are made! Mmmm Han says the main shop is in Paris but they have one in London.


And a gift box inside!! Oooooh!!


How delicious do these look?!... The flavours are, liquorice, early grey tea, coffee, salted caramel, strawberry marshmallow, chocolate, Marie antoinett- lemon grass tea and minted ice.

Goodness!!!  They are so delicate, surprised that they made it back almost in one piece! Mmmmm

Han had a great time although was disappointed that the Tate closed at 6pm! 

Onto my stitching...

Here is the Scarlet Letter Mary Gail I should of showed you all before! Although I have stitched more now! You will have to wait for the next up date! 


It's coming along nicely.  I am really enjoying stitching this too.

And now for the update of my first HAED, the challenge is to do 100 stitches a day... Think I am doing ok... For now! It's growing quite quickly. Lol can't see what it is yet!?

It's William Morris the Strawberry Theif! Of course it is! 


I have made tabs at the top of my blog, one for each of the two massive designs I am stitching right now! Feel free to pop in there and take a look at my progress anytime :)

So I am working on these two designs for now.... Oooh but I have my Joyful Journal series I need to stitch for September! Gosh that has come around quick!! 

I cannot believe it's almost September....
Hope your all well and busy stitching :)
Smiles  to you all :) 

Saturday 22 August 2015

Friday fun and ooooh!!....

                      

Yes this has come around rather quickly!!  

Hello friends!! 

I have not been around much lately as I have been trying to get to grips with feeling rather low.  Oh you know just my knee getting to me and my lungs as they are taking forever to heal from the last lot of blood clots.  So I hope I am through the worst of it now and thanks to some wonderful blogging friends I am back again! 

I think keeping myself busy is a good thing, so I have been stitching more... Yes more! 

I have several projects on the go right now, and I love it!!! 

I was wanting to get into the wonder HAED I have, it's William Morris, the Strawberry Theif and it's awesome.  Just thought, ooooh daunting as its so large! 

Something wonderful happened, Evalina contacted me and wanted to stitch the same design along with me!! Cool huh!! 

This is the design...

                                       
  

Close up....


It's awesome, right?! 

Stitching with Evalina, her blog is This and that.... It's going to be fun stitching this wonderful design with someone else.

So I am thinking of putting all the photos i do in one place, so I think I will add a new tab at the top... Or take away the 2015 stitching as that just went to pot this year! I just have not uploaded any finished designs as I still cannot sit at my sewing machine for long. Wilł have the tab ready soon.

So here are some start up photos...

The OMG! threads!! Ha ha 


The part I have started, and will stitch more tomorrow..., lol and the day after...


I just thought.. Silly me thought how on earth am I going to keep track of how many stitches I have stitched! Doh!! Each square is 100 stitches!! Omg!! If I only had a brain! Lol I would be dangerous! Ha ah 


So many thread changes, I am pretty sure you all call it confetti... Interesting! If your wondering the little half stitch in the left corner is to remind me what what my stitches are going!! Seriously a big help for me as I am useless! I do it on a lot of my projects and it works! 

Ok well hopefully you will see this grow over the next few days, weeks and months... It's so exciting.

And now to show you what other wonderful projects I have on the go, keeping me busy....

I thought I had taken a more up to date photo... Appears not! Well you will have to take my word for it! I literally have just totally finished stitching the man... He is done!! So will be moving onto some flowers next I think... Cannot wait to add more colours.

Quick re-cap, it's the Scarlet Letter design called Mry Gail...... 



And it will look eventually like this.... How pretty?! 


And there is more!! Ha ha yes I decided to do a little hand stitching... As a kind of experiment! 

It's from this wonderful book I have...


I have had it years so thought it was about time I made something from it!! 

Bearing in mind I have no skills, just winging it! Lol 
And me being me decided on rather odd colours to experiment with! Yes, a pine tree, I mean how hard can that be? 


Remember I am stitching by hand and cutting all out by hand too... Ha he well jon helped as I cannot cut straight! 

Fabric cut and templates too... I thought 4 was a good number!! 

                              

Just before stitching... Should be interesting!! 

                             

OMG!!! OMG!!! 
I knew there was a reason why I had never experimented with triangles!! HELP!!!

I just managed to stitch it together, but oh what a hash up!! As I have 4 to stitch I am hoping by the 4th one it will look better than the first one! And it may ha ha look better once I have ironed it too!!  Lol not sure how long this project it going to take me, depends if I get side tracked! Ha ah 

                           

Oh yes!! Yesterday Han said omg! Your hair has grown and it's a little curly! Well rather odd thing to say as my hair is taking forever to grow and it straight!! So Han took a photo!! 

Lol don't look at the mess in my home! Ha ha paper cuttings all over the floor when she did this too!! 

                           

                           

So after looking at these photos I thought, wow! My hair has grown!! I had washing it and stuck it up straight away, then later I put in down and pinned the sides up.  And it did this!! 

I am doing lots of things right now, keeping me busy... I love it!! 

I will be doing heaps of stitching next week as its just Han and I at home.  Jon is going into hospital, for  an assessment.  It's basically to see how the specialists and doctors can help jon to have a better quality of life.  It's a long long road of recovery he will be on, with no guarantees if anything will help, but for us anything will do.  Hope is good thing to have.  I know we will never have the life we had before his accident, all I hope is that they help him to manage his pain more and maybe his posture? This is a long time coming, well 5 actually!  So a whole week without jon, it will be rather odd I am sure, will Skype and chat on messenger :)

Ok, ta ta for now!! 
Keep smiling :)
Xx


Monday 17 August 2015

Thought I would just.... Pop in!

Hello lovelies!!
I have no excuse, well ok I have but I am sure you all don't want to be bothered with it.  

It's not that I want to neglect my blog... So thought I had better post something to assure you all I was still alive! 

What have I been up to??
To be perfectly honest, not a lot!!

My knee, oh my knee.... That's enough of that!! Ha ha 


And....
Jon the darling to cheer me up got me some pretty fabrics and told me to create something! 


So I did! Well I am trying to!! I had to organize myself so put all my bits into an old disused sewing box. The perfect place now!!






I am making hexies then when I have used all the fabric up I will put them all together ... Hmm I think I have been there before! Ha ha yes!! Look..... One that I did a few years back that is not finished! Well I have no table and have no clue really how to finish it.


Yes it's huge, not quite sure what I will do with it... It's kept in a bag in the cupboard. 

Oooh yes!
Jon again being the sweetie he is, let me get some lovely hand dyed linen from a new source to try.  They are from Chromatic Alchemy Fabrics and are on Facebook.  This is my selection.


   I have stitched on the fabric second from the right... I am useless with names, and these fabrics have the most amazing names. 

Stitchers Anon, yes the lovely Gale is doing a hop about with Holmey Hare... I naturally joined in!! Here is what I had to stitch...

It's on the new fabric, 32 count stitched with DMC threads 1 over 1.


Not a terribly good photo, sorry... But shows the lovely fabric!! 

Oooh yes I am feeling really inspired right now by things in magazines... I recently thought I would try a new American magazine...


I love it!!! It has such lovely designs to stitch inside and I love the feel of the glossy pages.... Ah the little things!! 

And OMG!!! Now you all know I adore Blue Ribbon designs, well in my latest World of Cross Stitching magazine are some lovely Halloween stitches :) 


And... WOW!! This beautiful stunning design inside my digital copy of Just Cross Stitch magazine!! So very excited.


Now all I need it time!! Time to stitch all the wonderful things!! 

Talking of wonderful things.. I am still stitching the Scarlet Letter design, Mary Gail.... Stitched on 45 count linen with DMC threads... It's so lovely.  I had stopped everything for a while... But I am stitching again now and it's helping.  


So you can see I have not done that much more... But I will get back into the swing of it again.  Feeling sad and low is hard to cope with, but I know stitching helps so I will try and stick with it this time.

Sorry it's been a little while, just wanted to let you know I am still here!!
Smiles :)



Sunday 2 August 2015

Go me!!


Hello wonderful happy friends... Wow!! I cannot actually believe it, it's AUGUST!! Here is my Joyful Journal Heart in Hand month :) they are all just so darn cute!! Loved stitching this one :)

Ok so I bet your all wondering why I put "Go me" ?? I will explain.....

Last time I posted I showed you all where I was up to with The Scarlet Letter Mary Gail design.  Oh my!! Well I looked at it and looked at it, the men's jacket that is.  And the more I looked the more I thought the colour was wrong.  Jon the sweetie checked the conversion to DMC threads and NO!! The number was wrong! So basically what I had stitched had to come out!! Eeeeeek!! 

Around this point I was thinking just as well I stopped when I did!!

Remember this is what it looked like.... Ha ah the wrong outer colour on the jacket.


See it's awfully light, got me doubting everything.

I stitched a little of the inner colour just to make sure! The thread bobbins here are what is listed... And 646 is not dark enough.


Here you can see the 646 I used and the darker colour I should of stitched it in! 


So a frogging I went!!.....


It took ages and ages!! Those tiny stitches on 45 count are really hard to get out!! I don't recommend it!!

So then I stitched from the inner bit I tested... Rather odd but it was a starting point I had when I had pulled all the other stitches out.


Then I went on.... Stitched more!! I also stitched the outer darker colour... I like it better!!  I still have the Middle bit and filler of the jacket to do.


So the "go me" is basically because after sitting 2 days sulking about what I had done and what I now he to do to correct it.... I DID IT!! Lol go me!! Ha ha a

I feel a lot happier about the colours now... On with the stitching! 

Today is Sunday and tomorrow here in England apparently is a bank holiday ?? News to me! Ha ha I am so out of the loop.  Well a nice long weekend for some! Enjoy :)

Hope your all well and merrily stitching or creating? 
I will pop back soon! 
Smiles to you all :)
Xx