Heart ornament finished

I have had a nice crafting afternoon!! Firstly this morning we went to a lovely local shop called "Step a Long" it started as a shoe shop but now also sells wool, fabric, threads, beads and lots of lovely bits and bobs of haberdashery!! So I bought some lovely cream slightly patterned fabric and some blue trim. (+ some DMC threads and some felt for other projects!) Then this afternoon I went over to my mom and dads so I could use my sewing machine (they look after it!) and finished my "Vintage Heart". I stuffed it with lavender too from our garden that I have had drying in the airing cupboard since the summer.... so it smells nice too. I am really pleased with it - I think I am getting a bit better at making these sort of things!! Mom wants one now also!!

I was a lucky winner on Gaynor's Blog before Christmas, so I had a nice parcel arrive yesterday with 4 kits in it (sorry didn't take a picture) There is a lovely pink bootees card suitable for a baby girl so I have started that for Helen and Dave's baby (due the 13th Feb), I also love the little Ellie Mae kit (Margaret Sherry) as my niece is called Ellie Mae I intend to stitch that for her birthday in July she will be 7! Thank you so much Gaynor for your great giveaway - this was the first time I had won one.

Then today Sew and So sent my parcel with my fabric for "I Do", it is 32ct Murano evenweave in Ivory... it is lovely. I also received my Gentle Arts threads, therefore I have started "I Do" but as I have only done the 'd' so far I didn't bother with a photo. I just know I am going to enjoy stitching this too.

Otherwise here is Pirate's Creed, it is coming along well and I am hoping to finish it before I return to work. I want to get some "pirate" fabric to back it with and make some kind of flat ornament for Becky to hang it in her room.

Sorry no picture of Johnny D..... I am keeping him to myself!!... actually I forgot to take his photo, but he is progressing well, I thought I may use the same "pirate" fabric to make this into a flatfold when finished.... that'll be a first for me!

So this is probably my last post of 2008, I have started to think about my 2009 rota which I intend to start again on 5th Jan '09. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year and all the best for 2009.... I look forward to continuing my new friendships I have made from blogging.

Ginnie x

Santa was very kind!

Hope you all had a Happy Christmas, we certainly did. Both Stuart and my parents treated me to some new charts.... I did give Stuart a long wish list.... so he had some guidance. Here is what I received. The one LHN chart has the threads included aswell (Crescent colours). Now I have to decide which to do first!! I have also ordered some 32ct evenweave to start "I Do" and I am going to use 2 of the Gentle Arts threads it recommends as well as the usual DMC - I am keen to start to try other threads.

We had Christmas Dinner at our house and invited my mom and dad over, here they are with the girls waiting for their food!! Stuart was in the kitchen!! Hope you can spot the placecards I made on the table! Mind you we had fun moving the table - it extends to seat 6 but we have to move it out of the dining area into the middle of the lounge, so the one settee has to move too.... all worked out well but I seem to have hurt my back doing all the furniture moving!! It has been hurting ever since! Laura has also had ear ache over the last couple of days.... a continuation of the cold thing she keeps getting back... there are a lot of cold and flu bugs around in the Midlands (according to the local news!)

Today we went for a nice afternoon walk to wake us all up!!! We have a lot of nice countryside nearby so we took the dog and had a stroll over "Enville Common" it was packed everyone had the same idea.

I have been stitching but have no update photos today, I have mainly worked on Johnny Depp and Pirate's Creed. I will post pictures of that next time.

Ginnie x

Merry Christmas everyone.....

I have finally finished work for Christmas and don't return until the 5th January...yeah...

Thanks to everyone who helped me out with my wedding dilemma, I think I had decided by Monday night to do another piece to be framed, so the next question was which one? It is not a traditional wedding it is a Hog Roast at a Hotel, so I wanted something modern and simple. After browsing many shop sites I had 3 options - LHN Always and Forever - Bent Creek Wedding Row - The Trilogy Wedding Spots. Rowyn solved my problem, she is currently working on Wedding Row for her own marriage and has agreed to lend me the chart when she is finished - thank you so much. So I am doing "I Do" now for Phil and "Wedding Row" for Helen. I liked Dani's idea of making it into a wall hanging so they can move it around with them..... I may do that but haven't made one before!!

I had a good night of stitching last night, I found a small fairy one Laura had started from my Fairy Cross Stitch book so decided to do some of that as I don't suppose she'll finish it. It is very sweet and I better do an R for Rebecca next!

I also gave Johnny 2 eyes .....all the better to see me with!! I like the way he is stitching up.

And finally I have been working on Dusky Dreams, I am still enjoying this even though it went away for a short while.... some french knots to come on the left though.... errrrr. Just love the colours in this.

So I am going to sign off now for Christmas, I have been blogging 6 months now and have loved every minute of it, I have made lots of new friends and gained lots of confidence in my stitching, so I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, I hope Santa brings you lots of goodies.... and I will post again over the weekend.

Ginnie x

Wedding stitching dilemma

I am hoping for some advise from other stitchers to a new dilemma I have. In my side bar "To Do" list I have had Helen and Dave's wedding in June 09 which I had planned to do a framed picture for. I decided on Bent Creek's I Do. Now on Saturday her brother Phil came over (the one who joined the RAF in the summer) and told us him and his girlfriend Nicky have booked their wedding for March 09. At first I thought well I'll just do them a nice card as I haven't as much time and as he is in the RAF they may be posted all over the place and may not want to keep taking framed pictures etc all over with them. But what if they are offended because I will still do "I Do" for Helen!! Should I do Phil a picture too, if so which one, should I do "I Do" for both of them or should I stick with my original thought and just do a nice card that they can frame if they choose!!! Oh decisions decisions!!

Anyway onto another subject, here are the 2 decoupage cards I made for the girls this Christmas, they are actually 3D Stack Its.

And here is the card I made for Stuart, it is a Jolly Nation one, I like their stuff!

Otherwise I haven't done much stitching as we were at Tori's 18th party on Saturday then at my parents house last night as the girls had a little party for their friends at our house! Today I have been the only one in our house that had to go to work and I seem to have come down with the cold and sore throat Becky had last week, I'm not too bad just tired and have no energy....

I did make one more new start though yesterday...... here it is - Pirates Creed...... not a lot to show yet but you can see the beginnings of the sentence.

I think I am going to work on Johnny D now.... before I doze off..... I will hopefully post again on Christmas Eve to speak to everyone before the Big Day!!

Ginnie x

Finally a night at home!

It is so nice to be at home, relaxing and doing some stitching. Today the girls and Stuart broke up for Christmas, tonight the girls are at a friend's house and we have had a chinese take away and I'm on my second glass of wine.

The school production went well, we sold loads of refreshments and lots of raffle tickets. Becky was unwell again on Tues/Wed with this flu thing back again, she lost her voice! and had a really high temperature luckily she is much better now.

I managed a little bit of stitching on Wednesday and finished off Lest We Forget at 10pm last night when I got in! And here it is -

I am so pleased with this and I really enjoyed stitching it, I am going to try and frame it myself. It is a great way to commemorate a lost relative.

I have only done a tiny bit of Johhny Depp but I think you can see him starting to emerge -

If you fancy stitching him yourself it is a free pattern here - Johnny. I will try to do some more over the weekend.

Finally here is my Vintage heart stitching, not much to show yet, it'll be made into a heart shape ornament for the New Year. It is a very simple and quick stitch and I am working on this tonight.

I also intend to start my Somebunny stitching for Helen and Dave's baby, she is due in February but I better be prepared incase she is early! Over Christmas I will plan my new rota and intend to have a UFO night!!!!! each week.

Today I booked tickets to go and see the musical "Chicago" it is on at the Birmingham Hippodrome in June next year and I know the girls really love this so I have bought them for their birthday (which is in May). Something to look forward to.

I'm at work until Christmas Eve but will hoepfully get some stitching time in as I haven't got much else to sort.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Ginnie x

Gifts all finished

Firstly I want to say a big thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post, I am so glad you all liked my cottage and my pink coat. I had 25 comments and that's the most I've ever had, it was so great to read them all.

I have managed to get all 3 of my Christmas Gifts finally finished off today. Here is Mom's compact mirror - I love this rose there is no back stitch but it looks so real. I wish it was postioned a little more to the left in the mirror but never mind.

I also put the poppies and butterfly stitching into its coaster for my MIL and I backed the Lily bookmark for my Auntie with lovely bright pink felt. I am about to go and wrap up her present now, I have bought her the Julie Walters autobiography to go with the bookmark.

Thought I'd share another piece of Christmas stitching that I made a while ago. The photo isn't very clear and doesn't show the gold thread that reads "Noel" and Joy".

I have worked on Lest We Forget a lot the last few days and will take a photo of that soon as it is nearly complete. I have also started a "stitch a star" piece from Cross Stitcher magazine of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, this will be for Julie's daughter whose 18th birthday party is next week. I won't complete it for then though so she'll just get it when it's finished!!

Next week we have several nights at the girl's school helping with the refreshments for their Christmas Production so you may not see a post from me until the end of the week. I will also try to catch up on my blog reading as I seem to have not read anyone else's recently.... so sorry.

Enjoy your week.

Ginnie x

*!~# Blooming Cottage !#~*....

I have officially hung up my hard hat and refuse to do anymore construction work!!! The air was blue here on Monday night as I tried to get the blooming roof on my cottage. The instructions said to lace around the plastic canvas like the side walls.... all well and good, but then you have to bend the roof piece to fit on the cottage walls. But when you do that the lacing becomes slack and hangs down!? So I thought I'll just try to stitch it anyway..... couldn't hold it straight, couldn't work out how to stitch it, nearly threw it out the window!! So eventually I stuck some felt over the laced back then glued it to the walls, left it over night then glued the base on too. And in the end it looks ok...... You can see the felt overhanging the roof a little but never mind. I love the bugle beads I bought to put on the edges. I don't think I'll be making another.... well not yet anyway!!

I only did a bit of stitching last night, some of the rose (nearly done) and some of a new little heart ornament that was in the latest Cross stitcher magazine... pictures to follow.

Tonight was our Stitching Club's Christmas meal out. We went to a local pub for a lovely carvery, there were 13 of us all together and we had a good laugh and a very nice time. I wore my new pink coat I bought last week, Stuart took a few photos of me and here is one of the half decent ones!!

I am really tired now though so no stitching just off to bed soon. Stuart has a meal out tomorrow with his teaching friends so I will hopefully get some stitching done then.

Ginnie x

Ornaments on my tree.

I thought I would show you some of the things I have hanging on my tree that I have stitched over the years.

I think the Robin one needs something around the edge, I may put a gold bead border around it.

The next 2 are angels, one is stitched and one is with beads.

I managed to get some stitching done at the weekend. Firstly I have completed the stitching on the roof for my cottage, tonight I will lace it around the plastic canvas and attach to the walls!! This looks the trickest bit as the roof has to overhang so attaching it will be awkward. I will hopefully show the end result on my next posting.

I also worked on Mom's rose and that is almost done, just a bit more around the leaves, again I'll show this next time.

What I did finally finish stitching is the individual placecards for Christmas dinner! I just have to back them on cards now. I want to do the table runner and napkins for next year..... but not just yet! I used a red varigated thread which I think looks nice.

This week I will work on what I feel like..... I think Lest We Forget may come out again and Dusky Dreams.... who knows.

Ginnie x

Busy week..... little stitching!

I have done very little sewing so far this week as I have been very busy!!! Monday night was our Parent Support group meeting at school, when we got back I managed just a small bit of cottage stitching. Tuesday night was Christmas Tree sorting and decorating, which took a while so again just a little bit of roof was done later in the evening. Here are some tree pictures... very difficult to capture on a photo but it does look pretty. Need to hurry up with the cottage I have picked a spot for it to go near the top.... will aim to finish it this weekend!

Wednesday night I met up with my friend Stacey and we had a drink and a good gossip, so no stitching what so ever.

Thursday night I went Christmas shopping again as M&S had a 20% off day and I wanted a new coat/jacket I had seen there. It is lovely - bright pink..... will have to take a picture when I wear it! The queues were bad so it took longer than expected, when I returned I did some of mom's gift stitching. Here is the progress on this -

It is a pretty red rose to go in a compact mirror.... I must work hard on this but I am finding it slow going as it is on very small count material! Again I aim to finish over the weekend!

We were supposed to be back at the school tonight to help with the production set painting... but I am so tired of not being at home this week.... and I have been very busy at work that we have decided to give it a miss. Also Becky is unwell, she has the cold that Laura had last week. I do feel gulity about not going to help as they rely on us as so few others get involved.... but we can only do so much. So instead I want to have a nice "stitching in front of my new TV night".

I am abandoning my rota for December also and will just stitch on whatever I feel like....... I may even start Pirates Creed. Stuart has ordered me some stuff for Christmas from Sewandso...... how exciting... can't wait to see what he picked (I did give him a rough idea of what I may like!!!)

Well now I better go and feed Marshall he is hanging around wondering when his tea is coming.

Have a happy stitching weekend....

Ginnie x

Here's Henry.

Here is my update picture of Henry. I spent a lot of time on him last night, I was really enjoying working on him. I still think his head looks small but it is like that on the picture. His right shoulder and arm are complete, and his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, is just emerging in the green and blue at the edge of his arm.

Yesterday afternoon we went TV shopping as our TV was playing up and we've had it a long time. We have had a new 32" flat screen Samsung TV and a new stand. It looks really nice.

Tonight I have a meeting at school, then I am out on Wednesday with friends and Thursday evening going shopping with the girls, so stitching will have to be slotted in between. I want to finish off my placecards (never did any of the last one this week), finish mom's gift (slow progress) and complete the roof on the cottage.

Many thanks for all your wonderful comments as usual, they make me feel very honoured that my stitching is appreciated!

Ginnie x