The bears :)

Here they are at last a very long overdue pic of my completed bears :)

I started this project way back in 1991!!!! when pregnant with Mel and at the time I was a very new stitcher and basically it was to big a project for to tackle at the time.

Fast forward to January this year and I decided that it was about time I finished my oldest PHD so out it came and I spent my weekends with it until 10 June when I put the last stitches in.

I really enjoyed working on itthis time around and was a little sad for the journey to end but happy that it had after so long

Over due (again) weekend progress

I really do need to get back in the habit of regular posting it would help if there was a blogger app for my pad!

I last updated at the end of April :( so I have got a few weeks to catch up once more.

May 5/6 and because it was a bank holiday a bit on May 7 as well

May 12/13 and I filled in the gap and joined up with the area I started with all those years ago

I then moved over and filled in gaps on these two

Last weekend (May 19/20) turned out to be so busy that I didn't even get to stitch on the Saturday :( and only made a little bit of progress on Sunday

The end is in sight now and with luck at some point in the next couple of weekends I'll have a finish

Long overdue weekend progress

I've been taking the pics but not uploading them here for the last few weeks :( but here they are at last

So last time I wrote about my weekend project was back on April 3rd! and it looked like this

After April 14&15

After April 21&22

And after this last weekend April 28&29

Sorry it's a little dark

Lastly an overall view so you can see just how much further there is to go

Weekend progress

A few weekends ago I picked up my bears and did a bit on them but never got round to posting and now can't remember which weekend it was!

But anyway here's how I got on with it then

Last Friday afternoon I finished the second model so pulled it a little earlier than normal and made really good progress over the weekend

Weekend progress

Well I said I wanted to reach the left hand edge of the bears during Feb and I did :) so I'm a happy bunny.

There won't be any progress to report from this weekend because I have plans and there is a chance there won't be any for a couple of weeks :( one of the models has a fairly tight deadline so I might have to put it aside for a couple of weeks

Weekend progress

I've made a start on the other side of the chest of drawers now.

While I have models to do with deadlines I'm only going to be working on this on a Sunday so I won't be making quite as much progress on it for a few weeks and I'm good with that after all all progress is good even if it's only a few stitches

Weekend progress

I got most of the smaller gaps filled in this weekend but didn't touch the big one you can see so that's the plan for for the coming weekend 

Weekend progress

With being sick last week I never got round to posting my progress so you get a double update again this week.

My starting point for this last weekend is of course my stopping point for the weekend before 

And here it is after this last weekend

My aim this coming weekend is to fill in the gaps and if I manage to get them all done I'll drop down and work on the left side of the drawers so I can get the other edge of it in place

New Weekend project

The first weekend of this month/ year saw me getting back to working on an old PHD until it's finished and I decided that it time to finish my oldest project.

I started this way back in I think 1991 when I'd only been stitching a few months but it didn't last long,  over the years I've come to realise that between a new baby (Mel) and being a new stitcher it was just far to large a project for me to tackle at the time.

Here it is on the morning of Jan 6th 2018

Monday 8th Jan it looked like this after a weekend with me feet up because my toe was giving me so much pain I couldn't put much weight on it

This last weekend wasn't as productive but I still got lots done

I think it's going to take most of the year to finish this one and I'm ok with that

My oldest PHD

For the last few months my oldest PHD has been quietly whispering in my ear so yesterday one of the things on my list was to go to the library and copy the chart which I did.

Today was the day it came out to play so as any blogger knows you take a pic

This PHD is so old that when I started it you had a either a hoop or a scroll frame, Q snaps were a thing of the future so I tried working on it on the scroll frame but you can't see where in the pic as it was a light colour right at the top.

I didn't enjoy it one bit, it wasn't the working on the scroll frame that was the problem it was that I had to stitch the opposite way to normal because waaaaaay back when I started it I must of thought it would be a good idea to work with the frame horizontal but stitch it so that my stitches would sit the way they usually do.  Either that it I started it with the frame vertically which given it's 28 inch' is unlikely.

So it came off the frame

My first OMG moment was that I used masking tape on the edges and the second was at the colour of it!

You can see the huge lines of dirt and *cough 23 years cough* worth of dust on it but I thought I'd still stitch on it and did that little bit at the bottom.

Then I decided that it would probably be a good idea to wash it before I did any more just in case it didn't come clean after I'd spent probably a couple of hundred hours on it.

And tada it came clean but there is still a bit of a rust mark from a needle but it's right done the bottom and will be covered by a mat when framed so I'm not worried about it.

I hadn't been stitching very long when I started this and I think it's purely a case of far to big a project for a new stitcher combined with having 2 small kids running round at the time.

I no longer have the original pic from the kit so I've had a poke round the net and found out that it's now retired which wasn't a big surprise given it's as old as Mel but I did find one on ebay as an ended listing so you can see what it looks like and just how far I have to go on it