Catching up

I may not have been here , but I have been busy .
 Progress on my HAED

Page 2 completed 13/6

 Page 3 and a bit completed 5/7.

Page 4 and total finish 17/7

Not the best picture , my camera batteries died .
  I love this so much , it was a joy to stitch and I almost feel sad that she is finished.
Now to finish another one before I have a new start.

Flash , loving on Finley

 thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

My own kind of Maynia !

I am intrigued by the idea of Maynia and kind of wanted to take part , but I don't really do smalls as such and the idea of having that many starts would terrify me .
 So , as I have been on sick leave for the last few weeks following surgery , I decided to start a new HAED , with the aim of working on it every day of May and seeing how much I could get done.
  Coincidentally , On the HAED fb page , a challenge popped up starting 26th April to do a new start and try and complete a page by 26th June , my kind of thing.

  So , I decided to do this one as it was already kitted up , apart from fabric , and most of it from stash. .

 The first page was completed on 20th May

 I was cursing the confetti at the end , but the eye looks fabulous.

 And this is where I'm at with the second page.

 There are two partial pages underneath , so I am hopeful of a finish in the next couple of months as I am totally loving stitching on this.

   A couple of quick finishes for a friend , an Easter card and bookmark that I made.

 Still waiting on an appointment with a liver specialist , but my blood tests are showing improvements so , got to look on the bright side.

  Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Still stitchin'

And keeping busy . Latest finishes :

A LQ any child square. I have been doing these in between stitching on the next finish

  A Jack for my son. He is eventually having a dog quilt and absolutely love Jack Russell's , so this is the first of a few but it was a total pain to stitch . I love the finish , but definitely not stitching again.

 And this was finished last night. We are in desperate need of super heroes at Love Quilts. 155 kids in the lottery for a quilt and more than 30 of them want super heroes. Best get cracking then ,lol.

I am waiting on some stash , but it's just more aida and a few threads , so nothing exciting. I have however taken advantage of the HAED flash sale 50% off , so added these to my ever growing collection .

So , can someone please find me a philosophers' stone . Thank you , and see you next time .
Cath x

Stitching and gifts .

Well , I finished the LQ a/c square , and here it is . It is one of four designs from a magazine , intended to make a cushion cover , but works out quite well for a square .

 Then I moved onto this one , intended to be another a/c square , but I ended up getting a sign up with it. Superheroes are so popular with the kids that the stitchers tend to get a little bored of them , so the quilts take a while longer to get filled .

 And then this one as a sign up as well , superheroes again ,lol. This is the second time stitching this chart , and probably not the last . I was intending to do this in a couple of months , but with it being half term needed something fairly easy to be able to pick up when I got chance so this worked out fine.

 I have one more sign up to do , which I'm hoping will be a quick stitch but I'm so tired I can't see straight so you never know .

 I was very lucky and crazily happy to receive two RAKs in the recent HAED sale , so excited.
 This one has only recently been added to my wish list , but I've seen someone stitching it on the HAED FB page and it is gorgeous .

  And someone has completed this one too , so cute.

Well that's all for now , hope to be back soon but have got a teachers gift to chart and stitch which may take some time , till then ...
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

I did it !

I managed to finish the HAED challenge of a page between Jan 1st and April 7th . Actually , I did two pages but page two was only 5 stitches across ,lol.
 I have taken loads of pictures , but still cannot get the colours to show properly , or the sparkle from the kreinik thread , but here it is .

I finished yesterday , but didn't have time to post , though I did post it on the HAED FB page ,lol. After all the fretting , the kreinik was not that bad to stitch with. The chart called for two strands on 18ct , I'm stitching on 16ct and found one strand to be plenty. Glad I bought the thread heaven though.
 Have to say , I love it and am sad to put it away , but I have a teacher gift to do which may take some time so have to get on with that next (once I've done my LQ a/c square anyway)
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Marching on .

Well , the year is flying by already . February was not a fantastic month as we had a big whoops with the car and had to get a new one. not an accident before anyone starts worrying , just lack of knowledge and circumstances leading to the head gasket blowing, not good.
 Anyway , with all the stress etc, I didn't get a whole load of stitching done , but I have done some.
I was getting disheartened with my HAED , with all the confetti stitches it felt like I was going nowhere fast so I decided to do some block stitching , and it really made a difference.

 I have done more random and confetti stitches , and am back to feeling like I've made no progress ,lol. After a couple of hours today I got really annoyed at finding yet another stitch that I'd missed so put it away .
 My last lot of LQ squares have been posted out , but I have done this one since. This is for a back-filled quilt, where all the squares are taken from stock other than the label. This has been sent directly to the person who is making the quilt up .

I found myself wanting to start two new things , but only have one spare frame , so debating between buying another one , trying to make one and just buy the clips, or get a grip and cut down on my WIPS ,lol.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

28 Days later .

Time for a stitching update methinks .

 This little guy

 Now looks like this .

 Yep , he's all done , completed on the 24th . It's a good job I love him , as I've got to stitch him again , and maybe again after that ,lol. My son has decided that he wants his quilt to be dogs , and my daughter kind of likes it too .

 The HAED challenge is progressing . From this :

 To this .

 Actually , posting this has really helped me see how much I've done . It really seems to be slow going, but there are lots of scattered stitches . I'm leaving the big blocks til the end . Also , I'm only working on it for three or four days a week. Thursdays are usually busy with other stuff as it's hubbys' day off , and weekends are filled with noise , homework and kids stuff . I am still hopeful of finishing by the original date of 3rd March , even though we now have to April to complete the challenge.

  Forgot to show my new stash last time , so here it is .
 Fabric and threads to stitch Promise of Spring , and threads for Pumpkin Patch Inn.

 And , some more white aida and a refill of some DMC I was getting a little low on .  I am lucky to have plenty of thread ,so seldom run out of any , though with HAEDs I tend to kit up fully with new skeins , then whatever is left goes into the general pot .

 My ort jar has a lot of neutral colours at the moment , so I need to stitch something bright to jazz it up a bit . Now my LQ square is done and I have no more sign ups at the moment , I've gone back to my carry over project from last year , but I'll show pics of that next time .

 Thanks for dropping by .
Cath

A quick update .

Hi ,
 just wanted to do a quick post and update events .
My daughter has been to the Harry Potter studio tour today , so she is buzzing, had a great time .

I started my sixth book of the year so far today , so going well with the reading . There will be slower times as it depends on what mood I'm in , but enjoying the new books that I had for Christmas and a couple more I bought from the Works when we went into town last week.

Stitching wise , I'm still enjoying my HAED , this is where I'm at after todays' efforts.

 I am hoping to get this done fairly quickly as I have so many plans of other projects . I'm also planning a secret stitch as an end of year gift for my sons' teacher . He has had the same teacher for two years and she is absolutely brilliant , so I wanted to do something a bit special. More on that at a later date .
  I needed an easier project for evenings and weekends so started my LQ square too , this is where I've got to . I'm hoping it looks a lot better when it's done , lol.

Thanks for dropping by ,
Cath

Out with the old.

In with the New.

Happy New Year everyone , I know I'm a day late . I was going to post last night , but then hubby asked if I wanted to watch a DVD with him while having cheese and crackers . Can't turn an offer like that down , so blogging had to wait ,lol .

Anyway , time for the recap and plan post , so here goes.

 Last year , I read 114 books , a huge improvement on the last couple of years , so I'm pretty happy with it , especially as it did not look like I'd get anywhere near that at the start of the year.
 I had a lovely pile of books for Christmas to help me get a good start in this year .

I've already read the two on the right and made a start on the third.

Stitching wise , I had 44 starts , and 48 finishes , which again I'm quite impressed with especially as some of those finishes were old UFOs .

 I stitched 28 squares for Love Quilts , and a card  , a card for hubby , 4 bookmarks for my lovely kids , two other finishes for me , and two UFOs finished ,and one of them was finished on the 30th December , so you haven't even seen it yet !

 I have one WIP , which will probably be left for a while as I had a new start yesterday , but that comes in with the plans bit ,so more in a short while . First , the ORTs !

 My ort jar from two angles , lots of pretties in here , but it's now been emptied out all ready for a new years worth .

So , my big finish at the end of last year was my oldest UFO , started in 2009. I was stitching on it when my cousin was killed in a car accident and just put it down . I've picked it up on and off occasionally , but decided that it needed to be finished . After I finished up my owls earlier on last year , I admit I did put this off a bit , but once I got going it wasn't actually that bad . I have changed a couple of things ,and added some personalisation , and overall I'm quite pleased with it.

Forgive the bits of paper , I don't post my familys' names on line. It is also in need of a good press , but as it's going to be put away for a few months I'm going to leave that until I'm ready to have it framed , probably around my birthday  ,then it will be ready and waiting in time for next Christmas.
 I'm quite excited about it now it's done , this is my first seasonal stitched piece .

Plans ,well , I don't make definite plans , just have ideas of what I'd like to do .

My new start yesterday was a HAED , which I'm doing for the FB challenge of stitching a page between Jan 1st and April 7th . It was going to be until 3rd March , but they extended it . I'm stitching TT A Pale Comparison for my Daughter , and she's quite excited about it.

This is my progress from yesterday and today .

My other plans are really to do more personal stitching . I do love stitching for Love Quilts and will continue to do so , but I need to get more of my own projects done . I have so much stash , it's shameful . Also , I want to do more for my kids , so once this one is done , I'll be starting a HAED for my son. I'd also really like to complete Rosita, so three HAEDs on the go ,lol .

I am planning on stitching Pumpkin Patch Inn this year too , and hopefully Holmseys' Winter Wonderland , and probably Promise Of Spring by Silver Creek Samplers which I bought from the lovely Mouse .

 So , looks like I'm going to be fairly busy this coming year .

Thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

November !!!

Well , just had to go and read my own blog as I couldn't remember what I posted last ,lol.

I have been stitching , though at times it was harder than I would have liked. The squares for my daughters' quilt are finally finished , though they were holding me back a little. I was getting so fed up of the colours and the designs that the last few were quite hard work .

I deliberately left this one until last to give me a much needed colour boost . We chose the colours ourselves and I had to fiddle with placement a bit , but very happy with how it worked out .

  So , all 15 squares are done , now to source and decide on fabric and get motivated to turn them into a quilt. We'll see how that goes .

  I then did another sign up for Love Quilts ,
I loved stitching this , and love how it turned out .

 I also signed up to stitch the card for the same child. Here is the stitching , yet to be made into a card . Both pieces need a quick wash.

 After that , I felt like some indulgent stitching. I wanted to do one of my LHN or LK charts , but not sure where my stash of special threads are at the moment , so settled on this at the weekend instead.

This has also been a long time coming. I left off the wording at the bottom.

In other news , I had a birthday since my last real post, Got mostly money ,so was very selfish and splurged it mostly on stash . The local dept store was closing the Coates department , and all the Anchor threads were down to 20p each. I am usually a DMC stitcher , but have some lovely Anchor charts and have been trying to build up my stash , so I took advantage and ended up buying around 200 threads.
  Then , someone on a FB group was selling a load of DMC threads at a really good price , so I bought those too .
 Of course , then I had to buy a load of bobbins , and storage boxes and a new drawer unit to keep them all in ,so most of birthday money spent ,lol.
 Over 500 threads

Anchor

DMC

I did have enough left over to treat myself to a few new HAED charts though .

 Polani

 Mini Cries of the Night

 Mother of Dragons

Looking forward to these.

Thanks for dropping by .

Cath