It's been a while since I've posted on my blog, a lot has happened. 

Grandchild number two has not only been born, but also celebrated her first birthday and grandchild number one has started school – already. 

 

I had a go at dying – big hint if you are going to go into anaphylactic shock do it when you have already been admitted to A & E. Turns out I’m allergic to a certain type of anti-biotics and now have to carry epi pens with me. Don’t knock the NHS in front of me, the quick action of three people in three different settings saved my life twice. I followed that up a few months later with another emergency admittance to hospital for something I’d never heard of but now make sure I stay well hydrated and watch what I eat. 

That about covers the highlights from the start of Lockdown to the end of 2023. 

I did manage some stitching, two Shepherd’s Bush stockings for my grandchildren. 

 

Shepherds Bush Stocking - Thomas

 

 

Shepherds Bush stocking -  Parker/Emily

Much of the rest of my time was taken up either reading, exercising, or gardening. We managed two big garden projects in 2023 and I finally got my greenhouse back into action. 

 

Now that I don’t have stocking to complete, I have picked up two cross stitch projects I abandoned to concentrate on the stockings, Apache Wedding Blessing and Celtic Autumn. The plan is to finish them both this year so I can move onto some other BAPS I’m keen to do. I’ve been doing the BAPS at the start of the week and setting myself a point to reach. Once I’ve reached that point, I’ve moved onto some small projects. 

Apache Wedding Blessing

Celtic Autumn

 

I’ve kitted up two of the Petites by Little House Needleworks and have two finishes from Winter Petites. I’ve also just finished Shepherd’s Bush Dashing Through the Snow. So far it is working well. 

Little House Needleworks Winter Petites & Sweet Petites

Shepherds Bush Dashing Through the Snow

 

I have also subscribed to the Cottage Garden Sampling Little House project, but I’ve yet to receive anything yet. Other cross stitch plans include starting a smallish Little House Needlework design, either The Library or The Bookshelf. I’ve had the patterns for years just need to decide which one to do and then kit it up.

Elsewhere the garden is springing into action, and I need to get seeds sown in the greenhouse and if it ever stops raining some weeding done. 

One final project I’m working towards is having a go at the Summer Spine - Challenger South. I’ve always wanted to do the Pennine Way and after my adventures in A & E realised, I’d better get on and do it. Rather than do it the easy way I’m going for the daft way which means getting very fit first is required although I'm aiming for 2025, not this summer. Fitness wise I have some exciting plans for 2024 although they have been pushed back a few weeks as my delighful granddaughter shared a rather nasty virus with me and it stopped me getting outside for almost a fortnight. I'm back out walking now, but currently only up to 3 miles a day, not the eight miles I was doing before she shared her germs.

Finally, here is my rather belated (by a couple of years) post for the TUSAL. The small jar probably contains all my orts for 2023 but at least half of them are from the last month. Since emptying the small jar into the big jar I’ve already got some orts for the next full moon. 

 

TUSAL Feb 2024

Perhaps more interesting will be to see if I actually have any readers left.

Back

Well I tried using Wordpress but just couldn't get on with it and I miss blogging I thought why not see if I can get this blog going again, although at the moment stitching is a very rare activity.

Where to start - I could go on forever about 2017 but lets just say in too many ways it didn't go to plan and so by the end of the year I weighed a stone (14lbs for those who don't understand proper weights) more than I did at the start of the year. To be fair more than half of that went on in December which was a month that started with a haoliday where a lot of good food and wine was consumed and ended with Christmas.  The last three months of the year also saw me spending far too little time in the gym so a significant decrease in my fitness levels also accompany the gain in weight.

On a more positive note I passed my HNC in Photography with Distinction and was forced into launching myself as photographer, my son got engaged and my daughter has secured herself a new job.

So to 2018 - given there is wedding to attend in January 2019 the priority is too shift a lot of weight as I know exactly what style of dress I want for the wedding and it requires a figure to die for. With that in mind I have made exercise a priority for this month with the first goal being to get back to the pre-holiday weight and the second to be regaining some power in my legs and finding my stomach muscles again.

Since the 27th December I have been able to fir at least one sessions of exercise in every day and since the Sports Centre opened after the New Year Holiday I have been able to get both a walk and trip to the gym or pool in every day. So far THIS YEAR I have already lost 3lbs  4lbs, although I am realistic enough to know that the weight loss will slow down.

Since Christmas I have also begun to catch up on the backlog of walks from my website. The first walk was in October when John and I enjoyed a walk around the Goyt Valley taking in the ridge to Shining Tor Shining Tor walk details

Cats Tor from Shining Tor

The second walk was the one which marked the start of our November trip to the Kirkstile Inn in the Lake District. This time we enjoyed long distance views of the Pennines and Shap Fells thanks to the blue skies and a bitterly cold wind on that day Seat Robert walk details

Looking across Wet Sleddale Reservoir to Seat Robert

I need to get the website up-to-date as John has made it responsive and it needs to be relaunched so it makes sense to get all of the 2017 walks on the site before we launch the new version.

Sewing at the moment looks like being a none-starter , although I did briefly pick up my needle in 2017 and put some more stitches in Celtic Autumn, I would dearly love to finish her but she is so fiddly at the moment that I get fed up with only being able to put a few stitches in before I need to move to another section or change colour.

Here's to hoping 2018 will be a little more successful than 2017.

I Have ORTs

It is many a year since I have been able to say that.

Over the last few years sewing had become increasingly difficult and about 18 months ago I found out why - I had a cataract, which by last week was covering all of one eye and as I now know making the world very dim and hence stopping me sewing.

Last Thursday the first and worst cataract was removed and I can now see to sew again. For the last two days I have reacquainted myself with my cross stitch and made a fair bit of progress on Celtic Autumn.

No pictures because one of the things I can't do for another 10 days is risk putting a camera up to my eye and knocking it.

I wonder if I have any followers left!!

TUSAL

Here's the first update for 2010 for the TUSAL

Not bad for me only two days late.

Most of the threads are from the LHN sampler I stitched last week but some are from earlier in the month when I added some more stitches to Celtic Autumn.

I plan on buying a much nicer container for my orts and ends to go in. Hopefully I will have it in time for February's picture.

Some Stitching

As I've said in an earlier post there hasn't been a lot of stitching done since I got back from the lakes but I have made some progress with Celtic Autumn.

I have started to work on the letters. For some reason I found them quite frustrating, probably because I'm now having to use my scroll frame and I had them too high up it. I can see a stand for holding the frame being added to my Christmas list. I saw the perfect one late last year but really couldn't justify spending the money on it.

I have also started my Christmas sewing. I know I have plenty of other things to finish but you know what it's like. This will eventually become a Christmas card and having started it I'm wondering how many of them I will actually get stitched this year.

I have also committed myself to a private Christmas Ornament swap with Angela at Hooked on Stitches I must get started on that soon as well. Later today I'm heading out to Alfreton to visit my LNS as I need some supplies but I also want to take the time to have a really good browse around the shop. I hope I don't spend too much!! On the way I shall have to a pass the shop in Heage where I get some of my supplies from. It's really aimed at people who make curtains and clothes but I spotted some lovely Christmas ribbon in there earlier this year so I shall go and purchase some before it sells out.

Finally yesterday a surprise package arrived for me in the post. It contained a cap keeper for my lens cover. Bilbo had read about me losing my wide-angle lens cover when we were at the top of Knock Murton during our holiday. If you want to know why I didn't go back and look for it take a look at the steepness of the hill on my walking website.

Right, time to head out to my LNS.

Don't forget to sign up for my PIF which is two posts down and closes on Tuesday.

Gold, Ashes and Hair

Last week was spent doing very little other than watching TV and stitching. With the World Athletics Championship on most mornings and every evening I was already going to be spending a lot of time in front of the TV, but when you add to that the final test match in the Ashes series, then clearly, not a lot else was going to be done. As both of these sports are good for stitching and watching I decided to get going again on Celtic Autumn.

I set myself the target of doing her hair, so as that in the future I could combine working on the border with doing the few bits, other than the white stitches, I have left to do on her dress. I have got that far with her now that I can almost feel a Happy Dance coming on by the end of the year.

I also received some stash last week, the two snippet charts I purchased from Elisa and some books I ordered with the last of the Waterstones voucher my brother gave me for Christmas. The books are being saved for when we go camping in the Lakes in a couple of weeks time. I'm planning on stitching up the snippets as Christmas cards for my young nieces and nephews.

I have heard from Thread Bear that the silks I need to finish my Mum's birthday present need to be ordered from the States, so it may be another 2/3 weeks before I'm able to finish her present. I only have one corner of the border to do but it's unlikely it will be framed in time for her birthday.

Having done very little last week I now need to catch up with everything else I neglected to do, so as today I have the house to myself, I'm going to get all of the housework out of the way. Then I have a long list of jobs I need to tackle that will involve a lot of time on the computer. We won't mention the weeds in the garden that seem to have appeared over the last week.

SAL's and Stash

When I got back from my holiday I found out that Kathy is trying to get the Celtic Lady SAL going again and it was just the excuse I needed to do some more work on her. Previously I was finding that I liked to work on her on Sunday but the Wimbledon Final got in the way of that so I picked her up again on Monday. I set myself the target of finishing off one of the braid cards I had and getting the trim on the bottom of her dress done.

As you can see I actually ended up doing a little more than that, but that was because I didn't achieve everything I wanted on Monday so I worked on it yesterday as well. On Monday it was put aside so we could watch Torchwood and I wasn't sorry I did so. As I write Tuesday's episode is on the video to be watched later tonight along with tonight's episode, so no spoilers please. Thursday and Friday's episodes will also be watched together on Friday night so again don't tell me what happens, please.

Before I went to the Lakes I received my order form Thread Bear.

Just about everything in here will be used for one or other of the PIF's I am currently working on, although I couldn't resist the backing fabric which is 'just' a stash addition.

As of yet I haven't received the chart for my planned Blogversary Giveaway so whoever wins it may have to be patient. If you've not entered you've still got time as the closing date is the 21st July just add a comment to the relevant post.

I have also been working on some PIF's but no pictures yet. I must get one made-up, now that I have all the materials I need for it.

Stitching

I have some stitching to show you.

As promised a picture of Celtic Autumn.

I have started working on the border but now she is on the scroll frame I'm finding it very difficult to work on her. This is the first time I've combined a scroll frame with my magnifying lamp and it isn't working. I need to buy a stand to hold the frame. I've seen the one I want, in fact I nearly bought it last year, but I'll have to wait until finances allow the purchase of it. I suspect progress on her will be slow for a while, we will see.

In the mean time I've picked up St Petersburg again. I was inspired by Jacky who has recently been there.

I'm actually working on part of The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood. If you follow the link I'm currently doing the blue and green dome on the left of the church. This small bit of stitching is just one of the swirls and represents about 5 hours of stitching. There are an awful lot of sections of two or three stitches in this part.

As you can see I have a long way to go. I have finally sorted out how to handle this amount of fabric. I'm stitching using a hoop and rolling up the rest of the material and pegging it hence the state of the fabric. Whilst this will work for now eventually I'm going to have to find a better solution. Does anyone know where I can buy a massive roller frame?

I had hoped to be able to show you one of the PIFs I was working on, but I haven't heard that it has been received yet. I'm starting to get worried as it was posted on Monday by Husband, although he did send it 2nd class so maybe that explains the delay.

The new boots have been out for a test drive on a local 2 mile walk but it wasn't a great day so although the pictures are on my website I'll not put any on here. I'm hoping to fit a couple more walks in next week as we are going to the Lakes a week on Sunday for my birthday.

Fitness, Neighbours and Some Stitching

Considering I planned on losing about 3 stones this year I can safely say I am nowhere near to achieving it. Injuring my back at the start of the year certainly knocked me back two months but for the last two months I have been seriously lacking in the motivation required to get out of bed and down to the pool or gym first thing most mornings. I've also found that I'm even lacking the inspiration to hit the hills which has meant I have kept going in a downward spiral.

Two weeks ago I finally dragged myself down to the pool and just about made my way through 40 lengths or 1 km. Given that 50 lengths is my normal easy swim this is not good, even worse I ached all over the next day. As the first step is always the hardest last week I made it down to the pool twice and managed 50 lengths each time but I can definitely say it's going to be a long haul before I'm back to where I was this time last year.

When I'm getting over a back injury I also try to make a walk part of my daily routine. As I live in a hilly part of town I can make this easy or hard by varying the route to include as many hills as I want. Today I finally managed to get myself out for a walk so that's another step in the right direction. Two months later than it should of been but I'll let myself off that one as I have been doing a lot of walking anyway delivering flyers for Husband. Once I've got my swim up to a decent distance I'll head back to the gym which is the real test for my back and level of fitness.

I thought I'd share with you these roses, which aren't from Husband put a thank you from one of my neighbours.

I spent 5 hours on Saturday painting/staining the fence at the side of her house. As we share part of the fence with her I felt it was only right that we painted our part of the fence. As she didn't like the first colour she had already put on half of the fence I actually ended up doing all of the fence and not just the bit we shared with her but as it was a glorious day I didn't mind and I certainly wasn't expecting anything for it.

I have started a new stitching project, but I can't show you it as its a gift for a reader of my blog.

As promised here is a picture of Celtic Autumn which is the major cause of my lack of sewing this month.

She now needs to go onto a scroll frame but I just can't bring myself to do it even though I know I must if I don't want to end up crushing the metallic threads.

I've also made one small addition to my stash. Its a new Lizzie Kate design which I just had to get as nearly everyone of them is made for my shopaholic, shoe, bag, clothes and make-up loving Daughter. My idea of hell her idea of a great time.

Be Glad Your Not Here

Firstly yes I'm still alive (just) and although there's not been much sewing going on I have been out walking a fair bit, whilst also catching up on weeding and reading. However since 18th April there has been no hope of any sewing being done, or much else for that matter, as the World Snooker Championships are on. The red button has been very active, unlike me, but snooker and sewing don't go together so the sewing is being neglected. It's no coincidence that this post comes on the day the semi-finals start, as there is no morning session.

Last Thursday saw husband and I heading to Sheffield, not for the snooker but to see The Specials who were on at the O2 Academy, opposite The Crucible. The tickets were a Christmas present from me to husband and whilst we both enjoyed the gig the after-effects we're not so keen on. As it was a sellout the place was packed and boiling hot. On Monday evening we both started to feel somewhat unwell, with sore throats, coughs, and aching muscles. We have concluded that we must have both caught something off someone at the gig. The last few days have seen us both suffering with flu-like symptoms. Not what you want when the news is dominated by talk of a flu pandemic!! As we are both on the road to recovery I'm assuming its not the dreaded Swine Flu. If it is then a good chunk of the UK must be contaminated by now as we can't be the only ones who left the gig having caught it.

Since my last post I have fitted in three walks, although one of them still needs to be posted on my website. Husband and I enjoyed a walk along Derwent Edge on a lovely summer-like day and both ended up sun burnt.

Ladybower from Whinstone Lee Tor

The next two walks were done for the magazine I write for, one was a local walk to Alport Heights and the second was an unusual route above Dove Dale.

Dove Dale from Bunster Hill

Alport Stone at Alport Heights

Once I have finished writing up the Dove Dale walk I will be 4 months away from needing to submit my next walk, which will give me an opportunity to get on with the walks for next years editions. This feels incredibly organised for me.

Sadly the walk in Dove Dale also saw the stitching on the sides of my walking boots give up and split properly. On average a pair of walking boots lasts me a year so it's no surprise they have started to go but it's an expense I really could do without at the moment. Thankfully our local cobbler can restitch them and at the very reasonable cost of £2.50 it works out much cheaper than a new pair of walking boots. It does, of course, remain to be seen if the stitching holds, but as my birthday is relatively soon if it doesn't a new pair of walking boots will be my birthday present. I really hope the stitching does hold as they are by far and away the best boots I have had for a good few years now.

Sewing wise I have done some more work on Celtic Autumn but I can no longer avoid transferring her to a scroll frame so I want to give her a quick iron and take one last picture of her before she goes onto the scroll frame.

For anyone who is into beads a store just selling beads opened up in Belper a few months ago and I finally remembered to go and have a look in it the other day. It has an excellent selection of beads that will suit both stitchers and jewellery makers, although I don't think I'll be buying any of the Swarovski Crystals that they keep locked away in a display cabinet. A new craft shop has also opened up further up the road but when I called in it really didn't have any stock or anything of great interest for me.

I have also finished three books over the last few weeks. The first was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, if you've not read it do.

It wasn't at all what I expected and acts as a reminder that there is suffering and loss on both sides of any war.

I then read a very short Maeve Binchy book called The Builders. As with all of her books it was very enjoyable but so short it only took me one hour.

Having been told that The Cipher Garden by Martin Edwards was no longer in print I reserved it at my local library and have now read it.


I have to admit I didn't find it as compelling as the first book in the series but it wasn't bad enough to put me off reserving the next book in the series from the library, which I plan on picking up tomorrow along with my boots.

Right off to catch up on some housework, assuming the shakes and sweats hold off.

Prepare For A Shock

Well it has finally happened, yes, I have actually been stitching. Your shocked aren't you. You thought I was never going to stitch again but you were wrong. Well you weren't alone, I was beginning to wonder myself.

I didn't get to do any stitching on Saturday as I hoped. Sunday saw a family member admitted to hospital so a trip to the QMC to help out meant no stitching but on Monday I started stitching and have done some everyday this week. As usual Celtic Autumn jumped into my hands and I have now finished all the swirls on one side of her dress.

I'd got to a really fiddly bit whereby doing 4 or more stitches in one colour in one go felt like a long row of stitches. Having stuck with it I'm now looking forward to doing some of the bigger blocks of colour although I suspect that by the time I've finished the first lot I'll be sick to death of ecru.

Today is our wedding anniversary and we are treating ourselves to a meal out tonight and I have just been given a lovely bunch of flowers by Husband. He wasn't meant to be getting me flowers as we had bought the new U2 album as an anniversary present to each other. I'll let him off as he also combined it with a sales pitch on a website for the flower shop LOL.

All That Glitters

As appears to be coming my usual habit I spent much of Sunday and Monday working on Celtic Autumn. I didn't really plan it but on both days I ended up just using the Treasure Braid on the swirls on her dress.

By last night I was absolutely sick of working with it but I have to admit that most of that part of her dress is now finished. I've also realised that it is probably easier to follow the pattern on this part of the piece if you do the gold swirls first. I shall try this when I do the back part of her dress.

A quick calculation last night of how much I have sewn revealed that I have now done just over 30% of her. It sounded a lot until I spread the whole piece of linen out today and realised how much of it is still empty.

Progress

First of all thank you to everyone who has wished me and my back well. I can safely say I am really and truly sick of being sat in the chair, but doing nothing, for most of the time, has been exactly the correct thing to do. Each day has seen my mobility improving. Yesterday I was able to potter around and do some housework and baked some chocolate chip muffins and today I'm planning on a very short walk outside. I'm still spending most of each day resting, as I know that is what I need to do, but it's time to start building up the strength in my muscles again, hence the walk later today.

For the last two days I have been working on Celtic Autumn and I have made some quite good progress on her. When I picked her up again I was surprised to find it had been exactly a month since I'd worked on her. Just in case you, like me, had forgot where I'd got to there are two photos, a before and an after photo.

Before

After

I have been concentrating on the swirls on her dress and despite spending a fair bit of time working with the gold braid most of the bits that are missing from the swirls are the gold braid stitches. She is also getting too big to fit inside my biggest hoop and as I don't really want to crush the braid I'm going to have to move her onto my scroll frame. I haven't used the scroll frame since I got my magnifying lamp so I'm not sure how that is going to work, all I can do is give it a go and see.

One Day of Stitching

As planned yesterday afternoon was spent working on Celtic Autumn and as you can see I've made quite good progress.

As there is so much gold braid stitching to do I always try to start by doing some of that and then moving onto some other stitching. At the moment I'm trying to fill in as many of the gaps as possible so as that I can avoid having to fix her to my roller frame for as long as possible. I'll also have to pluck up the courage to start adding the beads to the dress, something I've never worked with before, so that should be fun.

Not quite sure how I've managed this but I have another free day today so hopefully I'll get some more stitching done this afternoon, although I might let Husband drag me down to the pool this afternoon. Before then I think I feel the need to go and bake some chocolate chip muffins and maybe do a tiny bit of ironing so as that I don't feel like I've done nothing but stitch all day.

Edited: Here they all are before Husband gets home and has one with his lunch.
Click on the link above for the menu

P.S. It's very quiet here today. Son's telly is down very low in his room (next door) as he has a hangover after his works Christmas Party last night. To be fair to him he very rarely drinks so Husband and I are finding it quite amusing. Does that make me a bad parent?

A Goals Catch Up & Flyering

Setting goals on a weekly basis is defiantly more successful than setting them by the month. That said I'm still too ambitious with how much I try to achieve so it's not surprising that I didn't do as much as I hoped. I also have to admit that when I made these goals I wasn't expecting to see Friday and Saturday become days spent flyering for Husband's business.

Swim - Twice a week (60 lengths) - Done
Gym - Go three times - Done
Walks - At least once a week - Done
Website - Post last 3 walks - No although I did get one walk posted
Love Songs - Work on it at least once -Yes, I worked on it for two evenings
Celtic Autumn SAL - Stitch on it at least once - Yes, worked on it for two evenings
Good Friend's Count SAL - Finish - No
Christmas Cards - Finish second one - No
Greenhouse - Clear out & clean - No

There will be fewer goals this week because most of my time is going to be spent flyering but as it has already produced several new leads I'm not complaining, although it was pretty miserable flyering yesterday in the rain by myself. Today in the sunshine and with Husband for company it was quite pleasant. Needless to say the goals aren't going to include many to do with getting fitter as the 3- 5 hours flyering each day are more than enough exercise, especially when you consider that where I live is essentially a collection of hills with lots of slopes and steps up to letterboxes.

Next weeks goals are:

Swim - One session of 60 lengths
Walking - Hopefully I'll be out walking on Friday
Flyering - Get them all out by the end of next weekend
Christmas Cards - Finish 2nd one
Love Songs - Stitch on it at least once
Celtic Autumn - Stitch on it at least once

I plan on doing some more work on Love Songs tonight, if I can keep my eyes open long enough, so I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

Filling in the Gaps

A change of location for my stitching yesterday so Husband and Son could watch the first Star Wars film, i.e. episode 4 meant that I got more stitching done than I expected. Partly because Husband spent the evening watching two episodes of Cold Case that I'd already seen so I carried on sewing. Normally I sew in Husband's chair so pack up sewing if we watch TV in the evening.

I worked on Celtic Autumn and whilst she has grown a little most of my time was spent filling in the gaps on the yellow part of her dress.

The big gap between the yellow and purple parts of her dress will remain until I'm close to the end of her as that is a large section of white and I like to keep white until the end to try to stop it getting grubby.

I have also been working on some Christmas Cards but I can't show them yet. I picked a piece of linen to work on that I have had for years and so had no idea what size it was, other than very small. Having stitched the first card I measured the number of stitches yesterday and it's 30 count. Is there a 30 count? I counted the number of stitches per inch several times and each time I had 15 stitches stitched over two so that must mean there is a 30 count or am I counting wrong? Anyway one thing is for sure working on such a small count makes my eyes ache after a while but I love the way the tiny stitches look so perfect.

Not sure what will jump into my hands later today.

Goals

Setting myself monthly goals isn't working as I'm tending to find that unexpected events like impromptu holidays throw all my plans out of the window. Also since Husband is now working from home my routine is fast disappearing. In an attempt to get back into the habit of achieving things and so as that I can account for the current lack of routine in my life I've decided to make weekly goals/targets instead. Here are this weeks goals:

Swim - Twice a week (60 lengths)
Gym - Go three times
Walks - At least once a week
Website - Post last 3 walks
Love Songs - Work on it at least once
Celtic Autumn SAL - Stitch on it at least once
Good Friend's Count SAL - Finish
Christmas Cards - Finish second one
Greenhouse - Clear out & clean

With my recent bouts of arthritis and two days of doing nothing last week due to a really bad migraine my fitness regime has suffered a bit of a set-back. Also with Husband now working from home I'm finding getting up early enough to go for a swim or to the gym before it gets busy very difficult. I gave myself a good talking to this morning and dragged myself down to the gym before breakfast and plan on going again tomorrow before breakfast.

As Sunday dinner is cooked and eaten and Husband's washing up, the rest of the day is going to be spent working on Celtic Autumn and watching the Strictly Come Dancing results show. Nothing against John Sergeant but I really hope he goes today as it would be a travesty if one of the other celebs went when he really was doing little more than walking around the dance floor last night.

1/8th Completed

All of my stitching time over the last week has been spent working on Celtic Autumn and I can see some real progress with her. I was getting a little bit fed up of the fiddly bits in the yellow so opted to start on the purple part of her dress which gave me plenty of long stretches in one colour. Despite getting on so well with her I was still surprised to find, when I worked it out last night, that I'd finished 12.5% of her already.




I think she's going to have to go onto my roller frame soon as I don't want to risk crushing the braid in the hoop I'd also like to start putting the beads on so as that I don't end up with them all to stitch on at the end and I don't think they would survive being caught in the hoop.

She's going away now until the weekend and I'm planning on finishing Good Friends Count and getting some more stitches into Love Songs.

PIF

I have been chosen to be one of the lucky recipients of Rachael's PIF. This is the first time I will have taken part in a PIF and having seen how beautiful Rachael's work is I can't wait to see what she makes for me.

I was a bit nervous about taking part as I have to make the same offer in return on my blog and I've never actually given any of my stitching to anyone outside of my family.

If you would like to receive something handmade by me within the next 365 days, please comment on this post to say that you are interested. I will then draw 3 names out of a hat on Sunday 9th November (GMT). If you are one of the chosen three then in return, please post the same offer on your blog.

This PIF is open for everyone!

I have been working on Celtic Autumn over the last few days although i had to frog two rows last night after I spotted I was a stitch out on one row and found a knot in another row. After I have put a few more stitches in her tonight I plan on taking a photo of my progress and then putting her a way for a few days whilst I work on something else.

She Was Screaming To Be Let Out - Honest

At long last I have done some stitching and oh boy did I enjoy it.

Even though the weather has been turning increasingly colder I have been trying to avoid putting the heating on during the day but I was starting to suffer with arthritis. Last weekend it was in my neck and shoulders so stitching wasn't really possible, well not without considerable discomfort. Yesterday was so cold I gave in and put the heating on in the morning so as that house got nice and warm and then spent the afternoon and an hour in the evening stitching. Mind my toes were still cold so I sat sewing with my usual two pairs of socks on (one is a thick pair of walking socks) and a blanket folded over my toes. During the winter a blanket is frequently to be found in our living room often wrapped around me, sometimes even with the heating on I'm still cold. Husband, of course, is walking round moaning about how hot he is. I have always said we live in different climates. One day I'm going to have quilt to wrap around me like you see Amy doing in the TV program 'Judging Amy', until that day arrives I make do with a blanket.

How nice it was to get my needle and thread out. There was never any doubt in my mind as to which of the pieces I'm working on I was going to do. Celtic Autumn has been screaming at me to have some more stitches put into her dress. Last time I stitched on her I used gold braid for the first time and had real problems with it constantly coming off the needle. When I mentioned this on the Celtic Lady blog Valerie gave me a great tip which I was able to put into practice yesterday and it certainly solved my problem. Instead of dreading using the braid I quite enjoyed stitching with it so thank you very much Valerie.



I must have done a lot of stitching with it because Husband commented on how sparkly she looked and he rarely makes any comments on what I'm sewing other than to make a polite enquiry about what I'm doing.

Elsewhere I have decided that there is no way I'm going to get Love Songs finished in time for it to be my sisters' Christmas present so I now have another 12 months to complete it, in time for next Christmas. Even if I did finish it I couldn't, at this moment in time, justify spending the money getting it framed so there really is no point in rushing it.