A COLOURFUL SPICY HAPPY DANCE!

WOW!
 A very colourful happy dance - Mexican Gecko - a definite colour overload!  I need to wash and press this one as I do not work on a frame or hoop and it's a little taut so fingers crossed that the colours don't bleed - can you imagine! I did stitch it all in DMC threads so it should be okay.

Mexican Gecko stitched on 28count white evenweave in suggested DMC threads

It's been a funny couple of weeks . . . the calendar was pretty empty at the start but suddenly seemed to fill up!  As the weather was poor last week the decorator's were unable to work on their outside jobs and came here to decorate my kitchen and utility room.  I'm really pleased with the results as we have been living with pink plastered walls since the new kitchen was installed some time ago and the door frame and skirting boards were still in bare wood ~ now we have soft cream walls and white woodwork and the kitchen is lovely and bright.  I have several completed cross stitches that can now have their finishing touches and be displayed (more on them next time).

Our new oak dining room furniture was delivered at the end of last week and I'm thrilled with this too ~ this room was decorated some time ago and has also been waiting for the finishing touches and this is a W.I.P. which I know will look lovely when finished, it's called Man's Best Friend and is a complete kit by Dimensions:

This design uses lots of thread colours which are combined and also uses different numbers of strands throughout to create depth and colour shading (too much concentration  needed!) ~ I think this is probably the reason it may have been hidden for some time but now it has a reason to be finished so I hope I can get in to it again?

Last Sunday was Father's Day so we visited our respective Dads on the Saturday so the kiddies could spoil their Dad rotten here on Sunday.  Twin I helped out in the garden with weeding and mowing, Twin II was on 'unlimited cups of tea' rota and cooked the BBQ in the evening and DD gave him a lovely manicure and pedicure.  I have a very happy DD at the moment as today is her last day of exams, she has sat her German exam this morning and has a Graphics exam this afternoon and to celebrate the end of 12 years of studying a fellow friend is having a celebration BBQ afterwards.

In case none of you have heard (LOL) it's the World Cup at the moment (ughhhh!)  Having grown up with a sport-mad Dad and two brothers I'm not the keenest of fans of sport so have paid little attention to it so far but with England playing this afternoon and 3 more sport-mad men in this house, I'm told they need a very good win so I may have to suffer it, actually I don't mind Wimbledon but as I see it if I'm sitting down relaxing to watch TV then I can be cross-stitching and for me the two don't go very well together!

I'm squeezing in a small Lizzie*Kate at the moment ~ Stitching Forever ~ another one that will hang in the newly decorated Utility Room, I have also ordered Forever Friends Washing Day kit and the Postie has just arrived WITHOUT IT! (don't you just hate it when you think something should arrive and then nothing?)

Have a good week everybody, we have gorgeous sunshine here at the moment, very unusual for Wimbledon fortnight but I'm not complaining!

HAPPY STITCHING . . .

DON'T BE SCARED . . . DEEP BREATH . . .

GO FOR IT . . .

and I did!  Following on from my last post and my find of old cross stitch magazines at a Charity/Thrift shop I found a chart that I couldn't resist, a completely different choice from my usual favourite American designers and a little scary for me with colour overload so

Firstly to soften the blow to you all, here are the threads:

Secondly, here's the chart:

and Thirdly here's the W.I.P. in full flow:

This is not a difficult stitch but there are only a few solid areas of one thread colour so it's fiddley more than anything with lots of colour changes.  The suggested finish in the magazine is to surface mount the design?  They have used a white mount and a white textured frame and it really does look stunning.  My plan is to hang the finished piece up on our landing so when everyone opens their bedroom doors in the morning yawning and very dozy they are greeted with a rainbow colour infusion and are instantly fully awake (how cruel am I?)

The weather last week was lovely ~ sunny and warm and we DID all have our day out at the Zoo. We chose Marwell Zoo in Hampshire which we had been to before when the kiddies were a lot younger and  is run by Marwell Preservation Trust and dedicated to the conservation of wildlife habitats both locally and internationally.  There's a great variety of animals at the Zoo and a lot of our favourites, the only trouble was the weather was sooooo hot that the animals were all being very lazy and there was a lot of daytime snoozing going on!  Here's a few pics, hope you like them:

A lovely mover but a bit fishy!

'Mum, is it safe to come out?'

'Whatever!  I will not look at the camera'

'I couldn't make up my mind today - Gazelle or Zebra?'

'Why's the queue for the Ladies always so long?'

Why have one horn when you can have two!

'I'm a Snow Leopard ~ what's with the Sun?'

This is what he should have looked like ~ Snow Leopard' from the Gold Collection stitched and framed in 2004

'Wake me up before you go-go!'

Another sleepy cat ~ 'Too Pooped' by Dimensions stitched and framed in 2008

AND FINALLY:

Three unknown species, not known to be dangerous, but beware known to have HUGE appetites!

HAPPY STITCHING . . .