'MUM, IS HE COMING'?

'Mum, is he coming?  That white fluffy stuff's arrived!'

'Please, please Santa, I've been really good!'

'Still no sign, this is getting boring!

I'm a busy bunny, things to do .......'

'Wake me up, when he arrives!'

KEEP WARM EVERYBODY!

Happy Stitching

xxx

GOOD NEWS . . . .

Firstly, I have to share my good news : Tilly's op was a success and she was able to come home the same day - such a relief and the biggest heartfelt THANK YOU ever to all of you who sent your best wishes for her.  I took her back last week for her check up and apart from her seam coming undone one end everything was ok (I said to Tilly, the lovely vet that she was, she obviously needed to practice her sewing skills and if there was ever a next time I would do the invisible stitching for her!!!)

Thank you too for all your birthday wishes, I did have a lovely day but it was hard to relax and really enjoy knowing that Tilly had her op the next day but DH and gang had paid good attention to my birthday wish list and I was thrilled with all their gifts.

Two Historical Sampler Company Kits ~ 'A Wise Old Owl' and 'Cup Cakes'

Bothy Threads Gorjuss Kit ~ 'I Love You Little Rabbit'

Cross Stitch Charts, Gentle Art Threads, Lots of 28count Linen, Ribbons, Heart Buttons and Christmas Fat Quarters (no excuses now not to have anything to stitch!)Tilly bought me the gorgeous little cuddly bunny with lop ears as long as hers and the bouquet of flowers  travelled all the way back from London with DH the night before.

No comparison Tilly!  You're the best even if you do eat my sewing threads!!!

Only one Happy Dance this post and that came with problems throughout ~ the snow was stitched in Oatmeal GAST and although I knew I wouldn't have enough of the skein I had, I just thought I'd order a couple more and then I would have enough to complete this design as well as stitching another.

NO, silly me! hand-dyed threads all come different even if they are the same colour and unbelieveably all 3 skeins were different so lots of unpicking and re-stitching. 

A miss-count and a 'pine' GAST that did nothing but knot throughout made this quite a time-consuming stitch but I'm pleased with it and I love the christmas present embellishment plus a seed bead for the door knob.

Lizzie*Kate Snippet ~ 'Winter Sampler'

stitched with Gentle Art Sampler Threads on 28-count Flax Linen

Winter has really set in here now and the temperatures are set to plummet overnight with snow forecast in the far North and down the Eastern side of the country by the end of the week, brrrrrrrr!!!!

DH and I are off christmas shopping next week and plans are to complete it all in 1 day (no hope!!)

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's posts at the moment, the christmas and seasonal stitching is all gorgeous to look at ~ cross stitch and christmas are just the perfect combination don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by xxx

HAPPY STITCHING . . . .

KNITTING AND STITCHING . . . .

THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last post, your comments are so appreciated and very inspiring.

I have finished my chunky knit cushion, WOW! did this knit up fast and a fraction of the cost of shop cushions:

It's just simple stocking stitch with buttonholes and my choice of wooden buttons to complete, I enjoyed knitting it so much, that matching cushion number 2 is already half-done!

So in full flow of cushion-mode, finally I sat down last weekend and turned my Mouseloft cross stitch projects into a patchwork cushion:

This was definitely a little more tricky!  I had no sewing pattern to follow but had an idea of what I roughly wanted to achieve.  I used fabric pieces left over from cross stitch pillow finishes to make up the patchwork squares and chose a beige & cream heart design for the backing which has a simple envelope finish, I just need some buttons to sew along the opening!  I am pleased with the end result, the Mouseloft designs were all pretty small designs and as I had completed 8 of them, framing and my usual pillow finishes seemed a bit excessive!!!

This weeek is a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride for me.  Tonight is DD's achievement evening at her school and she will be presented with her certificates for all her recent exam passes - DH and I are very proud of her success and she has settled very well at college.  Tomorrow is my birthday and DH and I are having a day out with a visit to every craft shop I can think of high on the agenda - (OMG! another year gone and I'm still only 21! but so looking forward to it).

Friday will, without doubt, be horrible! after much deliberation and a lot of research I have decided to have Tilly spayed  As my regular followers will know I lost my beloved Buttons earlier in the year to a tumor and even though he was the fantastic age of 10, I still feel if he had been neutured in his early life this may have been preventable and he would still be here with me today.  A female rabbits's chances of getting uterine cancer between the age of  3-5 are greatly raised if they have not been spayed and although, like any operation it comes with its risks, I don't want to lose another bunny in this horrible way.

I will take her to the Vets at 8am on Friday and if everything goes well and she is eating and drinking after she wakes I will be able to collect her in the evening ~ please keep everything crossed for her, she's a little darling, so so affectionate, I hope she forgives me for putting her through it?

Two things to look forward to though for next year:  I love my music and live concerts are the best so, as part of my birthday prezzies, DH has treated me to tickets to see both Kylie Minogue and Take That with Robbie Williams!

I have seen Kylie before and she puts on a fab show, I'm going with DD and we shall have a great girlie night out in our glitter and glam and are staying overnight in London.  Later in the year we shall see Take That who are now reunited with Robbie (yum!)  I am so lucky to have got tickets for this one as on the day they were released the mass response for tickets caused all tickets sites to crash and the telephone network jammed but after only 10 hours of persevering we got our tickets!

So as a thank you to DH and also because I've wanted to stitch this little cutie for so long here's:

'Love Ewe' by Lizzie*Kate stitched on 28-count natural linen with Gentle Art threads and finished with a grey and cream gingham to match the sheep and burgundy daisy print backing to match the lettering.

Another Lizzie*Kate stitch is in progress at the moment but lots of frogging yesterday as I ran out of Oatmeal sampler thread and when the new skein arrived it was a completely different shade!

Thanks for stopping by and until next time

HAPPY STITCHING

xxx

Better Late than Never . . . . A WINNER!

A big thank you to everyone who left such complimentary messages on my last post! ~ they all mean a great deal to me xxx

A very BIG apology for the delay in posting a winner of my 'Little Owl' kit but AOL very kindly decided to close our Intenet connection down on Monday without any reason or notification to us and after some very long and heated telephone conversations (steam literally coming out of DH's ears) and a 3-day duration of no internet we have now received an apology and normal service has been resumed so without any further ado . . . . .

Sixteen entries . . . . .

Tilly ~ please pick a winner . . . . .

Number 1 ~ Crystal ~ Midnight Stitcher

With no internet available on Monday my random generator AKA Tilly decided ticket number 1 was rather tasty so Twin II and I had fun and games trying to rescue the piece of paper before having to unfold the other 15 to see which one had nearly been eaten ~ success!

Crystal please let me know address info and I will get this in the mail to you as soon as I can.

Now, down to stitching.

  As I said in my last post, 4 spooky stitches have been waiting for completion and again with no internet

connection and time to spare I squeezed a fifth in!

First up is 'Fright Turn' by Lizzie*Kate from her Halloween Highway collection stitched on 28-ct Antique White evenweave fabric with my choice of Gentle Art threads.  The star is stitched in Madeira gold metallic thread and the pumpkin fabric was from my recent fabric stash addition with brown ric rac and bronze seed beads to finish:

Next is another Lizzie*Kate design ~ 'Hats Off To Halloween' which I stitched last month.

I stitched this on 28-ct Sand Minster linen again with my choice of Gentle Art threads and have used a spider fabric to finish as a pillow:

A small design next but really cute and love its smiley face!

This is 'Itty Bitty Pumpkin' by Twisted Threads which I stitched on 28-ct Natural Linen with the suggested DMC threads.  Sorry, but yet again I finished it as a small pillow with pumpkin coloured fabrics and a raffia decoration pinned at the bottom:

'Spooky Row' by Bent Creek was another piece stitched last month and due to its size I was a little unsure what to do as a finish so a wall hanging seemed to be the best idea and 'at long last' I hear you say it's something different from a pillow finish!

I found some nice black fabric with white spots which I used for both the back and front and added some tabs at the top for hanging but found it also looks good hanging from the mantlepiece over the fire with candles sitting on the tabs holding it in place.  I added some self-cover buttons to each corner with the orange fabric used in Itty Bitty Pumpkin and they match the stitched pumpkins in the design perfectly!

And finally (hope you're still there?) a small design using two patterns from cross stitch books ~ Boo and a Black Cat.  I coffee-stained some 28-ct white linen and stitched the design in just black DMC, frayed the edges, gave the kitty 2 silver seed beads for eyes, added 4 small purple buttons with matching ribbon at 2 corners and a loop to hang and finished ~ yep! you guessed! ~ as a pillow with the same fabric as Spooky Row above.

That's me done for Halloween!  I an now in knitting mode and have just started a chunky knit cushion cover which is done on 10mm needles so literally grows before your eyes.  Knitted cushion covers in natural colours are very much in fashion here at the moment but they can cost as much as £45 (ouch!) so with this pattern only needing 3 balls and costing only £12 this is a great saving but a great temptation for Tilly who's decided to move on from eating my Gentle Art threads and feels a balls of wool is much tastier!

Take care everyone, Happy Halloween to you all for the 31st and until next time:

HAPPY STITCHING

xxx