Easter Bunny Stitches...

HAPPY EASTER!

Well here we are Easter Sunday and the month of March is nearly over. It has been a very quiet Easter week-end here in the Main household. I have been stitching, reading, listening to music and watching tv. The houseworks on hold...lol.

Cupar sends sloppy kisses to everyone for the get well wishes. He has had a real rough time. We are finally seeing signs that he is on the mend. His energy levels are moving in the right direction. He is eating his own food again and is starting to play with his toys.

Now to my stitches I'm afraid I'm not a very happy bunny as I noticed midweek when I took this photograph of the progress on my Summer Garden I had miss-counted. To the right of the bunny in the middle all the way along those pretty flowers and the other bunny are stitched one hole up from the bottom. I thought at first it was just my fabric that was making the line uneven then I saw my mistake...ggggrrrrrhhh!!! It has gone back in the box until I can bring myself to look at it again.

On a brighter note I have finished my March Ornament. I'm very pleased with how he has turned out. I decided not to stitch the words and I will wait until I make it up to see if I am going to add buttons to his shoes. Looking forward to stash raking this week to see what I choose for April.

I didn't manage many stitches on my Wicked Witch on Wednesday. Hope I will have more time to work on it this week.

These are my new charts, fabric and thread from SewandSo. Simple Joys is one for myself. I look forward to getting started on this one though I haven't decided when. 

I was missing some DMC threads for my Summer Garden and the fabric, needles and silk thread was for a new start that I started yesterday.

You've got this I am going to be stitching for an old work colleague of my husbands who has just had an masectomy. Cancer really sucks!!! There is rarely a day goes by that I don't hear of family, friends or neighbours being struck by this awful disease.

Before I kitted up my new start I decided to stitch the Hop Squared design by Lizzie Kate that I had just bought. As I was looking through my stash for a backing fabric I came across this pretty green one and I thought maybe I could have a go at stitching the design on this. I had a piece of waste canvas that I bought about 15 year ago and had never used. I was rather anxious and worried that it would be all wonky when I took the pins off but I'm (blushing) really rather pleased with myself. I spent Friday night making it up into this little pillow.

Continuing the Bunny theme this is my new start. It is taken from Mill Hills Hearts and Flowers booklet. The flowers are supposed to be all done with beads and there are a lot of Mill Hill treasures on the design but I need to go with what I have in my stash. Sorry about the poor photo the fabric is actually lime green.

Well I'm off to get my headphones on listen to my music and do some more stitching.

I hope everyone is having a lovely Easter week-end.

Happy Stitches and Bunny Hugs!

Doggy woes, stitching and a wee holiday!

Well here we are March already. It has been dry but cold in my wee part of Scotland for the first half of the month. I'm hoping for some warmer, sunny days soon. The garden needs tidied and I long to be able to get my clothes outside to dry.

My heart is heavy today as our dear boy is very ill. He has been very sick, spent a lot of time at the Vets in the past few days on a drip for dehydration, antibiotics and other medicine. We had to wait for blood test results on Monday afternoon and we could hear him crying for nearly an hour as we waited it just broke my heart. We had to leave him and when we went to collect him he wouldn't speak to us. My daughter Heather and myself stayed up all night with him. He was totally spaced out but thankfully slept most of the night. Tuesday the Vet kept him for the whole day. As I stay at home all day the house was so empty. I couldn't even bring myself to relax and stitch. He is still very lethargic today and just not himself. I know some people will be reading this thinking its a dog for goodness sake but believe me you love them and care for them as much as your human son or daughter. Cupar is only two and has never been ill like this. I hope he picks up soon.

Okay now some stitches. This is my progress on my March Ornament for my SAL  BeAnAngel from HeartInHand. I changed the colours to start with I did the tunic in a hand-dyed blue colour but it just didn't work for me so I changed it to red. I love how it looks now! I'm going to leave out the words so I just have the head and boots and it will be complete.

I have made good progress on my Summer Garden by Country Cottage Needleworks. Hopefully I will get it finished for my Mums Birthday in April. There is a cat on the original design but my Mums not a cat person so I added another bunny instead. The picture doesn't do it justice as the colours are so pretty.

I've also made a start on Wicked Witch by LA-D-DA. The fabric is actually lime green. I am working on this on Wednesdays. A few people on Instagram have joined me. If anyone would like to join in you can stitch any Halloween design you wish we just post updates on a Wednesday with #WickedWednesday. Christina I will send you the chart when I'm finished. Hopefully that will be well before Halloween.

As these quilt squares are done and have arrived at their destination I can now share them with you. My dear friend Mouse celebrated a special Birthday in January. She had asked if friends would stitch her squares as she wanted to make herself a quilt. The bottom one is a Carnation Janaurys Birthday Flower. This was a free design by Ellen Maurer-Stroh. The top one which gave me nightmares..lol is Fur Friends by Country Cottage Needleworks. I had this great idea that wouldn't it be nice if Mouse's darling boy Bentley was on her quilt. The dog in the original chart was Brown and off course Bentley is mainly white. White on white is no fun and trying to change the head to look more like Bentley drove me crazy. At one point he looked like Batmans dog with a mask..lol. I'm glad to say that Mouse was delighted with my attempt. I can't wait to see her finished quilt.

We celebrate Mothers Day here in the UK in March. I came home from a week-end away to these gorgeous flowers, cards and money from my DS Craig, DD Heather and my DDoodleboy Cupar. I've treated myself to a few new charts from SewandSo which I will share next time.

A few weeks ago we decided to go away at the last minute for a few days. Hubby,myself and Cupar went off to a lovely cottage in Whithorn in Dumfries&Galloway. As you can see from the pictures Cupar had a better time than us. It is a beautiful part of the country. Lovely beaches, walks for the dog, cafes and pubs that welcome our four legged friends. The cottage was beautiful. I can highly recommend it to my friends in Scotland and south of the border. www.midbishoptoncottage  

Happy Stitches!

Trying to keep up!

Oh dear I'm not keeping up with this blogging as good as I thought but at least I'm still here. It's hard to believe February is nearly over. As you can see from poor Cupars photo the weather is not improving. It's been very windy, wet and icy this week. I can't wait for some spring sunshine.

Come "happy dance" with me as I have finished my Home of A Needleworker. I changed the house and words to my favourite colour purple. I also didn't stitch the pattern line above the words but I added my initials and the date and year I discovered cross-stitch. Hopefully I shall find a nice frame and hang it in my home later in the year.

My February Christmas ornament is also stitched up. I have no idea how I am going to finish him. I've had a number of people sign up to the blog to join me stitching an ornament each month but so far most of them seem to be a little shy. I hope they come share soon. I was also delighted to hear from Jo and Kaye that after I left blogging they continued to run the Christmas and Halloween SAL blogs. It was so nice to see they are still going as so many blogs have shut down while I was away.

  

It has been quite a while since I bought any new stash but I had some vouchers in SewandSo so I bought Summer Garden and Furry Friends by Country Cottage Needleworks some lovely Ivory and lime green fabric. I also had to get Ding Dong the Witch is Dead by La-Di-Da. I just have to stitch this one as I my family affectionately have been known to refer to me as that old Witch...lol!

Someone also posted on Instagram about a 50% off sale at Willow Fabrics. I couldn't resist going to look and ended up with a nice bundle of fabric in my basket. The response they had was crazy so I didn't get two pieces of fabric and two crochet charts that I had ordered. What I did receive though was a bargain three half metre pieces of 27 count Linda a 20 count cream fat quarter, 2 packs of bobbins and a pair of small scissors all for just under £25. My fabric box is now a little fuller.

I kitted up these two charts to hopefully start on this week. If I get it finished on time the Summer Garden will be for my Mum on Mothers Day or her Birthday in April. Ding Dong I imagine will take me a while as I will be stitching this over 1. I can't wait to see how these purple threads look on the lime green fabric.

I hope everyone is having a good week and those needles and hooks are hot. Happy stitches!  

Hello Again!

Hello again! Thank you for visiting me I do appreciate you coming by and leaving me a comment. I'm slowly reconnecting with people and it's lovely to hear that I have been missed.

I've been doing a fun challenge on Facebook this week where you share one piece of your favourite needlework for 7 days.  It was quite difficult to chose but it brought back so many memories off gifts and exchanges pieces that I had long forgotten about. I am on day 5 today. Here are the ones that I have shared so far.

It was a bit of a rush but I did manage to finish my January Ornament on Sunday 31st. I was so pleased with the colour changes and I just adore the face on this Reindeer. New York Dreamer was a new designer to me. If her designs were sold in the UK I would definitely buy more.One down 11 to go.

My choice for Februarys Ornament SAL will be Lizzie Kate's cute No Peeking. I had already started this in December last year so I should hopefully have it finished on time. June, Lynda and Colleen I hope to see your Ornament finishes soon. I am going to re-open the Ornament SAL blog that I used to have maybe it will entice a few others to join us. All you need to do is stitch a Christmas themed Ornament each month. The design will be of your own choosing. Then on the last day of the month post your Ornament.

As you can see I have made good progress on my Home of a Needleworker. I'm a little unsure about the orange colour that I have chosen and was going to change it to pink or teal. I asked a few people on Instagram and they loved the orange. What do you guys think?

The letters are actually a deep purple and not a blue as it shows in the photo.

Oops!! I've just spotted I never finished off the letter d will have to get that sorted.

I had some money left from Christmas so I  treated myself too a few goodies from Sewandso this week.. I have a couple of new projects in mind but I will share them with you next time.

I am really enjoying my stitching again but my furry companion is not too happy about it...lol. Every time I sit down I find him lying at my feet squeak, squeak, squeaking a noisy toy or he dumps it in my lap. If I don't give him my full attention he then sits down and stares and starts his doggy language for get up Mum play with me! He's also been known to use his nose to nudge my stitching right out my hand..lol! I need to get him trained that he needs to nap when it's Mums chill out time.  

Hope everyone is having a good week. Happy Stitches!

Thanks for the Welcome!

Thank you so much to everyone for the welcome back to the blogging community. It will take me a little time but I am looking forward to catching up with you all. I was very touched by all those  lovely comments I received but I was also rather shocked when I discovered a lot of my favourite bloggers have taken a break too. I hope they decide to return soon.

This week I have been working on my new start for 2016, Home of a Needleworker too by Little House Needleworks. I have changed the colours as I very rarely have the recommended threads in my stash. I'm happy with how it is looking and I'm enjoying working on it. The photograph once again is awful though. The fabric is actually a light tan colour and the original photo is so much sharper. Any ideas why this is?

As you can see I haven't spent too much time on my monthly Christmas ornament. It is from last years Just Cross stitch Ornament magazine. I'm stitching it over one and the fabric is lilac coloured. The idea is to finish it before Sunday. For anyone that is joining me in this SAL the plan is just to stitch whatever ornament you want and share a picture with us all on your blog on the last day of each month.

I'm so happy to finally have this framed.  My dear friend Sally who shares my love of Sheep gifted me this chart for my Birthday a few years ago. The design is by Little House Needleworks. I changed the words and added some buttons on the bottom. I so enjoyed watching this one grow, Thank you Sally, it is one I will treasure.

Talking of Sheep how sweet is my new sewing box my DS Craig bought me for my Christmas this year. The sheep are so cute and yes they seem to be knitting but the box is too small for knitting needles and wool. It's perfect for keeping my current projects together.

I have been following the snow storm many of our friends are coping with in the States. It is hard for us to comprehend having so much snow. We think it's tough if we get three or four inches Some pictures have been unbelievable I'm so glad that our friends and their families are okay.

We had an unexpected snowfall here last week. Cupar was in his element. He was crying to get back out every time we brought him in. He just loves the snow.

My DH also celebrated his Birthday last week. My Mum made him this Chocolate cake and yes it tasted as good as it looks!

I hope everyone is having a good week. Happy Stitches....