>Black, Black and more Black

>MY STITCHY BUG IS BACK!!!, Sorry i had to shout about it as i thought it had buggered off never to be seen again, i have got back into my mermaid again, and took it with me camping, I only took two colours with me 3371 and 301 ( dark brown and black), i did all of these two colours on page 5 and i have started page 6 which most of it is just black.

I really wanted to put it down and finish page one of DOTF but i am going to try and get all the black done before i swap, well as much as i can before Friday as its the Freebie SAL on the HAED BB this week.

The trouble with HAEDS are it doesn’t look much but it takes me ages to stitch, so I’m happy with the progress, i am hoping you can see a difference at the end of the week

>New Start for the New Year

>Well first of all, a Happy New Year to everybody! I hope everyone had good christmas, I am debating wether to take down the christmazs decorations today or not, i know my mum says it is bad luck but hell, im going to be homeless soon so im buggered anyway lol

I have decided to not do stupid resolutions that wont last( well not many of them anyway)
but i Do want to do the following:
try and read as many blogs as possible and keep up to date with them
reply to mail asap – as i tend to forget to reply
not change my avatars all the time, i am going to see if i can keep little miss mermaid for a whole year and not change my blog ( well after i have choosen a theme that i like)
NOT buy any more stitching patterns (this one may be hard when HAED keep releasing patterns to die for)

also i am wanting to take things as they ome and make the best of what i have got, there are people worse off than me
and be happy so any moaning posts you can offically kick my but!!

Now for the updates, been stitching Fragile Heart for the HAED SAL and have managed to do half a page of all the black, might do a bit more of her, would really like to get all the black out of the way.

She is stitched on 18ct 2 x1 and i really need to fray check the sides as there is not much room around the edges.
next I started a bit of Mermaid again, but i think i went into stitching overdrive and got fed up of stitching so went looking for a house to live, found nothing and went to bed depressed, i think i should have just carried on stitching.

Now i have to tidy the house up before i can do any mores stitching. i may be a while…

>Goal Reached Just In Time

>Well I Did it!! i reached my goal of completing four pages of my Mermaid this year, yes it is close and i would not have done it if i had not stitched all day during the Christmas holidays but i can now kit up for the HAED BB SAL that starts on Saturday, don’t know what i am going to stitch until then, but i know my husband id relieved as i would not put the stitching down, and he was having to make his own cups of tea, aww poor thing lol.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

>It’s Beginning To Look A Bit Like Christmas

>My news years resolution should be do finish something i start. As blogging everyday didn’t go to plan. But thats Christmas for you.
Anyway i am showing the very little progress i have done on Mermaid, can you see them 20 stitches? No, well honestly they are there!

Took the photo on my new christmas present, well to be honest hubby bought a camera and said it was a joint present for both of us to each other. Now i know i shouldn’t be ungrateful but he wanted a camera so got it i didn’t want it, yes its better than our old camera but it wasn’t high on my list of ‘must get’, so will i get to unwrap a handbag, purse even some glovers or slippers on christmas day, No as i have it now, yes i am feeling in a very selfish mood tonight, bloody men well it could have been worse, it could have been some tool or kitchen appliance i got.

Grumpy Bev has now left the building, so back to normal service…
The 2011 Weekly Stitch-A-Long Blog is now up and people can join in and i have put on to carry on with mermaid, but i bought this chart from Celtic Rose Needlecraft,

some of you will know that i have stitched Marilyn before in the 2009 SAL blog. So i am not bot sure which to put forward for the blog.

There is also another SAL i am doing on the HAED BB. From the 5 charts i chose Hannah Lynn Fragile Heart, I have got the floss list emailed through to me so i know have to get my fabby sorted out and make sure i have all the floss, as this also starts on the 1st Jan 2011.

Will i finish a design next year, who knows i managed to finish 2 UFO’s this year, i am hoping to finish at least one next year, and as for reaching my yearly goal on the HAED BB of finishing 4 pages of Mermaid, well that is looking less likely all the time

>Its Officially Christmas

>I decided to make the trifle( minus the sherry, yuck!) yes i changed my mind, but I’m a woman and thats what we do lol, I did get a bit carried away a bit with the chocolate flake, but who doesn’t like chocolate!

As i thought, i didn’t get much done on Mermmie but still progress it progress.

For the calender we have little biscuits, – if you can make them out, which no i am not making today. Maybe later though lol,

and why is official?   i have seen the Coca-Cola advert today, so Christmas is now here! now if only i could write the christmas cards out, however, it seems my children have bet me to it and used all the cards i bought and left us with  the dodgy ones. Lovely.

>Busy,Busy,Busy

>Yesterday was like the title says a busy day, i did manage some stitching just not on Christmas Dreams, the bed side lamp is much better for stitching and yes i was being lazy Mermmie was at the side of my bed so i stitched on her last night as my legs just couldn’t make it down the stairs to get C-D.

After blogging i dug my car out, dug path out, baked the christmas cake, and boy you can smell the alcohol in it, put the Christmas Tree up ( which i hate but not buying a real tree this year) and managed to make hubby a steamed sponge pudding, all this in 4 hours, so today i was hoping that with it being -11 on the car temperature and black ice everywhere that they wouldn’t open the school, but alas they have. The head who lives a mile from me had texted to say it took him an hour to get there( its 8 minutes normally) and be careful, I HATE ICE!! as much as snow.So instead of being able to finish the house off and then stitch i have now to crap myself while driving to work, yes i may live in a beautiful place but all the hills make driving bad at this time of year.

So roll on this afternoon, when i am home and can have the fire on and relax because, ice,snow and kids in school just don’t mix!

oh i almost forgot today we have Trifle on the advent Calender. Sherry trifle, yes brings back memories of Christmas parties when i was a child in the 70′s the women drinking Snowballs, men on the bitter and us kids sneaking some punch that would have but a horse on its back, while Slade and Wizard were playing full blast, never had trifle since then, may make it for tea tonight, that’s if the kids haven’t ate the jelly…

>Shopping Spree revealed and a few progress pictures

>

Well I made a start on the baby sampler, as i thought the christening was in a few weeks, but that’s been put on hold so there is no rush now, so i will work on it once a month, so i am classing this as Novembers work.

I can also reveal what i bought on my shopping spree ( without even leaving the house)

Yes it is a Mirabilia’s  Royal Holiday and Lizzie Kate’s Christmas Rules, in the kit for Royal Holiday i got Linen fabric, which to be honest i hate stitching on, so i have ordered some from Silkweaver, I am hoping that it wont take too long to come, as i cant wait to get started on her, but i did start on Lizzie kate’s Christmas Rules.

Its stitched on 28ct Ivory Jazlyn, which i love stitching on, definitely my fabric now i want to stitch on.

I have also stitched some more of DOTF, did a few days on it. You can actually see some of the antique white now, the blue is next to it.
Here is a quick update of my mermmie, still not got page 3 finished but i am stitching page four too, i have a pile or ironing that needs to be done, but i cant put her down!

And finally here is what i bought from HAED….


By Randal Spangler, Home is Where The Magic Is… a meer 48 pages of charts, yes this is one serious long term project, and then i bought this…

Vixie by Hannah Lynn. I bought both in colour chart format and i love them, now when they will get started on i have no idea. 

>I Can’t Stitch For A WEEK

>I have just had eye surgery and i am not allowed to stitch until at least Thursday when i go back to the hospital for the results of the biopsy and for them to check my eye, i have a patch on ( i took it off as the tape was driving me to distraction but it is stuck back on and now i keep walking into things again!

Since i cant stitch i have been trying to sort out all my blogs that i read as they all went off for some reason, i am sure there is some missing so if your not on give me a holla and i will sort it out, its not like i can do anything else this week, imagine a week off work and i cant stitch.

So here is the progress i made on Mermmie, still didn’t finish page 3 but i suppose if i hadn’t started a bit of page 4 i would have, i will put a update on Dreaming On The Farm too, as soon as my batteries charge up, and speaking of Hannah Lynn Disney i received my picture yesterday that i won from her Facebook auction! i love it, as i was going to wrap it up and put it away in our new house, whenever and wherever that will be but i couldn’t wait, so here is my one of a kind no copies available picture, i may be having a crap time lately but this made up for it.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, I’m off to try and get some sympathy- not that i will get any on this house lol

>why can i never think or a catchy title

>ok the title of this post if self explanatory as i am now brain dead with everything that is going off at home.

I have completed 3/4 of the page now, but you there is still 16, yes 16, colours left to stitch in the part i have left, that is why i love stitching HAED’s so much as the detail is second to none, even if i will never stitch all the charts i have in my lifetime.

However with me getting a bit more nearer in finishing this blasted page done. I have learnt that

A) I really need to grid, i took the gridding out early to see how i went on, as i see people with no gridding but nope it doesnt work for me i keep getting lost, and
B) I REALLY need to mark off what i have done and  not think its ok i will remember, as sorry but i seem to have found that i have the memory of a newt and i am then trying for hours to see what i need to do next, especially in heavily confetti areas as her hair is.
I am sure i have made a hash of it, but it still looks good to me
and ….
C) Check, check and recheck that i am stitching the right colour  and right symbol. I HATE frogging but frogging that  wont come out is a nightmare, so i have had to go over certain parts, can you tell which?

So all these mictakes have took this page an age to do, how come can stitch a page a week i have no idea, maybe i ought to say bugger the housework, now wouldnt that be nice.

>Mermmie and Stresses

>Well still slow and still not done page 3, but i am still stressed to high heaven, were being evicted through no fault or our own, they company that owns our house want to flatten them so we have till the new year to find somewhere to live. the council says i have more chance of winning the lottery than getting a house so we are going to move into our caravan until something comes up .So if it goes very quiet in the New Year, its because i will have no internet. the kids aren’t sure how they will survive life with out the internet.


when i tell them that we didn’t even have computer in our house they cant believe how i survived lol

Anyway i  nearly bought a new HAED to cheer myself up but i cant spend money on patterns so i am trying not to look as i know there will  be something that i want lol

so here is this weeks progress, her hair is nearly done, sorry about the picture, our camera really is that bad

>Spending, Stitching and a Surprising Return

>OK i have been too busy to blog, i started to stitch some more of my wedding sampler.

I bought two more charts ( well i couldnt help myself,) and yes more boobs, another one that my mum will frown on, but even my youngest loves this one, she says it reminds her of Avatar, and a butterfly fairy, which i love her eyes.


I also started on Alena Lazareva’s Mermaid, not much to see really but i am liking stitching on 25ct, and can you believe there is other 2500 stitches here, after a week. not a great progress but its a start.

And finally I had a lovely surprise I got my Gypsy wagon back!

A woman discovered it in her caravan when she went off at Christmas so she went to the last caravan site she was at and the site owner still had my address on file and remembered me- probably with all the moaning i did at him. So here it is, a little dirty but nothing that wont wash out.

I am now going to decide what i am going to stitch for the remainder of this week , carry on with mermaid or have a new start and rotate my work on a weekly basis.