I Scored...

a bunch of threads on Sunday. Having been invited to visit with a nice Lady from the church who used to work with the Royal School of Needle work. She gave me all of these lovely colours, and some vintage threads too...

These are J&P/Coats craft/Anchor colours. You can see the colour families she liked best...lol

A bunch of Pearsalls Filoselle silks...mmm, nice and shiny

This lot is by Cartier & Bresson - took me a fair amount of google time to figure out that this was made by a company that merged with DMC in the early 60's!!! They feel so soft and silky although they are cotton.

Only a few DMC thank god as I already have a ton of it. Of which I don't use heaps of at the moment. Look at the labels on these skeins too, you can see how old some of them are in comparison with others.

Last but not least...you see the labels on some of those skeins!!!!! How old would they be now I wonder, anyone care to enlighten me?
On the personal stitching front, I have spent the last few days stitching on Quaker Virtues which has been sadly neglected for the last year...OMG. Will post update pics in next post.
For this post I will show you my framed pair which I collected from the framers on Sunday, now I need to figure out how to hang them - I already know where they are going :-)

and....

nice eh!!!

Olympia...

Hmmm, for the first time in years I actually went to the Stitch & Craft show at Olympia in London on the first day... I usually go on the last day but since I had the time off and have made plans for Sunday I decided to go today and also the coach that goes to London regularly goes via Windsor and stops in front of Olympia on its way so no need to drive and look for parking space ;-)

I took a few photos, of which I will show you in a little while <grin> First I want you to look at pics of my stitching before you start drooling over the wonderful works I saw there.

This an update of my Thread and Eye Mandala as it stands now. I did a little bit of stitching on the way there and back but was too busy ogling the works of art to take it out there. So front of house....

Back door...;-)

And now, having shown you my crazy idea of stitching here come the pics of some of the things I saw today at Olympia...ENJOY

and a little close up section

A preview of the royal wedding

All of these were knit, stitched, quilted or felted in some form or other or combination thereof and looked absolutely stunning.

I loved the weird and wonderful tea cosies knitted to look like fruits and such

There were a lot of donations to the HERO fund, all on sale to raise money for the help the hero appeal

 

The tribute to the Foundling Museum was very touching with the pages of some of the books on display telling how/who was in the foundling home. One particularly touching one told of the child who came to the home and was christened on the same day his mother was buried.

All of these wonderful achievements made me want to break out the knitting needles immediately, but luckily I came across my saviour in the form of a beautiful red sampler that immediately made me want to sit down and start stitching. I have been umming and ahhing for the past weeks now seeing the Red samplers of the ladies on the HDF forum and wondering which chart to do...no longer do I need to wonder. As soon as I get thread I will start...maybe even before...lol I'm sure I have a spool somewhere that I can start with until I get some more....

She can be found here for anybody interested....enabling going on here!
I hope you had pleasure coming round the stitch show with me, maybe next time I'll take more pictures although I didn't think you would be interested in the throngs of people, unless the exhibitors would interest you...I'm open to suggestions.
Till later xx

Am I losing my ever loving mind???

You could say that when you see the size of my latest stitching...sometimes even I wonder.
You see, last sunday about this time this was the state of play

By the end of the day, this was what it looked like

By Wednesday we were here

by then my days off were over and I had to take a break, right??? Of course not, these were followed by night shifts so I carried on right where I had left off and by this morning...Ta Da

We have some colour. Why, I hear you ask did I say I was losing my mind...I reply with another question...Did you take note of the ruler that was so conspicuously present showing you the size of the piece??? That is one of Tracy fron Ink Circle's Mandalas, which if I was stitching on the recommended ct fabrics would measure from 5 3/4 - 8 inches square...MINE is 3 1/4 " But WHY you ask in bewilderment is it so small...it is this size because in one of those moments I decided I would stitch it on 36ct 1x1.
I love it, it looks so dainty, but I now have to be SOOO careful not to forget those single little stitches that appear to have been swallowed up by the black outline that I was so clever to finish first. Now I need a break and will do a little bit of test stitching for relaxation before I hit the sack.

If you have read this far...thank you for your perseverance. I'm sure by now you are shaking your head at me saying 'crazy woman', well I agree with you...but I am sure this will not be the last time I push the boundaries of my stitching, especially since I appear to LOVE the miniature sizes this produces.
Til then, off I go (giggling maniacally) to the next project!

I did it!!!

Only last night though....didn't manage to get to it on Wed evening but last night I got stuck in and this is what came out the other end.....BIG grin...

Even with daylight bulb having to use the flash means the colours are a bit washed out and not as vibrant, but Oh how lovely this looks.

My next focus is one of my PIF's so no pics yet...but in the not too distant future I hope to be able to show it to you...tease... in the meantime here is the other piece I will be working on at the same time...

This is DMC 1x1 36ct Linen and is the Ink Circles Thread and Eye Mandala SAL that started late last year. This was my start and now I will work on it till finished then move on to the next one.
A bientot!

One framed

While I wait to finish the next one...it is sooo close I hope to do it tonight. That is if I manage to drag myself away from the computer...LOL
I collected this from the framers on Monday afternoon and I love the way its done! This is the best I could do with no natural light.

Meanwhile I am completely congested as per usual...we went to celebrate on Monday and this sweetie...

being his usual generous self not only celebrated his birthday but decided to share his runny nose with me and I woke up yesterday with a sore throat and now my nose is completely blocked, I am sneezing like crazy and tres snotty...Oh well, c'est la vie non!
 

1st Finish of the year

Yes, I kid you not. This has been going for two years now and I just finished it... oooh yesterday now seeing as its well past midnight. Hopefully there will soon be more to follow, watch this space 'grin'. The pic is the best I could get in the circumstances...you know the one...tons of rain, grey skies, dull/dark, dreary day and of course not forgetting the indoor lighting system! I am just as tired these days as I have managed to add a course to my work days which will last for approx 12wks...so just up to easter. Wish me luck and I'll see you soon.

Happy New year!

Or is it too late to say that now? I am finally feeling like I am almost back in the land of the living after getting a particularly virulent version of the flu. I have been off work since I left in the middle of my night shift at 1am on the 26th with a very sore throat, coughing so much I felt as if my head was about to explode each time and conjunctivitis which is not something I am prone to!!! Now I have a lingering laryngitis and hope to be back at work by wed next week, wish me luck.

The kids loved christmas but I felt so bad that the only pics I took were the unveiling of the stocking and their quality isnt fantastic but there we go...

then...

the comment here was wow...dont know when he learnt it but it was prevalent that morning :-)

The difference between the two was as I thought...very noticeable to a 5yr old but we managed to convince him that they were really the same size because his was wider and anyway he could get bigger presents in his...;-)

Now I see why it took me such a short time to finish the first one!!!
I also did a final finish on one item before the end of the year...I made it up the same night I was cutting my fabric for the 1/1/11 new start. Now I need to get a cushion pad big enough for it...don't ask what I was thinking when I made it up I don't know either...likely what happens when you do this sort of thing at stupid o'clock in the night LOL

and last but definitely not the least there is my new years start..which many of you will recognise straight away...hope you like my colours and teeny tiny start

Currently though I am focusing on this one since its so near to a finish, at the end of Dec it looked like this

and today this is how far I have got..the joys of being ill...I might actually finish it before the end of the month!

Thats the last row I'm on, the line of stitching along the bottom is to make sure that I dont overshoot since my counting has been so atrocious the whole time stitching on this particular piece of work...just cannot figure out how I went so wrong.
Well that's all for now folks, thanks for visiting and I hope your new year was great and continues to be fantastic.
God Bless xx