TUSAL July

Just a quick update for my July TUSAL. My honey jar is starting to look a little more full, think it will be a couple of years before the thing is full to the top tough as this is about 6 months worth of ends now and I haven't even started squishing them down yet! July's background: the landing banister - overlooking the cottage garden.

Another HAED

Time to introduce another HAED that I have been working on - QS Lavender Venice Night by Ching-Chou Kuik. I Started this one a while ago. I think I had done 3 weeks of work on it before I came back to it last week. Managed to get a lot of this one done as it stitches up really easily. Love the colours used in it, so pretty! Have included a before and after picture for this just to see how much progress I have actually made. Think this is now about 9% complete.

For my weekend project I was back to working on my Mystic Stitch Cats, Artwork by Jeff Spackman. Finally reached the bottom of the page on this one. Still finding the chart just made up of letters quite hard going. You have to be so careful to keep looking at it closely to not miss a stitch, hopefully it will get better once I move off the dark blues that are just randomly jumbled together and on to the bits that actually look like something!

Another (Tiny) Finish!

Yes, I have managed another finish! I went to London in the middle of last week to see Marilyn Manson play at the Brixton Academy. When I go away I take little mini projects with me to stitch on the train or in my hotel in the evening. The project for this trip was a little Heritage kit of a bay horse ( I think it's just called Bay Horse or Bay Pony). I managed to get most of it done while I was away so just finished the last few stitches and the back stitch once I got home so I have another finish to add to the pile.

I also worked some more on my Eternal Promise, but there is not a lot to show on it due to my being in London. I managed to get 400 or so stitches in while I was at home which hardly looks like anything. Over the weekend I put some more work into my Blue Moon SAL piece. I've now done 12 days on it and have somewhere over 1600 stitches, I'm not sure exactly how many as I only count completed 10x10 blocks. It doesn't sound a lot but it's over 7% complete.  I think I only have 3 HAED WIPs that have a higher % complete. These small charts really do make you feel like you're making progress!

A Finish!

Well it's only taken until July but I finally have my first finish of the year! My weekend project for this week was a banner from Dimensions  - Friends make life Purrfect, something I've been for at least a year and a half. Only had the back stitching to do this weekend - plus those dreaded french knots and a little bow. even managed to roughly finish it and attach it to the hanger that came with the kit.

Having completed my banner I worked on another UFO - Monty  from the Cats and Kittens series by Dimensions/Tootal Crafts British Collection. These kits are eBay purchases of mine - I've already completed two and have three more in waiting. The kits are old - from 1993 and the charts look hand drawn, some of the back stitch on this chart is really hard to see. Will be fun when I get round to doing that!

 Earlier in the week got to do some more work on Enchanting Pegasus, it's been a while since I updated this one so progress pictures are after about 3 months of not updating. Finally have the head and wings done, now for lots of larger chunks of colour in the body.

June TUSAL

Just a quick update as I think it is about time for a TUSAL update. May have missed one or two over the last couple of months but don't think I've done enough stitching to make a difference to my jar. 
This months background is my rather ugly carpet. Need to start finding decent places to take these pictures.

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

So I know I've been neglecting my blog over the last few months. I was away at the end of April to see Placebo and again the next weekend for reenactment and never got back into posting afterwards. I think it has something to do with the  fact I only ever update on Mondays and the last few weeks has seen me busy on just about every Monday. That and I've been so busy I have had nothing of note to update on. Hopefully will have a lot more time on my hands after next week for more stitching. This week I only have the one update for you - my latest progress on Eternal Promise.

As I don't have much else to share I thought I'd include a couple of pictures from my trip to Edinburgh Zoo while I was away in April.

Insert Clever Title Here

My main project for last week has been the 2011 HAED BB SAL piece QS Little One Lost. This is the one I started for the SAL and never got much done on. Managed to get in about 950 stitches on him this week, would have liked that to have been more as there are lots of big blocks of colour on this one but I just didn't seem to have the time to stitch last week. I did manage to go out to a Shire Horse center and a castle as well as  going through a load of stuff stored in a stable where I managed to track down most of my camping equipment, some lost games and a live rat!

 My other project for the weekend has been a unicorn piece from a book called Fantasy Cross Stitch by Julie Hasler (it's the unicorn on the cover). This is yet another one that I felt compelled to restart for various reasons, having already completed a large portion of it previously. Managed about 600 stitches in this over two days although it really doesn't look like it. Mostly worked on the fore leg and part of the back. I'm hoping the next time I work on it I can get the back looking more horse like as the whole thing looks a bit abstract at the moment.

Sophie - Dyfed Shire Horse Farm

Cilgerran Castle