More Progress Than Normal

This week I have been back working on Eternal Promise. I've had some more time to stitch in the past week because of the Easter holidays. Managed to get nearly 1000 stitches into Eternal Promise, although it doesn't really look all that impressive on the fabric. 1/8 of the page should look a lot more than it actually does. Still really enjoying this one at the moment but looking at the lower portion of the page not sure how long that will last. Looks like lots and lots of confetti to come.  I am looking forward to finishing the border and getting onto the picture proper though, even if the amount I can get done in a week takes a massive hit.

I have also been back working on the SAL SK Blue Moon. I have the top row of 10x10 blocks done now and managed to put in about 350 stitches over the weekend. Seemed really hard going for most of the weekend, lots of confetti and the headdress parts plus lots of mistakes on my part and lots of knotted thread on that need to be re-done. Luckily at the end on Sunday I finally got onto some of the bigger patches of colour which made a nice break from all of the frustration of the rest of the weekend.  I have made some changes from the charted colours. I've swapped the 032 sparkly for white and the winter white for snow white, just so I don't have a girl with sparkly skin (insert own Twilight joke here) and hopefully keep the shading.

Love Amongst Ruin

I'm currently taking part in an Easter challenge for a band that I street team for. Today's task is to write about the band so I will be sharing a little about them with you.

Love Amongst Ruin  is the 'new' band from Placebo's old drummer, Steve Hewitt. I became involved with them before I have even heard the first music by handing out flyers at shows. When I did hear the music it was not disappointing. I once heard them describe as 'like Placebo - only better' which I can only agree with! LAR are one of the bands that I follow I think I've seen them 10 times or more - even heading over to Belfast and Dublin. (76) I think my favorite show to date was the one at Leeds Cockpit, a really tiny venue but the show had a great atmosphere and really showcased what a good live band they are. I could write more but I suggest you check them out for yourself at http://www.loveamongstruin.com/

Fantasy Horses

Now after the excitement of my award back to cross stitch! This week is week number 3 working on Enchanting Pegasus. I don't feel like I've made much progress on Pegasus this week. Have done some more of the wing but not as much as I would have liked. Don't really have an excuse either. Uni assignments are in so that wasn't taking up my time. Maybe it's just been the nice weather outside distracting me! Think it will be a couple of months before I work on this one again, I was hoping to get all the full x done this year but it's starting to look unlikely now, although hopefuly the main body will stitch up faster as there a bigger blocks of colour.

My other project for this week has been a unicorn piece from Near North Treasures/Kustom Krafts called Call of the Unicorn. This is another one that I started a long time ago and had to re-start. When I started it first time round I started in the center. When I came to work on it again several years later I decided to work from the top left of page one. So I counted up and out from the middle and checked it several times. Happy that I was in the right place I started stitching. All was going well until I noticed that the tops of my new stitches were going in the opposite direction to the tops of my old stitches. So everything in the middle had to be frogged -  which took up about a day of stitching. Not much to actually see yet. I'm enjoying this one more than my Mystic Stitch from last week. The chart has proper symbols, although the colours do seem a bit odd - I think it could do with a few more to make the changes look more blended.

Liebster Award

I have been awarded an award by a fellow stitching blogger, Cleejoow. These have been doing the rounds on the x-stitch blogs for a while now but never thought I'd get one - didn't think anyone was ever looking at mine!

Some background: Liebster is a German word, meaning favourite, dearest or beloved and the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers, who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to. (This has been very difficult - most of the stitching blogs I read have already been nominated!)

All of these are other stitching blogs, with a variety of lovely projects and pretty pictures!

1 - Brandon at TheStitchingWino http://thestitchingwino.blogspot.co.uk/
2 - DizzyTiggy at Tiggy Cross Stitching  http://tiggycrossstitching.blogspot.co.uk/
3 - Mimi at Stitchy http://x-stitchgirl.blogspot.co.uk/
4 - Lynda at Nothing but Cross Stitch http://nbutxst.blogspot.co.uk/
5 - Jennifer at Twinkle Stitcher http://twinklestitcher.blogspot.co.uk/


2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

Thank you to Cleejoow from  http://cleejoow.blogspot.co.uk/ for nomminating me

3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.

4. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

1 I like the band Placebo. I mean REALLY like. I've seen them about 100 times now and have tickets for another 6 shows this year.
2 I'm studying Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Lampeter. I'm a late starter i'm 26 and this is my 1st year. I'm part time so will be 32 if I ever finish and get my degree.
3 I enjoy video games - Wolfthryth is the name of my first character from Lord of the Rings Online.
4 I really, really hate spiders!
5 Thinking of 5 things that are intresting and people don't know has been the hardest thing I've had to do in a while!

Sunlit Horses

Last week I was working on a small Dimensions kit called Sunlit Horses. Think I started this one about a year ago and have done about 7 weeks work on it now. I Didn't think I had done that long on it, must be a slower stitcher than I though.  Finally have all the full crosses done though so it's just the half crosses in the background to do now. Oh and all the dreaded backstitch, that always takes and age to get done.  Might even get it done by this time next year! This is quite nice and simple for a Dimensions kit - only one blended colour so far.

My other project for this week has been a Mystic Stitch Chart just called Cats. This one feels like it's been very slow going. Can't remember when I started it and have only been working on it at weekends so there is never much progress to see. Most of this so far has been DMC 939 and 823 with a few other colours thrown in here and there. This is my first Mystic Stitch chart and I don't enjoy it as much as my HAEDs not sure if it's the colours or the fabric on this one or just the way the charts only use letters rather than normal symbols. The letters just seem to make the chart harder to read for me - what's wrong with the normal symbols anyway?

 In other news actually had some nice weather in the last week. The last few days have been really nice. Wasn't as good at the start of the week but still managed to get out to a local zoo - Manor House Wildlife Park. They have a lemur walk-through with some very relaxed lemurs who were enjoying the nice weather. Our horses have also been enjoying the nicer weather.

TUSAL March

Well I know I'm a day late with my TUSAL update but it's the same as it was last night - I swear! Have added a few new ends to my ORT jar, but it's still not impressively full yet. Still haven't done anything about not taking pictures in front of my DVDs though. Once again I forgot all about this until I saw other people updating theirs. I do have a excuse though, I did my first re-enactment display yesterday. We only did two short sessions which were a lot less intensive than our usual training but it was my first time in full kit. A wool tunic on a sunny day gets quite hot quite quickly!

SK Phuan

 Ok this is my second attempt at this today. Pictures went crazy in the first one. This week I have been working on last years HAED SAL piece SK Phuan. Quite confetti heavy in some places this one. Managed around 600 stitches this week did well the first few days but by Friday I only managed 50 all day. This one is quite hard going. As well as all the confetti I have the additional problem of stitching 2 over 1 full crosses on 28 count because when I started I was convinced the fabric count was 25. It's not too bad but getting the needle through for the last stitch in a very confetti area can be a nightmare. Think I could pull off 2 over 1 on 28 it it was a design with a few less colour changes.

Didn't get anything worth taking a picture of done over the weekend. Partly because my Daylight bulb gave up on me at the end of the week making my room a bit to dark for any decent stitching and partly because of my trip to TORM on Saturday. TORM is The Original Re-enactors Market. Bought myself a knife ready for show season and a tile with a happy looking squirrel on it just because I could! Didn't have much time for anything else after that though.