Nearly Christmas - another year gone!

Hi all
I've been hunkered down, trying to finish my Joan Elliott diary piece, which might help to explain why I've been missing my blog lately. And I've had a few minor ornament finishes too.
Joan Elliott diary 2013 (World of Cross Stitch freebie) - started Jan 2013 - finished Dec 17th 2013.

I posted a picture of the finished piece on the Facebook group page - and even received a message from Joan herself, "I am smiling. This piece looks fabulous Sandie". Praise from the designer herself! Thinking I shall make it into a wall hanging, but I'm taking the time to look for the right fabric to use, so it might be a while before I can actually say completed.

I managed to finish 3 small heart pieces, which I'm going to sew into decorations. 

I have some fabric which I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show, which would be great for this, so I'm going to find a few minutes tomorrow to get them done.

I also bought some cotton yarn at the same show, and have decided that I am going to make a short-sleeved cardigan ready for next spring. I have completed the back (obviously this photo was taken a while ago!). I've taken to knitting during the evenings as the winter nights are so bad for stitching. I have a daylight bulb fitted into a lamp which I use for my sewing machine, but unless I carry it up and down stairs every night I'm stuck for a proper light. Maybe if Santa doesn't bring one, I can wait for the January sales?

We went out to town yesterday, looking for a replacement Christmas tree and a new candle bridge. Our old tree was really too large for the space we normally put it, so this year DH and I decided to look around. We decided that we really liked a minimalist look - so we ended up with an LED "cherry blossom tree". 

We put it up, but haven't yet tidied up around the bottom of the tree, so apologies for the mess!

And to top it off my Blood Pressure has been climbing back up again. So after a trip to the doctor's today, I'm on a new regime of tablets, to be reviewed again in January. The pressures of the Christmas season don't seem to count as far as Doctor's are concerned - all he could suggest was that I don't overeat over Christmas!!!

I did manage to get my hands on the latest issue of Cross Stitch Collection. There's a beautiful Joan Elliott Winter Queen cross stitch in it, which I really want to do (perhaps for next Christmas?)

Or do I start those Nutcrackers (Mike Vickery) which I got earlier in the year? Or a kit called Tiki Tropical Collage (Janlynn) as a memory of our Hawaiian cruises? Or my European Bistro? Or do I continue just with my cheetah that's been languishing lonely in the corner for the last few months?
Decisions, decisions, decisions! Tune in again after Christmas to see what I decide to go with.

In the meantime, here's a little visitor to my back garden to wish you all a Merry Christmas or Happy Winter Holiday.

I hope everyone has a fabulous time with family or friends, and that Santa brings you lots of stash enhancing presents.

'Til January
Sandie

After the holiday!

Finally caught up with everything after our holiday in July. We took off for just over 2 weeks in Austria - at our fabulous home from home! Appartement Sonnenschein in Laubichel, near Mayrhofen is the most wonderful, restful place we can imagine going to. I'm sure that others have their favourite places - but this is somewhere we have been to 8 times already. This year we took 3 days to drive down to Austria, because both DH and I can only take being in the car for so many hours at a time (especially when you spend hours in traffic jams!)

This is the view of the house from the local cable car and this is the view from our balcony of the village of Mayrhofen - about 10 minutes walk away. (It's also a chance to show off what my new camera does - this colour popping setting allows you to chose a colour and the rest of the photo is black and white!)

Twice a day a narrow gauge steam railway passes by taking tourists (mainly) into Mayrhofen.

And I spent a lot of time, just sitting on our balcony, watching the world pass by, while stitching my Joan Elliott calendar cross stitch. When we left to go on holiday I had only 5 months completed and one more half-done; by the time we got home I had 7 months done and another one started. Here is the piece as it stands today.

Pretty good going eh?

I opened the latest issue of Cross Stitch Crazy the other day and there was a pattern for someone's first day at school in the subscriber pages. Now my dear Jessica is starting Nursery School in September, so I decided to adapt the pattern to make it into a card for her. And that's another finish! Just got to sort out a card to put it on!

When we went up there before our holiday to see them my daughter had been talking about decorating Jess's room - not in childish prints, but something which might last her for a few years. She asked for my help, and I suggested some bunting to go round the room. I got hold of a pack of charm squares in my local needlework shop and made up the bunting for her. It needed something to finish it off, so I made four padded hearts - the small ones I've put on the line of bunting, and the larger ones are to hang from the ends when her dad gets round to hanging it! 

We're going up there tomorrow, hopefully if this hot weather stays we can take a trip to the park and wear her out!

I've even made a few mini lemon cupcakes to take with us! In this heat too! Mind you I did buy a mini cupcake maker from our local Aldi store so it didn't take too much effort!

Be careful in the sun 

'Til next time

Sandie

Tigermum's last Wipocalypse 2012 and Hello 2013

Morning All.
It's finally bright and sunny this morning - the first one in a bright New Year for each and everyone of my followers (and their families). Let's hope that 2013 brings us no more of that horrid rain in the UK which has flooded areas, destroyed homes and even lives.

It was two years ago I started this blogging lark. I admit that initially I wrote down things to remind me what to include, but with increasing age I lose the notes! So most of my blogs are now random thoughts which occur to me at the moment I find a spare minute to sit and write. I haven't been around much lately, and I do promise to try and be a bit better about it all this year! But I'm finding it difficult to fit in all the things I WANT to do - sewing, cross stitching, quilting, knitting, papercrafts, cooking, reading, computer time etc. And as they are all things which require input (you can't set them up to do them without your intervention) then every now and then something falls off the end of the day! But I'm sure you all suffer from the same problem. The first person to invent a way to cram more into a 24 hour day will have the gratitude of crafters everywhere I'm sure!

Anyway - what have I been up to during December? Apart from rushing round and preparing for Christmas? Not a lot! We took a few days away at the beginning of the month on a Christmas Market trip on the Rhine. It was lovely; snow, cold, plenty of mulled wine, good food and a real Christmas atmosphere to get you in the mood for the start of the celebrations.

That was as far as the celebrations went really. My DH and I spent the actual day together but our daughter and family went to MIL for about 4 days, so although we delivered presents to them before Christmas we didn't see them over the holiday. Still we bought them a webcam so we hope that SIL will fix it up soon, and we can keep in touch that way. My decorations are mainly still in the loft - I couldn't even raise the enthusiasm to get them down!

My stitching over the year - my aim for the WIPocalypse was a little ambitious I now realise - as you will too when you look at the before and after pics below. I seem to have concentrated on large pieces this year, and not achieved much, next year I'm going to be a bit more organised (perhaps?) and slip a few smaller projects in!

To the yearly update -
1. Rose fairy and quilt -  This was at the start of the year. And this was the finished article inserted into the quilt for Jessica's birthday -  A pretty fair finish I think! FINISH 1.
2. Egypt -  a long way from finished at the beginning of the year!
And finished (although still not framed)  FINISH 2.
3. Lace fan - start of the year - . Not a single stitch has been put in this over the year. I'm seriously thinking that maybe I should give this one up; perhaps restarting it  on white fabric as I think the navy is putting me off!
4. Cheetah - January -  and December -  At least it's a start!!
5. Daisy -  Again not a stitch!!
6. Mandala cushion -  FINISH 3.
7. Jessica's Wordle -  FINISH 4.
8. All that Jazz -  FINISH 5.
9. Tree Frog Trio -  FINISH 6.

10. SIL's birthday Card - (his birthday is January 1st!) As you may remember from earlier posts he works designing computer graphics, so I thought that a Monsters Inc birthday card would suit this year! FINISH 7.

11. I also started something which I know won't be done for this year, but I saw these vintage Santa's in a magazine and decided that I'd pop them on a band - maybe a start for Christmas 2013! I think that as Jessica doesn't have a chimney for Santa I might make this into a wall-hanging with a pocket at the bottom for her letter to Santa. Then she can hang it on the handle of her bedroom door for Santa to collect! 

Add to that my other sewing projects (embroidered t-shirts, hungry caterpillar pack and various other sewn items), my knitted goods - scarves, fingerless gloves and my shrug (more of that next time), my papercraft - cards for everyone's birthdays this year and ALL of our Christmas cards - then MAYBE I didn't do too badly after all!

This month my daughter is heading to hospital again for her re-re-construction of her right knee. She's due to go in on Jan 22nd, and her consultant has told her it will be a long operation and a slow recovery with at least 6 months physio appointments. So please keep her in your thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.

Until the next few spare minutes I think I'd better stop now. In my next post I'll tell you about a few of the things I'm planning for 2013.

I hope you all have a happy and prosperous New Year.
love
Sandie

Long time - no show! And my WIPocalypse entry!

Hi again everyone! Do you have days go by (or weeks even) and then when you look back you can't remember where that time went? Well that's what life has been like recently!

My cross stitch took a back seat - and I still don't really know where my stitchy mojo is? I do a few bits now and then, but the idea of picking up and stitching for hours? No way!! Still I don't feel like doing any stitching - so what's the point of pushing myself? I know we all have times when we don't want to even look at a needle - mine usually involves repairs - but it feels good right now not be beating myself up about it.

My little grand-daughter's birthday was last week, (you may remember me mentioning how hard I was working for it). Her parents had the birthday party in a local children's play centre - with play equipment, ball park and food included. Two hours in total including the food. And of course all the presents were taken home to be opened AFTER the event - so I didn't get to see their faces when they opened my presents :((

Still - finally I can post about ALL the goodies I had made for her!

1. That quilt eventually got handed over. My daughter just sent a text with the word - AMAZING so I think they were delighted with it. As they're talking about putting Jess in a bed soon it couldn't have been better timewise!

2. My Wordle cross stitch picture.

3. I made 6 blank t-shirts into works of art!

Four of them had machine embroidered motifs on them and the other two had applique motifs sewn on. I cut the bits out using my Slice then sewed them onto the shirts. I didn't realise just how difficult it is to find blank t-shirts for kids these days - most of them appear to already have some form of decoration on the. If anyone knows of a good source of BLANK t-shirts - I'd love to know about it.

4. A Hungry caterpillar! Jess already has the book which she loves at bedtime - so I decided to make up her very own story sack to go with it. 

The body was made with circles of fabric, which I lightly stuffed and then joined with velcro - so she can made him as long or as short as she likes! A friend gave me some fabric which had some of the "food" which the caterpillar eats - so again I lightly stuffed those. Then with all the other things I cut out felt shapes, embroidered their name on the front, stuffed and finally made 2 bags - one for the "food" and another for her to put everything into! It was fabulous - even if I say so myself!

5. A Knitted zip-up jacket.

Right - off to play computers! DH has been digitizing old photos and it's down to me to sort it out into something resembling order, otherwise he won't be able to find them again! He's spent most of the afternoon running them through a scanner onto an SD card - now I've got that fun job!

Take care everyone - til next time

Sandie

Thanks for your best wishes

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers for my daughter's op.

She came through it fine - they removed a piece of bone which was "floating" in her knee, but they have said that the ligament is lax and so will need a re-reconstruction in the near future. Once this work has healed, she has to see the consultant again on Sept 1st, to discuss the next steps.

Also may I welcome the new followers I've recently acquired. It makes me feel quite humble that people across the world are interested in my ramblings!

In the meantime I've been busy with part of Jessica's birthday present - we bought her a tabby cat from the "Build-a-bear" shop in town - only I know it's a cat!

We bought an Arsenal football kit for it as both my daughter and my husband are football fans and they both support Arsenal (Erika was a ballgirl once for a Premier League match!) Boots were available, but I made her a pair of boots out of felt!
But to make it into a girl cat I also made a fairy dress for Rosie (what we named the cat!).

Let me also share what I made for her actual birthday for Jessica to wear.

I ironed some interfacing onto a piece of fabric and cut out the pieces with my Slice Die Cutting Machine - it's actually a papercrafting tool, but it seems to work just as well with stiffened fabric! Then I appliqued them to the front of a cheap onesie - job done!
Finally let me share the party invites I made for the party - if you're around next weekend you're more than welcome to drop in for a piece of cake!

Until next time - take care

Sandie :))

I'm cooking with gas!!

Evening all!

I've been really motoring in the last few days with my crafty bits!

My best friend's daughter had her baby on the 18th. Luckily my sampler was finished, just waiting the details, so today I bought a simple frame and finished it off myself. May I introduce Max.

I'm really pleased with it - hope the family like it too! I've also knitted one of my favourite soft toys - a blanket bunny (Pattern came from Lion Brand where they have a crochet version too I think). It's knitted with one ball of a chenille type yarn, so is really quick to make.

Next I've just made a dress from a onesie for Jessica. I saw a picture on a blog (can't remember which one - OOPS!), and got some FREE lace from another blog giveaway (WholePort). I added a fat quarter of fabric, a small bit of narrow ribbon and a 9-12 month onesie I bought from a local supermarket. I really like this!

And looking forward to Jessica's first birthday in August I've finished her birthday card. I bought a zebra rocker card kit from Kanban at a recent show and cut out a picture of Jess to pop on it. Again I hope her mum likes it - I know Jess is a bit young to appreciate it, but I hope my daughter will keep it for her to see when she's a bit bigger.

I also made some party invites for her mum to send out to her friends - I've posted those and forgotten to take a photo before I sent them - so maybe I'll get an invite in the post - in which case I'll post it then!

Anyway - dinner time calls - then a bit more work on Beatrix Potter. I THINK I might be able to get it finished before Jess's birthday now as it's the main one I'm concentrating on.

A month gone by? Surely not?

So much has been going on since the last post I don't know where to begin!

Having just got back from South Africa, we were looking round for something like a short city break to fit in before our holiday in September. We started to look at a few days in Dublin, but then we spotted a Northern Europe cruise going cheap - leaving on 8th June for 10 days. We visited Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Edinburgh and Le Havre before sailing back to Dover. The ship - Costa Magica - would probably not be one we'd choose to go on again, but for a last-minute price it was good. The only snag was while walking down Princes Street in Edinburgh I managed to fall into a pot-hole and sprained my ankle! I had to hobble to the nearest chemists (with my husband's help) where I bought a support bandage. Needless to say it put a bit of a dampener on the proceedings; and it's still swollen and sore when I walk on it for too long.

I've been quite busy though on the creative front. But I haven't got round to the photos yet - so I'll post them in a couple of days.

I've almost finished the Somebunny birth sampler - which is just as well as the baby is due within the next 2 weeks. I've decided to do just two corners in the border which will leave room for the baby's details in the other 2 corners.
I took the Potter sampler on the cruise, so I was able to do quite a bit - this will become the main focus of my sewing once the birth sampler is finished. I want to try and finish it for Jessica's birthday in August.
I've been doing a few more pages for Jessica's first year scrapbook to give to her parents on her birthday.
Some of those clothes that my daughter gave me to refashion for Jessica have been altered and I've been scouring the Internet for baby sized patterns which I can download. Here's a pinafore top and shorts which I made.

The latest pattern I found is how to make a dress out of a cheap onesie, so I'm trying those next, along with some bunting that can be hung out of their window for her birthday party!
Anyway I'd better sign off for now - Got to go and hunt up the camera so I can take some pics to show you all.