Quaker Meetinghouse SAL

Karen, I'd love to do a SAL on Quaker Meetinghouse. I put in some stitches last night (only a few of the letters), but I'll put it away now and wait for you. It'll give me the excuse to definitely start VoHRH this week instead - I can live with that! ;-P I'm doing QM on Kiwi Illusions Tussock Belfast. I was thinking of a higher count, but I had this in my stash and really liked it. First time I've used Crescent Colours and they're so nice to stitch with (much nicer than GAST and WDW I think)... and I love the Tartan Plaid colour (nothing to do with being Scottish either!) I'm thinking of buying some more of this for some other designs. :) What about you, have you decided on a fabric for it yet?

Signing off with Snoopy, seeings as I don't have any new stitching photos to share! Poor Snoopy - second to stitching!!

Stitching Plans!

Thanks to everyone for your lovely comments on Quaker Garden, I appreciate them very much. :-) Lots of people are finishing up on this lately... it's fun to see!

Just to show that I actually stitched on Winter into Spring a wee bit last week:


But I have to admit that I'm fed up with it again. :-( I manage to get a few hours work done on it and this always happens... I end up not picking it up again for months. :'( Ach well... one of these days I *will* get it finished...

I think I'm going to start Quaker Meetinghouse this week. It's calling out to me! ;-) As is the Village of Hawk Run Hollow... I'm very tempted to start that too! I also feel like picking up Petal Fairy and doing a little bit of work on her, as it's been a while. Let's see how I go!

Quaker Garden Finish!

Quaker Garden (Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers #19). Stitched 2 over 2 with all the recommended threads (GAST & WDW), on the recommended 30-Count Garden State Java R&R fabric.

I finished this 15 minutes ago! I almost completed it last night... I had about 15 stitches left to go, and was determined to get it done today as early as I could. ;-) This stitched up really quickly. The only reason it's taken 17 days from the day the SAL started, is because I haven't really had much time to stitch over these past few weeks. I think I'm going to have to pull out another Blackbird Designs project to start on now, because I'm going to miss this one. :-)

Thanks so much to Karen for organising the SAL. It was a lot of fun seeing everyones progress and knowing so many others were stitching along.

Pamela Kellogg Designs

A few people have asked if the Winter Into Spring pattern is still available to buy. I've searched the Internet and the only place I can find it is here (scroll down to about half way). They're available to buy individually - note there are restrictions on how to make payment, and they come in pdf format only. I noticed lots of nice free patterns on that web page too. Thanks Pam. :-) She's always been very generous with her freebies! She also has a Bulletin Board for anyone that's interested. That's where the mysteries took place a few years back.

More later. I've been too busy to blog or stitch over the past days. :'-(

My New Wallpaper

Harsha's recently finished (and framed) Stargazer just blew me away... Lookie at my new wallpaper. :-) (with Harsha's approval!) Isn't her stitching stunning? Yet another design that's gone WAY to the top of my "to do" list now -- I've even picked my fabric for it (a Silkweaver Solo). What a great inspiration my new wallpaper is...

Stash!

My #2 Global Priority package from Drema arrived this morning! WooHoo! My VoHRH silks and chart are here. :-) It took almost 2 weeks to get here, though! I don't think I've ever had a GP package take longer than 5 days before... It must be the Glasgow holidays (?!) that's delayed things a bit.

That wasn't everything that arrived, though...


*Blush*. That's really IT for stash for a while, though...

And it's all a bit of a bore for Snoopy... I mean how much stash does a girl need?!

ETA:

Jean: Swans is by The Workbasket (link), as is Crowflower. Too true, I should have bought Snoops a gift too... I'm a bad kitty mum! ;-)

Michelle: I'm still undecided as to when I'll start VoHRH, but I don't think I'll be able to resist for long. Especially when I see all the wonderful WIPs! :)

Purrrr!

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, it's appreciated. :)

I'm going to aim to have it done by October some time, I think. That gives me plenty time to do a little on it every week and not put myself off. I'll make sure to post progress pics, so you can make sure I'm sticking to it. ;-)

Laura: It's a deal! You will need to post your progress pics too!!

Snoopy says Hello

Purrrrr!

UFO - Winter into Spring

Two entries in one day.. you'll be getting sick of me!

I don't have any new stitching photos to share unfortunately, as I haven't had a lot of time to stitch. I was looking through some UFO's earlier today though, and I've decided that I really need to finish off some of these projects that were started so long ago. I think the first one I need to tackle is the (former) Winter into Spring Mystery by Pamela Kellogg. I started it on 1 January 2004 when the mystery started; kept up with Parts 1 & 2, then got side tracked (as you do) ;-) I managed to finish Part 3 last year and I even started part 4, but I haven't touched it since. It's been (I'm sure!) close to 18 months since I've stitched on it. Photos follow:

Part 1 (January)

Part 2 (February)

Part 3 (March)

Parts 1-3 together:

Part 4 (April) WIP:

So as you can see, I don't really have much left to do. The remainder of part 4 and then the beading around the edges that you can see in Part 1. The squares are 8" x 8" (so not small). I do like the design (my favourite square is Part 1), but my tastes have changed since I started it... there are so many other designs I'd rather spend the time on is the problem. It's also on plain White 28-Count Jobelan. I have nothing against that fabric, but it's not something I'd really stitch on anymore.. But I really want to finish this. I need some encouragement is what I need!

World Cup 2006

I've had a busy weekend, and I'm WAY behind on my blog reading. I'll hopefully get the chance over the next couple of days to catch up a bit. Though I don't get any more complete days off until next Tuesday & Wednesday now. This week is probably one of the busiest weeks of the year for me, with the Barclay's Scottish Open golf tournament taking place in Loch Lomond until Sunday.

I'm sure most folk know by now that Italy won the World Cup last night. ;-) And they won on *penalties* of all things: I guess they've been practising. :-) I'm of course very happy they won, but I didn't enjoy the match much after the second half. The first half was fantastic... if the match was based on the first half, Italy deserved to win. Based on the second half I just don't know... Italy were so negative.

The French player Zinedine Zidane was an IDIOT headbutting Marco Materazzi (what was he thinking??). How awful to see him get sent off in the final match of his career. :'( As much as I wanted to see the Italian's win, I was very sad about that, as he's been such a great player. If the final had been the semi-final Italy played against Germany I'd have been MUCH happier. *That* was a match to cheer and get carried away with. The one last night was a bit of an anti-climax.

Well done to the Azzurri, though. They've almost been there many times... this was long overdue, and it couldn't come at a better time for them with the state of the sport in Italy at the moment. :O)

I was going to add some photos (stitching related), but blogger won't let me! Aaargh! I'll try again later, as I don't want to upload them all to Photobucket, though I'll need to if blogger doesn't behave...


ETA: Italy didn't concede a single goal in the entire tournament. The one in the USA game was an own goal, and the one in the final was a (dodgy) penalty. That's pretty impressive, and I think deems them worthy of the championship. :-)

Quaker Garden - Day 6

Not the greatest photo, but another update. I'll probably continue working on this until I'm done, as it's an absolute pleasure to stitch and I don't see myself wanting to put it away. I've worked on it every day, but didn't do much at all on Tuesday & Thursday - or today. So it goes to show how quick it is to stitch up.

I was happy to see that Amelie Mauresmo won the ladies Championships at Wimbledon today. I didn't watch the Australian Open, but after hearing what happened there, I thought she really deserved this win more than Justin Henin-Hardenne (who I'm sure will have plenty more opportunities to win Wimbledon - she's a great player). She missed out on the feeling of winning that last point and the tournament at the Australian Open, which she finally got at Wimbledon today.

No offense to my French friends in any way, but I hope the French will be satisfied only with this sporting win this weekend and not anything else (see previous posts). :-)

Good Mail Day!

Did I hear some folk say that they were still waiting on their fabric for the Village of Hawk Run Hollow?

Well, I got mine today! That's the GOOD news. The bad news is, I didn't get the chart or the silks yet! LOL Drema is sending my order in two packages, and the first one arrived today (see stash in the above photo): the rest of it should be in the second package. :-) Not to worry, it wasn't like I was going to start it straight away anyway, and I have plenty new stash to keep me very happy this morning. ;-)

And yes, I'm still celebrating after last nights amazing match. I just saw an interview taken a short time after the match finished last night with the very interesting Boris Becker. He was obviously very disappointed that Germany didn't get through, but was very sporting towards the Italians and said the best team won. Never mind about that, I was wondering where the heck Boris was at Wimbledon this year! He usually does quite a bit of commentary and interviews for the BBC... I should have known! :)

Mia, I've spoken on the phone to some of my relatives in Italy too, and they really are celebrating over there BIG TIME, aren't they?! It couldn't have come at a better time for Italy with everything that's been going on with the football scandals. :-( I can't wait for Sunday!


ETA: Wendy, I got the 40-Count Sand Dune linen for VoHRH. I wasn't going to buy this straight away either, but I broke down after reading all the discussions about it on blogs and the boards. Evil enablers that some people are >:-)

FORZA GLI AZZURRI!

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

That was the best football match EVER!

I was in an absolute state that they'd have to go to penalties (Italy have only ever won ONE penalty shoot-out at the World Cup; Germany have won all BUT one... ), then they score TWO GOALS IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES!

Yay Nicki! Go you watching it all the way in NZ!!! :) :)

FORZA GLI AZZURRI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(as my dear friend Cilie in Norway sent me an e-mail saying right after the game finished... I couldn't have said it better myself). :) :)

One more match to go!!!!

More Quaker Garden

Oh-my-Gosh, this is stitching up SO quickly, and I really haven't spent all that much time on it today. Not as much as it looks from my last progress pic anyway. I'm absolutely loving it, and it's so cool to know that so many others are stitching on it too. ;-) Can you tell this is the first SAL I've ever joined in on? :-) Thanks again for organising it, Karen! Yours is looking fantastic on the Lakeside Linen fabric.

Well... I don't think I'll be stitching much this evening, with the Italy kick-off at 8pm. I'll be biting my nails all evening, so I think stitching is out!! I have about a dozen relatives coming over to watch it too... it's going to be fun! Mia - I hope you enjoy the match at your in-laws, and they give us something to cheer about. :-)

Quaker Garden SAL - First Day

I managed to get a good bit of stitching done today between working. I took this photo early afternoon, but I've done quite a bit more since then... I'll take a new photo tomorrow, but I wanted to show something for Day 1 of the SAL today. :-) I'll definitely be stitching on it again tomorrow, I'm really enjoying it.

The Andy Murray match was very disappointing at Wimbledon today. :-( The pressure must have got to him - he's only 19 after all. I hope he'll do better next year.

Italy play in The World Cup semi-final tomorrow. My fingers are crossed! It's anyones game really, though I suspect Germany are the favourites now. Italy haven't really been tested so far in the championships either... IF they were to beat Germany, then I don't see why they shouldn't win the whole thing. And just about everyone said they didn't stand a chance of getting anywhere at all at the start of the tournament... HA to them... ;-P

Sport and a wee bit of Snoopy

Yesterday was a big sports day in our house, with big matches played in both Wimbledon and The World Cup.

It didn't start too well with Andre Agassi going out in the Third round at Wimbledon. :( I thought it was nice that they broke with tradition (which they very rarely do at Wimbledon) and let Sue Barker interview him in front of the crowd on centre court after the match. His matches over the years have been among my favourites to watch. None of that "big serving" stuff which has been dominating the game since the early 1990's, which while I appreciate takes a lot of skill, is not fun to watch. Who can forget when he won the tournament in 1992? Wimbledon won't be the same without him.

The only "good" thing about the match, was that he timed the ending well. Approx. 10 minutes before the England-Portugal kick off. ;-) Sadly that didn't go well either with England going out in penalties. As soon as I heard the words penalty shootout I knew what was going to happen anyway. England are absolutely pathetic at taking penalties at that stage. Italy come a close second (so here's hoping they won't have to go to a PS in their semi-final against Germany on Tuesday!)

We then turned over to find that Andy Murray [I'll insert in here that he's Scottish *grin*] had won the first set from two-time Wimbledon runner-up Andy Roddick!! He quickly won the second set; then I was in trouble: continue watching the Murray/Roddick game or turn over to watch Brazil v France to see who would go through to the semi-final? I had to stay with the Murray game being a Scot and all. And Brazil were bound to go through anyway, right?

Murray won in three straight sets! Woo-Hoo! He must stand a great chance now of at least going through to the Quarter Finals. Brazil didn't do as well... the favourites out of the World Cup in the Quarter Finals with France beating them 1-0. Who would have known?! France had barely made it through to the second round, whereas Brazil had sailed through as expected.

What a day. Thank goodness days like this only come around once every 4 years, mind you. ;-) Watching sport on the telly all day would leave you with little time to do much else!

So that this entry isn't all about sport! This was Snoopy on the first day we brought him home from the animal home: he was approx. 8 weeks old. How evil does the wee man look in this photo???



This is a more recent photo of him from last week (he's now 2-years-old):



He looks very posh in this one. He still has psychotic tendencies if he doesn't get his own way, though. >:-)

And I'm all set to start the Quaker Garden SAL tomorrow! :)