Happy New Year

Although it's not quite New Year here, it's not too far off!

I've had a lovely, if busy Christmas!  Mum has been staying since before Christmas and went home yesterday.  Whilst it's nice seeing family, it's lovely to have the house back to normal.

Whilst it's not all about the presents, I've had some lovely gifts, one of the highlights being my Secret Santa present from a Cross Stitch forum member.  She sent a bunch of DMC threads, tassels, needle case and she made me a lovely stitching journal with a stitched picture on the cover.

One of the presents from my OH was to make a small area of the dining room into a "sewing corner" so that I have my own little space to sit and stitch.  We went and picked out some furniture from IKEA, went and cleared the space by taking the old furniture to the recycling centre and it's all ready to be made up.  I have to wait until Monday for it to be assembled, but I cannot tell you how excited I am about it!

Christmas is coming....

I've been really busy with exchanges, buying Christmas presents and generally preparing for the festive season.

I've been very lucky to receive some lovely home-made Christmas cards from forum members in various exchanges.

I also got this lovely card from Sian!

I finally framed the birth sampler that I made for a family friend, although I did it myself, it didn't turn out too bad.  I've updated the photo under the "completed work" tab at the top of the page to show the framed picture and also added the cards that I've made as well.

I've managed to finish stitching OH's Christmas card, I just need to make it into a card.  I'll also add a photo of that once it's done.

All the presents are bought, just need to wrap them all up and then tomorrow do the food shopping then sit back and enjoy.

I'll have to try and finalise my stitching goals for next year, but I've got some definite plans for some of them.  I am going to try to actually do more projects for myself rather than doing everything for other people.  I'm going to set up a rotation to allow for variety, which should help keep the projects fresh.

I've added the updated Henry VIII to the "WIP" tab at the top.  It's really starting to come together, hopefully it should be finished towards the beginning of next year.

I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this, but.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Busy Busy Busy!

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been caught up with Christmas preparations!  I've had my mum staying for the last few days as well which creates more work as well, but at least I've got quite a few presents sorted now.

I've had my first surprise exchange arrive and it was a lovely pin cushion from Debbie, along with some postcards, bookmark calendar and some lovely threads along with a Christmas card.

This morning I sent off all the overseas parcels and cards along with the December surprise package. Fingers crossed they arrive at the destinations in one piece!

I've added some photo's of the cards I made onto the Completed Stitching tab.  I've not really made many cards and I'm not really that creative so they are very basic, but hopefully it's something I can improve on.

As well as making cards, I've managed to make a fair bit of progress on Henry VIII.

 I've also stuck my neck out and signed up to join the HAED freebie 2012 Stitch Along.  I plan to stitch the Blue Moon Story Keep and can't wait to start.  I've also been gridding the fabric ready to start my Tiny Treasure Violet Sometimes and a larger project called Endless Dream by Christophe Vacher:

Just waiting to get the materials list for the Blue Moon then I'll do a bulk order from Louise at Across Town Stitching.  I seem to have loads to stitch for next year which should keep me busy and for a change it's all things that I want to stitch for myself, although no doubt there will be things that crop up that I want to make for others as well.

Henry's progress

After a weekend of stitching, I think I'm finally seeing some progress!  Although, after realising yesterday that there are a load of people I would like to stitch Christmas cards for and so little time to do it, I think I'm going to have to set him aside and get card stitching.  Here is the updated WIP picture:

I've finally put some pictures of my work on the pages linked at the top of the blog.  Most of them are not great quality, but they do give an example of some of the things I have done in the past.

I'm not going to post any more pictures of the Christmas cards I've made until they are completed and sent!  I'm not sure if many of the people I'm sending them to will read my blog and see the pictures, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

New to blogging

After reading a number of people's blogs I thought I might have a go at it myself.  I'm not really sure as yet what to talk about so please excuse me if I ramble a little!

I thought it might be nice to have somewhere I can talk about my stitching, even if no-one else reads it.

I've actually been very pleased with the amount of stitching I've gotten through this year.  I've completed a number of the pieces I had as UFO's and also completed a few items along side those.  As it's been approaching Christmas I've managed to stitch a few cards as well.  I'm not a huge fan of stitching small cards but I do like to make things for other people so that keeps me going.

I've started planning the projects that I'm thinking of for next year and I have a huge selection to chose from.  I am definitely going to start my first HAED chart, which I've already purchased, but I will also stitch other items alongside it for those times when I'd like a break.  No doubt other things will crop up that I'll have to stitch as well, such as cards and possible samplers.

It might take me a while to get this blog up and running as I'd like as there are so many options!  Hopefully I can get some pages with pictures of my completed sewing as well as WIP pictures of my current projects.