Happy days

I'm back from my holiday and feeling a lot less harassed and definitely more chilled out than when I left which has got to be a good thing, right?


I just want to thank everyone who left such positive and supportive comments on my last post, I've tried to reply individually to all who I can but not everyone has a public email address so I wanted to say thank you here too. As you all guessed I was pretty low before I went away and felt like I was stuck in a bit of a blogging rut as well as having lots of work and family drama to deal with. It really means a lot to me to have such supportive network of cyber friends.


We had a lovely week camping in Cornwall and stayed at a couple of great campsites here and here. We've been to St Ives Bay before and always go back for the views if nothing else, here is dh sitting outside the tent, who wouldn't enjoy waking up to a view like this every morning? (of course I mean the lighthouse and the dunes not dh, though of course I'm biased and think he's pretty cute too!)

Although I did take somethings with me we just had such a busy week drinking this ...

and eating these....

;) that I didn't get a chance to even think about picking up needle and thread let alone actually doing it. Of course we did lots of walking and sightseeing as well but I'm not sure that will have counteracted all the food and drink so I may be in for a shock at Weight watchers on Wednesday!

I'm feeling recharged and can't wait to get back to creating again. Hopefully I'll be back with another couple of posts later this week to share some more holiday pics and also some new projects that I want to get started on, and an update on where I'm at with the first of Mums cross stitch projects.

PS I just realised that this is my 400TH post. Wow I can't quite believe that I've been waffling away on my blog for such a long time. I think a celebration might be in order, watch this space.....

Poppy Field

I'm really struggling at the moment. I don't know why but I just seem to be shattered when I get home from work at the moment, MIL's health isn't improving and with dh's sister being worse than useless when it comes to her fair share of the caring that leaves us trying to do most of it. My Dad has announced that he is moving again so that is another thing playing on my mind, and sadly my sister lost an early stage pregnancy which is so upsetting as she was very excited, as we all were, about the prospect of a new addition to our family.

Before I was ill none of this seemed so hard and I found time and joy in picking up needle and fabric but at the moment I'm just finding it frustrating which is why yet again there has been very little blogging going on this week.

I did manage to complete an ATC for Anna's washer challenge (which should have been completed months ago, sorry Anna). I'm calling this one poppy field. I painted the washers red and then added lots of black seed beads to the centre.

I also made a little bit of progress on the cross stitch. As this is mostly half stitches and outlining it doesn't take too long to come together. Here is how I left it last week. And this is what it looks like as of today. So basically I've added the other side of the planet. I have the rest of the background to finish but again this is only half stitching and beading so I'm hopeful that this one won't take too much longer.

Nothing else on my to do list got done. I half quilted a block on my red cat quilt but decided that this is totally the wrong time of year for hand quilting I got so hot under all that fabric that I just gave up. This will get sidelined until winter I think.

I also started on some postcards but totally hated the way they were coming out so I've trashed them and it will be back to the drawing board.

I love to look at all of the wonderful blogs out there to see what everyone is up to but have to admit that where I usually find so much inspiration I'm just feeling downright depressed by the fact that my blog has become pretty boring and I can't seem to get my creativity flowing.

Next week dh and I are off to Cornwall for a holiday so I've decided to take a break until then. I will have no to do list for now and don't expect I will blog again until I come back. Hopefully my batteries will be recharged and I will feel like me again. Hope to see you when I get back, that is if I haven't scared you all away with my whinging and depression!

Silent Vigil begins

You can probably already guess from the lack of blog postings this week that there has been a serious lack of creativity going on at Angelcat Manor. I'm working on a new project at work which requires a lot of computer time and is really leaving me tired at the end of the day and over the weekend we had such great weather that I had to get out and tidy the garden.

Consequently the only thing that got done on my To Do List this week was that I started work on the cross stitch. I know a lot of people poo poo cross stitch and tapestry or any type of kit as not being too creative but when you don't have much time it's easy to pick up and add a few stitches too.

This one is not going to be quite so easy to chart the progress of as there is no gathering of kitties, lol. So here are before and after pictures of last weeks progress.
I've finished the planet to the left of the Tiger and added some stars to the background too. I'm starting to think that finishing Mum's projects is not always going to be straight forward.

• For starters I'm convinced that there must be part of the pattern pack missing, there is quite a lot of back stitching on the pattern but no indication as to colours on the key on the chart so I'm making it up based on the colour picture on the front of the kit.
• Also I'm really concerned that there are a few colours which will run out before I've finished the required stitching with them. This kit is called Silent Vigil and it's by Dimensions. They haven't given any colour reference numbers for any of the common brand floss just their own colour descriptions so I may have to try some blind colour matching.
• In this particular kit Mum seems to have used some poetic licence. There are no beads listed on the kit contents and no mention of them on the pattern. In fact the stars appear to be some sort of french knot (again they are not listed on the part of the chart that I have so again this leads me to believe I have something missing). Anyway for whatever reason Mum seems to have decided to add some beads. Actually I think they look pretty good, they add some extra texture and interest, and I've never combined cross stitch and beading before so it makes things a bit more interesting for me.

As for my To Do list well I completed two things which were to finish the kitty cross stitch and start on this one, everything else rolls over to this coming week with the addition of

• Start on mermaid project
• Continue with cross stitch

I've also decided that as the reason I keep going back to the cross stitch is that it is in handy kit form that I will this evening try and gather, as far as I can, the things on my to do list into little kits ready to be picked up and worked on at anytime, hopefully this will encourage me to do something different.

Drum roll please

Well I can hardly believe that the day has finally come but yes you guessed it the kitty cross stitch is done. Just as a quick reminder this is how this sad UFO looked a few short months ago when I rediscovered it buried in a cupboard.

After lots of time spent and thousands of stitches added here is the final reveal.There are a few mistakes here and there but I'm not going to beat myself up about them, after all it's been a while since I have done any sustained cross stitch and this was a big piece to finish. Being at work full time most of my stutching happens in the evening which is not the best time for such close hand work.

I think this final kitty was among my favourite to stitch. I've enjoyed bringing these kitties to life but am glad to move on to other things. As you know there will be more cross stitch in the future but now I'm starting to look forward to getting back to other stitch projects too.

Only one more

Well here we are at the end of a pretty quiet weekend and trying not to get too depressed at the thought of a whole week at work ahead before the next weekend!


Still as each day passes I'm sliding back toward my pre-op routine which is good. I'm still working on catching up on the blog reading and have even made the decision to try and cut back on the number of blogs I have in bloglines which will hopefully give me more time to be creating things of my own.

Speaking of which yes you've probably already guessed from the title another kitty has been born.
I'm excited and sad all at the same time to think there is only one more left to do. Now I feel ready to start tackling the mammoth job of completing Mum's projects I'm anxious to get started so I don't think it will take me too long to get over the loss of not having this one to work on. I know there is at least one kitty kit to look forward to in Mum's stash too.


I have decided as part of the process of getting back into a proper routine I'm ready to resurrect my weekly to do lists. So without further ado here is my list for the coming week.

• Finish Kitty Cross stitch
• Finish ATC for Anna's washer challenge (this is way behind deadline)
• Work on Something Beginning with O (again way past deadline)
• Start work on Mum's Tiger cross stitch.
• Quilt one block of the red cats quilt

Well it's getting to be late evening here and I'm feeling pretty relaxed after sinking a bottle of Perry. I don't drink very often and everything is starting to look a little fuzzy round the edges, like this so I think it's time to call it a night. Hope you all had a great weekend.