Orange Overload

Well I can knock one thing off my to do list for this week.....To finish my orange postcards. I have made 6 altogether to complete this swap. The first 6 I completed are back here. For this second lot I decided rather than do a batch I would make them all individual.

I wanted a 'something to do in front of the TV project' so apart from the edging they are all hand stitched.

Stitch Sampler

Three Leaves
Buttons and Beads
Lonely Leaf
Lace Garden
Crazy Orange Daisies

Are you seeing Orange. I am and I love it, I could work with orange until the cows come home :)

Weekend Wonders

Apologies in advance if this turns into a bit of a long post about not alot. I've not been able to get to my computer for a few days so have a few blog things to catch up on. First off the lovely Maggie has nominated me for this award.

What a lovely surprise this was, after a stressful Monday back at work this really did make my day! I now have to nominate some people to award this too, I know that I've seen this logo on many of the blogs I read already so I will try not to pick people who have already been awarded, but it may take me a few days before I pay it forward.

I've had a busy weekend out enjoying myself, on Friday I went to see my favourite tribute band, Livewire, they play tonnes of wonderful AC/DC covers. I don't know if I've mentioned before that I'm a rock chick, well I guess I'm 'out' now.

Saturday I spent cleaning the house (yawn), got in my daily walk and snapped a picture of this cutie.I also made some progress on the remaining 'orange' postcards that were on my to do list for last week, more on that later....

Sunday was spent walking on the tow path of the canal near Limpley Stoke, here are a couple of pictures I took of the viaduct which runs nearby.
Also went to the movies to see the new Tom Hanks film, Charlie Wilson's War. I'm not really a huge fan of political films or of Tom Hanks, but it was a really enjoyable movie and well acted.

Last Week's To Do List

Ok so it's time to 'fess up and see if I managed to complete last weeks to do list

• Pick some fabrics and threads for the TIF challenge - Ok so I manged half of this the fabrics are picked and here is the proof.

• Settle on final idea for JTIF and plan it out - Ok I need a rap on the knuckles for this one as this I totally failed at.
• Make 6 more postcards to complete the orange swap - I have the fronts of 5 done, so 1 more to go and then they all need machine stitched edges.
• Make 3 postcards for the something beginning with I swap - yeah at last something I managed to finish!
• Make a start on my January BQL bag - This I managed to do too.

So I guess over all consider I work full time and now have to cook an evening meal for MIL every day I didn't do too badly on my list. BUT lesson has been learned and I think I will have to be a bit more realistic in future and not set myself such a long list. Actually having a list has helped me a lot and kept me focused on things so I will continue working this way for a while.

This weeks To Do List

Ok so on to my list for this week.

• Finish my 'orange' postcards
• Finish my BQL bag
• Make a start on my doll form for the TIF challenge
• Add one more kitty to the cross stitch UFO

I have quite a busy week ahead, but I do have 2 evenings off from dinner duty so hopefully I will have a bit more me time, let's hope I haven't set myself too much again. I guess we will find out this time next week.

Something about not alot

I don't have much to share today. I have made some progress on cutting some pattern templates for the doll that I am going to attempt to make for the TIF challenge but no sewing as of yet. I'm also stitching my way through another kitty on the cross stitch, yes I know that cross stitch is not on my to do list this week but it is so easy to pick it up for some easy stitching in front of the TV.

The only picture that I have to share is from my daily walk. Another night walk again today but I thought I should at least keep practising my 'in the dark' photography, even though the picture isn't particularly interesting I think I did manage to capture some of the atmosphere of this wet and rainy evening.

More Inksplats

I managed to get the hand stitching finished on my other two Ink splat cards last night and machine stitched the edges this evening. I enjoyed messing around with cross stitch a lot yesterday afternoon so I carried on the theme on this card. By chance I had already machine stitched the swirls but this has turned out to be a 'Noughts and Crosses' card of sorts.

This second card is more abstract. I noticed that there was a big comet like swirl in the centre of the TimTex where the dye hadn't taken so well so I filled this with lots of machine stitching and then echoed the shape round the edge with a basic running stitch. I'm pleased with the way all three of these turned out and it was nice to make them all unique rather than do a set of all the same designs which I often do.
My walk of the day has also been this evening and in the dark so no picture to share from today. Instead I thought I'd stick on another taken of a church door on my meander around Cricklade yesterday.

Inksplats and more

I can't quite believe how quickly today had flown by. Isn't that always the way a day at work seems to last a week and a day at home just a minute. Never mind I managed to get a fair bit done which is great.

This morning I started work on those Ink splat cards. I've done the machine stitching on all three but I have some hand stitching that I want to add to each one so I've only managed to get one complete so far. I think the others will be done later tonight after a couple of hours stitching in front of the TV. Here is the one that is finished.

And a close up of some of the seed stitch. I found a beautiful variegated anchor thread that I had forgotten I had which stitched up beautifully.
I was so enamoured with this thread that I decided to take it to the GWE meeting this afternoon. We had lots of fun playing around with the simple cross stitch, a couple of hours of stitching and chatting later and I'm left with this small sample.

With a bit more stitching I can definitely see this one being turned into a postcard. It was a lot of fun experimenting with different sizes and regular and irregular stitches.

I decided to make the most of my trip to Cricklade for the meeting and arrived early so that I could take a walk through the high street. It's such a pretty town and there is lots of history to enjoy. Here is my picture of the day. I'm not a particularly religious person but there was something very forlorn about this broken cross grave maker in the churchyard.

Good progress

Here we are it's only Tuesday and I've made good progress on my list for this week already. I've raided my stash for some fabrics for the TIF challenge, sorry no picture yet, we're having lots of grey days here at the moment not good for photography, but hopefully I'll have one to share soon.

I've also made a good start on my bag challenge. This months bag is a great fabric bag for using when out shopping. When I saw the bag it immediately bought my gran to mind as she lives near her town centre and walks in everyday to get her shopping, so I thought this bag might be a perfect gift to give her. She works in a charity shop and not long after I started quilting she bought home a lovely charm pack that had been given to her shop so I figured this would be the perfect time to actually use it. Yesterday evening I got busy stitching these squares together to form the base fabric for my bag. I haven't really done any patchwork in a while and had forgotten how satisfying it can be just chain stitching squares together.

I've also been making some backgrounds for my something beginning with I postcards. I decided I is for ink splats. I used some Dye-Na-Flow colours blobbed directly onto TimTex and plan to add some stitching to complete the design. Here are the backgrounds as they are at the moment. It will be fun to see how they turn out. I have the day off work today as I will be going to the GWE meeting this afternoon so plan to hit the sewing machine this morning, hopefully I'll get these postcards done and ready to mail.

I have also gotten back to my daily walk the last few days, I'm really enjoying getting some fresh air each day. I don't have any pictures to share though as I've been going out after dark and there are limited things that I can capture with my little compact at night.

Back to my self challenges

Yesterday evening I had enough energy to make it round the block for my walk a day self challenge. Sadly the challenge had fallen by the wayside this last week due to this nasty virus but there was not a thing I could do about that. My little compact camera isn't great for taking night time photos so this is my best offering, I'm afraid. DH is out as we speak with his camera, I was tempted to join him for a walk in the daylight but he will go miles and I'm not quite over the virus so I didn't want to tag along and then hold him back so I'll probably settle for another trot round the block this evening.

My creative offering for yesterday are these sketches. I had hoped to make some postcards but somehow I just couldn't get motivated to sit at my sewing machine so out came pencil and paper instead. I haven't done any drawing for a while so my sketching skills aren't up to much.
This is my littlest cat Pip curled up asleep on a cushion.

I had just started this one of Hugo who was dozing on the back of the sofa when he decided to wake up and shift positions and never did go back to this pose. I guess I'll have to learn to sketch more quickly! (By the way these are done in a notebook which has two tone paper hence the distracting lines in the middle of each drawing).

After sitting around for most of the day doing not a lot yesterday I've decided I need something which will help me stop procrastinating. I'm going to try a simple list to see if that helps. So there are my goals for the week (I'll set my self some new ones next Sunday).

• Pick some fabrics, threads etc to use in the January Take it Further Challenge.
• Settle on a final idea for my JTIF piece and plan it out.
• Make 6 more orange postcards to complete my commitment in the favourite colour swap.
• Make 3 postcards for the Something Beginning with I swap
• Make a start on my January Bag for the BQL 2008 bag challenge.

There that should be plenty to keep me going for a week, I'd best get started ......

More cross stitch progress

I'm happy again, I feel like I'm finally getting the better of this dang virus, I even stepped outside the house today for the first time in a week, sadly it was just to do some grocery shopping but hey it's a start.

One sure fire way of knowing that my mojo is nearly back is that I picked up a needle again yesterday. I worked some more on my cross stitch. I had really wanted to give the cross stitching a break for a while and move on to some other things but I figured that following a pattern would be less taxing on my virus addled brain. I really can't believe how quickly I'm progressing with this, to think a couple of weeks ago I start out with this
And as of yesterday evening I have this.It really is coming on faster than I could have dared hope, there's still a long way to go before it's done though. Here is a close up of the cutie that emerged yesterday. I had to unpick a fair bit before I finally got him done but that was just down to me not being able to focus on the pattern as my head was still muzzy.I had a whole list of creative things that I wanted to get done today but the grocery shopping just about wiped me out so I guess I still need to try and pace myself for a few days until all these germs are totally gone.

Take It Further Musings

I have been thinking a bit more about the Take It further challenge today mainly due to some super fast service from Ebay. Yesterday I ordered some peacock feathers here. Today they arrived through the letter box! Hows that for service? Definitely the fastest I've ever had from an ebay seller. The green colours to me definitely match this months colour palette, it's the blues that will need more thinking about as palette has purples rather than blues.
I'm starting to think maybe an art doll with a peacock inspired theme, I've only ever made a couple of small fabric dolls before so this would be a real challenge for me. I'll have to think on this some more as it might be too much to take on given the month time scale, especially as I still have other swap commitments to catch up on that I'm still lagging behind on from 2007.

I think a watch this space is the order of the day ......

While I was Sleeping ...

I just want to thank everyone for their well wishes after my last post, I think all that healthy energy must be working as I'm feeling a lot better today, not back to my normal self but hey I've been out of bed for more than a couple of hours so that has got to be good right?

Well while I have been couped up in bed these last couple of days Sharon B has announced the first theme in her Take It Further Challenge, you can find all the details here.

I haven't had a lot of time to think about it yet but I think I will be going with the colour theme rather than the admiration theme. Here is the January Palette.

Not usually colours I work with as y'all know I'm a orange girl! However I do think these match my blog template quite well!

I don't know why but the first thing that sprung to mind when I saw these colours was a peacock. Now I know these are more pastel tones and a peacock is more what I would consider to be jewel tones but the challenge is to take it further , so I'm hoping this leap isn't too far a stretch of the imagination. Here are some pictures I borrowed from DH's blog.

I'm not sure where I will go with this idea yet, who knows what will happen, maybe something else will hit me like a bolt out of the blue and I will veer in a totally different direction, I guess this is all part of the fun in such a challenge.

A less than Auspicious start to the year

Yuck I have been holed up in bed for the last couple of days with a horrible flu virus thing, not exactly the auspicious start to the new year that I had hoped for. I guess the last few months of looking after MIL and trying to keep up with daily life finally caught up on me.

The only thing I've managed the last couple of days is a couple of stints of blog reading on the laptop from the safety of my bed. Today I have forced myself to get up but sitting here at the PC I'm starting to rue that decision as I can only just about see straight so I think it will be back to bed for me soon.


As you can imagine I've not done any walking or creating (unless you call the mound of snotty tissues by my bed modern art!), but I do have a couple of pictures to share with you from Sunday before I hit the sick bed.
Here is a not so good shot of the Christmas lights on a house nearby us taken on our evening walk. I know it's all blurry but somehow it speaks to me of the transitory nature of this time of year, the sadness when all the build up is done and the celebrations are over in the blink of an eye.Here is the progress I made on the cross stitch on Sunday evening. Actually I did manage to stitch out quite a lot, my family came up to visit through the day so this was all done in the evening while trying to stave off the start of a monster headache which 4 days later is still giving me a muzzy head. I finished this fat cat on top of the T, he was great fun to stitch.This fellow squashed in between the A and T. I'm not so keen on him. The kit gives the floss codes for DMC threads but it does say that the floss in the kit maybe a local alternative (whatever that means). His tabby stripes are not as well defined as they are on the kit picture so I guess I have some local alternative, hey pretty much every local stitching shop here carries DMC so to me there is no excuse, I guess it's all about cutting costs and maximising profits even in the stitching world!
Finally this little fur ball on top of the C, he's so small and only in a couple of colours he came together in no time.

I don't think I will get back to stitching for another couple of days, I need to try and build myself up today as I want to try and make it in to work tomorrow if only for a few hours as I know my desk will already be a pile of paperwork threatening avalanche.

And just in case you are wondering what 4 days of sick looks like, here it is in all it's technicolour glory, bad hair, bad skin and dark circles. Don't ask me why I'm sharing this nasty photo of myself, maybe I'm hoping you'll take pity and send some 'get well soon' energy my way so I can start appreciating this new year :)

Copy Cat

Not much happening here today, another dull day at work and I have a cold (again!) so I haven't felt like doing anything much this evening. I did take a walk in my lunch break though so here is my photo of the day.

I had a bit of a panic when I got out and realised that the battery on my camera was totally dead, but then remembered I had my phone in my bag so took this picture on my mobile (cell). It's not the best quality but dh helped me clean it up a bit in photoshop. I love the contrast of the rust pole and padlock with the green of the ivy. I might try taking this again next week when I have a working camera with me!

On the creative front I only managed another few rows of the sock and it doesn't look much different to the picture I shared yesterday so I won't bore you with the same shot again.

Before I go I just have to show you this shot of Hector that DH managed to get the other day. DH bought me this cute Christmas card as he thought it it look just like my white cats, Hector obviously decided to prove that it really could have been him!

What happened to the last two years?

Today it's been two years since we said goodbye to Mum. I still miss her so much and I can't believe how time has flown since that last day. This us all on our last family holiday in 2004, I'm so grateful that we had this time.

Back to work today and a trip to the movies to see I Am Legend (overall a disappointing movie the start promised a lot but the ending was a total let down). I still managed to squeeze in a walk and some creating, both in my lunch break.

I took a walk round the block from the office where I work, there isn't too much to see but I loved these adorable flowers poking from one of the hedgerows. My knowledge of British wildlife really is appalling though so I have no idea what they are, I really need to do something about that. On the creative front I worked some more on the sock knitting that I started a while back. I don't think I've actually posted a photo of this at all yet. I certainly didn't do all of this today for anyone who might think I've suddenly turned into a super knitter! I only managed to add a few rows but still it was something. I'm not sure how far I'm going to get with this, so far I'm doing all the easy stuff but in another few rows and I have to start the heel shaping. I'm a virgin sock knitter and I'm not really sure that I understand what I have to do from the pattern but I'll just bumble along and see what happens, watch this space as they say.....

Stitching progress and another walk

This has to be a first in blogland for me, two posts in one day. Over all this is my 334th post though which I think is pretty good going for a techno- idiot like me.

My excuse for this second post is to show you days progress for my create everyday challenge seeing as the stuff I posted early was actually from yesterday. I've been sticking to the cross stitch again today, mainly because it's been easy to pick up between housework, walking and reading.
Here is the overall shot, I finished stitching and outlining the grey cat at the bottom, though this was mostly already complete I still had a bit of filling to do. I've also made a good start on the next kitty sat on top of the T. To be honest I'm not sure how many hours I have spent stitching today as it's been in fits and starts rather than a solid block. I think probably too much time though :) maybe around about 5 hours.
Here is a close up of the newest completed kitty. The good thing about this chart is that there is so much to stitch it's great fun choosing what is going to be next. I got DH to choose the next after finishing this guy and he went for the big fat cat at the top. I'm having lots of fun with him and as there are larger blocks of colour he is stitching up quick.

The cross stitch will be going away for a couple of days now, tomorrow I'm back to work and hopefully there will be a trip to the movies in the evening. That means I will be trying to squeeze in my walk for the day and some creating in my lunch break.

Just in case I don't manage to get everything in tomorrow it we went for another walk this evening and were out for just over an hour, we caught a pretty sunset.
Not long after I took this the sky went a lovely pinky colour but none of my snaps of that really did the colours justice so this is the only shot I have kept.

Quiet Christmas and New Beginnings

Well that's it done, Christmas is over for another year. We had a very quiet one, just DH and I for most of the day, though we did go round MILs for a few hours to make dinner. Here is a badly taken picture of our Christmas tree complete with pressies underneath.

We had decided not to go over the top with presents for each other this year. I have overspent by miles this last year, mainly in my pursuit of buying more and more stitching stuff, 2008 will have to be belt tightening year! I did get this wonderful book though, the illustrations are wonderful and I'm planning on some quality reading time today so I can have a proper look.

Inevitably this is the time of year we all start thinking about what we want to achieve in the coming 12 months. I'm not even going to look at my aims for this year as I know I will have failed everyone. The last two years have been a nightmare on a personal level so I'm really going to work on making 2008 a positive year.

Rather than setting a whole long list of resolutions that I know I won't be able to keep, I'm setting myself two goals.

1. Walk somewhere everyday. A good excuse to get out in the fresh air even if it's only to the shop and back, and as I am going to try and take a picture everyday to record something on my walk a good excuse to get more photography practise.

2. Make time to create everyday. While I was home alone on Christmas eve I spent some time starting to tidy up my sewing room, too much mess to complete the task in one day, but already I've found loads of UFOs and 'must haves' that I bought and then promptly forgot about or didn't even get round to taking out of the packets. So I'm determined to use some of the damn stuff, most days I'm busy with work and at the moment looking after family but i am vowing to squeeze in some me time even if only 10 minutes a day.

Walk somewhere everyday

Instead of waiting for the new year to begin I've decided to start today. For my walk somewhere everyday challenge I just took a half hour stroll round the block, I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of these and probably in the dark most days so I'm not sure what the photography will be like. Today as I have a day off work it was daylight walking. I went a bit over the top and snapped three pictures.

Here are a couple of the local cuties that I spotted on the estate that I live on, and best of all at the end of a walk what more of a welcoming sight can be seen than this. Home sweet home, a home isn't a home without a kitty in the window! Pip was watching and waiting to say hello.Create Everyday

I started this self challenge yesterday. My Mum was an avid cross stitcher, I have two boxes of half completed projects that I hope to finish for her one day. I thought I was ready to make a start, this day two years ago was her last day with us, but somehow I still can't bring myself to reach out for either of the boxes that are patiently waiting for me high up on a shelf.

Before I started quilting and then expanded into everything stitch I used to do a lot of cross stitch myself, I guess I caught the bug from Mum. i found one of my own half started projects when i was tidying the other day so thought it would be a good thing to take up. Hopefully it will encourage me to dip into Mum's things and cross stitch is also a good thing to do in front of the TV when you can't concentrate on anything else so hopefully it will be a good thing to fall back on for my create everyday challenge. This is my UFO as I found it on Monday.

After a few hours stitching here is what it looks like now.
A close up of the new edition.
I'm not going to show a picture of what the finished piece will look like, co if you don't already know the kit you will be able to watch it grow with me. There is a tonne more stitching to do and I had forgotten how long it takes to cross stitch even a few inches so this is probably not going to be complete until next Christmas!

Wow this has turned into a mammoth post, if you made it to the end thanks for reading. With my new self challenges and a couple of other Internet challenges that I will be taking part in in 2008, I hope it will be a busy and productive year with lots of blogging to come!