ISHW rolls around again…

…I’m not quite sure how much stitching I’m going to get done.

I’ve started another cross stitch card which doesn’t need much stitching to be finished

The caption on this is going to be ‘Sent with Love’, so it can be sent to anyone 🙂 However, I’ve got a bike training day on Saturday, and my PhD work is getting rather frantic, so my Sunday will probably be spent working…We shall see.

Also, I’m in Oxford for a few days, and I’ve found a few yarn shops to visit tomorrow. I wonder how much I’ll spend…I always need more sock yarn 🙂

ISHW the third

Once again, ISHW has been sprung upon us. This time, it corresponds with the clocks going forwards into BST for British stitchers, which means either an hour less stitching or an hour less sleeping (which might lead to visits from the frog…)

I’ve been busy knitting recently (more on that later), so there hasn’t been much progress on any of my cross stitch pieces. My main piece, the butterfly, looks like this

I’m hoping that a weekend spent stitching (and watching The Mentalist, which might involve frog visits…) will re-awaken my desire to see it finished already!

And if I get bored of the butterfly, there are still lots of cards to stitch, including a Graduation card for my sister, who is graduating this year 🙂

so what will you all be stitching on this weekend?

A second successful ISHW

Hello everyone! I hope that your weekend was as productive and awesome as mine, whether you took part in ISHW or did anything else. I spent the Saturday (around taking the bike back to the shop again, and going food shopping!) stitching on the butterfly. And the border is more than half-way finished now(the bottom part is half way done, and the top more than)! Yay! I cannot wait to see this finished!

Then, on Sunday I was struck by my conscience of ‘I’m doing a Phd, so let’s do it already!’,and so I spent a fair few hours working. I did get quite a bit of stitching done as well- I did a smidgen more on my butterfly, before remembering that Mother’s Day is coming up (it’s March 15, for those in the UK), and therefore I should maybe start making a card for my mum (quick question: how do people keep track of various holidays necessitating cards? I would love to hear about any way you remember?)…Which naturally necessitated a look through my big book of cross stitched cards.

Big mistake. Half an hour later, I escaped from inside there. There are just so many pretties, I want to make them all! The Mothers Day cards are right at the beginning, so at least I’m not in danger of ‘falling in’ again! I’m planning a quite simple pattern- just a flower in a glass of water. I’ve made a good start already, and I’ll be concentrating on this until it gets finished 🙂

Also, I recently got this utterly adorable miniature scroll frame 🙂 And I think it needs a name- any ideas? My hoop is called Lark, from the Circle of Magic books, where the character who has control of thread +weaving etc is called Lark. I’m thinking that I would like to use another female character from another book/series for this scroll frame (my two ‘normal’ sized scroll frames don’t have names… maybe they should as well). Does anyone have any ideas? Or maybe you name your props as well? I would love to hear what you’re names for things are, as well 🙂

As well as all my stitching, I’ve been doing quite a lot of knitting, but I’ll update all of that later on in a knitting post, rather than derail this stitching one 🙂

Also, I’ve been nominated (again) for the Liebster award. I’m not going to go through the whole rigmarole again, but thanks to The Redhead Stitcher for nominating me! I’m very happy that she did, her blog looks awesome. And she has regular book reviews, which is awesome since my local library recently reopened, and I want to start using it more.And again, I would love for all my followers to accept it and answer the questions I posed in the previous post 🙂

ISHW weekend

So, another ISHW is incoming! (Don’t worry, I only just remembered now as well!). This weekend, I will be working primarily on my butterfly

I would love to have this one finished soon! I can’t wait to frame it and hang it up somewhere 🙂 But…the border needs finishing first, so onwards!

I may also do some more work on my ‘love is’ piece 🙂 It’s coming along very nicely

They’re really my main pieces for now, until one of them gets finished (I wonder which one will get finished first?)

ISHW weekend- what I did

So, this weekend just gone was ISHW so naturally I just battened down the hatches, and got to it.

On the Saturday, I decided to stitch a card for my friend, who is going through a bit of a rough time right now, and (amazingly enough) I finished it in 1 day! I’m pretty chuffed about that 🙂

The writing says ‘If friends were flowers, I’d pick you!’. It’s from the same chartbook as all the flower fairies I’ve been stitching. I used beads rather than all the confetti stitches that are supposed to be on there(the flower buds that are scattered throughout), I didn’t fancy starting and ending 3 colours for 4 stitches without having anywhere else close by to start/end threads. *Fingers crossed* that she likes it 🙂

Then, on the Sunday I picked up my butterfly piece. I’d been working on it throughout the week as well, so this is where I started.

Then… Mr Frog came to visit. It was a very dignified meeting, there were no tantrums, no tears, just me calmly unpicking the border, and telling him that he’d better not show his face here again for about a decade…

After that, I couldn’t stand the sight of this piece any more, so away it went and out came a new piece- a ‘Love is’ kit from DMC. There isn’t enough of that to show you all yet (I can’t get a decent photo of pink on white!), so that’s going to have to wait until I’ve done more for a photo!

This week I think I’m going to concentrate some more on my knitting. I did a bit yesterday on a train to Sheffield and back, but again, not enough for a photo. Maybe this Saturday…?

ISHW weekend

so I am going to spend as much time as possible stitching away, and I refuse to feel guilty about it 🙂

I’ve got a card I want to make for a friend who’s going through a bit of a rough time, and maybe do some work on my butterfly.

See you all the other end 🙂