Nic’s Weblog

I give up. I just spent a verrrrry long time trying to fix the layout on the last post. Of course what shows up in the screen is nothing like the visual box of the editing screen, nor in any way resembles the html code I try to write to force the layout to how I want it.

So, sorry for the mess. At least the pics are there. I think I’ll need to change my theme to one that doesn’t create such huge havoc.

Ok, so what have I been working on over the last 12 months?  Well there was a crocheted shawl for my Granny, which I of course forgot to take a photo of before I shipped it off.  Then there was the dino quilt that I posted of a few months ago.  I’ve since done a second dino quilt, in different colours, that I’ll post a pic of soon.

I’ve discovered the joys of knitting – basically because I want to do some lace knitting.  I finished off a scarf that has been in the works for ages (not a slow job, I just got bored with just knitting and purling), all I have left to do is to stitch in the yarn ends.

Now I’ve started a lace knitting project, but not just any… estonian lace.  I think I had to restart this about 6 times, but I’ve got the hang of it now

As for stitching, well I started Rhapsody in Red when I first arrived in Cardiff. This is a pic that I thought I had posted back in July/Aug last year. But since I apparently didn’t, here you go.

And HAEDs… I’ve done some work on Stella and Pumpkin Pixie.

And then the other month I picked up and old WIP, since this year I plan to finish off things rather than just keep starting them.

And at the moment, I’m working on Blackstone Garden

So that’s you all caught up. For the rest of the month, when I’m not knitting I’ll be stitching on Blackstone Garden. Looks like I might have a stitching finish this year after all.

I’ve just come in to my blog for the first time in ages, and I’ve been looking back over the infrequent posting I’ve done.  It’s been even worse than I thought.  There are some posts that apparently I just did in my head as there is no evidence of them here

Like a post telling people I was heading off to start a new life in Cardiff.

And the post a few months after I got here that had stitching pics.

Well, of course none of them are there and my first post since I moved here was back in March by the looks.  So I now have a few pics of what I’ve been working on since I moved here.  They’ll come in the next post – but don’t worry the next post will be written after I’ve posted this one, it’s not like I’ll make you wait another couple of months.

So, I’ll try to write more posts, more frequently, and have less of them in my head alone 

I mentioned in my last post that I’d been busy quilting.  Well below is the first one completed.  I’m raffling this off to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.  I’m even selling tickets online, so if you know anyone who’d love this quilt, send them over to my fundraising page to buy a ticket, at only £1 each

Isn’t it cute!  I must admit that after finishing this off that last thing I want to do is give it away.  So I’m trying to sell between 200 and 500 tickets so that it doesn’t hurt as much.  Vicky will recognise some of this fabric, she bought some of it for me a few years ago to make into a cot blanket for my nephew.  Since that didn’t happen I decided to go scrounging for more fabric to make it into a larger quilt to raffle off.  Unfortunately this fabric is discontinued so I was ordering it in from several corners of the globe.  I’m really proud of my first effort at completely making a quilt from scratch.

Has it really been that long since I have posted?  Eek!  I actually have a post written that just needs the photos taken and everything typed up.  I wrote it on paper one day – can’t remember what I should have been doing instead, probably listening to a seminar

I haven’t actually done any stitching for months.  I’ve been so busy doing other things instead.  I remembered in December that I had the first 3 books from Janny Wurt’s Alliance of Light series that I hadn’t read yet.  Of course since it’s been a few years since I had read the trilogy that came before, I had to reread those too.  So I worked my way through 6 books, bought the 7th in Jan and gobbled that one up too.  And I picked up the last one on Sat on my way to the plane.  Weekends seem to disappear on me when I have a good book, let alone a good series standing by.

I’ve also been doing some quilting.  The fast way though – on a sewing machine.  The reason for this is that I am planning on making 2 – 3 quilts over the next few months and raffling them off to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.  I’ve signed up for one of their world experience fundraisers and I have a minimum of 2,200 pounds to raise for it.  Some of that goes towards the trip costs so I’m putting in my own money and time to make quilts to help raise some money.  I’ve already done one quilt top and started the second.  I’ll post photos at the weekend.

Oh and I’ve started trying to organise a rubber duck race for the same cause.  I’ll tell you more about that another time.

But what I mainly stopped in here for today is that I’m having a break at a conference (free wireless – yay!) and was checking up peoples blogs.  Of course because I’ve been hibernating so long, I had to go and find out what a chart looked like – uh oh.  Now I remember why it has been so easy not to buy any new charts for such a long time… I haven’t been looking at them  Just a quick look at the new charts of HAED and I’m sunk.  And I haven’t even looked up the ones I went there for yet.  So far I’m sunk on: rainbow dragons (of course), as well as Felis and Tigris (surprise, surprise), and then I stopped myself from looking because, hey, I could get myself in serious trouble.

I have started another blog that is on my life in the UK.  I still have a few blogs that are typed in a word document and just waiting for me to paste into wordpress and add the photos.  I hope to finish those off this weekend when I get home.  But if anyone wants to go and see it in its ‘work in progress’ state, with just some posts there, you can find it here.  Part of the reason behind the name is I was planning on picking up a cute little red dragon ty-beanie baby and taking it everywhere as a travel toy.  Still haven’t got one though (well, bought several, just sent them all off to other people), but I will definitely have one ready for my next trip.

Ok, so I’ve gone from no posting to one massive one with no photos so I’ll end this here.  Fingers crossed I’ll blog again this weekend (after I’ve had lots of sleep).

I’ve been on holidays for the last week so that means I have had lots of time to get some stitching in.  Added to the previous week where I actually took time of an evening to do some stitching – not something I have done much of for a while.  I’ve started picking up a project on Sunday and working on it for a week, so I have progress on two WIPs to share.

First up is Pumpkin Pixie.  I got a stack done on her – mostly trees and background though.  I had to leave the very light colours of an evening because they were so hard on the eyes which is why so much of the dark tree was stitched on the next page without the first one being finished.  The photo is not the best but it shows what I’ve done.  

And to show just how much I got done in one week (ok, there was a sunday, anzac day and a good part of saturday put into this), I’ve added a photo of the chart pages to photobucket.  The dark green is all I did last week.

Then last Sunday I started Blackstone Garden.  I really wanted to do it on fabric I already had rather than buy more in – especially as I had bought some of Vikki’s linen for it but those two just didn’t work.  So I went for Pansy (see previous post).  It’s 28ct, so the crosses seem very large and it was strange stitching such large crosses after a week of 28ct over one, but it was also a nice break on the eyes.  I had to stitch some of it more than once since I apparently forgot how to count but I had great fun working on it.  Here it is after a week of work on it.  If you want to see the colours a little better, I have a close-up of earlier in the week too.

Ok, while I haven’t done much stitching in the last 12-15 months, I do have some progress. There were some days where I just went on strike and did some stitching – mostly weekends or evenings. And of course, after I submitted my PhD I was able to get a bit more time in (when I wasn’t sleeping or looking and applying for jobs). So on with the piccies….

First we have Mystery X and Cirques. Managed to get Part 2 finished just last week on the former. And I went back and put the beads and crystals in for parts 1 and 2. Even made a start on Part 3 and got a good chunk of it’s beads in too. I’m all beaded out now though, so I won’t be picking it up again for a few more weeks.

The colours aren’t too good in the pic for cirques, but at least you can see how much I’ve done and have a small idea of colours. Although, the fabric is not actually blue.

Next some HAED progress. There’s a new start this year (Drac’s Leaf) and more progress on Stella. I’ve finally reached her face.

And I’ve been buying some silks. So now I want to start Blackstone. So what colours to do. I tried to take some pics of different floss tosses, but most of the scans and photos didn’t really give a good idea of the colours. I bought mottled magpie tears (from Vikki Clayton) thinking it would be a good one (and 36ct too which is good), but it just wasn’t right. So I went through my stash looking at other colours. Here are a couple of them.

The green I’m using is Vikki’s Dragon Opal (jadeite and black) and the other is a velvet midnight/ultraviolet mix that I had her dye for me. Originally I was thinking of more of a grey blue background. The ones above are PTP pansy (left) which is obviously more purple and grey and the one on the right more green and grey/brown (not sure it’s name count or anything). Of course, the stitching show is coming up, I could always take my spools to see the gals from Stitches and Spice and see if they have some ideas.

Ok. So I have been slack. But I was doing something very important, at least for some of the time. And I have proof….

Ok, so some of you know I like turtles. I’ve been taking some photos of turtle log (well that’s what I call it) when I walk past it each morning. Thought I would share.

One turtle…

Two turtles…

Three turtles…

More…

Hehe, ok, not more turtles. But very cute.  I have been trying to get a photo of one of the little ducky families for a while now.  Here are the babies.  They were smaller than a tennis ball.

Well I got home today and here waiting for me was a lovely gift from Nancy. Yep, the halloween exchange from Nancy had arrived. And man, was I spoiled!

Didn’t I score! I’m really looking forward to using those gorgeous threads and fabric. Now, the stiching was only done in a week. How? I’m thinking Nancy is another octopus. Here is a close-up of her beautiful stitching.

I love the cats sooo much, and I really needed a needle book, how did she guess? Here is a pic of the other side of the scissor fob and the inside of the needle book.

Thank you Nancy! I love it all