Two Animals

Look what my friend, Katy, stitched for me:

Isn't he fantastic? It's Margaret Sherry's 'Cat-a-cello', (although I reckon it's more of a double bass....), and I think he's absolutely delightful and am thrilled to bits with him.=)

Here's the latest on the dog too:

Hoping (probably against hope) to have him done in another 2 weeks. Might make it, might not, but as that will take me to the 10th and I need to have cards ready for 14th and 16th, I would like to be able to get one finished and then press on with the others.

It's only 09:20, but I've already blitzed around doing the cleaning and am just about to get some work stuff prepared for class tomorrow, then it's on with the bow-wow's nose. I started it last night, but took it out again as I don't think it would have worked well that way. Need to finish the entire nose part and close up that whole gap by Friday in order to be done on time.

Knitting & Stitching Show 2006

I went to the Kintting & Stitching Show in Harrogate yesterday. It was great as ever! I wanted to do a couple of the Learning Curve practical projects, but the two I was interested in were sold out by the time I got there. I was rather disappointed, but no matter, I had an extra £12 to spend instead! I managed to earwig the first section of the 'Crazy Patchwork Bag' session and wrote down a few notes (borrowed a book from the library on the same sort of thing on Thursday too), and I went along right at the end of the 'Japanese Embroidery' session to see what they had been doing. I was quite glad I'd missed that one as I'd hoped that it would be a small piece that I would have been able to mount in a card, but they were working the first stages of a larger piece and she collected them in afterwards, so there was nothing to take away. The bag, however, I would have liked and am keen to try CQ as soon as I can.

So, here's the stash I bought: 2 Pearsalls' silk embroidery kits, one flatwork 'Bluetit Family' and one 'Stumpwork Poppy'. The model for the latter was incredibly beautiful, but the photo on the front of the kit is dismal! They'd never have sold a thing without the model and really need to re-do the kit picture. You can get them better than this because I've seen them on raised embroidery sites and newsgroups, (might send them mine as a suggested replacement once I've worked it!!). There were 2 lots of the threads missing from my kit, so I e-mailed at once to get them sent to me. Will report back as to how well they do on this score. I also got a Brazillian embroidery kit from Ed-Mar, which looks lucious! I have 2 courting couples in my circle of friends right now and I'm sure at least one, if not both, of them will marry and this kit will make a delightful ring cushion that's sure to do for one of them. More to one girl's taste than the other though and she loves things South American, whereas the other has quite simple tastes. As well as the kits, I got one skein of Anchor Coton à Broder, one freebie skein of Pearsalls' silk and 4 packs of Mill Hill beads.

I spoke to Tracey Franklin at her stand about the dog portrait. She stitched the model in the RSN's book and so I wanted to know if she found it challenging at all and she said some of it was rather hard, esp. as the stitches went in all different directions. So, I felt better for finding it hard if she had! She also kindly said that I must be quite good to attempt that, but I didn't like to say that it was the first piece of silk shading I'd ever done! I've done that lily since and the tiny strawberry flowers on 2 other things have used the same principles, but the dog is the ultimate and the first piece I tried. Talk about jumping in at the deep end! Well, I'll have to learn to take smalled steps in future. I did with other types of stitching, so why I'd to be so hard on myself with this one, I can't imagine! Twit!

Speaking of twits, whilst I was at Miss Franklin's stand, the funniest little man was there too! He was trialling some stitches on her hoop etc and, as I got there, was just enthusing about her giving him the whole piece of fabric, (probably trying to get rid of him). Shortly afterwards, it was clear how he was trying all ends up to impress us both and was saying that I ought to encourage my hubby to start stitching as it goes down well with the ladies and so on!! Well, a happily married man would hardly expect to be told how to go about getting into other ladies' good graces, how to chat them up in nightclubs, and that by his own wife!!!! It was clear this chap was on the pull and fancied his chances of meeting a nice stitching lady he could charm as he was there in his suit and tie, but he was late middle-aged, hadn't much hair and even told us that he spoke Icelandic to try and get some admiring response! I couldn't resist telling him I spoke Mandarin Chinese, to which he started to say something I thought must be in Icelandic because I hadn't a clue what he was saying at all. When he repeated it and looked almost accusingly at me, I realised that he was attempting to say 'how are you?' in Mandarin, but honestly, the pronunciation was so poor (and even one of the words totally wrong) that I thought he was showing off his Nordic skills! I said that I was sure poor Miss Franklin had had enough by then and took my leave, but I bet he was at least thinking I couldn't really speak Mandarin as I couldn't make out his rotten attempt!! What a character! I shall turn and run off if I see him there next year!!!!!!

Some Updates

And it's Monday again! Good-oh! I'm not very well today, but it seems to be only a 24 hour thing and I should be OK for my new Chinese classes 2nd session tomorrow tea-time. I've got loads of fun activities planned, so I'm quite looking forward to it. I would never have thought it, but perhaps teaching is for me after all.=)

So, here's the long over-due kitchen update photo. It still needs a window dressing (and the glosswork will be re-done when it's all done over the winter hols) and I plan to stitch that lovely blue tit and bird table design to go just above the cooker too. So, things to look out for the in the first half of next year, all being well. Hope you like progress thus far - it's certainly a lot brighter and less bottom heavy than it was, now that it's painted a nice lemon colour and has 2 shelves to house all my machinery.

Here's the doggie at present as well. I'm kinda enjoying doing him, but will be very pleased when he's done and I can get on with other things. Might do something on his this afternoon actually as I have an unexpected free afti owing to it being a good idea to rest up as much as poss. That's certainly true as I'm going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate on Friday and it would be an awful shame to mess that up, no?

Streuth! The new beta Blogger version might be quicker etc, but it adds in even more blank lines with photos than the old one did! Heavy use of 'preview' function recommended, and it's about time that was adapted to actually reflect what will appear too!

I'm back!

Good morning one and each!!!

Here we are home again. We came home about 18 hours earlier than planned, but we were both ready for home and would have just stayed one more night for the sake of it, so I'm glad we went with our feelings and drove home yesterday tea time instead of this morning. Slept better and more comfortably in my own bed anyway.=)

Had a nice trip though. We saw some lovely scenery and met some nice people too. I also got quite a bit of my dog portrait done and here's the latest update shot of him:


Click on it to get a full sized version, which looks a bit better than always this shrunk photo. You can see the stitches much better etc, (if it works, of course, which it didn't for me when I tried it, grrrrr). Anyway, I got quite into it and found it much easier going when I was enjoying it more. I'd hoped to have the 2nd cheek completed by the time we got home, but as I didn't stitch any of it for the last 2 days and we're home early anyway, I'm not slapping myself about it. Good news is that I should indeed be able to have it completed this month and that feels GOOD!=)