Suddenly Seeking..

Hey Everyone!

I hope that you all have great stitching plans for this weekend!

I am afraid that my stitching will be a little less in April (like i could do any less! haha) as I am taking part with 1400+ bloggers on the A to Z Challenge. I will be blogging once a day (except Sundays) and each post will have to be based on the letter of the alphabet that corresponds, so day 1 will be letter A and so on.

The lovely Evalina over at this and that is also taking part and has a really cool theme of ancient Egypt. My theme is very low brow and is Career Choices, or rather jobs I would like to have a go at!  I am sure you are all busy with stitchy blogs and the like, but if you get some free time and fancy reading something come and check out the blogs involved. If you click on the link to the right for my blog Suddenly Seeking it will take you there, scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a blogroll...its very long but the posts are all going to be short and hopefully interesting.

Well, that's my sales pitch done and without any emotional blackmail!

Bye for now!

Kate x

Sad Songs Blogfest March 30th 2012

Good Morning!

With two days till the A to Z challenge I thought I would have a practise run!

By checking out the blog A Faraway View I saw that he was participating in Sad Song Blogfest 30 March 2012 hosted by Spunk on a Stick.

Everybody SCREAM!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Morning everyone :D

I hope I didn't make you jump?

I seem to be very jumpy today!

Firstly, I was walking out of the office (I start quite early) and the corridor outside the door had the lights off. The door is automatic and as it swung open, a lovely lady was there who I work with and she said "Hello", I don't know what planet I was on but I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin, in reaction to my scream she started screaming! pmsl

Secondly, I was working away on my computer when a guy I work with stopped by my desk on his way in, he said "Morning" and  I looked at him and screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin! He just stood there looking completely shocked. He only wanted to ask if I was feeling better! rofl

Suffice to say, I now have the giggles and cant stop sniggering to myself! hahaha

I guess I just need one more scream to round off the 'everything happens in threes's philosophy' and I am sorted.

My week with William

I am predicting the future these days.

Last week, I purchased a few new cross stitch books (about 5/6) in my quest for new ideas and I spotted a design that instantly made me rush to my stash and pull out a piece of bay leaf, 16ct aida, 12" x 20". I then sorted out the threads and I had most of them, but the ones I didn't have I have chosen replacements for. I started on it but decided that 2 over 1 wasn't going to provide enough coverage...so I tried 4 over 1, still not good enough and unlikely to produce the effect that I wanted.In the end I decided on a 6 over 1. I eventually, after unpicking all the test stitches, started on it. I am pleased so far and hoping that it wont take me too long to stitch.

Oh! What? Did I not mention what it was? Silly me, doh!

It is a bell pull design by William Morris. If you like his designs you will understand why I needed the coverage, his patterns always look better fuller and carpet-esque!

The books I got were;
Cross Stitch Designs from India 
Carol Phillipson
Cross Stitch Teddies
Joan Elliott
Cross Stitch Sentiments & Sayings (Cross Stitch (David & Charles)) Joan Elliott
The Art of William Morris in Cross Stitch Barbara Hammet
Cross Stitch Splendid Florals Marc Saastad
All Yesterday X Stitch Coll p/b Faye Whittaker

I am taking part in a blogging challenge. It is the A to Z Challenge and starts on 1st April until 30th April. You can follow my progress here. I would love for you to follow me :D If any of you are interested or are involved (let me know).

One week to go!

I cant believe that it is one week to go, I thought I had been so organised!

It turns out that my 'being organised' actually consists of me having written two blog posts already. Its just a shame I didn't write the ones that I need to do for whilst I am away. That is going to be my plan for this weekend.

And the award goes to...

Morning All!!!

I hope you all had a great weekend, lots of stitching? Iintend to check them all at as soon as I post this.  I need to post it as soon as possible as mostof the people I follow have more than 200 followers or have already beenawarded the Liebster Award! So lets get on with this…

In typical style, I have managed to only do a few stitchesthis weekend on an old WIP of African ladies – very disappointing but still,something is better than nothing, right? My good blogging friend over atKeebles World had lost her stitching mojo and it made an appearance thisweekend, so I am sharing her stitches too and I am sure she wont mind ;)

She has also kindly given me a Liebster Award! Whichdefinitely made me feel super guilty about the stitching, but very happy forthe award.  It turns out that there arequite a few rules about receiving this award and they are:

 The rules of the Liebster Award are:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who youfeel deserve to be noticed (see below)
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog. 

So as a follower of all things ruley..

I would like to thank Keiley at KeeblesWorld for nominating me for this award. She said such lovely things and hasbecome a great friend. I’m sorry about the Crunchies but I like to share mychocolate addictions J

I have copied an pasted the blog award  - check out the side panel on the right!

It has been very difficult to pick just five but here are myselections:

1. TammyK at Forthe Love of Cross Stitch

2. Topcho at Bla.bla.bla

3. Valentina at AlreadyForgotten

4. Shannon at A bit of this and that

5. Christina at Whilst Iris Naps

I nominate them all for being fabulous, having wonderfulblogs, beautiful stitching and being supportive.

Now, five things people don’t know about me…that is sotough, because I am a bit of a blabber mouth!

1. I can speak Frafra – an indigenous language of the Gurunepeople from the upper east region of Ghana.

2. My niece thinks that I am fun because although I am a grown up, I act like a child!!

3. I used to want to be a ventriloquist.

4. I once got lost in the West Bank of Gaza. 

5.  I am going to new York (1st time to usa) in 24 days!!!

Oh dear, must try harder! lol

Have a great week everyone.

Preparing for IHSW

Morning! (well, the picture above was taken yesterday morning - can you see the bridge?? No? I couldn't either, or the buildings just behind the tree)

I hope everyone is ready for IHSW this weekend...it will make up for the fact that I am not :)


I have been searching everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE for inspiration on what to stitch this week and I went through all my stitching books to see if anything grabbed my attention. It didn't but I did find a half finished piece of cross stitch in one of the pages. So I took that out and decided to finish it, but I have now and it means that I still have no clue for the weekend. In my search I went to a cross stitch shop and thought I would just buy a Kit regardless of the price, but none grabbed my attention and then I browsed online and still nothing, NOTHING I tell you! haha

Do you ever have your mojo but nothing calls out to you to be stitched?

I have spent a fair amount of this year complaining that I have lost my mojo and now its back and I've lost my inspiration, its so frustrating.Grr! But I do intend to hermit away anyway and see if I cant finish another WIP, if not by choice then by self-force. Sorry for moaning, oops.

Here is a pic of what the finished piece was supposed to look like...its by Joan Elliott and is taken from her book A Cross Stitcher's Oriental Odyssey. It means LOVE, awww.

My version was stitched on 18ct (I have just taken a really close picture) and I didn't add the band on the bottom or use gold as a frame or to outline the symbol. I had a big skein of shocking pink metallic thread and decided to use that too. It is about 3"x4" finished, and I intend to make it into a pomander. You wont see the holes then. Here is the pic I last took for my WIP page (which I don't have anymore) and how I found it in the book.

And here it is!!

I think it came out ok, but will look much better when I have finished it off as the pomander - I'm so girly, I think it needs ribbon.

Have a great weekend and for those in the UK, Happy Mothers Day!! I completely forgot, so stitching might be restricted on Sunday :)

Kate x

More Cake!

Hi All,

We've finally reached the big 40 on followers! How better to celebrate than some cake...yum...or rather some pictures of my mothers birthday cakes (all made by me and my sister)!

This is the cake she had on her birthday...100% chocolate....

These are the small cakes she had for the family tea.

And here is the cake that she had at her dinner!

I also need to apologise to Joyce because I completely forgot to take pictures of the yummy Chinese food! We were all too busy eating it - oops!

Here is a picture of the birthday girl with her cake and her two eldest granddaughters.

I hope you all had a busy weekend and are looking forward to IHSW this weekend :) I don't know what I will be stitching this weekend but I have good intentions...I am considering charting one of my flower photos....so watch this space....

Bye for now! I am off stalking :)

Kate

Are you ready?

Only 22 days to go until the start of the April Blogging Challenge 2012!

I am still very new to blogging and haven’t tried anything like this before. After having signed up to participate in the A-Z Challenge I started to have some doubts as to whether I would actually be able to do it. Then I decided that I shouldn’t start something by envisaging everything that could possibly go wrong,

Perseverance Pays!

Morning All!

Thank you for all the comments about my finished Geisha and to those of you who joined the discussion on accents :D

Today is my mothers 60th birthday and I finally got to give her the Geisha - she was very pleased, phew!

She also got to see her own framed stitching......and this is where the perseverance comes in....and the story goes a little something like this....



On my mothers 40th birthday her best friend bought her a cross stitch kit. It was a design of a teddy bear collage. The kit consisted of a piece of Aida with a printed background, some unsorted skeins of thread (DMC) and a black an white chart. It was an expensive chart (20 years ago!) and was made by DMC, her friend purposely bought a make she expected to be of quality. She also told her that when she finished it she would get it framed for her.

After sorting all the threads (sometimes fun) my mum began stitching. The kit turned out to be the worst kit ever made and even now I am always wary about buying a kit. Although the Anchor Horses kit really impressed me, exceptional value for money (as I got it in a sale), two fabric options, simple and clear charts (with and without the back-stitch on) and good quality threads.

What was wrong with the DMC Teddy Bear Collage....the printed back ground only had partial roses and was blurry and unclear, the pattern was wrong and adjustments had to be continuously made along the way, and there weren't enough threads! Seriously it was a nightmare. Despite all this my mum persevered and ended up making up a lot of the pattern as she went along. She also decided to stitch the background due to the poor printed version.


The only thing was...she ended up putting it down a lot. She would pick it up to stitch, get frustrated and put it down. She never stitched consistently over the years, and is quite a leisurely stitcher, but every couple of years she would get it out and stitch for a few hours each night. She never started any other stitching projects in between either - how many of us have become annoyed and put something down and started something new?? Whats that? No-one! lol She really does have a lot of patience.

Anyway, 19 and a half years later and just before Christmas she finished it! She gave it to her friend who had it framed and my mum opened it this morning.

All I can say is "WOW" - I am so proud of her for persevering with it, never giving up and never getting distracted by other projects.  I have a picture too, so you can all see what a great job she has done on it. Its about 18" x 24"! The small flowers on the bows and on the brown bears (top right corner) sash are done using speciality stitches and the picture really doesn't do it any justice. I wish I could find it again online as I wanted to know if anyone else had issues with this kit. Let me know if you did?

On another note...I went to see the preview of 21 Jump Street last night and it was brilliant! If you like comedies this should be on your list. Hardly any of the jokes are given away in the trailer and they are pretty much non stop throughout. I think it was better than Hangover and Bridesmaids, but go and see it and let me know what you thought of it.

And on another note...My sister has been busy baking cupcakes for my mum to take to work, here's a pic of the ones I got to bring to work to share with my girlies :D

And on a final note....my stitching this week has not happened, I am still deciding, none of my other WIPs are grabbing my attention and I am on the lookout - recommendations gladly appreciated, otherwise what will I stitch for IHSW the weekend after this?

Hope you all have a great day!

Kate x