It's Nearly Xmas!! More Stash Incoming =]

When I last posted I was trying to work out the symbols for one of my new kits but gave up, well  about a week after I must have spent about an hour or so trying to work them all out only to discover that I had a set of threads missing. so I Emailed the shop where I bought them from as I thought it could just be that I had to use 2 different colour stands when stitching for that symbol. They were ever so apologetic about the missing chart and send out one for me the next day. I wondered how many of the threads and symbols I had got right and it was all but 2 that I had gotten the wrong way around. Unfortunately I was actually missing one of the colours that I needed. 
As it was black Friday I thought lets have a look to see what crafts sites have on offer and I'll get the colour thread that I need, as I didn't have one or an equivalent one in my pokemon stash. Normally at this time of year I like to do a festive cross stitch design, but this year I've not been able to find one that I really like. I did end up buying a frame for my York cross stitch to make it easier for me to do (Unfortunately it was too small for that but was fine for my tiger kit). I also bought a rottweiler chart and everything for it from one site which is going to be one of my Xmas pressies off my partner, as it happens one of the threads in it was the missing colour from my York kit. My partner also bought me a Thomas Kinkade Disney cross stitch I don't know which one as I really couldn't choose which was my favourite.

I've not done much stitching since my last post, I've had a few late nights and I've been doing a big winter clean of the house ready for putting my Christmas decorations up which I was meant to be doing today, but got distracted by craft things :D 

So here's where I am:

My aim is to finish this page before Christmas, I am working a lot so I will have to see how far I get, hopefully if I don't finish the page I will be close to finishing. I do have the weekend after Christmas off so I'll be able to do some then, though it is very likely I'll start my other kits as well.

Happy Stitching Everyone and Merry Christmas =]

I'm Glad That's Over

Finally my night shifts are done! What started as being 7 nights I found out on the first night that it would be 8, then on what I thought we be my second to last night I found out that there would be another night for finishing small bits and cleaning. I cant describe how happy I was once they were over and done with. I had taken a few small kits with me to start if I ran out of things to do (which didn't happen), a few days in I got absolutely drenched going to work and all my kits got wet in my bag, so I had to laminate all of the designs so they didn't get damaged even more. Thankfully only some of the fabric was marked which I'm hoping will come out. I never actually had chance to start any of the kits I was just too busy doing other things.

I started writing this post straight after I finished my night shifts and its taking me a month to get round to finishing it and posting! As you can imagine this time of year in the world of retail is mental and its only going to get worse the closer we get to Christmas.

I decided I was going to start the kit that i bought from York only to find that I had to work out which symbols went with with colours myself and that was too much work for me to do at half 10 at night so i decided to start a kit that my sister had bought me for Christmas a few years before.

I've never had to stitch black on top of black before and boy was it hard, I must have only done about 30 odd stitches before I gave up. I really need to invest in a daylight lamp to make it easier for me when I'm stitching at night.

I've not really done much stitching on my Pokémon, to be fair I've not really done much at all other than work. I did try my hand at baking, lets just say if it was from scratch it didn't work out too well. with it being my day off today i thought i'd have a good tidy round and finally finish this post. After my night shifts i was here with my stitching.

I have done bits every now and then but I definitely did the most last night after talking to a couple of work mates over the past few days about my stitching and showing them pictures of the stuff that I've done. I'm currently stitching everyones favourite electric mouse Pikachu, its so much easier to stitch blocks of colour rather than only doing a few stitches here and there and having to change colour all the time.

That's all for now I'll try not to leave it so long between posts this time I know I've probably said that a lot but I am easily distracted. I do always keep up to date with other peoples projects on the Cross Stitch community on Google plus.

Happy Stitching Everyone!

Pokemon October Update

I had an absolutely brilliant time in York, went to an outlet village and didn't buy a single thing for myself it was either for the house or Xmas pressies (Yes I know I still have a few months yet). Spent a few days walking round a few museums some better than others one even had some cross stitch samplers from the 1800's.

One of the best thing about those days was when I was walking between museums I managed to find a little craft shop called The Viking Loom. In the window they had a selection of completed kits in frames, which was when I decided I wanted to get myself a kit that links in with my break away. So I went inside in was ever so small, I felt disheartened that I wouldn't find a kit I liked. I went through a little hallway which led to another room and then another, it was like an Aladdin's cave of wonders. I spoke to a very helpful assistant that showed me the kits from the window and other customer favourites, if I'd had a bit more spare money then I would have treated myself to a few more kits but instead I just stuck with the one. 

I do however need to get myself a new frame for it, so that's going to be the next thing that I'm going to buy for my stash as well as a daylight bulb to see if helps any more when I'm stitching at night.

Well back to the Pokémon, I've been stitching for an hour or so in the evening and I've finished two of the colours on page 7 you can already see a few new Pokémon taking shape and even have their eyes in already. This page actually seems bigger than the last, I haven't checked I think its because there's not much too it yet.

I definitely think I need more storage for my stash as the boxes I'm using at the mo are starting to over flow, I may have to find out where my mum bought these ones from so I can see if I can get anymore because I do like the tatty teddy bear on them and they're nice and colourful as well. After seeing a post about stitching on black aida I'm tempted to find something that is stitched on dark fabric to add even more kits to my stash. 

My night shifts start next week(They got pushed back a week)so stitching will definitely be put on hold but I'm still going to aim to do some. If things carry on as they have been with my blog I imagine I'll be posting again in about 2 weeks.

Page 6 complete now for the remaining 24

The day after my last post I was catching up on my notifications on Google, when I noticed my post on one page had be removed, no idea why, nothing that other people before me hadn't posted. So will have to see how long the next one lasts for, but thank you very much who ever it was for putting a downer on what was a good day.

Right moan over with!

I decided i was going to write my post as i went this past week or so i had written quite a bit edited it how i wanted just needed to finish the page of design i was on before finishing the post then my pc decided to crash and i lost everything and i cant for the life of me remember what i wrote. so i thought I'd do a quick recap of the last week or so.

So i finished watching doctor who, started American Horror Story then ran out of that as well not started anything new yet. I've had a few nights with the house to myself, forgot to get my alarm for work because i was that tired and not done too much stitching because I've been so busy. I've had about 4/5 small blocks of colour left to do on page six and its been that way all week but I've just been too tired to do any as I've had some really long days at work. I was out the house for over 12 hours on Thursday and then had to come home to have a very angry chat followed by a very angry phone call to my mobile provider.

I've finally finished Page 6 :D I've had a busy day cleaned the bathroom, hall and living room, rearranged the bedroom then even managed to fit in a bit of stitching before bed.

now I've done 6 of 30 pages and 20,412 stitches. I'm about to start page 7, I wont get much done next week though as I'm going away.

Now my aims for the next week:

• Make the most of my 10 days off before I start night shifts for 2 weeks;
• try not to spend too much money when i go away;
• Sort out some my completed kits and post some pictures of them seen as i didn't last time;
• to keep stitching.

Pokémon Update September 1

It's my day off so I thought I'd post again. I've been doing a couple of hours stitching a day once I've got home from work. the only day I haven't was last night because my sister stopped the night and we were playing on the Xbox. I even sorted my stash out into some funky storage boxes my mum bought me for Xmas, which fit rather nicely underneath my desk. I've also decided I need to get some smaller frames so I can have a couple of projects on the go for when I get bored of my Pokémon project.

So here's where I am on my Pokémon:

You can see where a few of the Pokémon are nearly finished mainly the pink ones (Nidoran, Nidorino and part of Nidoking), and even see the face of a couple above them (Oddish and Gloom). I've decided I'm going to make myself some targets for my week ahead so I have small things to aim for rather than the whole project which is rather large.

My aims for this next week are:

• To blog again on my day off;
• Sort out some my completed kits and post some pictures of them;
• Maybe order a new frame;
• and of course to keep stitching, hopefully finishing page 6 :)

I'm Back...For Now At Least

I've been gone for a good few months, stitching took a back burner so I didn't blog anything. I have done some stitching, I treated myself to some new kits in an Easter sale, all of them Woodland Folk Kits. I completed a mini kit of Sally Squirrel (pictures to follow). But that was only after catching up with all the posts I'd missed on the Cross Stitch Community and that was all i needed to give me the motivation to carry on stitching. 

One of the main reasons I stopped stitching was because I got a promotion at work, (yay go me!) so all I seemed to do is get up, go to work, come home, have tea fall, asleep on the sofa, go to bed and then repeat it all again the following day. I've decided that I need to try and make the time to do some stitching even if its only for an hour or so a week, so over the past 2 days I've been stitching whilst having a Doctor Who marathon and spending some time with my sister. Which is exactly what I'm doing as I'm writing this :D

So now for some pictures of Sally Squirrel:

 

 

I've also been working on my Pokémon
 project over the past couple of days as well.

So here's to hopefully more stitching :D

Pokémon April Update 3

Stitching whilst tired is never a good idea. Not long after starting stitching on Tuesday, after a couple of small blocks of colours I realised that I had missed a row of the design out of the background colour. At first I thought it's no big deal i can just add it in as it was only two stitches. It was only when I carried on stitching in black that I realised that I would have to unpick everything from above my mistake, as it was now too far down on the design.

I've also realised that because i started from the bottom of the whole design rather than the top, that each page of design has about 500 more stitches than the ones I have already done. In hind sight I would definitely recommend starting from page 1 of the design rather than doing what I have done.

After I sorted out my mistake I finished all of the black stitches on the page, so you can kind of see some of the Pokémon already.

As there is a lot of black stitches all over this page of the design it makes it easier for me to complete all of one colour at a time rather than having to stop and start as I move up the design.

I had the day off today, and I've had quite a productive day. I've painted my bathroom, cut the lawn and even sorted out some shoes(not thrown any out much to my fella's disappointment :D). After all of that I decided I wanted to have a lazy rest of the day so I did some stitching whilst watching criminal minds again. I've been writing bits of my blog through out the week so I could just add a few more pictures and write a bit more then get back to the stitching. :D

Pokémon Page 5 of 30 Complete

Woohoo! I've actually stuck a time scale I set myself and even beat it. I had planned to finish off page 5 of the design by the end of the week and I've managed to finished it on the Monday. Might have something to do with the fact that I had a couple of hours to kill last night whilst waiting for the new season of Game of Thrones to start. 

What I think has helped a lot with this page is that there was only two Pokémon to stitch, so there was a lot less colours that I had to stitch and all were in big chunks of the same colour. There was a couple of occasions when I missed one or two stitches when they weren't close to the big chunks so I was constantly having to find out that colour again and fill it in. There was even one occasion where i missed a couple of stitches practically next to most of the colour.

I definitely think I'm on a roll with my stitching at the moment and hopefully I can carry this on. I've completed 16,384 stitches so far and hope to add a lot more to that soon =]

Pokémon April Update 1

Over the past week or so the amount of stitching I've done on my Pokémon kit is brilliant for me, making the most of my time off once I felt better and completing my mini kit. I've completed the 4th page of the design, most of what was left was little fiddly bits of a couple of stitches for lots of different colours.

Over the past couple of days I've been working on the 5th page of the design working from the bottom up, one colour at a time. I've probably completed about 5 or 6 of the colours on the page. Which is about half of Blastoise, a water type Pokémon. He's the evolved form of Wartortle, and the final evolution of Squirtle. He's number 9 in the original Pokédex.

You can see in the photos as Blastoise starts taking shape, filling up and taking up most of this page. I think I've completed about half of the 5th page, which hasn't taken very long to do. 

Once I've finished this post I'm going back to my stitching. I'm hoping to have finished this page in a week or so, providing I don't get very distracted by something, which will most likely be the TV and the Game of Thrones (I'm a bit hooked at the moment). 

Mini Kit Completed

After a week plus of feeling ill and several days of doing nothing but sleeping I've finally managed to finish off the mini kit I got free in a magazine. I only had the back stitch left to do, but I always find that the most annoying part of the kit especially when there's a lot of little fiddly bits to stitch.

I would have probably finished it off last week if it wasn't for me having to move things from my parents house on my days off then feeling really ill over the weekend.

Some of the pictures aren't really that clear, but you can see how the kit developed as I stitched more and more of it. I'm glad I decided to do this kit and working on such a big kit most of the time you don't get that feeling of accomplishing anything. Stitching something small gives me that without taking up too much of my time. So, all that's left is to mount it to the card that it came with and decide who I'm going to give it to and for what reason. Now back to stitching Pokémon until I decide to do another mini kit or even a full size one =]

Pokémon and New Project March Update 1

So once again I'm a bit late on posting an update. Over a week late to be precise, I do have good reasons for this as I started a mini project that I got free in one of my magazines and I had wanted to get it finished before I posted anything. Unfortunately its taken longer than I planned as I only seem to work on it whilst I'm watching TV. 

The only reason I actually started the free kit was  because I went round to visit my parents after work one day and they were out doing the shopping. So whilst I waited I decided I might as well pass the time by started the kit in my new magazine. All I actually managed to get done before they got home was sort out all the different coloured threads.

When I was back at my house I ended up forgetting all about it and doing some more of my Pokémon. I had hoped I would manage to finish off the page I was on, but most of the stitches that are left are lots of different colours with a couple of stitches for each. My aim for my next update for my Pokémon project is to have the page finished.

The mini project I am working on, was the free gift in issue 214 of the World of Cross Stitching magazine. Its a card with a picture of a cat sat in a plant pot with a bird and a flower. Its nice working on something that only has a few colours to use rather than over a hundred. I've nearly finished the plant pot, then I'm going to make a start on the cat.

Fingers crossed I do get time to do some stitching next week, as I have a busy week moving the rest of my things from my parents house. It's only taken me over a year to do it :D Thanks for reading =]

Pokémon Feb Update 3

I did have every intention of making Mondays my post day for my updates for my Pokémon WIP. 
This week I ended up working the late shift at my job and I didn't get home until late so I practically went straight to bed as soon as I got in. 

I thought no big deal I'll just post tomorrow when I get home from work. Once again that didn't happen because I fell asleep. No idea why, because I wasn't even that busy at work. So here I am only 2 days later than planned updating you all on how I'm getting on. Even this nearly didn't happen because my Internet crashed and most of what I had written hadn't been saved. Hopefully I will be just as happy when I rewrite it.

I've slowly been seeing less and less white spaces in the section that I'm working on and I can slowly start to see it filling up and Pokémon beginning to take form and become recognisable. One of the best parts of my week was showing my friends at work my progress pictures and seeing the amazement on their faces of what I have completed so far.

Normally, when I post a picture its after I have completed all the stitches in a certain colour in the section I am working on, so there is no threads in the way. This time I have decided that I want you all to see where I am as I post, rather than where I was however long ago.

I've currently been working on Wartortle. He's a water type Pokémon and the evolved form of Squirtle. In the first generation of Pokémon games he is number 8 in the Pokédex(Kind of a dictionary of Pokémon for those of you that don't know what that is).

So there you go, thank you all for reading this and I hope you all have a great week :D

Pokémon WIP Feb Update 2

So I've had the last week off work, I started with the intention of finishing decorating my bedroom, sorting out some bits and doing some stitching, lots and lots of stitching.

The week started off well with me putting another coat of white paint on the walls but that was about as far as I got with the decorating. I did however manage to sort out a lot of my stuff, the downside to this was bring up even more stuff from my parents house, which has just been left in my hallway.

At the beginning of the week I didn't get much stitching done, but I started to do more towards the end of the week until I got my valentines present (a new game for my Xbox). Over the weekend I've tried to split my time between playing my game and stitching, not very successfully may I add. 

So here's where I am at the moment.

When I look at how much I've done compared to other people, I start thinking god I'm slow and I've got too many distractions. But then I remember that although it doesn't look like a lot in pictures it is actually quite a lot of stitches that I have completed seen as I'm using 14ct Aida.

I'm going forward into this next week, with the plan of continuing my stitching and playing games in fairly equal amounts and then maybe next weeks update will have a bit more to show :D

I would like to end this weeks post by saying thank you to all of you that have read my post or even just visited my page. Remember to do what you enjoy and make the most of life. 

Thanks again!

I'm Back at Last

So its been quite a while since I've posted anything, its mainly because I hadn't had time to do much stitching with being so busy at work and I just wasn't in the mood to do any stitching so all my stitching was put on a back burner. I did treat myself to some new kits with some money I got for X-mas, a couple of them are mini kits so that should be ok to satisfy my need to finish something.

I started stitching again a week or so ago and i thought i would wait until now before posting anything new. my reason behind waiting was that it was a year ago that I first started my Pokémon WIP. I had hoped that i would have completed more of it, but last year was a bit of an unlucky one so a few days after I started it I didn't touch it again for a few months.

So a year on I've completed 3 out of 30 pages and have done over 10,000 (not sure how many exactly with being in the middle of a page)stitches out of over 115,000. 

So here's to the second year of stitching this and hopefully getting more done than the last =]