A long hiatus

Yes, it's been longer than I can even think about since I last blogged. My life has taken another turn of events and I apologise now that this post may be a little long, a little rambly and there may even be a healthy smattering of photos!

I left my old job at the end of January and much as I was sad to say goodbye to the people, I wasn't sad to leave the company - it was definitely time to move on. I started my new job at the hospital on the first day that the UK was covered by its worst snow in 20 years! I think it took me nearly 2hrs to get to work for my induction and they were very kind to us and let us go by about 2.30 in the afternoon. I've been there for 5 weeks now and am working with a great team - the other HR Advisors are all very experienced and have much knowledge between them. I'm sure I'm going to learn lots from working alongside them. I've been involved with a few of their cases and eventually I will have casework of my own. I think I'm going to like it :o)

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, my sister, who works as an administrator in our church office, emailed me at work to tell me about some accommodation that was going to be advertised in the weekly church bulletin and that she thought it might be suitable for me. It was a little further from work than I had wanted, but looked nice from the photos my sister sent and she arranged for us to go and see it that evening. It's an unusual setup, to say the least. The owner, Mary and her husband, spend most of the year out in Madagascar, working for a Christian organisation and are abroad for 4-6 months at a time. They own a big cottage in the Sussex countryside, in a very quiet and peaceful village. Mary's husband (a builder) has extensively renovated the cottage in the 20yrs they have been there. Next to the cottage is a large building, which was originally some outhouses and a few years ago, they totally renovated them into a studio house for their daughter to live in, who subsequently went off to uni 200 miles away and decided she didn't want to live in it. They then began letting it to help pay the bills whilst they were out in Madagascar. The deal is that all bills are included in the very reasonable rent and the tenant also feeds their elderly cat - Joy. Joy is 18, going blind and deaf and is very sweet. The tenant also needs to make the main cottage look lived in - turning lights on & off etc. I went to view it and fell in love with the place, so just a few days ago, I moved in and here I am!

This (l) is the studio (the taller part at the front is a garage) and the strange black stuff on the ground is covering vegetable patches. There are many fruit trees in the garden (which I also get to use) and I can help myself to as many fruit and vegetables as I like!

(r) An inside main view. There's also a separate bathroom and LOTS of storage areas, even for all my stitching stash! The pink and blue throw on the chair is made by the villagers Mary teaches crafts to in Madagascar.

So at long last, I have a beautiful little home of my own. It's early days yet and I'm still settling in, but I'm looking forward to being here all through the lovely summer days coming up.

There has been a smidgeon of stitching going on, but hopefully when I'm more settled, there will be much more! I finished another page on Snow Princess & the Polar Bear:

and there's even been a tiny bit of progress on Midnight Hunting (I finished off the lower part of his wing):

That's it for the moment I think! I will attempt to catch up with blogs over the next few days and my apologies if I haven't visited yours in a while. Have a great weekend folks!

Happy New Year!

Well, 2007 is finally here. What are your plans... stitching or otherwise this year? I have a feeling it's going to be a good one ;o)

I plan on finishing Midnight Hunting, Egyptian Sampler and Watergarden. I'd like to stitch a few smaller projects inbetween stitching on the larger ones this year so that I have a few more finishes. I only had 2 finishes in 2006 - Celtic Spring and Mabel & Bee! Eeek! Definitely need to finish more this year.

I've got a wonderful new year gift from my Dad which I pick up on Friday - a new car! :o))))) Well, it's not actually new, but it is much newer than my current one. It's a mere 8 years old, compared to 18. Its a lovely bright red Nissan Micra & I'm very excited to finally get a car with power steering, lol!!

I have put down Midnight Hunting for a while. My brother was kind enough to take a decent photo (think he even managed to pick up the sparklies in the fabric!) for me when I was staying with him & SIL over the weekend:

I've reached burn-out on Duncan, so need to stitch on something else for a while. I've picked up my Chatelaine Watergarden which I haven't stitched on for over a year, so I'm hoping to get alot of stitches in this time! :o)

I'd like to wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2007 and I look forward to reading everyones blogs this year. Happy 2007!

Stitching pics & my Dad's in hospital!

I couldn't think what to call this post, so its pretty self explanatory. First of all, I've managed to hook up the scanner at long last & have scanned Forest Goddess:

Her skin is stitched over 1. Sorry for the quality of the pic, I'm afraid its not very good, but its better than nothing! I've also scanned my Dracolair Duncan draggie:

That is as much as I could fit on the scanner! I've finished the whole border now, with the exception of the backstitch and started on his wing which I'm very excited about!!

I've been absent from most of my online haunts recently due to Dad spending the last 2 weeks in hospital. After his fall his kidneys totally failed and his GP managed to get him a bed in the Renal ward where he has been ever since. He was very ill indeed, but thankfully now is doing much better. He's had 5 lots of dialysis now which has shifted all the fluid that had built up on his legs & made him so uncomfortable. He should be going home either tomorrow or the day after, which is fantastic news. I'll bet the kitties will be very pleased to see him home again. One of his neighbours has been feeding him all the days I've not been able to get over which I'm really thankful for. In the midst of this my car has died too & I just don't have the funds to repair it right now, so I'm relying on good old public transport & my family when they can to get over there.

We had a catastrophe this morning, but looks like we have prevented a total disaster... I decided to take out a couple of my finished stitching pieces to have a look (to remind myself that I can occasionally finish things!) and as I did I found mould on the wall in the corner where I keep all my stitching! I unrolled a couple & they seemed to be ok, but then I unrolled 2 of my Miras - Royal Holiday & Petal Fairy to find them with grey patches here & there. Not too much on Petal, but RH had loads :o( Several of my other pieces also smelt really damp & musty. I also found mould on my '3 Little Kittens' piece. I'm glad to say that I've re-washed them today & they are now all looking pristine once more. It was a very worrying time this morning, but I'm glad that I discovered it now & not in a few months time when it would have been much, much worse. My 4 seasonal queens, whilst not mouldy are rather musty so I'm re-washing them too. On 3 of them the fabric seems to have discoloured. I'm 99.9% sure that I used antique white jobelan for all 4 of them, but Autumn Queen's fabric seems much brighter than the other 3. Andy's going to buy me a large art portfolio for Christmas so I can store them all flat inside, inbetween layers of acid-free tissue paper of course. I would have been truly heartbroken if all my cross stitch stash had been ruined - all those hours of stitching for nothing! I'm so relieved it's all ok. :o)

Stitching goals

I pretty much achieved what I set out to do for my April stitching goals:-

I completed the gold border outline of Egyptian Sampler:

I started & finished another corner Moon panel on Midnight Hunting:


And I finished stitching Titania's headress and added a little to the bottom of her dress:

My goal for May is to finish page 1 of Snow Princess & the Polar Bear which I started in April 2005, stitched half a page of & hadn't picked it up since! I've been gazing at some of the beautiful HAED WIPs around recently, so thought I should pick one of mine up & follow suit!

Life has been pretty quiet, although we did go to my nephew's wedding last weekend (photos in my Webshots album). It was a great day, although one of my BIL's fell down a staircase in the dark & broke his wrist :o(

Other than that I've had some car trouble, but nothing that a good service wouldn't sort out & after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing my little motor has now been serviced & is ok, although they've picked up a few things that might be picked up on the MOT next month :o(((

I've got a day to myself today so am hoping to get stitching a bit of blue on Snow Princess (boy, I really didn't realise there were so many blues before!).

Stitching Goals for April

I've seen this on many other blogs & thought it might be a good way to inspire me to work on a few of my WIPs!
Titania:
To finish hair/flowers in hair & continue with her dress.
Midnight Hunting:
To start & complete one of the 2 remaining corner moon panels.
Egyptian Sampler:
To finish stitching gold coloured part of border/frame.
I don't seem to get a great deal of stitching time right now so even those 3 goals will be a challenge for me, though achievable if I set my mind to it!

Well, I really couldn't resist the new Passione Ricamo design 'The Night' - it is totally utterly breathtakingly gorgeous! Once I can afford a little splurge on a larger piece of hand dyed fabric, I will definitely be starting this amazing design. Laura's designs seem to be getting better & better so I can't wait to see what she has coming up in the future.

I've been working today & things were really busy. I ran my first company induction, although I had assistance as there were 11 new people starting, whereas normally there's around 2 or 3. I used to run huge inductions when I worked in HR before, although that was around 4 years ago so I felt a little nervous first thing. It's awful when I'm nervous as I start to get my words all mixed up! It went ok though & I'm sure that with a bit of practise it will be fine & I'll feel much more comfortable with it. I had so much to do though today & was mainly on my own, so only managed a 10min teabreak early on! I had been planning to leave early, but there was just too much to do. Inductions always generate a great deal of paperwork plus I had lots of other things to keep me busy. Thankfully Andy was off today so had been busy at home & cooked me a lovely dinner for when I got in. :o) I've got a lovely relaxing day of doing nothing tomorrow, so am planning to get to work on my stitching goals!

Back once more...

Hello everyone! I promise to be a good girl this year & update my blog far more regularly, especially now I'm back online. I can't believe I've been without a PC for 6 months! I'm back to being on dial-up for the time being though which is very sllllloooooowwwwww indeed :o(

My life is still in various forms of disarray - I split up with Andy, however we are still the best of friends & in some ways things are nicer, but I found it really hard to cope with for a while. People still presume we're a couple as we're both still very affectionate & go out places together. I'm still living with him, enjoying the sea air near Brighton & I also have a new job in Worthing, which is about 10 miles away. I've gone back to my previous career as a Human Resources assistant. This time I'm working at a large department store & my boss is lovely! I've been there for just over 3 weeks & am enjoying it, although it's hard going back to working full days as there's not as much time for stitching! It's interesting work though & my manager is excellent at training & development, so watch this space :o)

Things are still quite hard with my Dad. I didn't see him for a couple of months but we're back in contact now so I'm playing it by ear really.

I'm afraid to say my stitching has been a bit off and on, though I have nearly finished Celtic Spring, bar the beading, I've been doing the borders on Midnight Hunting & now I've started Titania too. I seem to have become a bit ostrich about all my WIPs if you know what I mean! I've suddenly realised how many WIPs I have & I'm feeling a bit daunted by them so want to try & finish a couple asap if I can. I will add some photos so you can see what I've been up to!

Titania:

Midnight Hunting:

Celtic Spring:

I'm so happy to be back in the stitching community once more & am looking forward to catching up with everyone else's Blogs very soon :o)