More progress on The Guardian

Yes, I'm still around, honest! Just not been in a blogging frame of mind.

I've made a little more progress on The Guardian, though I have to admit that I've not stitched on this one for at least a month. Snow Princess went back on the Q-Snaps a couple of weeks ago, but it's very slow progress indeed. Never mind - Wimbledon is just around the corner and I'm very excited to be going up to Centre Court on Monday where we are in the 3rd row, right behind where the players & umpire sits... at least I think we are! Either that, or we're opposite them. We shall see. Happy stitching everyone :o)

Feeling fruity!

I'm astonished at the abundant amount of fruit in my garden. I remember my landlady mentioning before she went back to Madagascar that I would be inundated with apples and that there were pears, rhubarb and blackberries, but I've also found wild strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, artichokes and potatoes! I'm also growing tomatoes, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouse and the tomato vines have little green babies that have just appeared so I'm very excited about those too!

I'm not a lover of goosegogs as we like to call them, so my sister relieved me of a huge tub of them this morning, but I'm going to pick some raspberries later to go with some strawberries I already have in my fridge.

The cooking apple tree is absolutely smothered with delicious looking fruit and I can't wait for the blackberries to

ripen so I can make my favourite pud - apple and blackberry crumble. ;o)

I've been avidly watching Andy Murray's progress through Wimbledon and he has just this very second beaten Ferrera in the quarter finals, so is on his way to the semi's! I went up yesterday to see the ladies quarter finals on Centre Court and we were very thankful that we had shady seats as the temperature was unbearably hot yesterday.

I always go with my SIL who has been going for many many years and is very adept at spotting tennis players and famous faces, well I managed to spot one of my own yesterday - Ainsley Harriott was sitting 5 rows in front of me. I did toy with the idea of giving him the contents of my picnic bag and asking what he could do with it in 20 minutes, but decided to resist that particular urge!! For those readers outside the UK, Ainsley is a celebrity chef/presenter on Ready Steady Cook. I couldn't get a photo of his face, but did get the back of his (very shiny) head!

Time for strawberries, cream and a drop of Pimms

Yes, Wimbledon is here once more and I'm enjoying a couple of weeks away from work. I'm going up on Tuesday with Sally, my SIL, to Centre Court. Our seats are right at the back, but at least we'll be in the shade and we will still have a great view. We always take a picnic with us and I always try and pack in something extra special, so I'll be scouring Sainsburys on Monday for something nice.

Dad has been in the rehab centre at the hospital now for a few weeks and it is simply awful. I'm sure it's made his level of confusion worse and even the move itself hasn't helped matters. They put him to bed at 7.30pm and for a man who has problems sleeping, this isn't good. It has been agreed that Dad needs to go for some care for a while. Initially we thought it would be residential, but at the meeting we had to discuss his case, they thought nursing care would probably be better. There's a chance if it's nursing care, that he will get full funding. Otherwise, I will have to sell his house (and my home for 35 years) to meet the costs if it turns into a long term placement. I'm really not sure whether or not he will ever be well enough to go home, but all we can do is hope and pray. I'm still waiting to hear about the funding and as soon as I know, we will be able to view places that have vacancies.

I've been doing some stitching and have actually been working on a Mirabilia! I really reached burnout a couple of years ago with my Miras and haven't really wanted to pick any of them up for a long time. But I had an urge to work to Titania and here's what I've been doing:

I've stitched most of the coral sash and have just started the bottom part of the dress. You may remember that I wanted to stitch her with silver wings and have been looking at silver metallics that might be suitable for this. I noticed that someone else recently stitched a purple Titania with silver wings, however, those wings had some blue in and I wanted purely silver. I'm not sure whether using purely metallics will be a little overpowering or not, so I'm playing with a few ideas at the moment. The fabric looks a little bluer than IRL. It's SMF's Winter Meadow Belfast linen.

I've also been doing a spot of baking and as it was my friend's birthday, yesterday I baked a Cherry Bakewell cake:

And delicious it was too! I got the recipe from Rosie's blog - Baking Cakes Galore, which has lots of mouth watering recipes on offer. Happy stitching everyone!

Wimblemania!

Yes, Wimbledon is over for another year, but what amazing matches we had this year. Wasn't the men's final unbelievably good? Wow. It was really too close to call at the end. Luckily we've got some more tennis lined up to tide us over til next summer. We're off to see the Davis Cup against Austria (also being played at Wimbledon) in September and to see the Black Rock Masters at the Albert Hall in London in December. Of course, I have a few photos to share from our trip up on Sat 28th June...

Me with the truly hideous 'terracotta tennis warriors' on the newly built Court No.2! That's Rafael Nadal next to me, honest!!
A view of Centre Court from our seats which were in row Z near the back. Thankfully you get a good view no matter where you sit.

This is Jelena Jankovic who was practicing on one of the outer courts (Centre Court is the ivy covered building in the background). We saw her match a little later and she won that day.

Not much stitching news I'm afraid. I do have a little update of Snow Princess - my polar bear now has an ear so can hear what I'm saying about her!

I am very, very close to a big finish elsewhere though, so will post again once I've achieved it. Lots of stitchy wishes to you all :o)

A bit of Taj

Yes! I have a lake and a door and a bit of outline....

Such pretty silkies! I can't wait to see the first Taj come to life. Thank you all for such lovely comments - you ladies really do keep me motivated!

I have a college assignment due this evening after a few weeks off, oops, I mean 'reading weeks'! This time last week I was really thinking of giving it up, but somehow this week it really has all come together and I finished my assignment last night. As long as it passes and I don't get referred I will be very happy. All that's left now is the BIG work-based project which is double the size of the assignment I've just completed. It has to be submitted on 25th April and I also have to do a presentation of my project to the rest of my class. Eeeeeek!

I don't think I mentioned that I have been successful with the Wimbledon ticket ballot this year and I have got tickets for Centre Court for the middle Saturday! I'm so pleased as they usually do special events on Centre on the Saturday - they've had parades of champions in the past. It's something to look forward to for after my course anyway.

Have a great weekend folks & keep on stitching! :o)

Well, Blogger has decided not to let me give this post a title. Poxy Blogger! It would have been 'Yippeeeeee! The camera is back.' I've now managed to get my hands on a memory card reader and can upload my piccies that way! So first of all, here is a brand new photo of Snow Princess:



I'm about a third of the way through the 6th page now.

Next my only photo from Wimbledon on Wednesday, showing the huge black clouds approaching Court 13 when we had a 2hr rain delay! We had a great day and apart from watching a few of the great doubles matches we also saw the Duke of Kent and Daley Thompson (Olympic Decathlete) wandering about!

Here are a few other photos that I've taken recently, first of all a piccie of Andy with my Bagpuss hot water bottle!

Awwwwwwwwwwwww! I snuggle up with Bagpuss during the cold winter months but sometimes Andy 'borrows' him!

And last but not least, a couple of photos of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth when we visited just before my birthday in October last year:

It truly is an imposing structure! I haven't been to the top yet, but plan to one of these days.

It's the Men's finals today at Wimbledon. I can't believe how quickly my 2 weeks holiday has gone! Back to work tomorrow :o( I've also got an informal meeting at college tomorrow evening for my CPP course that starts in September. Work are paying for me to do this course, which lasts a year and will give me a recognised HR/Personnel qualification afterwards. It sounds like a lot of hard work though.... I only hope there'll still be a bit of time for stitching! ;o)

Oops... another new start!

Oh dear. You never know when startitis is going to strike, do you? Well, this is what happened to me yesterday:This is my new WIP - This Heart of Mine by Ink Circles. I have to admit I've wanted to start this for a while, and as I finished my little birdies last week..... ;o) I'm using Polstitches Dragon Floss in 'African Sunset' and SMF Impressionism Belfast linen, stitching 2 over 2. I'm going to include this in a sort of rotation, well, I will be stitching on this project every Monday, and for now will continue with Snow Princess for the rest of the time (until I can't take the blues anymore!).

What a washout Wimbledon is proving to be! I don't think there has been one day without a rain delay so far!!! We're hoping to go up tomorrow or Friday, so fingers crossed for a dry day.

I spent a lovely weekend at my brother's last weekend with my SIL and my two nephews, not doing much due to the weather, but it was great to see them all. One of my nephews passed his driving test last week, so congratulations to him! :o)

Page 5 HD!

As promised, here is my Snow Princess page 5 HD:

Apologies again for the poor scan. I'm hoping to have an antidote to my camera problem this weekend, so watch this space! Click the link to my Snow Princess WIP in the sidebar for a slightly better view. I love the swirls and snowflakes that are coming into the background now.

So, the stats... I have now stitched over 25,000 stitches, which is just over 19.5% of the design. Last time I posted an update, someone asked how big this design was. It's 400 stitches wide by 318 high, which, IIRC is 127,200 stitches in total. I've just started on page 6, after which is a very narrow page 7 (just 25 stitches wide). After I've completed pages 6 and 7, I'm going to allow myself the luxury of stitching the page with the polar bear's face on it! I really think I'll need a break from the blues by then, and he's just so cute I don't think I'll be able to resist stitching him for much longer.

Thank you everyone for all your lovely comments. It's been great catching up on everyone's blogs. Carto, I'm known as 'SamanthaStitches' on the BBs. I'm sure I'll see you there. Nice also to hear that so many others will be watching Wimbledon. Wasn't Tim's match a nailbiter Mon/Tue? Mind you, we should come to expect that with him! Shame he didn't get much chance to play yesterday. I shall be glued to his match today though. Looks as if there's some other good matches coming up too. Time to get the strawberries out! ;o)

Another HD!

Here is my second 2007 HD, Sitting Pretty by Heritage Stitchcraft:

I started this in January and the reason it has taken me an age to stitch is that I've been stitching it only during my lunchbreaks, when I have time, at work! I love the fabric - it's Castle View by Silkweaver on 32ct Jazlyn, so it's very soft too. I've nearly finished page 5 of Snow Princess, so I should be sharing that HD with you in the next few days.

I'm off from work for 2 whole weeks, as it is Wimbledon fortnight once more. Come on Tim! I'm not sure who I'll be supporting this year as Agassi retired last year and Andy Murray has withdrawn due to his wrist injury. Guess it'll be Henman once more! I'll be getting a fair amount of stitching time in too during these two weeks. I'm hoping to catch up with everyone's blogs and also the BBs, which I just haven't had time to browse recently. So I'm off now to have a trawl around the websites.....

Been to the Doctors...

...and it is confirmed - I do indeed have tonsilitus :o( I've got a whole 10 days supply of antibiotics to take so hopefully within the next day or so I should start feeling a bit better. I have to say, my tonsils weren't quite as painful during the night last night, as that seems to be when its at its worst. Hopefully the antibiotics are starting to take effect. Thanks for everyone's hugs & well wishes :o)

Well, I've been off from work for a whole week already & finally yesterday I got to sit down & watch lots of tennis (whilst doing some stitching too!). Although I have to admit that I dozed off on the sofa during Andre Agassi's match & caught the beginning and when I woke up, I eventually realised they had transferred the coverage onto BBC2, well it was either that or my eyes were playing tricks with me, making me think that Agassi had strangely morphed into Raphael Nadal!

Andy's gone off this morning to find out about another long term supply teaching placement for September. He has done supply teaching for many years but it had been ages since he'd done a long-term placement. He's been doing supply at the same school in Surrey since last September & has really enjoyed it, so requested another year long placement for this Sept. The only problem with the Surrey one was that it was such a long way away & thankfully this one is closer, in Sussex, so will only be 30mins away. Please keep your fingers crossed for him! :o)

Kathy, I would love to do a Snow Princess SAL with you! I will be in touch ;o)

Wet & soggy Wimbledon

I'd forgotten what a rained off day is like at Wimbledon. I "enjoyed" one that was mostly rained off with just over an hour & a half's play last year and "enjoyed" a total washout the year before when we had tickets for Centre Court. I went up with my friend Jane yesterday & we had tickets for No.1 Court. Kim Clijsters was up first, but then... it was Tim Henman - woo-hoo! We were looking forward to supporting our compatriot immensely. The weather was overcast first thing, but not a drop of rain which must have been a good sign, or so we thought... what were we supposed to think, when the court coverers went into action and uncovered the court:

We found our seats, which were quite good, around halfway up the stand with a great view in the corner. Our seats were also just under the covered part which was great incase of rain. Kim's match got off to a good start & she seemed to be just getting into her stride, when after just 35 minutes of play the umpire announced that play was suspended...

There was only a fine mist of rain coming down, but before long, the heavens opened and it bucketed down. :o( We got the regular announcements that they were hoping that the rain would stop & play would be able to continue, but by 5.30 we had given up and decided to head home. I gather that play was abandoned for the day not long after. It was disappointing, but we will get a full refund as there was less than one hour's play. I would have much rather seen some tennis though!

The atmosphere at a rainy SW19 is still great - everyone is huddled in the eateries munching and drinking all kinds of goodies! I even found a new stand that had hot choccie, so I managed to have one of those to keep me warm - Wimbledon in the rain is a very cold place indeed. Whilst we were travelling round under our umbrella, we even spotted comedienne Jo Brand walking round wearing a fetching lilac pac-a-mac! Jo's companion had nothing at all on her feet which gave me the shivers just looking at her!!! I'm hoping to go up again next week, so fingers crossed that the weather will be kind to me :o)

Still got the blues!

My apologies for a lack of blogging for a while! I haven't had a great deal to say I guess :o) I'm also actively trying to spend less time on the PC. I spend a good part of my day at work on the computer & when I get home I just need a break from it. Using the mouse for prolonged periods also gives me wrist & elbow pain which is not good. It should also encourage me to spend more time stitching... well, that's the idea anyway!

Talking of stitching, I'm still plodding away with my blues:

I'm officially celebrating a finishing of page 2 HD! Yay :o))) I can now get onto page 3 where the head of the princess starts, so I can finally get to stitch some non-blue colours!

In other news, my poor car failed its MOT a couple of weeks ago. It was only on 3 things, 2 were really inexpensive & the 3rd (something to do with wishbones for the suspension) weren't that expensive, but apparently its very labour intensive to remove the old ones & put the new ones in, so the labour costs made it a pretty expensive little failure. Its all fixed now though, mind you a new radiator is also on the horizon soon as my little car gets rather hot when I'm dashing up the motorway... :o(

I'm off to catch X-Men 3 a bit later with my nephew. Its been out for a while & we just haven't been able to arrange a day where we were both free to see it. It's not really Andy's cup of tea you see. I'm off from work now though for 17 days - yay!! Because, yes, its that time of year again.... it's Wimbledon! :o))))) We have tickets for court no.1 on Monday & I was also offered late ballot tickets for the men's semi finals. Unfortunately they arrived the same week my car was costing me a chunk of cash so I couldn't accept them :o(((( I'm sure we'll probably go up again though, during the 2nd week, to mingle on the outside courts and munch on a strawberry or 2 ;o)