Time to....

.... get a grip & stop dicking around!!!!!


The babies are now 4 & a half months old & to be honest I probably still look like I'm about 5 months pregnant (with a singleton of course as nothing could compare to the size I actually was!). It's getting beyond a joke. I have about 3 pair of trousers that I can actually wear, a hand full of tops & that's it. It's getting on my bloody nerves but I know that the only one that can do anything about it me.

I've been a person that has struggled with weight all my life & to loose the amount that I did & be as happy as larry for such a long time was a dream come true. I certainly wouldn't be without my babies (sorry that should be OUR babies) but my god did I gain some weight. It's been heart wrenching to open my wardrobe & see all the lovely clothes that I can't actually wear. I've been refusing to buy hardly anything in my new size as I just see this as temporary & if one more person says to me "it took your body 9 months to get that big so it'll take just as long to get it back to how it was".... I think I'll be looking at murder in the 1st!!!!!

Well this week sees the start of something new..... watch this space :-)

Oh yeah & in the meantime I hope you enjoyed seeing what I consider to be the greatest photo ever taken... until we get another greatest that is ;-) xx

Wow!! .........

.... look how old my babies are already ^^^^^ only 4 more days & they'll be 4 months exactly. Please someone slow things down a little bit, they're growing so fast I can hardly keep up!

Life is so busy at the moment there is no time at all for stitching or craft of any kind for that matter. A brief update, we're in the process of selling our home & buying a new one....Hoorrahh! I've sold my little KA... awwwww! I think I'll miss my little KA, it was the start of a new life & I'd had the little thing from new & now it's gone forever, lets take a moment to reflect (pause for all of 2 seconds), ok thats over... NEXT!

I decided the other day that I would make fairy cakes, what a bloody disaster that was. To start with we have already boxed up lots of the baking things, then I find (slightly too late) that I have the wrong type of margerine for baking, oh it was just one thing after another so I've given up for the time being. Although saying that it didn't stop me buying new cake tins in Lakeland :-)

Yesterday we went for a visit to DG's place down near the coast, all plans to leave home at sensible times went completely out of the window. Babies are following a routine & the majority of the time it works perfect, maybe half hour or so out but for the most part it's working a treat & yesterday was no different, unfortunately sticking to a routine is one thing but actually taking ones feed (Hannah) & bringing up ones feed (Robert) are uncontrolable so we ended up leaving home late, then arriving when it felt like half the day had gone. I was most upset on the way there that we had left so late & felt it was slightly rude on our part not to arrive a little earlier but DG was understanding & I was easily relaxed in the families company. In the end it was a shame to leave, it's the kind of calm & tranquil place that you long for to keep you out of reality... that is until both babies scream the place down!!!

It's feeding time shortly so for now I will leave you with the most wonderful images of my smiling children who continue to bring tears of joy to my eyes as I wonder at lifes miracle that is............babies :-)

It's an illness!!!

Wow... it's been a while.

I should be heading to bed or rather, tidying up the kitchen, sorting the dishwasher, making baby bottles, trying to find the cat before we close the windows & then going to bed... alas... I am sitting here typing.

I am, by my own admission, a complete DVD obsessive. Be it movies or TV Boxed Sets, I've not fussed. Most women collect handbags or shoes but for me it's definitely the DVD's. I've watched everything that I have several times, I know the date or possible date of future releases of TV boxed sets like Lost, ER, CSI, 24... the list goes on. This evening we've had A Touch Of Frost on the TV, it's an old episode dating back to 1999 but they are great & always worth a watch so imagine as it comes to the end of the credits & they announce that a particular series is now available in a DVD Boxed Set. I gently lean back from my desk to check out the TV only for DP to pipe up "Nope". I laughed... he didn't even look away from his monitor.

For those of you that are interested please see below for pending release dates:
CSI Vegas - Season 8 part 1 - 22nd Sept 2008
CSI New York - Season 4 part 2 - 27th Oct 2008
CSI Miami - Season 5 part 2 - 8th Sept 2008
ER - Season 12 - 15th Sept 2008
Lost - Season 4 - 27th Oct 2008
24 - Season 7 - NO CONFIRMED DATE - D'OH!!!!!!!

Nighty night xx

8 week stitch!

Well little bambinos are now 8 weeks old & so far this is what I've managed in the way of stitching. It is a lovely design called Baby Love from the Cinnamon Cat Kittens range. I know the image is quite pale but once I get a few more stitches in it & some nice backstitch to define, it'll look lovely.

There are such a lot of projects that I'd like to get some stitches in but alas, time does not permit at the moment. To fill my passion for stitching in this time where the actual stitching is not really happening I have decided to do the only sensible thing.... buy more.... yes that's right, increase my stash as lets face it, the buying of it is just as much fun as the stitching itself, although nothing will compare to the buzz of a finish!

Sooooo cute!

Ahhhh, some of my fav pics of the babies together!!

Potty Training Already???

No... well not actual Potty Training, more like Potter Training!!!

A couple of weeks before the babies arrived I made it my mission to get hold of the complete works of Beatrix Potter & it had to be the little white book versions rather than all them stuffed into one large book, I wanted them to be close to "original" as they could get.

When I was younger I loved the Beatrix Potter stories but never quite managed to get the entire collection of 23 (think I only managed 4!!!!). I was also lucky enough to visit "The Home Of Beatrix Potter" in the Lake District. A lovely place that is full up with everything BP, Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten etc.

My main issue was that these books RRP at around £120, ridiculous. It was of course possible to get them through the childrens book club at some ridiculous price of £9.99 + P&P but that meant signing up to so many books a year, editors choice.. etc.. etc. Both me & DP decided that it wasn't something we wanted to commit to as we'd rather purchase our childrens books as & when we see fit rather than almost being forced to by some club. Next came the ultimate in finding anything at a pretty good price.... Ebay!!! I manged to get the complete set for £40, incl postage believe it or not... bargain.

Now that the babies are starting to spend a little more time awake after their feeds we've started on the collection & every evening during/after the last feed (last meaning before midnight) we read a BP book so now I have to run as it's around the time that the babies need relocating to the bedroom, bums changed, milk warmed & we all settle in for story time.

Tonights book is number 8 in the series - The Tale Of Jemima Puddle-Duck

Two weeks on!!!

Well our babies are just over 2 weeks old now... for those of you that didn't know, they were born happy & healthy on Sunday 11th May.
Hannah Daisy weighed in at 5lb 9oz at 22.21 & Robert Gregory weighed in at 6lb exactly at 22.22.
They are extremely cute & at the moment sleep quite a bit, feed quite a bit & fill their nappies... quite a bit. They rarely cry (for now!) & we are living it hope that they stay that way :-)

Now we can get down to the serious bit... birth samplers.. hmmm, none for twins. I shall have to put in an email to Historical Sampler Co' & see exactly how far the ladies have got with the designing of their twin sampler. In the meantime I have picked a couple of little ones from Cinnamon Cat (who else?) & their "Kitten" range. I intend these ones to be more of a door hanger for their bedrooms (when they eventually get a room each) rather than a sampler to hang on the wall.

Will keep you posted on progress of both stitching & babies!!!

Breast foot forward!

The funniest thing happened yesterday, well I thought so anyway! We had our last NCT class & it was all about breastfeeding. A wonderful subject & one that we had barely touched on in any other class. The lady running this session is a breastfeeding councellor for NCT & also based at the hospital where I'll be having our babies. Anyway.. I'm waffling.. the bit that really made me laugh was that this lady had no breasts what so ever. I could barely look at her without wanting to crack up laughing. It's something that just really.. really made me laugh & I have to admit made it really hard to concentrate on anything she was saying. I won't go on to mention the different colour pen fetish the lovely lady had as that'll just make me laugh even more!!!

The best news is that even though it was our last session we'll be meeting up again tomorrow at one of the groups houses for a spot of lunch & chat. I'm really looking forward to it, sometimes it gets quite difficult living over here with most of my friends & family a good 45 min drive away. I know it's not far really but it can often feel like a lifetime away.. you'd think after 7 years I'd be used to it but I guess when things are getting tough (like having 2 babies) that these things play on my mind alot more.

You know I didn't realise the time, no wonder the babies are moving lots.... they're hungry!! I've been too busy on here most of the morning & looking out for the DHL van that is supposed to be delivering the Beatrix Potter Collection 1-23 books for the babies room :-)

How time has flown!

It's now May.. can you believe it? When I think about how long this pregnancy appears to be taking (yes I am aware that it's around 9 months) & how slow it seems to be passing us by & then weigh it up next to the fact that it's now May 2008.... take a moment to think about it!!! The last 8 months seem to have taken years to go by & yet the first 4 months of the year has flown by at such a rapid pace that next month we're half way through the year.... I'm finding this quite bizarre!

This morning was another all morning session of NCT, it was quite refreashing to be around ladies who are at the same stage of pg as me & have some kind of understanding as to how I'm feeling & whats happening & probably more to the point, the insecurities of being a first time mummy. I'm hoping that we'll all continue to meet up regularly. Plans have been put in place for this but of course you never really know how long that will last..... my own personal opinion... long may it continue.

Oh finally I have a stitching update... hooraahhh. Can't actually post an image yet as it's not finished completely & is also a gift for someone but I have just one small part of the finishing process to complete. I did realise after a short while that I hadn't stitched name & date on & although it will probably bug the heck out of me for all of eternity I had already used some iron on interfacing on it & was not really in the mood afterwards to detach the interfacing & stitch some more, my work was done for the day. Gimme another week & it may be finished completely!

As I'm not posting a picture of my stitching for today & I have decided that I really do like an image to accompany my posts I thought I'd add a picture of Mohair that I took last night. Cats are (according to a pub quiz machine) not one of the animals on the planet that can sleep on their back... erm... hello... I beg to differ with you there!!!!

Contemplation!

Believe it or not for a brief moment today I considered changing the title on my blog, reason being that no stitching has been done for ages & with the pending arrival of two bambinos I can't see any being done in the near future.... that said... I decided to leave it as it is. Although most of the blog now contains Life rather than Stitching Life I figured that the whole time it remains as Stitching Life it will at some point give me the inspiration to continue with my passion!

So much time today was spent lounging on the sofa that I was rewarded with a trip to Bluewater, our main purchase of the evening... curtains for the babies room. We shall be leaving the blind up as it keeps the room quite dark when closed & then adding the cream curtains so hopefully that'll create the much sort after darkness for babies sleepy time. I also got myself a couple of cheap maternity tops from Dot P, my long & 3/4 sleeve ones are just becoming so restrictive the warmer I get that I just need vests at the moment, at least they aren't expensive as to be honest I don't intend keeping them once i've (hopefully) shrunk back to my pre-pregnancy size.

Retail Therapy :-)

Today we went out for a little drive & whilst out picked up these snazzy little outfits from Sainsbury's. Never really looked at clothes in there before but we had seen them a couple of weeks ago & both liked them so before heading to the car we purchased :-) It's the first items that we've bought that are specifically geared towards a little boy & a little girl but seriously I doubt at this point I'll be buying anything else like that, not until they are born anyway. I am yet to believe the sexes of the babies until they are actually with us!!!
Our other purchase took us to the Mamas & Papas store, one each of the softest most toy you've ever come across in your life, they were ridiculously expensive but I don't care cause they're lovely & cuddly. I just hope the twins like them too, although for the first year of their lives they won't have a choice.... I'll be telling them that they love them :-)

Apart from washing some more of the baby blankets & towels most of my afternoon has been spent playing with Facebook... what a joy that turned out not to be... it appears a high maintainence thing... sure I'll get used to it after a while.

Time to sit with my feet up & watch some TV/DVD's, my feet are so swollen now that my ankles appear to have disappeared completely.

A Busy Friday!

Well it has been quite busy today. I was off out early (well it seemed early) to NCT class, very enjoyable, we have a lovely group of ladies at class & the best thing is that everyone is at similar stages of pregnancy, quite literally within a few weeks of each other & we are all fairly local so hopefully it'll be great to keep in touch.

After getting home I find out that Greg has inflated my lovely lilac Birth Ball..... oh what a joy to sit on, please someone tell me why I didn't get one sooner???

I've had new DVD's delivered.. yay.. thank god for that, daytime tv is such a drag & as much as I have the enthusiasm for getting on with so many different things or even getting some much missed stitching done... it doesn't really pan out that way!!

Also... being Friday... our new car should be ordered today... even bigger YAY. Although we know it won't actually be here until probably end of June, maybe even into July we know it is ordered & to be honest having to deal with two newborns will be challenge enough to keep us housebound for a bit while we work out what to do with the little darlings :-) In saying that, I'll probably be climbing the walls & desperate to get out the house with them but we have no way of knowing until they are actually here so I guess we'll have to just wait & see.

Oh... tell you sometime of interest (maybe), I have been on Warcraft 3 times since last Saturday, now this is an achievement, especially as that probably works out more times than in the last 5 months, long may it continue!

Not sure but did I share the pushchair with you, if not here is a picture of it, it's a brand new shade & to quote John Lewis "not available to order until end of April".... well would you look at that, I've had mine for over a week now... doesn't it look lovely?

Smee!!!!

Ok... time to get back to blogging. What a busy few weeks we've had indeed. So much for taking time off to relax & put my feet up. If one more person asks me if I'm enjoying being a lady of leisure I'll probably punch them!!!!

I've been busy ebaying ever since my last post. The shop stock is getting cleared very nicely thank you very much to all who have contributed to this :-)

Stitching has very much taken a back seat, mores the pity as I was hoping to get my dreaded UFO Welcome House completed but it just hasn't happened... yet!!!

No baby news as of yet, apart from the fact that I've got so damn big that it is actually getting ridiculous. It's a nightmare to walk, sit, stand, sleep, etc etc. Officially we have about 5.5 weeks until our 38 week date, which is as far as the hospital said I would go, please god let it be true. We have pretty much finished the babies room now, let me see if we have a piccie on here.. yep, there's one, that'll do. So you can see we have been quite busy, those that remember it as a desk filled spare room/office will be quite surprised by the change.

I'll see if I can get back to more regular updates now that I'm slowing on the work load (again).

No rest for the wicked!!!

It seems that being a "Lady Wot Lunches" isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Apart from anything I've found that daytime tv is absolute crap. This morning I actually found myself with Jerry Springer on the tv while I was getting ready to go out... now this can't be good!!!!!

I've been busy ebaying, very busy indeed, lots of bargains to be had on there at the moment so most of my days, you know...all 2 of them so far, have been taken up with photos, followed by listing, followed by more photos, followed by more listing. Basically I need to get rid of it all asap or we simply won't have enough space.

As for viewings on the flat, well to be honest I'm glad we haven't had any at the moment. Just when we get it into some kind of order for a viewing we manage to fill up the clear spaces with yet more crap or in this case stock!

I was hoping to get the Welcome House finished too as I wanted to drop it off to be framed on Monday but I can see that taking an even bigger back seat right now, the ebaying comes first.

If you fancy a browse please help yourself, I think at the moment it's mainly cross stitch & fabric... I haven't yet managed to unearth the knitting stock from the boxes yet but I'll get there in the end.
Ebay list

How cute are these?

Just had to share these with you. They were dropped off by one of my customers on Saturday morning, they are the softest hand knitted shoes & measure just a couple of inches (if that) each, aren't they just the cutest?

Madness!

Just been doing some ebay research as it's been a while since I've done some serious selling on there, unfortunately I made the mistake of looking at the job lot / wholesale section for crafts... found lots that I fancy & thats really not the idea is it??

Not enough hours in the day!

Wow..... been so busy lately, all the good blog intentions have gone completely out the window. Until this morning that is :-)

On the baby front (literally). I just don't seem to be able to sleep past about 7am at the moment & sometimes 6am. The worst part is that I'm so tired. I still have just the one sleeping position available & it's the same position that I've had since October so thats becoming a real pain in the arse. Some good news, we do now have our lovely cots & mattresses to go with them at a slightly bargain price so they are all ready to be installed just as soon as the painting is finished in the spare room, won't take him long (bless him) & we have been extremely busy this bank holiday weekend. Poor bloke hasn't actually had much of a bank holiday weekend.

On the shop front. It still needs painting, the shop front that is. Bad weather, ie rain, hail & snow has kind of stopped play there so hopefully we'll be able to schlap on a bit of Sandtex later today. Most of our stock is packaged up & read to bring home, it's now just a case of tidying up the shelves etc that are there & throwing out the rubbish. Tip run this morning will be done while me & mum tidy & then it's a case of waiting for Irene to turn up so we can hand over the keys. I have no doubts that her & Suzy will make a success of their business, I only hope they get some signs up quick enough to explain to customers that they'll be open again in less than a week. People are so quick to judge, especially on that high street................ in the meantime, I'll be doing a heck of a lot of ebaying to get rid of the stock which is left over that they don't want. Most of it will be sold at a loss but at least it's sold & not just handed over free of charge.

On the stitching front...what is stitching?

I'm starving, babies need something to stop them munching away at my insides!!!

Yay and... "oh"

Postman arrived this morning at the shop with my nice new, correct length, pair of Addi Turbo's.... Wooo Hoooo.

Something that didn't really occur to me until opening the packet... the actual needles would be much shorter too. My first thought was... oh god how on earth am I going to use those, they look like circulars for babies to use!!!!! My second thought was that Fran will be thinking "oh, the uneducated!!!" luv her!!!

Once again I will be dashing home this evening to try out my nice new short circular needles for my nice new Alpaca hat. You can guarantee that by the time I finish it summer will be here (or we'll be heading into winter... won't confirm which year that might happen to be!)

On the stitching front... I have made further progress on Welcome House, I'm resisting posting a picture as it's soooo close to being complete that I'd rather wait, but rest assured, it WILL be done soon.

How frustrating!

Most crafty type people will be able to relate to the fact that when we want something to start a new project that we want it & we want it now!!!!!

To start a knitted hat project I needed a new pair of needles so I consulted with the Circular Needle Oracle that is.. Fran.. & then I ordered up some Addi Turbos to be delivered to the shop. Well the numpties today decided to send my needles to my Invoice address instead of my Delivery address so there I was desperate to start, left my stitching at home in preperation but then found I couldn't get started..... ok... not to worry... I'll get going as soon as I get home.

Once at home I eagerly cast on asap only to find that I'd ordered the wrong length of circular... needed a shorter one **cry**.

Will order a new one tomorrow, bored with that for today!

Yay.. new toys!

More good news.
After leaving the baby show on Friday we headed over to Bluewater for some lunch & a little bit shopping. Only one shop in mind, John Lewis. I've been after a new sewing machine for a while & after having no luck at the trade show & then no comment regarding the stitching show I decided it was time to quit messing around & do the sensible thing. After searching online & finding that no one appears to sell cheap new machines I bought a nice posh one in JL. I am now the proud owner of a Janome DC3050 **yayyyyyy** big cheer!

Had loads of fun at the shop this afternoon, got together a pile of goodies for my first project & play with my nice new machine. Worked out what colour fabrics to use, got some threads, interfacing, felt, ribbons, velcro coins & spare machine needles. Had to do an order with a supplier so went through & ordered stuff for the shop & then of course some stuff for my new projects. You have no idea how much fun it was..... well ok so you might! After getting all that together I needed to finish tidying my desk as soon as I got home as my machine needs a living area where it's easily accessible & then the dinner got in the way & then things took a turn for the worst, I realised I'd left all my fabric at the damn shop. Suddenly I was distraught, having no fabric at home available for my play session (seriously, none spare, it's all tied up with other projects at home). We found ourselves on a quick drive back to the shop to pick up my fabrics.... ho hum... what kind of a numpty was I? (prey don't answer that!).

Well thats where I am at the moment... machine is good to go, well you know once I plug it in & dig out some instructions but hey.. it's a sewing machine... who needs instructions??????

Good, Bad & the Ugly - Friday

Friday is a 3 fold day... where most of the busy-ness took place.

Up at 4am, yes thats right 4am (not that it matters much to me as I'm usually awake every hour on the hour atm). The parents arrived in their bus & it was off to the airport. We get to take them to the airport & then have the use of their vehicle for the duration of their holiday, provided that is that we pick them up again after their holiday! For those of you that don't know (or realise!) that this is the day that Greg & I would have been flying off to the sunny caribbean for a relaxing 10 day cruise (thank you very much parents). We'd have been accompanied by other members of the family as we celebrated both parents 60th birthdays. Alas... for us.... it was not to be (thank you very much twinlets!). We are over it now... no really we are, we get babies, not just the average singleton but the more special twin variety & for that we are grateful & how ever much that I (we_ would have loved to have gone on the cruise I do remind myself that there are people that are unable to have one baby, let alone two at the same time... for that I am eternally grateful.

For those of you that are in the know... the un-named wench was as expected... nuff said!

Ok... so thats the bad & ugly covered :-) Now for the good!!!

From the fun & frolicks of Heathrow we headed into & across town to The Baby Show... back to the Excel centre for us at Docklands. We got there at 8.30am, show doesn't start until 9.30am. Today we decided to up our ticket for the car park, rather than 2 hours we paid for 5 hours, worked out cheaper than doing it the other way. We had checked the show details the evening before so had an idea of how big it was, what stands we wanted to see & what else was on offer. Being a subject that neither of us have any real experience of we decided it would take us a while to work our way around. Oh how right we were. After spending our initial hour relaxing with a bacon bagel & orange juice we made our way into the show & starting our browsing. We collected every freebie we could, signed up for a ton of junk mail & made mental notes about what we'd like to purchase before leaving. Well a good 4 hours later & a few hundred pounds lighter we left the show & managed to fill up the entire boot space in the parents Galaxy. Lots of new toys for the new babies..... so much fun :-)

Stitching Show - Thursday

So I'll start with the London Stitch & Creative Crafts Show at the Excel Centre, Docklands. What a result.. finally a stitching show which doesn't involve getting up at the crack of dawn to get there & not only that but the show runs from Thursday 29th Feb to Saturday 1st March & on the Thursday they are open until 9pm. Fantastic.. I can work & then go to the show.

Well all that sounded wonderful in practice. Here's the reality of the stitching show. We get there & the car park is almost empty... this is good news & not really surprising at it is about 17.30pm on a thursday evening & most people are heading home rather than into town. Get parked easy enough & it's pay & display. No problem there, it is however £3 an hour. Ok. so how long do we get, knowing what it can be like at these events & how long it takes to peruse the goods, we opt for 2 hours. Any later than that & I'd probably be ready to keel over. We get to the show, after being unable to find anything to tell us which halls, I mean Hall, it is in & there we happily hand over our £9 per person enterance fee (yes £9 each).

Once in the show I decided to take it as slow as possible. No... not because we are 6 months pregnant with twins but more to the point if we'd have gone any quicker we'd have been around the show in a matter of 15 minutes & back on the road home!!!! Yes.. I have to say that it must have been the worst stitching & craft show that I have EVER attended. I mean some of the stands there were simply pathetic. It had its usual mix of papercraft & beading stands, some of the stitching sellers that are large enough to be at every single show on the planet but there was nothing else really. I found one stitching stand that was what I class as an independent. Some nice quick & small designs with a lovely selection of hand dyed pure silk threads, they were unusual so I made a purchase at this stand. I have to ask what on earth to Handbags, Holidays, Trollys, Toaster Bags (to name but a few) have to do with stitching & creative crafts.... sweet Fanny Adams to be honest.

This show was a joke... it was a nightmare... there was nothing for the knitter or the stitcher & I was & still am completely appalled by the amount that it cost to get in to this show. I would certainly never attend another like it & will make a point of being extremely wary of attending any other events organised by Trident Exhibitions Limited so that would be Sandown Park out the window for me as they organise that one too.

What a waste of time & money.

Been so busy!!!

Oh my word, where to begin, the last week or so has been a busy one indeed for us. Well maybe not even the last week but the last few days anyway. Will probably have to do a few posts over the course of the next two days just to try & remember everything so bear with me while I try to remember the good, the bad & the ugly bits!

Little Happy Dance!

Finally I have a completion for 2008. Only problem is that I can't quite share that with you yet as it's to be finished into a gift so I need to wait until it's been received before I can post a piccie :-)

Started back on the Welcome House from Cinnamon Cat... really need to get this finished before March & it's creeping up on me kind of quick now, still, made some more progress on it today & hopefully will get some more done later this week.

Baby Scans :-)

Yayyy... this week was baby scan week :-) As you can see we have 2 little babies. It was a relief to see them as it was such a long time ago that we had the last scan & it's quite a worry not knowing whats happening & how they are developing. Well it turns out they are fine. Everything was noted as normal, no anomolies & nice healthy bones & organs.

Next scan is scheduled for 11th March.

Weekend over :-(

Worked some more today on the Welcome House, no picture this week though, not quite enough progress today to warrant a further pic.

Had 2 flat viewings this weekend. Saturday.... they gave nothing away so we have to wait for a call from the agent on that one. Sunday.... now they seemed really happy with the rooms & kitchen etc so I look forward to hearing what the agent says about their visit.

Only a few more days to baby scan day. I just wish it would hurry up & get here. To say that I'm a little anxious is an understatement & at the same time I'm petrified & excited.

Lets hope Monday through Wednesday go quickly :-) xx

UnFinished Object.... but getting there!!!

So here we have one of my UFO projects. Welcome House by Cinnamon Cat. This project was started in March 2006 & I made some fantastic quick progress on it & then I hit the little pink flowers, damn things... too many fractional stitches & it just about finished me off, the rest of the design has taken me a while to get going on & progress has been slow. There isn't much left to be done & I think that makes it even more frustrating, we shall see what happens this Sunday when it's UFO stitching day.

I have to say that I truely love this design & can't wait to have it finished, framed & on the wall. I would hope at that at some point this year it may hang in our new home :-)

And on the new home front, nothing new, we've had to drop the price in order to get some more viewings. We have someone coming on Saturday & someone else coming on Sunday so prey that at least one of them may put an offer in..... we're running out of time!!!!

Stitching Challenge Update

Finally a piccie of progress on the Michael Powell Street design that is one of my 2008 Challenge projects. Started on 1st January all I managed was the little red blob in the middle on the fabric but now I have a whole chimney to be proud of.

Anyway... some thoughts regarding the Michael Powell design. As a kit I have to say that (& I may have mentioned this before) it includes Anchor threads & I really don't like Anchor, after stitching what I have I know that my opinion on this hasn't changed... I still don't like Anchor threads. Ok, next, the chart.. quite clear.. no real problems with that. The design itself, some issues with that but my own doing really. There is quite a bit of Snow on the design & white on white stitching is never great so thats a pain in the butt, the other thing that I am none too keen on is the sky stitching, it's all the same colour & will be a boring bit of stitching.... as I said.. my own doing as it's one of my favourite pictures of his... I'll get over it I'm sure.

You can see an image of the complete design on my gallery site in album 2008 Stitching Challenge: http://www.gregandlisa.co.uk/gallery2/main.php


More progress... on anything...soon :-)

Fingers Crossed

We had a viewing this evening on the flat, hopefully it went well, you never can tell but they were here for ages & looked at everywhere loads & then stood outside chatting with the agent for probably another 10 minutes after that. The young lady kept looking back at the building so I guess we'll just have to wait until tomorrow when the agents gives us a call & lets us know exactly what they thought. Annoyingly as I was staring out the window trying desperately to hear what they were saying Mohair went wandering past the window & off towards to the garden gate where 4 persons were standing. After they went he came wandering in the lounge window & do you think the little sod would share what they were saying... NOPE... not on your life. He sits there just staring at them while chat & just doesn't give me an inkling when he gets back..... cats...nightmare!

Monday was a bit of a bad/good day. I had to get up early to be in the shop at 9am for my framer.... exhausted me a bit, I just didn't realise how much. Luckily after I'd managed to calm myself & started re-stocking the yarns Franny turned up :-) this was a bonus, she was kind enough to get lots of yarns down off the shelf for me & generally helped me stock up so a huge thank you to Fran. Oh yeah & I forgot to show you these, check them out, Fran made them for me & brought them in last week.... I just know that you'll all be jealous as hell but it's tough, they're mine. With any luck I'll make a fabby pair of socks using them & make her very proud.

Where every day is a Monday!!!

I appear to be stuck in some kind of groundhog day style loop where every morning appears to be like a Monday morning. I've already had to amend my opening hours to allow for my new timescales & I've given myself a whole day off mid week but still i'm struggling. No matter how long it takes me to get myself up & to work I still end up here absolutely exhausted & just need to rest, thats the point where I wish I was still at home. Usually I can calm myself after about 30min/1hour but if the customers are flowing I just end up in a bit of a state. Maybe I should be just putting up with these things & not quite whinging so much but it's difficult, having never felt like this before it's almost impossible not to voice my opinions to anyone that cares to listen.

On the stitching front I believe I picked up "Street" the other day (Tuesday I think) & you know I may have even put in more than 6 stitches.. woohoo!! I shall be having another go at that today as I simply can't be arsed to do anything else except sit & peruse my dvd's :-)

Pic of a WIP.. yes another one!

Ok so it's been a week since the start of the year & apart from some wonderful progress on day 1 I have yet to put another stitch in either of my Challenge pieces, this is not really surprising for me & I haven't actually put a stitch in another design so at least the challenge pieces are not alone :-)

I did bring home all of the WIP's that I had at the shop, this included the Quilt Sampler, Welcome House, Cabin In The Woods & Snow. Hopefully you should be seeing a picture of the progress on Snow so far... if not then I really did mess up the uploading of that picture as I thought I had.

This evening will be spent in our "Hobby" room... once known as The Office (for Greg's business), then dubbed the Spare Room & now it's our Hobby room as there is certainly nothing Spare about it & that includes space. We have some work to be done for business sale which has made some progress (allbeit slow) & that involves Greg mainly so I'm here purely for moral support so I thought I'd file away the WIP's for now & maybe add a few (don't want to get any hopes up) stitches to "Street".

You know I really need to spruce up this blog page, it's looking a little dull... maybe I'll see if I can find a fetching picture of myself to add.... ok ok... maybe one of the Mohair instead.. we shall see!!

Happy New Year

Well it's here... 2008... seems like only yesterday we were in New York for our summer holiday, how time flies.

This year will be one of the most... erm.... adventurous.... challenging & hectic that I believe we'll have.
The flat it up for sale & we are desperate to move, the sign is still well & truely planted in the front garden so long may it continue. Fingers crossed we'll be inundated with phone calls from our agent with potential purchasers lining up to get a view at our spacious rooms & tranquil garden enterance.
The shop is still an enormour thorn in my side at the moment. The property has been available for a bit & while we currently have one potentially interested party (for the business too) we are still hopeful of more interest.. you can never have too many people interested! Back to the business sale, we are waiting on the accountant (still) & this is most frustrating. Without that information our buyer is unable to progress with either the business purchase or building signing.

Random comment: I love my new mouse mat & wrist rest :-)

Work in the new year is going to become increasingly difficult for me. I am already larger than the average pregnant person at my stage & it seems that this isn't going to slow down.. good for babies... tiring for me!! I have already reduced my working hours from when I start back on Thursday. I will open from 10am to 4.30pm with the shop closed all day on Weds & Sundays. It takes me longer to do anything at the moment & I am finding that I am breathless quite often, thi is something I've never had to deal with in my life so it's a bit of a change. There will also come a time when I am unable to serve my customers adequately by going up & down a ladder (something which many think I should have stopped already!) but then the bags would just be all over the place & thats not my idea of a tidy shop. When running down my endless list of hospital appointments I also noted that with so many & on a weekly basis sometimes the shop will start to spend more time closed than it does open..... I only hope we get progress on the sale before too much longer.

We've been discussing now for quite some time if we should find out what "flavours" we'll be having when it comes to our babies. The answer to that changes on a daily basis. With one baby we certainly didn't wish to know until it was born so that we had a delightful surprise, well hey ho... surprise... it's two babies. We've had the biggest surprise of all so would it now be more prudent for us to find out what exactly we're having so that we are better equipped to plan what we'll need to purchase (apart from house & car!) to accomodate our little brood? Sometimes yes, we'd love to know... other days we just aren't sure we'd like to know. The likelyhood is that we will eventually find out because I have another 4 scans booked so it'll become almost impossible to miss. I wouldn't want to tell anyone though.... i'd still like it to be a surprise for everyone else but when you know something that everyone else wants to know it can be difficult to keep it to yourself......... a dilemma which will no doubt continue until the morning of the scan... 7th Feb!

I've started my 2008 Stitching Challenge for the group. I designated two designs, both nice & new. One is Under The Arch by John Clayton, reminds me heavily of Pride & Prejudice so I can't wait to get that one stitched up... thats on 28 count evenweave. My second choice is to be a new kit that the parents bought me.. Street by Michael Powell, it has to be my favourite design of his & I think all of his designs are either love it or hate it, you either like the style or you don't, I like some of them but this is my fav.. it's on 14 count aida (annoyingly it comes with Anchor threads & I hate them but I really can't be bothered to switch them to DMC's as I have to make some progress on it today for it to qualify for the challenge)
My UFO challenge pieces are Welcome House by Cinnamon Cat.. I know this was last years design but I just didn't get it finished so here it is again. The second here will be Who's Watching Whom by Dimensions which it works out was started & shelved in 1999 so it'll be good to make some further progress on this long awaited design.

Enough for now I think.... need a cuppa!!!!