Baby sampler finally finished!

I had been putting off doing the lettering on this for ages. The planning takes sooooo long. I just wanted to stitch the words & be done, so it's taken about 6 months to get on with it! When it got to the stage that I was dreaming about this blooming thing, I thought it was about time I got it over & done with. I ended up copying the alphabet and cutting around the letters and planning them that way. It took all day planning and stitching, but it's all done now & although I'm not totally happy with the positioning of the lettering, I don't have to look at it, so I don't care!

I also went to a stitch show last week. It was the Stitch and Creative Crafts show at the Excel, London. My friend, Sue, drove us there, as I'd managed to talk her into coming with me. The parking there is VERY expensive-£6 for up to 2 hours (£10 for up to 5 hours, but there's no way we could stretch to that), so we whizzed around in under 2 hours. To be honest, it was fairly small and there wasn't a lot of stitching stands there anyway.

I remember when the shows were huge and there was loads of bargains. No so much now. Prices weren't that cheap and even companies like Sew-It-All weren't there. I only needed to buy some mount board, but couldn't find any. Bought some beads and 2 sheets of peel offs....and some cheese! Yes, you read correctly, cheese. What a cheese stall is doing there, I don't know, but they had some samples out and it was scrummy! I bought some garlic and herb cheese and some cheese with ginger in-sounds odd, but it's gorgeous. The company are https://www.snowdoniacheese.co.uk/

There was all kinds of weird stands there-pies, holidays, clothing. I'm sorry but what on earth are they doing there? It should be stitching, knitting, scrapbook, card making, that kind of thing. Leave the food for the ideal home show or something. So, I think this will be my last show for a while. I say this after every show I've been to in the past 4 or 5 years, but I keep wasting my money going again, then just complain afterwards. No more!

I'll save my pennies for shopping online. Can't say I'll save them to spend in my local shop as it's now gone. Craft Lines in Theydon Bois was a nice little shop, but as I was told at the show, they had to close the shop down a while ago. They told me they still do mail order-not through their website, but by phone only. Then they gave me a 'With compliments' slip with the phone number on and I was surprised to see the website address on it too. Their site hasn't been updated in years (as I was told by the man on the stand, who, I assume, runs the business), due to costs, but yet they haven't taken it down, or even bothered to put on the site that the shop is closed and they cannot process orders through the website. I'm sorry, but I find this shocking! You can't run a business in that way. How many customers has they lost because of this? I certainly wouldn't bother buying from them. They should take a look at http://www.sewandso.co.uk/ and get some tips from them. Now they know how to keep their customers happy!

Anyway, rant over...LOL! Think I'll go and do some stitching to calm down.

Happy New Year!

I know it's 3 weeks into 2009, but a belated Happy New Year!

I had a lovely Christmas with my family and am looking forward to getting lots of cross stitch finished this year.

Unfortunately I didn't finish my Grandma's Lizzie Kate 'Winter' in time to give it to her at Christmas. In fact, I'm still not finished now, but I have been working on it a lot today. I'm sure 'Spring' didn't take as long to stitch! As soon as I'm done with this, I'll have to start 'Summer' so I can hopefully finish it for her birthday in March.

I did stitch a lovely card for Mum for Christmas, though. It's stitched with Light Effect threads, which made it take a lot longer, but it was finished and mounted in plenty of time. I forgot to take a photo of it, though, so I'll have to do that when I next see her.

I have several new kits to add to my mountain (actually a HUGE plastic crate). A few Popcorn ones, an Elliot one, another Christmas Dolly Mama and a lovely design of a christmas tree. I was also thrilled that Mum bought me the Stitchopoly game!!!! I haven't had chance to play it yet, but I will do soon-even if it means playing against my husband.

In the last post I mentioned I was making up a Stitchers Guide to the UK book for my mum. Well, I did it and make it into a Shopaholic's hamper. Pics are below...

Inside was the guide (filofax), a charm for her bracelet that said 'I'd rather be shopping', a tax disc holder, which says 'Whoever says money can't buy happiness, doesn't know where to shop', some tissues, shopaholic stationary set, a sign, pen, energy tablets, gel pads for shoes, iced coffee drinks and a voucher to take her to see a film (Shopaholic film out in Feb). I think she liked it! :-)

Stitchers guide to the UK-Help needed!

Hello again everyone!
Partly inspired by my recent trip-and partly because my mum's current stitch guides are literally falling apart!-I am making up a stitchers guide to the UK for mum for christmas.She had the freebie ones from the magazines ages ago-one was dated 2001!, -but they are so 'well loved' that they are falling to pieces in her bag and sadly, quite out of date now. Many shops have gone, but she's keen to support the ones that are left. But I need help finding them....which is where you lovely people come in! I was hoping you could let me know of any stitch shops that you know of.
I copied as many as I could from her books-in the middle of the night,so she didn't know-but the pages were quite worn so there was lots of bits I couldn't read.I am putting the shops in county order, so if you could let me know as much info as possible, that would be fab! I need the shop name, address and telephone number. Website address if you have it, and if you know the opening times, that would be very helpful. I am especially keen on ones that open at the weekend, as I know she likes to go for drives at the weekend and find new shops.
HUGE thanks for your help!
Laura

Stitching tour of England!

Well, I'm back from my stitch tour!!! It was great fun and I was very well behaved, considering the temptation...LOL!
We started off on Monday morning by driving up to Voirrey in the Wirral. Thank goodness we had a sat nav because it was a bit hidden away. I'd never been here before and it was a lovely shop. Quite big, with lots of stitching around to drool over. I was very well behaved here and only bought a daylight bulb (mine blew about a week before). My friend, Sue found some nice bits. Nothing stitchy, but a gorgeous card and some other little odds n ends for christmas pressies.
Then we drove to Culcheth to visit the Black Sheep. We spent ages trying to find it. First off we discovered another needlecraft shop within the same shopping centre. They sold lots of wool and some other craft bits, so I bought a bag of black sead beads for £1.99. Much bigger pack than the Mill Hill ones, so I was pleased with that. The Black Sheep was right by where we came in-tucked away next to a sweet shop, so we probably missed it because we were too busy looking at the sweets. All the kits I liked in there, I had already bought from the website or shows. No new bargains to be had.
That was day one of the holiday. On day two, we went to Fleetwood market and there was a stall there which had a Country Companions cricket kit reduced down to £6, so hubby bought that for me to stitch for him. Sue got some scrapbook bits from there too. The next few days were spent in Blackpool-going to the zoo and tower, and looking at the lights. On Friday we left the caravan park and popped into Marsh Mill before heading to our next shop. This was a lovely place and I wish we could've spent more time here, but we'd left DH guarding a very full car, so we didn't stay long. Bought some little mouseloft kits and Sue drooled over the doll houses in another shop. Next was Embsay. It wasn't as good as last time I went, although they had a few kits reduced and all the DMC and Anchor kits had some money off. So we headed to our hotel ready for our last shop on saturday. This was Wye needlecraft in Bakewell. I think this one was my fave on this journey. They had their christmas room done up and it looked amazing! So many kits look much better when they're stitched. Most of the ones I wanted were out of stock, though. I did get a tiny christmas kit of a present, which is stitched in gold and red 'blackwork'. Thought I could change the colours and stitch it a few times for cards and tree decorations. Also bought some wooden bell pulls for the Dolly Mamas kits. Sue got several charts for band samplers and we had a great chat with the lovely girls who work there.
It really was a great week and we're already looking forward to doing another stitchy holiday.

Love Heart wedding sampler

My friend, Emma, got married in July and I have stitched her and her husband a little wedding picture. He proposed with a love heart, so when I saw this chart, it was ideal! I added the names and date and framed it in a simple silver frame. They were both really pleased when I gave it to them last week (I know it's very late!)

The mice are back

We've just seen a mouse in the bathroom. REALLY annoyed about it, as we thought we'd gotten rid of them after the nightmare early this year. Am hoping they've not managed to get into the bedroom, although I doubt I'm gonna get much sleep tonight, anyway. And I need to use the bathroom, but I'm too scared to go in there! I HATE mice!!!!!

Feeling poorly

Just thought I'd pop in quickly. I've almost finished my Dolly Mama High Maintenance, but I can't find my black seed beads to do the eyes-I never have managed to master a french knot! Mum has some she's gonna let me have, but I probably won't see her until the end of October. Thought I'd finish her off the same way as I did with the DM I stitched for Mum. I used some wooden bell pull ends and I think it worked well for it.

Anyway, I'm not feeling so good this week, so I'm gonna go and hide under my duvet with a mug of lemsip and a copy of Heat!