In the Lake District

There are no West of Scotland weekend photos as we ventured to England this weekend. We went to the Lake District with a group of friends. There was about 16 of us in total and we had this cottage all to ourselves (i found this picture on a website). Isn't it lovely? The Lake District is really beautiful, we only seen a small part of it on this trip but i'd love to go back with our bikes sometime. On Saturday we drove through Kendal and Windermere and then spent the afternoon in Bowness. 6 of us hired a boat to go on Lake Windermere for an hour which was fun! In the evening we had a BBQ back at the cottage and then had an 80's night....it's a long story but to cut it short-basically my cousin is making an 80's pop video as part of his speech at his brothers wedding. So we were all filming our part, singing and dancing. It was sooo funny. I loved my leg warmers and head viser.... I just found out today when we got home that Hazel, a blogging friend, was in the same place at the same time on Saturday afternoon! I might have walked right past her and never noticed, isn't that bizarre!?!!

Sal and a Finish

First of all here's my weekly progress picture on coffee menu which is a SAL im doing with Jamie. You can see last weeks progress here and here's this weeksIts a really bad picture but after the 5th attempt at trying to get a good one i gave up! Its coming along slowly but steadily!

Now for a finish...

Lizzie Kate's "Joined in Love." I'm really pleased with how this turned out and i plan to frame it. I'm now starting it all over again for my cousin's wedding which is the week before this one!

So we're off to the Lake District in England tomorrow straight after work. My friend has organised a weekend in a cottage for about 16 of us. Should be good!

Drum roll please...

Ta Da.....I started cirque des cercles. Sorry about the terrible picture. I left it on the couch yesterday and came back to find my DH sitting on it so my fabric needs an iron! I am stitching it on a cream Belfast linen 32 ct over 2 with 1 strand of silk. I'm loving stitching with silk by the way. I'd highly recommend it! It'll be hard going back to DMC :) Im really pleased with the colour i chose.

Now for some West of Scotland weekend pictures. Look who we found eating the flowers the other morning

and here's a cute picture i took out my friends window today, these were in her back garden

Ive been at my friends hen weekend. We had a good laugh. On friday night we had a Karaoke night and then last night we dressed her up as a bride and went out for a meal and then onto a line dancing place. The line dancing place was surreal, it was full of very serious line dancing enthusiasts all kitted out with their cowboy hats etc. I never knew places like this existed in the UK, especially not in Glasgow. We had a great time, it was such fun and everyone in there, whilst a little strange, were so friendly and made a big fuss of the bride to be. I am now totally exhausted and wish i had a day to recover before going back to work again but unfortunately i don't!

PIF Finish and wips

I finished a pay it forward gift recently, this one was for Jamie. It is a Lizzie Kate design called "life's a stitch." I am very proud of it as it's the first "finishing" i've done besides framing. As you can see i made it into a hanging ornament and used a green fabric for the backing. I really enjoyed making it.

As per usual, Tuesday was SAL day with Jamie. Unfortunately i was working from 10am - 8pm on Tuesday so i didn't get much done at all. You can see last weeks progress here and here's this weeks

I have made some good progress on my Lizzie Kate wedding piece this week. I should be finished this soon

Silks have arrived!

I am so excited (i get excited very easily it seems!). My Vikki Clayton silk threads have arrived!! Yeah! These are the threads i am going to use for "cirque des cercles" by Ink Circles. I want to stitch this piece for my lounge which is pale yellow and cream. So i bought "marque des cercles" threads and am going to stitch the piece on a cream linen. Ooooooh, i can't wait! I wish i wasn't going out tonight and so busy the rest of the week as i really want to start it RIGHT NOW!! I'm so impatient LOL.I also bought some "russian sage" threads. I seen this colour on Angie's blog and thought it was lovely so i've bought a couple just to see what i thought. I really like it and am going to stitch Cheryl's bouquet with this one day.
I can't wait to stitch with silks. They feel so nice! I'll let you know how i get on. I'd better go and get ready to go out :( better leave my silks at home eh :) ?!

West of Scotland Weekends

It has been a beautiful weekend and it has been so warm. On Friday i got away from work early and went to my mums and sunbathed, stitched and slept the afternoon away in my shorts and t-shirt! Yesterday we went on a 10 mile bike ride and then i went with some friends to see blades of glory at the cinema in the evening. After church today, more sunbathing at my mum and dads house whilst DH washed the cars! A great weekend. I love the sun! Enjoy my West of Scotland weekend photos :)

This weeks progress

As you will know by now, tuesday is SAL day with Jamie. I've never done a SAL before, until now, and i'm really enjoying it. It's good motivation and it's fun to see what we've both stitched. We both started in different places and have stitched different bits of the menu so far, i find that interesting too! Anyway you can see last weeks progress by clicking here and here is this weeks progress

I thought i may as well post pictures of other progress i've made. Here is Dollhouse

And here is Lizzie Kate's "Joined in love." I'm 99% sure that the couple im stitching this for don't read this blog so it should be fine!

I have also recently finished a PIF gift and i'm looking forward to posting pictures of that as it's the first finishing i've done other than framing. I'll wait until the recipient receives it though. I must admit between coffee menu, this lizzie kate piece and my pif gift i'm fed up of stitching letters! I think that's why im not keen on anything with the alphabet in it!

Rant

Let the rant begin. My office sucks, it really does. Our charity is situated within a beautiful old church that has been converted into offices. However, the room we have is so awful. Our "office" is the stage of the main hall. They put some wall board up and made it a seperate room, probably to get more rent money. We have one window but there are bars over it. The room never gets any sun, so its never warm. Today they switched the heat off in the building so our "office" is even colder than normal. To make it worse, the local kids drama club use the mainhall and they currently have their easter programme running so for 6 hours of my 7 hour day it is unbelievably noisey. It's even worse in the summer holidays when they have drama workshops for 6 weeks. Aaaaah. And one more thing? Im stuck in this cupboard all week by myself. Its sole destroying i tell you. My colleague is off on holiday and my boss hates the office so much that she never comes in and works from home, leaving me stuck here by myself. I swear i could drop dead in here and noone would know until the cleaners came in in the late evening. I'm not even able to work from home, "someone has to be here for the phones." I think it's so unfair that my boss works from home and i'm stuck here all day by myself. I guess that's one of the perks of being a boss though eh? Sometime i like being in by myself, i get more done and i even stitch, but every day for a week? It's like solitary confinement, it's not healthy. End of rant.

West of Scotland Weekends

West of Scotland weekends takes on a wedding theme this weekend! We were at our friends wedding yesterday.

Here they are closer up. The groom is from Indonesia and after their honeymoon they are moving out to Indonesia to run an orphange together.

So on the wedding theme, i have a new start this weekend. Lizzie Kate's "make it personal" and i am stitching "Joined in Love." This is for my friend who's getting married in June. I'm stitching it on 28ct raw cashel linen.

Progress Pics

Firstly here is an update on my SAL piece that i am doing with Jamie every Tuesday. You can see what i did last week by clicking here and this is my progress this week

So i didn't get much done. We had plans with friends on Tuesday evening so i had a free hour after work to stitch and that was it.

Here's a progress picture of Dollhouse, i finished another room recently.

I'm getting cravings for new stash this week! I really want another big project to work on. I think im going to go for Cirque des Cercles by Ink Circles. This certainly will be a big project with nearly 20,000 stitches in it. Im not keen on the colour in the link but i've seen it done on a few blogs in beautiful colours and i want to buy this right now!! LOL. Im not sure what colours i would choose, i'm not very good at visualising how things would look so if you have any suggestions you can let me know! (**6.30pm update - i have no will power, i've ordered the chart - im so excited!!!)

I am so glad it's the easter weekend. Today my boss let us finish just after lunch and i'm now off until Tuesday. It is such a good feeling, especially seeing as the weather has been so beautiful recently. It's my friends wedding on Saturday so im excited about that and i hope it stays sunny for her. I'm also hoping DH and I will be able to go biking at some point over the weekend, the first time the bikes will have been aired all year.

Happy Easter to all my blogging friends!

A RAK and a finish

Today i received a RAK (Random Act of Kindness) from Jamie. Wasn't that just so lovely of her? I love getting mail, especially when you're not expecting it. Thank you so much Jamie!

Finally i have a finish to show! This is just a wee thing i stitched for Dawn. I "met" Dawn through the stitching bloggers yahoo group and when i found out we shared the same birthday i thought i would stitch her this little cat for a card because i know she collects cats. It was a kit i picked up at the craft fair a few weeks ago. Unfortunately i was sick over my birthday so this was like a month late getting to Dawn but never mind!

I think this whole stitching bloggers community is so great!

West of Scotland Weekends

It was another beautiful weekend here in the West of Scotland. Here's some pictures of my house.................LOL wish it was but it's not!!

And some pictures up at the farm on the way to our friends house on Saturday evening. The lambs were so cute! Some friends of ours actually live in the cottage in the second picture below.