Pay it Forward Gift

This morning i received a lovely PIF gift from Mercy! I stole the picture from her blog as the batteries in my camera need recharged after last night. Isn't it lovely? A beautiful scissor fob. The little butterfly has "created for you" inscribed on the back! This is my first ever gift from a stitching blogger friend and I love it, thank you so much Mercy!

I had a a great night at the awards ceremony last night. I loved it and was totally star struck all night by all the celebs! I think i embarassed my young person as i kept making him go and get autographs of famous people so i could go with him and take photos! I thought i'd be more star struck by the TV celebs but it was actually Scotland's First Minister that i got star struck by, he was so friendly and nice. Mind you it is coming up to elections here in Scotland so that may have been why! I think im getting old when i'm more star struck by politicians than i am by soap stars LOL.

I'm so glad it's Friday, i have had such a busy week. Have a great weekend!

SAL

Im excited to post that Jamie and I started our SAL on Tuesday. We are stitching "Coffee Menu" by Little House Needleworks. We will be stitching on it on a Tuesday evening as we both work full time. Here's what it will look like one day

and here's my start so far

I am stitching it on 28 Ct Raw Cashel Linen with the recommended floss. Looking forward to seeing Jamie's progress! I thought i would get more done but i needed to measure and cut my fabric which took time and then i went to bed early as well!

Tonight i am off to a big award ceremony in Glasgow with a young person i work with. I'm very excited about it as there will be a lot of famous people there!! So i have the morning off but will techinically be "working" until about 1am. It's formal wear so i have my dress looked out already. I hope my young person finds something to wear, if in doubt i told him just to wear his school uniform. I work with quite disadvantaged young people so things like this event are a BIG deal.

By Popular Demand...

Okay, so when i mentioned my wedding in my previous post a few of you asked about wedding photos. So here you go....6th September 2003

and to finish off the wedding theme...here's one from my sister's wedding which was just a few months ago in November

and that's it!

West of Scotland Weekends

Mary Kathryn does "Rocky Mountain Wednesdays" so i thought i would start "West of Scotland Weekends."

You might not be able to see it but we got married in the church on the hill in the far distance. The day was like this so you can imagine what lovely wedding pictures we have!

The creme egg season

I went to the quilting demonstration on Monday night. It was great. She had the most amazing quilts on display. I wish i'd taken some pictures so that i could show them. My favourite one was all different purple colours with loads of beading and fancy stitching. It would take me years to make! I'm really quite interested in taking this up but still not that confident on how to go about it. She said i could go to her house and she'd give me some lessons so i might do that. It's just having the time for all this!

Not much stitching this week as i've had something on every night after work. I am nearly finished one of the PIF gifts i have been working on but now have loads of satin stiches to do and i'm not enjoying that bit. I only just discovered buying stash on ebay. I wish i'd done it before, it is much cheaper. I seen the lizzie kate "make it personal" charts for half the price i bought them for the other week. I'm definitely going to check ebay out in future before i purchase charts elsewhere. Last night i ordered some wadding and some foam boards. Nothing very exciting but useful for finishing.

Now for something completely different. Here's one of my favourite things about this time of year. The cadburys creme egg. Hmmmm. I love them. I'm not a huge chocolate fan, i have more of a savoury tooth than a sweet one, but this is my exception. They are only in the shops for a few months every year around easter so that's my excuse to indulge!

Today i am meeting my friend for lunch. She is another one of my friends who has just had a baby. I must be at that age because i can't believe the number of friends i have with babies now. Everyone's always like "ooh you're gonna get broody now" and i thought i would. But you know what? If anything i've actually been put off! I can't believe how much some of my friends have changed. I am so not ready for that. I like being able to do things at the last minute, i like having a great social life, i like not having to plan ahead, i like talking about things other than babies....don't get me wrong, i definitely want children one day, just not yet! Thankfully my group of best friends ("the bezzas") aren't at the stage yet so i will need to see them more often to keep my sanity LOL (actually 1 is due in August but she's like 32 so i'll forgive her, but 2 are single, 1 has a boyfriend and 2 are married). Anyway, i'd better go and get ready to ooh and aah over another baby.............i love it really :)

What i've been up to...

Didn't realise i hadn't posted all week. This week just flew by. No stitching pictures to share today. I have 2 new projects i've been working on this week but i cant post any WIP pictures as one's a PIF gift and another is a surprise gift for another blogging friend. I finished the surprise gift yesterday as it's just a small piece and i hope to finish the PIF gift this weekend. So you'll have to wait for a few weeks to see those. I didn't work on Dollhouse at all this week. I did get a load of stash during the week but it was only floss so i won't bother posting a picture.

Today we have a completely free day and evening. It doesn't happen often so i love it when it does. We slept in late and i'll probably lounge around in my pjs for a while. Might have to do some overdue housework today and i'm thinking about washing my bedroom curtains as well. Last night we went to our friends house for dinner which was lovely, tomorrow is mother's day here and also my little cousins baptism so we have a family thing on all day. Should be good.

Here's some pictures of my sisters dog Barney. I havent shown any for a while and like having photos in my blog. He's just had his hair cut!

Have a great weekend everyone and happy St Patricks day if you celebrate it. It's quite big over here. I can never understand why St Patricks day is so "big" and all the other days (St Andrews for Scotland, St George's for England) aren't a big deal at all. 1st March (my b,day) was St Davids Day (Wales) and it was barely mentioned, hmmm...wonder why??

Weekend Update

It was the 23rd February that i last posted a Dollhouse progress picture, so here's the latest. I know i say it everytime but i'll say it again, i love it! I have a free evening tonight and i was planning on starting one of my pieces for my Pay It Forward but i sat down to start and realised i don't have the floss i need so it'll have to wait and i'll do some more on Dollhouse instead :)

I went to the craft fair yesterday and had a great day. It's a bit of a con to be honest because although they call it "International craft and hobby fair" it's really just one hall full of hundreds of stalls devoted to papercraft (mostly card-making) and another hall for stitching. The stitching hall wasn't spectacular, it was just hundreds of stalls with the same DMC/Anchor/Coats kits at everyone. I did find a couple of great stalls that sold fabric at a great price, another stall with loads of gorgeous beads, another stall with great accessories such as needleminders etc and another stall with great quilts and fabrics. The embroiders guild stand was also great with amazing pieces of work on display. My mum is really into papercraft so she was quite happy with that hall. I can see how it would be a papercrafters paradise. I was disappointed that it was only papercraft in the main "craft hall," i was hoping to see loads of different crafts in there. Never mind, we were there for about 5 hours so we had a good time and most importantly i got stash which always makes me feel good!

Not the best picture but i bought...3 kits (only 2 in the picture as another is a gift i'm going to stitch), 2 packets of beads, lots of clear plastic folders for my floss, some new scissors, a needle holder and lots of linen. I justified the expense by claiming it was my "birthday money," which it was!

After seeing the quilting stalls i really would love to get into that as well. As it so happens, at the next ladies night at our church a lady is coming to do a quilting demonstration. So there you go, it's meant to be!

International Craft and Hobby Fair

Look what i'm going to tomorrow with my mum. The international craft and hobby fair in Glasgow with a whole hall dedicated to "creative stitches!" Should be good. Will i come back with any money though??

Here are some of the special features of the event taken from the website.....

The 'Holiday on Ice' Collection
World's first life-sized Knitted Garden
Elements in Nature - Quilters Guild
Knit & Natter
Up to 150 Exhibitors
Workshops and talks

"Find the latest cutting edge designs and innovative supplies for hundreds of new and established textile and hobby crafts at our exciting Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts shows this year. With over 120 exhibitors showcasing the latest ranges of paper craft, fabrics, wools, sewing machines and overlockers, patchwork & quilting accessories, books, lace making threads, kits for tapestry and cross stitch, fabric painting, stenciling, embossing and much more, you are sure to find plenty to interest you! "

What i chose...

I have a few weddings this year and a few friends who are expecting babies and i would like to stitch something quick for them. I'd sent an email round at stitching bloggers for advice and got lots of help which was great! Anyway, here's what i decided on Not too complicated and nice and personal as well! It was part of my birthday stash (which i ordered off the internet and gave to DH to give to me!! He did get me flowers as well to his credit!!) Im not going to post everything else in my birthday stash as i'll probably be using it for PIFs and want that to be a surprise but i got some lizzie kate charts, some brittercup designs charts, and some brightneedle charts. Great!! I wish someone could have bought me some time so that i can actually start all these pieces!

Thanks

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes/emails/cards etc etc. Much appreciated! Unfortunately it wasn't a great birthday and i have been off work sick all week but i'm going back to work tomorrow. We went out briefly on Saturday for a walk as it was a beautiful day. Here's some photos anyway! We live in a beautiful place.