Withdrawals & IStitch Mystery SAL

We're away in our caravan in Derbyshire at the moment and are having to go back to basics somewhat lol. I have no signal at all on my IPhone on the site and so can't get my usual fix of Facebook, blog reading, collecting & replying to my emails etc & I must admit I'm having withdrawal symptoms, never realized how much I rely on my phone til I can't use it lol. We went to Carsington Water today where I did get a signal so quickly downloaded my emails & checked Facebook before my right arm was cut off again ;) David on the other hand is having withdrawals because as well as no phone signal the site has barely any tv reception lol! Now don't get us wrong, when we go away in the caravan we maybe watch an hour of tv a day if that, after Erin has gone to sleep on a night usually, but choosing not to watch it & not being able to are very different things I guess.
So I think this week we will be reading even more than usual, & hopefully I'll have more stitching progress to show as well.
Tonight & last night were spent doing Part 2 of Carol's IStitch Mystery SAL. When Carol emailed this part it looked to me like it was going to be a quick stitch but I had the hardest time with it, the frogs appeared & just wouldn't leave. Can you believe it took me four attempts before I finally got the C right?! Anyway it's finished now & has gone away for another 10 days or so til Part 3 is released.



Tomorrow I'll be hopefully making some progress on the baby gift for my friend.
Have written this as a draft post in the hope that if we go out for the day on Tuesday I'll be able to post it, so if you're reading this we did reach civilization for a while at least lol.

Lisa - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy Dancing Again!

Way back in May I was so excited to be starting Seaside Retreat from the new Blackbird Designs A Stitcher's Journey book. I can't actually remember now why I decided to stitch it 2x2 on 32ct fabric, but it was a big mistake. More and more over the last year or so I keep proving to myself that I much prefer stitching with one strand on higher count fabrics. I stitch my HAED's 1x1 on 25ct, and I LOVE stitching 1x2 on 36 or 40ct fabrics, but for some mad reason I started Seaside Retreat 2x2. Right from the very beginning I didn't enjoy stitching it, I really should have listened to the voice in my head who told me early on I should do a restart, but I'm stubborn so told it to shut up and on I went on my miserable way lol. If I hadn't loved the design itself so much and been so determined not to add another project to my ufo pile I'm sure it would have been stuffed in a cupboard not to be seen again for sometime. But anyway, I persevered and persevered, picking it up, adding a few stitches, putting it away again in disgust lol. But last night I was finally able to have a much needed happy dance! As a reminder this is stitched with Vikki Clayton Hand Dyed Fibers silk in Ocean Breeze. I think I am more relieved than anything else really to have this finished. I'm not sure how I'm going to finish it off yet, but it's going to be displayed in our conservatory eventually and will be a reminder to me that perseverance pays off, and that I should stick to 1x2 in future lol.
I was hoping to also be able to show you a pic of my A New Day after framing. The framer rang me yesterday to say it had been put in the mail, but Royal Mail are doing their usual stirling job of being totally rubbish, and it hasn't arrived today. I'm just hoping that it comes tomorrow.
This weekend's stitching is going to be Part 2 of the IStitch Mystery SAL which Carol emailed today, as well as the baby gift for my friend. I decided after my last post that I was going to be a good girl and stitch the Lizzie Kate Welcome Baby chart rather than ordering something new, so I've got it kitted up ready to go.
Hope you all have a great weekend, a long one for those of us in the UK, that the weather is kind and you get plenty of stitching in. Til next time!

Thank You & A New SAL

Before I go any further I just want to thank everyone who commented on my last post SO much! It brought tears to my eyes to realise I have so many wonderful stitchy friends around the world who really do care and who still want to read my ramblings when I've been missing for so long.
I joined a new mystery SAL that Carol at IStitch has kindlly organised. The SAL is hugely popular and so unfortunately sign ups are closed for now, but go have a look at all the wonderful wips so far. I chose to stitch mine over 1 on 28ct and will possibly make it into a pinkeep when it's finished. The fabric I chose was a Jayne's Attic Count On Me called January and the thread is a Hand Dyed Fibers skein I had in my stash called Enchantress which is a gorgeous variagated pink. The next part isn't due to be released til a week on Saturday, so I've put it away til then, but am looking forward to seeing how the next part looks.
Today is LHN's Travelling Stitcher SAL day with Sally and I'm really looking forward to making more progress on it. I can't believe it's a week since our wonderful stitchy day, makes me sad to know that I don't know when we'll be able to do it again :( So I will just have to imagine myself sat in Sally's dining room tonight stitching together. I'll post a pic on how far I've got later in the week hopefully.
One of my friend's from the gym had a baby boy recently, a surprise miracle for them as they had tried for a baby for years with no success and at 45 she found out she was finally pregnant! I went to see her and the baby, Amos Charlie, yesterday and he is the most gorgeous baby, I could have eaten him, and if I was ever going to get broody for another child myself yesterday would have been it lol. Anyway, I decided I'd like to stitch a little something for them so have been trawling through my stash trying to come up with something. I have Lizzie Kate's Welcome Baby chart which I thought might be nice, but I keep going back and looking at JBW's Teddy Bear Chart, which I don't have lol. I could get it pretty quickly by ordering from Sew & So in the UK, but I'm trying to be good at the moment. So what do you think I should do? Go with the LK design or say to heck with it and order the JBW design?
And finally, I saw yesterday that Daffycat is having a giveaway on her blog of THE cutest gnome fob & needleminder. Get yourself over there and have a look!

Surviving, A Happy Dance & A Wonderful Visit

I am so sorry I haven't posted in such a long time. Things here the last few months have been a struggle to say the least. I had to finally admit around the time of my last post that depression had taken a strong hold of me again after being free of it for a couple of years. After a couple of severe meltdowns I forced myself to go see my doctor who listened to me and talked things through, and gave me a prescription for anti-depressants, but I couldn't bring myself to start them as I've tried so many in the past for them to only help me short term. So I decided to give St John's Wort a try, along with forcing myself to get out of the house each day, even if it was just to go to the gym (I knew things were really bad when I didn't want to go to the gym and see my friends). I can't honestly say whether the tablets and making myself go out have helped a lot and I'm still worried that there's going to come a point where I will have to try the anti-depressants again, but for now I seem to be on a slightly more even keel and am just trying to take it one day at a time.
Through all this however my stitching mojo took a serious beating. My rotation which had been working so well went out of the window and the only thing that I really tried to keep going with was my SAL on a Wednesday with Sally on A New Day. Even if I only did half an hour, I made myself get it out every week and it got me through some bad days. Although this piece involved a lot of tears at times it also brought out some good emotions and positive hopes for the future and so I was actually a little sad when I had a happy dance and finished it at the end of July.

I was also ecstatic to be able to take this and show Sally in person as we have just got back from a week away in our caravan in Hornsea, and whilst there I was lucky enough to be able to spend the day with Sally at her house, drooling over all her fabulous stitching, chatting, eating, drinking and of course we had to fit in a little stitching (we have now started a new SAL, LHN's Travelling Stitcher which seemed apt). I couldn't believe the amount of gorgeous stitching that Sally has displayed, I was in heaven, and after talking to her about her framer I ended up taking A New Day into his shop on Friday and it turns out he does lots of framing mail order so he is going to frame it for me and post it to me in just over a week! I've struggled to find a framer locally and have lots of finished pieces waiting to be framed, so hopefully if I'm happy with how he finishes this piece I'll start sending him a piece every couple of months or so and try to get some more displayed on my walls (although I'll NEVER be able to catch up with Sally pmsl!). We had such a wonderful day together, it went far too quickly, and I was really sad and tearful to leave her when the time came. Knowing Sally's love of sheep I had taken her a small gift of a sheep that I saw and knew she would love, and it turns out that Sally had also got me a gift. She stitched me this gorgeous LK Design, Friends Are Like Angels (hope you don't mind me borrowing the pic from your blog Sally, our camera is still buried in all the unpacking from the caravan lol). Isn't it wonderful? When I opened it I couldn't look Sally in the eye because I was filling up and knew if I did that I'd end up crying lol.

Having just got home today things are in chaos, unpacking to do, lots of laundry, getting back into my healthy eating and exercise routine, DH going back to work etc, so I'm feeling rather fragile tonight, but I'm hopeful that after my day with Sally and our new SAL start stitching a little in the caravan and getting A New Day framed etc, that I may have located my mojo again and be able to make a fresh start with my rotation.
One thing I've had to accept though is that try as I might, there is no way I can catch up with my blog reading and commenting. Before we went away I kept trying but got completely overwhelend, and as you can imagine after a week away the number of unread posts has increased massively. So I hope you will all please forgive me and understand when I say I'm going to mark all my blogs as read tonight, and make a fresh start with those as well as my own blog and my stitching rotation. I am really sorry that I have not been reading and commenting on your blogs, but better to start afresh and be able to keep up this way hopefully than to stop altogether which I had considered at one point when I felt really bad.
I will hopefully be back later in the week with a pic of my start on Travelling Stitcher and my other wips so you know where I am with them at the moment. Til then, I've missed you all and can't wait to catch up with what you're all up to!