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!

Nothing To Say :(

I'm afraid the black cloud over my head is still here & whilst I've still been stitching I haven't been able to put the words together to make up a proper blog post or keep up to date on my blog reading and commenting :( Please know I'm sorry if I haven't commented on your blog in a while.
So I figured I would at least post some update pics for you for now so you know I'm still here.


HAED QS Alisha


HAED Cabin In The Woods


Nouveau Encore Designs Personalised Sampler


Blackbird Designs Seaside Retreat


My Big Toe A New Day
I will hopefully pick myself up & dust myself off & start to feel better soon, but for now please know that you, my blogging friends, mean the world to me.

Lisa - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I Need A Seaside Retreat

I'm afraid things haven't improved here since my last post. My stress levels are at an all time high and most days have involved tears and panic attacks which are scary. All I can do is pray that things start to improve soon as I don't know how much more this body can handle right now.
The only saving grace is that my stitching, when I force myself to sit down and do some, is a godsend. It's helping take my mind off things for a little while and easing the panic attacks on occasion.
I have updates on all my Wips but I worry that you might get bored seeing the same ones everytime so today I'm just posting my new start from last week, BBD Seaside Retreat and a full pic of my Personalised Sampler now I've finished another page.


Stitched 2x2 on 32ct white evenweave using HDF Ocean Breeze.


Stitched 1x1 on 25ct antique white evenweave using HDF Bewhined. I've now stitched 6 of the 20 pages in this and really beginning to feel like I'm getting somewhere with it.
Well that's it from me for now. Hope everyone is staying safe in the awful weather we seem to be having here in the UK and overseas.
Till next time.

Lisa - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Giveaway Winner!

Just realised I completely forgot to draw a winner for my Trilogy Easter Line Up Giveaway on Monday, oops!

I had Erin draw a name (think I'm going to have to do more giveaways as she loved doing this and wanted to keep trying lol), and the winner is:-

COLLEEN!!!

Congratulations Colleen, can you please contact me to let me have a note of your address, then I can get the chart in the mail to you in the next few days.

Quick Update

Testing to see if I can post from my phone.
Here are pics of my Wips after this week's rotation. Really pleased with what I got done this week on them all except A New Day as it's been a horrendous week here. Long story for another time when I can post without crying.



HAED Cabin In The Woods


My Big Toe A New Day


HAED QS Alisha


Nouveau Encore Designs Personalised Sampler

I had a new start yesterday, Seaside Retreat from the BBD A Stitcher's Journey booklet, but not much to show yet.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Happy Dance, Progress & A Giveaway

I really don't know how I keep ending up taking almost a month between posts. The only thing I can come up with is that I am an eternal procrastinator, if there is something that I'm not in the mood to do then I put it off and put it off until it gets to the point where I HAS to be done. I love reading blogs but it just seems that when it comes to posting on my own I'm rubbish at it lol. I'm also way behind on commenting as well, so if I haven't commented on your blog recently please forgive me, I think I'm going to have to mark them all as read and start afresh so that I can get up to date and know what everyone has been up to as I'm feeling really overwhelmed with them all right now.
I'd like to thank everyone for their lovely comments and good wishes about my coccyx operation in my last post. I'm ecstatic to say that it seems to be improving all the time and the pain now is about a third of what it was before the operation after about 4 weeks. I go back to see the consultant at the end of this month and we'll see how it is at that point and then decide what, if anything, needs doing next.
Well, although I've not been blogging I have been stitching, and I have a happy dance!
I finally finished The Trilogy's Easter Line Up late on Saturday night and am really happy with the way it turned out. I subbed all the called for threads for DMC for this one, and stitched it 1x2 on 40ct Sand Newcastle. So now for the giveaway! As you may remember from my earlier post, I won this chart from Bev last year so now that I've finished with it I've decided to pass it on again. So if you'd like to be entered for a chance to win the chart please leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name a week today, Monday 16th May.
Next up is my new start! Sally and I began our My Big Toe A New Day SAL and this is where I'm up to after last Wednesday's stitching. I'm really loving how this is stitching up so far and am finding stitching certain words very emotional and thought provoking in relation to the rest of my life. It feels a bit weird but it will mean that a lot of memories and emotions go into the piece and will be there for me to remember when it's finished.
And finally are three of my wips that I've been sadly neglecting but am now stitching on again.
Nouveau Encore Designs Personalised Sampler. I stitched on this on Friday night and am now down to the bottom of the current page with the border and working on the next letter.
HAED QS Alisha. Hazel and I were chatting on msn the other day and she said that she and Tracy are doing a HAED SAL on a Thursday night to motivate eachother with their wips, and would I like to join. So I decided to bite the bullet and go for it! So this is a pic of her after I last worked on her, and you'll hopefully be seeing a little more progress each week from now on.
HAED Cabin In The Woods. I started this years ago now, can't remember exactly when, think it was about 2006 :(, but although it became a UFO I still love it to bits and it's on my bucket list of things I'm determined to finish in my lifetime. I decided last week that in order to do that I had to get it out and start stitching on it regularly again. So I've decided to join in the UFO SAL on Needlecraft Haven and try to make a little progress on it each week the same as Alisha. This pic was taken yesterday afternoon and I actually put some stitches into it last night which I really enjoyed.
Well, got lots more I could waffle about, but I think I'll call that it for today before I bore you all to sleep lol. I'm seriously going to try to start updating more often, one wip at a time maybe, and try to do it from my phone as it's quicker, although the pics won't be as good, but could then maybe do a monthly update of them all from the proper camera. Will see how it goes I guess.
Thank you to all those who visit and read my wafflings, and those who take the time to leave me a comment. Hope you all have a great week ahead, get lots of stitching done, and you don't get any visits from the frogs.