I'm still around and still stitching

though not a lot I have to say... getting about 1 to 2 hours of stitching time in during one week, which is not a lot... so there isn't a lot of progress, but I don't mind too much, as I simply enjoy the process of stitching as much as the finished product.

All the cross stitch on Lilliput Lane is done, and only the backstitching now- quite a lot of it. half the roof is done, and you can really see the difference.

Christmas was quite, Nafees, me and the children, nice and relaxing. Imran's christmas present still hasn't been delivered (by Next), but at least they offered me 25% off and Imran was quite understanding. The weather appears to be much milder now, and the snow we did have for the last few weeks is now melting. I'm still off today and tomorrow, but back to work on Wednesday.

Fungi Walk at Shorne Wood

I have always be fascinated by Fungi (mushrooms/toadstoals whatever you want to call them, it's really the same thing!). It probably stems a lot from childhood memory. My grandfather Herman was a local mushroom expert, and I have a lot of memories of going on forays with him. Once I was a teenager, of course it became less cool.. and unfortunately he died when I was 15. Now I sooo wish I would have asked him more on his knowledge of fungi, or if I could have a few more chats with him! The other side is that I like being outdoors in the woods (again, probably coming from my childhood memories), and I love autumn. For the past few years, I have resurrected my interests in fungi. My mum still goes collecting every autumn for eating (just for her personal use). I do take some for eating (only the very limited ones I know for sure of course), but mainly I am interested in identifying and just enjoying them the way they are.

So, yesterday I had booked into a 'Fungi Walk at Shorne Wood with a local Fungi expert. It was very interesting, but I've realised that I will need a lot more guidance before I feel myself able to identify fungi - it's such a vast world! I will definitely go again on those walks, maybe at other locations. Shame it can only really be done in autumn, but maybe that's also the pleasure of it.

My birthday and Ally Pally

Ruby and me

Nafees and me

Just me, outside the restaurant

Dan and Imran

Where are the days / weeks / months going? Is it really already October? It was my birthday yesterday, and we went to a lovely Indian restaurant (Green Spice) just outside Dartford. It is always very croweded, and tables need to be booked, and I always struggle to find parking there despite the fact that it is in the countryside. I looooved the meal, and no, there was no counting of WW points on that evening.

The next day Jo and me went to the Knitting and Stitching Exibition at Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace, London). This exibition is not mainly cross stitch, but all kind of fibre arts really. It is a very big place and exibitions, so many stalls. Unfort. there were only about 20 or so stalls with cross stitch, and while I still look around at the other stalls, of course they don't hold that much interest for me. We found one stall which was selling HEAD kits and charts, and Jo bought herself a HEAD chart (Marta Dahling 'Lust'). They didn't really had any charts I wanted, and I wouldn't buy the kits. But a few days earlier I got myself for my birthday one of the soooo cute Lesley Anne Ivory charts from HEAD (Libra Clea and Lily). They are from a series of 'Astrology cats' and I absolutely adore them. I intend to get all the cat charts and will eventually do them by the time I've reached 150 LOL. Seriously, they are so cute, I just love realistic cat designs. I'm not quite sure on what size fabric I should stitch the cats, and I bought samples of 20 ct, 22 ct and 25 ct evenweave. HEAD recommends stitching on 25 ct, but some some with 2 threads it appears to bulky, and with 1 thread it is not fully covered, so I will try it out and see what suits me best.

Cross stitch update

Here an update on the projects I've worked on in the last 2 weeks. Firstly, there is the Clematis picture (a DMC kit). The cross stitch is almost done (apart from a little bit in the right lower corner), and than it is on to a massive lot of backstitching. And I really mean a lot - literally every flower/flowerstem is outlined by backstitch. I think in this case, the backstitch is going to add to the appeal of the picture. I've got 3 pictures in the same series lined up...

And here is Tuthankamun (is this spelled correctly?) - Sorry for the quality of the picture, it was taken on the Iphone.

Coming out of the 'Summer Hole' ;-))

Right, here I am again. Back from summer holidays (2 weeks in August spend with my parents in Germany), and got my stitching mojo back! I didn't really do a lot of stitching over the summer, apart from a small card (which I will have to take a photo off). But now, as the nights are drawing in, more rain etc, I def. feel like stitching again. So, here is my work from the last 2 weeks:



NH Afghan.

Wedding Picture - confetti, confetti, confetti! 

Apart from this, I have been soo busy as usual with work... it's not just the work itself, but with the commuting etc, it just takes too much time out of my day ;-((( but I suppose I should be glad to have a job of course, otherwise it would be so much worse for us. During the week, once I get home, cook, clean, homework with children, dog walking etc - there isn't a lot of time left and I feel to tired for stitching. But I savour every 15 mins I can squeeze in, and I enjoy the actual stitching process as much as the finished result.

 

I have also made the decision to get fit and try to lose weight (again!). So, I'm back to Weight Watchers. I had very good results with them before as their way of counting points, weekly weigh-ins etc suits me. I've started on 01. September weighing 12 Stone 1 Pound (approx. 77kg). So far I've lost 8 lbs and I am now 11.7 which is great, I can feel the difference already. My ultimate goal is around 9 stone which would give me a healty BMI, but I want to take it really slowly, so if I could reach this by next year this time I'm happy. I also started to go to the gym again which I quite enjoy actually. I now go 3 times a week, and work only on the cardio-vascular machines, at the moment only about 30 mins, but hoping to 'up' to 45 mins next months.

 

Another 'thing' I'm doing at the moment (and which seems to take quite a lot of stitching time out of me) is learning Russian! My workplace offered us a training package with Rosetta Stone in a selection of languages and I chose Russian as I've learned Russian in primary school and I thought it might be coming back to me easily. I do find it quite a challenge at the moment, and there is a lot to do, I literally need to spend about 1 hour a day on it to keep up with the time schedule...

 

Right, so far in a nutshell, back to work now!

-- Post From My iPhone

Weekly cross stitch update

Ok, the picture is not very nice... I've just taken the fabric out of the frame and don't want to iron it, as it will only go in the bag for the next 4 weeks for the next rotation.

This week, I've done almost all of the left side - the white flower and the smaller buds. The real impact of this picture though will come with the backstitch - and there is a lot of it which will take almost as long as the cross stitch I recogn - every stem, leave, bud etc has backstitch around it!

East London Mela in Barking

Family Day out to the East London Mela today in Barking Park.

We set off about 1pm, and it really wasn't difficult to find thanks to Sat Nav, and the journey only took us about 20 mins from home. I was a bit worried about fnding a parking space, but the organisers had set a huge field away for parking, and it was easy peasy. £5 entry had to be paid, and our bags were searched for glass bottles and alcohol. There was a big fun fair, with all the usual rides, and than stalls selling mainly food, a few with clothes and jewellery, and a few stalls from charities etc. At the end of the field was a big stage and quite a few people had already gathered in front of the stage. There were 2 more stages were Asian music was being played by a DJ. I dont' know that much about Asian music, so the stars weren't familiar to me, but the atmosphere was wonderful, everyone seemed to be happy, dancing, singing, eating.

For food, we first had chana (chick peas), than later a chicken tikka wrap and chicken curry for me. Well, it wasn't the best I've ever eaten, bbut hey... Ruby also fell in love with the Asian icecream 'Kulfi', I like that stuff as well. I wanted to take another icecream 'Faluda' when we left, but by then they had sold out which was pretty disappointing. Ruby and me also got Mendi (Henna tattoo) done on our hands which I like, and will be able to show off at work tomorrow.