July Roundup and August Goals

July Roundup

July Stitching Goals
1. Make good progress on Lavender Hearts - yes
2. Stitch on Happy Haunting - yes
3. Stitch on Sleigh Ride - no but I'm keeping this one in with the hope I'll get guilty enough to stitch on it
4. Stitch on Cirque des Cercles - yes
5. Stitch on a smaller WIP - hopefully have a HD - yes (although it wasn't a WIP, it was a new start)

Stitching New Starts:
Silver Needle Secret Needle Night - Ho Ho Santa

Stitching Finishes:
Silver Needle Secret Needle Night - Ho Ho Santa, also finished into a box :)

Books Read
The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas
The Outcast - Sadie Jones
Addition - Toni Jordan
No Time for Goodbyes - Linwood Barclay

July Quilting Goals
1. Make a bag - nope
2. Make a Melly and Me animal - nope
3. Finish a Heart to Heart 2 quilt to be gifted in July - yes
4. Work on the Jungle quilts that are for the babies due this month - yes but not quite finished. Both babies arrived safely though, both boys born within five days of each other and everyone is doing just fine.

Other July Quilting
1. Two more Heart to Heart 2 quilt tops finished
2. Bargello quilt half made and all the pieces cut for the second half
3. Final (thank goodness!) jungle quilt started for Lia

August Goals

August Stitching Goals
1. Finish Lavender Hearts
2. Work on Cirque des Cercles
3. Work on Sleigh Ride
4. Work on Happy Haunting
5. Work on one of my smaller WIPs and hopefully have a HD

August Quilting Goals
1. Finish the jungle quilts so they can be gifted
2. Work on Lia's flannel quilt
3. Make a bag
4. Make a Melly and Me Animal

Current Stitching WIP List
1. Stitchy Kitty - Snowman Trio
2. Stitchin'Spirations - Getting Lost in a Blackwork Maze
3. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
4. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride
5. Ink Circles - Cirque de Cercles
6. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
7. Shepherd's Bush - Be Attitudes Afghan
8. Margaret Sherry - Santa's Journey Afghan
9. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
10. The Cat's Whiskers - Grandma's Thread Minder
11. Bent Creek - The Big Zipper
12. Shepherd's Bush - Happy Haunting
13. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven's Above
14. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds
15. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan
16. Brightneedle - Garden Party
17. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet
18. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
19. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
20. Millhouse Designs - Charlie is Born
21. Dracolair - Dawn Awakening
22. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
23. Long Dog - St Germain
24. Stoney Creek - Noah's Sub
25. Just Nan - Four Wishes
26. Coeur de Brodeuse
27. Spring Lineup - The Trilogy
28. Shepherd's Bush - Red Santa
29. Victoria Sampler - Lavender Hearts

Grab your sunglasses...

And no, it's not just for the fabulous weather we've been having, it's because I reverted to my favourite colour scheme for my latest quilt top...

I love this style of quilting - it's so much simpler than it looks and I did most of this one the day of the class, I just had to finish putting the strips together at home. I'm going to double the width of the quilt so the dimensions balance better, typically me I had to do it 20 colours deep when the rest of the class did 10 - 12 colours but I'm not really into quilts as wall hangings so I want this as a snuggle quilt for the house (to add to the ever growing pile!)

I've only got one more quilting class booked - the Mariner's compass block at the beginning of September. I've tentatively said I'd like to do another in Feb but that will have to wait until we see what the money situation is. I'm going to miss the classes, mostly because it's a whole day quilting with no distractions, but I am confident in my skills now and have so many projects to be getting on with that I'm sure having a break from learning anything new will be good for me.

I'm planning on taking some pics of my stitching at the weekend along with my monthly review so I'll do a proper catch up then. What I do have are some progress pics of the garden.

We've been working to clear things and it's going to take a long, long time to get it done, especially when you are working in the prime growing time - it seems as quickly as we cut things back they grow again at the moment. Still, we're starting to see a difference which keeps us positive.

This is the fence that runs down the left hand side of the garden. It's kinda knackered and not that pleasant to look at but at the moment it's holding back a lot of the overgrowth from next door (we have an elderly lady next door whose garden is just completely wild) so what we decided to do is take off the top half and use the better boards from that to replace the worst boards from the lower half. We figure if we give it a coat of paint it'll look better and we can think about what we'll replace it with later.

You can see from the pic that we've got about half way down removing the boards but you can also see the overgrowth we have to cut back. Yes, I know it's next door but she can't do it so if we don't it will just engulf our garden. At least she doesn't mind what we do so I'm getting on with serious pruning...

Here's the most horrible bit of the fence which is just next to the house (so just before the bit of the fence in the above pic.)

It's totally overgrown with ivy that is stuck to the fence so well that it's difficult to tell where one stops and the other starts. We're battling with it slowly but I think we might give in and remove the whole lot.

We have, however, managed to clear all the junk from the patio and surrounding areas so we at least have a pleasant place to sit and yes, those are tomato plants on the left, we even have four mini tomatoes (although they will be lucky to survive Lia's obsession with them).

We've also done a lot of clearing out of the beds at the end of the patio and started painting the garage which has made it look a lot nicer (it's blue because that's the colour of paint we had LOL)

That last bit of garage (the hideous wooden bit) is a badly built extension and we're going to pull it down as the first part of our garage conversion programme. Probably not till next spring though so we'll have to live with looking at it for a while longer.

So you have an idea of exactly how much things have changed here's the pics of what we inherited last august...

Looking at those I'm a lot less depressed by how long it's taking LOL.

And finally, as usual, Lia was happy to pose for a picture given the camera was out

Too Many Pretty Things!

Surfing blogs is officially bad for the wallet!

I haven't had a chance to read lots of blogs lately but life has calmed down a bit so I've been playing catch up and it was a bad mistake. It seems like everywhere I go people have links to pretty things, great shops, fantastic finishes and so on and it's becoming very dangerous for me to click my mouse!

Karen's blog had a link for a wonderful site selling ribbons and I admit that this is the only site where I caved in and bought some (the July Ribbon Kit). In my defense I don't have any ribbon stash and my new-found finishing skills mean that I'm sure to need some. Then I was reading a blog whose author had finished an amazing quilt and I had to click on the link there to see more designs by the same person (Judy Niemeyer) and I'm totally in love with 4th of July and Tropical Sundance.

I'm being good though, the two designs are now on my wish list and maybe Santa will be good to me at the end of the year.

Life is bimbling along here. We took Lia to the cinema for the first time this weekend and it went much better than we hoped. We saw Wall-E (great film and the short, Presto, before it was fantastic) and she sat in her seat for the whole two hours only getting a bit upset when it got too loud for her. We're going to do Kung-Fu Panda next.

We've been doing some work in the garden too as the weather here has finally cheered up a bit. It's such a huge job that we sometimes feel we're not getting anywhere but little by little it's getting cleared up and eventually we'll have a garden that we can just sit back and enjoy. DH has been much more motivated than I expected which is great - Lia and I went to a birthday party on Saturday afternoon and got back to find he'd ripped down half the fence and cleared loads of overgrown ivy.

I will get some pics soon both of the garden and my stitching and quilting.

I've had a small HD this month as I stitched up a Secret Needle Night project from The Silver Needle - Ho Ho Santa. I'm now working on Lavender Hearts and making good progress. I've never done drawn thread before but managed the first row without too much difficulty, I've also done my first ever Lazy Daisies too. I have been a bit of a coward though as I'm leaving the hardanger heart till last, again I've never done it before, so I'll practice on some scrap fabric first.

Quilting wise I've finished up the quilt I needed to do for a birthday gift and I've also finally gotten round to finishing up the cushion tops I did in my curves course. I have another course this friday to learn the Bargello technique so am looking forward to that. I have picked out all of my red, orange, yellow and purple fabrics to take so this one is going to be bright!

In other news it looks like my work situation is going to change soon as I've been warned that my job could be at risk of redundancy. It's not really a shock (a lot of organisational changes have happened in the last couple of years) and we have redundancy insurance so we'll manage for money if we need to. The truth is that DH and I have been talking for a while about me moving on and getting something closer to where we live for when Lia goes to school (I work in the next town over, about 30-40 mins drive from home).

This is just a kick up the bum for us to get moving with things really. I won't know anything for sure till the 20th August so at the moment I'm just looking at the job market, working on my CV and biding my time till I know the facts. I don't want to jump now because I'll lose any redundancy payment I'm due and after seven years in the job it should be a decent sum.

I am sad, it's not how I'd like to move on and I do like the people in the team I'm part of but my job has changed a lot in the last two years and it's not one that I'm really enjoying any more. So all in all, I can look at the positive side of it and not really get stressed or upset, it's most likely that we'll be better off as a family once we get through all the changes.

A Meme!!!!

I never do these but this one was fun!

The Concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

The Answers:

1. What is your first name? Joy
2. What is your favorite food? Bread
3. What high school did you go to? Wincheap
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? David Tennant
6. Favorite drink? Diet Pepsi
7. Dream vacation? Australia
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate Icecream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Vet
10. What do you love most in life? Lia
11. One word to describe you. Loud
12. Your flickr name. Joyus

Why is it?

That whenever you decide to go on the Wagon almost instantly someone releases something you absolutely have to have - it's like the minute you decide to give something up or go on a diet you get cravings and are starving hungry.

For the non-crafters out there, going on 'The Wagon' is basically the same principle as when it's used for giving up alcohol, you stop buying stash of any kind for a pre-determined amount of time. I've been on the wagon on and off over the last few years but now my limited budget is having to stretch to two main hobbies and I've spent quite a lot on material recently *embarassed cough* I decided that I was back on the Wagon until the end of this year with only the Quilting Show at the NEC as an exception (with a pre-determined limited budget).

Anyway, that decision was made as I came home from Devon and then I saw this (I don't want to copy the pic here in case I'm breaking copyright but it's the first item on the page). I'm sunk. It's on order.

In my defence it is a limited edition so if I don't get it now I'll miss out and it is absolutely gorgeous so I'd be kicking myself if I didn't get it.

However my budget for the Quilt Show next month has been halved and I'm not going to be attending the Knitting and Stitching show at Ally Pally in October to avoid further temptation.

I'm not even a huge fan of Halloween designs in general, it's always been winter and christmas designs that have called to me but for some reason I'm liking them more and more. Maybe it's because now I have a child I can see more reason to celebrate Halloween (although in an English way with apple bobbing etc, not Trick or Treating) or maybe it's because tastes change over time.

Whatever it is, I'm now dusting myself off from the fall and climbing back on the wagon again with some rope to tie myself on for the next six months. Any future temptations will have to be added to my Christmas wish list (unless of course they too are limited editions that can't be ignored LOL)

Garden Plans

Grrrrrr to the English weather as I'm so keen to get out and work on the garden and it's been tipping it down for days.

We have been looking into the possibility of a garage conversion. Our house is nice and big but only has three bedrooms so if we have another child we'll lose the spare room. We could do a loft conversion but we'd lose the smallest room to provide access to the room upstairs so all we'd gain would be a bigger third room and less storage space.

We could also consider extending out to the side but given this work would take around 100k we could spend the same money building a huge house in Greece and moving over there (not to mention we don't have 100k to spare).

So DH has been looking into garage conversions as, if it's a room for your own use, you don't need planning permission and it's a much cheaper, less hassle option as all the work would carry on outside our living space.

I probably mentioned back when we were buying the house that our Garage is 51 feet long (that's 15.5 metres for the non-Imperial readers). The back end of it is a not-very-well-built extention to the original structure and the whole thing is freestanding (so not connected to the house at al).

We had a man out yesterday evening to give us some idea of what we can do and how much it will cost and we're still looking at a large sum of money (around 25k) to do it right. Basically the back extention to the garage is not stable (the walls are cracked in a way that indicates the foundations are not good enough) and to convert the whole thing would mean pulling that part down and rebuilding it so we made the decision that we'd pull it down and not rebuild, just restore the garage to it's original length which is around 35 feet so plenty big enough.

I'm so pleased - since we moved in I've wanted to get rid of the end part - it's wooden rather than the concrete of the rest, it's manky, badly built and frankly, an eyesore. Plus it's far too much garage for us - I'm going to gain around 15 feet of extra garden space when it goes which is fantastic.

We're getting a quote from the guy for the conversion of the front part of the garage into two rooms and an ensuite toilet/shower room. There would be one small 'workshop' room for DH to have his tools etc in and then the rest of the space would be our hobby room come guest room. With the extra space outside we'd get a nice garden shed to take all of the garden tools etc and we'd have more veggie patch room too.

The conversion company do a finance option where you don't pay for a year and then you pay off over four years but I'm a little reluctant to consider that option in the current financial environment. I want to talk the plans over with my BIL who is extremely experienced in building/converting/extending current houses and who will have a lot of good advice for us.

It's at times like this that I regret not living much closer to my family as, if we were with them, my BIL could be our Project Manager and Foreman and DH could learn from him and we'd get it done much, much cheaper. Unfortunately DH doesn't have the skills to go this one on his own so I need to see if my BIL would consider living with us for a few weeks to get the project done.

All in all it's very exciting. We'd move the 'office' out there and DH's guitars etc as well as my books and stash to make a real cosy space for us to use. We'd gain a nicer living space too as currently part of our lounge has the desk and computer, my stash and DH's guitars so if all of that was outside the lounge would be much less cluttered.

We'd also be able to give guests a bit of privacy as well as having a room Lia could use later for sleepovers, etc.

It's easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm for all of this but we will sit back and make proper plans. We've talked on and off for years about moving to Greece at some point and it may be that our funds could be better diverted into property over there. TBH, if we go through the 'professionals building it for us route' I will want to save for a while before going ahead (we won't be able to afford it outright) and if we go through the 'build it ourselves with assistance from friends and family' route it'll take time because it will have to be done in stages as we can afford it and have the time so neither option will be an instant one (unless we win the lottery in which case we'll be moving anyway so it won't matter LOL)

A Great Weekend

Despite the weather LOL.

L, a fellow stitching and quilting addict joined us for the weekend (I won't link to her blog because she hasn't updated it in MONTHS - hint hint) and on Saturday we went to Swindon to meet up with another friend for lunch.

We visited a local craft centre on the way which wasn't that fantastic as a lot of the shops have closed down but we did get a few bits and pieces including a fab Charlie and Lola bag for Lia and also a cute toy watch for her as she's obsessed with telling the time at the moment. We also went round the Designer Outlet Centre after lunch and I splashed out on a new pair of shoes (well they were 50% off and very comfy).

Sunday we had planned to go to Legoland if the weather was okay so when we woke up to a wet and windy day we were very disappointed. However, it didn't take long for excitement to take over from common sense and we talked ourselves in to going anyway... We had some vouchers for bogof tickets which is the only way I'd contemplate going as one adult ticket costs £35!!!!

Great fun was had by all, DH and L went on more rides than me because Lia was 4cm too short for some of them - I'm not complaining as I have a tendency to get sick on rides anyway. We did go on the really slow boats as a family though and here's a pic of us in our attractive rain gear - yes DH and Lia were having a bit more fun than me!

Lia then had a go on the mini cars driving area - she was really getting into the whole thing but she was terrible at steering - she had to be rescued about five times as much as any of the other kids.

She took it all very seriously but she was also a lot more interested in what was going on around her than where she was going. Still she had an absolute blast and she got her driving license at the end of it.

We did have a period of around an hour and a half where the sun came out and we dried off and warmed up enough to sit down and have an icecream. Unfortunately I chose to add some jelly tots to Lia's icecream and we had our first experience of her high on E numbers. Around 15 mins or so after she finished it she turned into a total brat who was ignoring us, yelling and crying and then, when we got home she was totally hyperactive. Initially I put it down to her being tired but back home in our normal environment it was like she'd taken drugs, she was hyper, absolutely deaf to our attempts to calm her or tell her off and basically just bouncing off the walls.

She very rarely has sweets of any kind but she will definitely not be having anything like that again.

Here's one final pic of her (thanks for all the pics to L, our official photographer for the weekend). Lia and Neh No

The weekend ended with us glued to the TV watching the Wimbledon Final. I'm a big tennis fan and I love Roger Federer so was disappointed that Rafa won, but what a match! I don't remember ever being so on the edge of my seat for every single point. Fair play to Nadal, he has worked so hard to raise his game over the last three years to get to the point where he can beat Federer on grass and he does play sublime tennis but as John McEnroe said this week Federer is the 'most beautiful tennis player God has created'.

Stitching wise I've been working on my Cirque des Cercles again as it finally got round to shouting at me louder than my other WIPs. No pics as yet but I'll get something before the end of the week. I'm going to keep on with it this week and then devote the next couple of weeks to getting the Victoria Sampler design finished so I can get it framed for my Sis and BIL's anniversary at the beginning of September.

I am going to spend some time quilting this week too - I hope to get some projects finished off so I can start some new ones with less guilt!

June Progress and July Goals

June Roundup

June Stitching Goals
1. Work on Lavender Hearts - Yes but I had to frog what I did :(
2. Finish Secret Sampler - Yes
3. Stitch what I feel like but focus on reducing my WIP pile - Yes

Stitching New Starts:
Lavender Hearts

Stitching Finishes:
Secret GTG Sampler
Bent Creek's The Red Thread

Books Read
The Penultimate Peril - Lemony Snicket
The Grim Grotto - Lemony Snicket
The Slippery Slope - Lemony Snicket
The End - Lemony Snicket

June Quilting Goals
1. Work on a quilt top - yes
2. Make a bag - nope
3. Make a Melly and Me animal - nope

July Goals

July Stitching Goals
1. Make good progress on Lavender Hearts
2. Stitch on Happy Haunting
3. Stitch on Sleigh Ride
4. Stitch on Cirque des Cercles
5. Stitch on a smaller WIP - hopefully have a HD

July Quilting Goals
1. Make a bag
2. Make a Melly and Me animal
3. Finish a Heart to Heart 2 quilt to be gifted in July
4. Work on the Jungle quilts that are for the babies due this month

Current Stitching WIP List
1. Stitchy Kitty - Snowman Trio
2. Stitchin'Spirations - Getting Lost in a Blackwork Maze
3. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
4. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride
5. Ink Circles - Cirque de Cercles
6. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
7. Shepherd's Bush - Be Attitudes Afghan
8. Margaret Sherry - Santa's Journey Afghan
9. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
10. The Cat's Whiskers - Grandma's Thread Minder
11. Bent Creek - The Big Zipper
12. Shepherd's Bush - Happy Haunting
13. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven's Above
14. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds
15. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan
16. Brightneedle - Garden Party
17. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet
18. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
19. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
20. Millhouse Designs - Charlie is Born
21. Dracolair - Dawn Awakening
22. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
23. Long Dog - St Germain
24. Stoney Creek - Noah's Sub
25. Just Nan - Four Wishes
26. Coeur de Brodeuse
27. Spring Lineup - The Trilogy
28. Shepherd's Bush - Red Santa
29. Victoria Sampler - Lavender Hearts

June wasn't a bad month at all - I think relaxing my goals got me focused again and now I intend to work hard at reducing my stitching WIP list between now and the end of the year. If I can reduce it by between 5 and 10 projects by 31st December I'll be happy. Quilting wise I want to get five more tops done over the next six months and some smaller projects that I have in my stash.