There are three progress pictures this time. The first one is Monday nights SAL Sleigh Ride:

I have finished the main clump of trees top left and stitched the snow at the top of the first roof, although the photo doesn't show this very clearly.


The second photo is Tuesday nights SAL Celtic Winter:

I have finished one page of the cloak and started the next page.


Now let me introduce you to the headless horseman:

This photo is my progress on HAED - A Favour. I had planned to finish his head before posting a progress pic but that would be another page and I want a break from this design. The photo shows page 24 and 28. There are a lot of colour changes and quite a few colours only have one or two stitches per colour!

I am now going back to stitch on HAED - Tomboy. I would like to get the current page finished.

I don't know where this week has gone, it just flew past! Here are the weekly update photos for the two SAL, better late than never.

The first one is Sleigh Ride:

This is Celtic winter. I stitched it on Wednesday for a couple of hours instead of Tuesday as my parents and sister came on Tuesday evening:

I have also been stitching on HAED - A Favour and was going to post an update photo, but at the moment I have a headless rider which is rather alarming! I decided to finish the page before taking a photo.

Weekly Cross Stitch Update

I only managed to stitch on Sleigh Ride for around 30 minutes on Monday evenings SAL, so not much progress. I stitched the tree trunks:

I stitched for much longer on Celtic Winter for Tuesday evenings SAL. I finished all the darker blue on the page:

Here is the current picture of HAED – Tomboy as of 3 Feb:

I didn’t get around to taking the photo until now. I am going to come back and continue this page next week. I have really started to enjoy stitching this now I can see the picture developing.

Birthday

I had a great birthday (although no stitching)! I spent the day with R who surprised me by playing his guitar. He hasn’t picked it up for over 8 years and still managed to play beautifully. I was so touched; it was the highlight of my day.

I did well with presents, which included 12 HAED charts! I received:

"Giaccometta" Krystal Camprubi
"Ice Wind 2" Linda Tso
"Martyrs" Tracy Butler
"SunkenTreasure" Schim Schimmel
"Sunnia Golden Dragon" Linda Tso
"Swans" Ruth Sanderson
"TheAccolade" Leighton
"The Crown Jewel" Schim Schimmel
"Victory" Selina Fenech

Click here to see pictures. I can’t wait to start them all! I can see my rotation growing.

In a birthday card I was given a few lotto scratch cards which I won £19 with, which added to the fun of the day.

Celtic Winter Day 3

Yesterday evening I worked a bit more on the Celtic Winter SAL:

I am pleased with the progress. I have completed around 5% in 3 days with only a couple of hours stitching each time. It is stitching up quickly and is fun to do.

Tonight I am planning to stitch on HAED ‘Tomboy’. I am looking forward to working on this again.

I am currently rushing around trying to fit next weeks planned jobs into this week, along side this weeks work. It is my birthday on Sunday and I would like to take a few hours off each day next week for some extra stitching time. If you can’t do it for your birthday when can you?  

Unfortunately though it means I am not getting time to read blogs or visit the groups. I will catch up with them soon though – promise.

Sleigh Ride Day 3

I didn't manage to get as much stitching time tonight as I had too much other stuff to do, but I still managed to make some progress on Sleigh Ride.

I have reached the first roof, but still have quite a bit to do before I finish the width of the trees. I will continue with the trees next week, although it is tempting to start the roof.

Thank you for the comments! I love receiving them.

The Master

I thought we had managed to avoid all the bugs going around at the moment, but on Friday both R and I came down with colds. Feeling pretty lousy I couldn’t settle to anything so didn’t achieve as much as I wanted. Of course I did manage to do some stitching! I started ‘The Master’ which is the head of a male lion. This is a fun one to stitch so have made good progress.

This weekend we have also changed web hosts for my personal site. So far I have been happy with the new company. If it performs well we will be moving the business website over to it. A job I am not looking forward to, but as long as the new web server does perform well it will be worth it.

This evening (as long as I finish work in time) I will be working on Sleigh Ride for the Monday SAL. I will take a progress picture and upload tomorrow.

Summer Breeze

Another new WIP:

This is Leisure Arts Summer Breeze by Paula Vaughan. I had problems with this at first and had to unpick everything I had done and re-start. It wasn't helped by the fact there are a load of fractional stitches in it! I hate fractionals!!! There is also a lot of backstitch (which I also hate) so I am planning to do it as I go along.

I am going to start 'The Master' next which is a male lions head and I can't wait. I love lions!

Day 2 of Celtic Winter

Here is my progress on Celtic Winter after my second evening of stitching:

The white is wisper thread. It is the first time I have used this and I was surprised how easy it was to stitch with. Although I have to remember to keep the lengths shorter than normal otherwise it is bald before I reach the end, not quite the effect I am after.

I have started with the silver thread and think it will look good on the finished piece. I was going to use gold as charted, but with the blues of the cloak thought the silver would look better. I decided to use Petite Treasure Braid as I find this stitches up easier than other brands I have used in the past. It is more 'sparkly' than it looks in the photo.

Day 2 of Sleigh Ride

This is my progress of Dimensions Sleigh Ride for the second Monday night stitch along:

Although it still looks like a blob you can see the trees at the top left of the picture developing if you know what to look for - honest. I think another one or two nights of stitching will get me to the start of a roof and that should look a bit more interesting.