Tuesday, 30 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 9

Welcome back for day nine of the eighth round of mystery stitching! I've been feeling better over the last few days despite the weather being so changeable - odd as normally that sets things off, but I'm not complaining, I'm merely surprised. The timing was good though as I still have a lot of stitching to get done for the monthly posts on the first of the month - I haven't even looked at the Temperature SAL (except to borrow the yellow hehehe). There won't be a post tonight as I've run out of SALs to post on Tuesday's but you get the Temperature SAL and the Seasons SAL tomorrow as it's then the first of the month.

Monday, 29 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 9 - Information Post

Hi and welcome to the ninth information post for a Mini Magical Mystery SAL! With lockdowns easing, but still enforced/sensible for many people I'm continuing with another mystery to keep you stitching! This pattern is the same size as the other eight and has 316 stitches total. This mystery will start the day after the current mystery ends: 6th July. This mystery is two parts shorter than usual because the Summer Magical Mystery SAL starts on the 18th July, the day after this one ends.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 8

Welcome back for day eight of the eighth round of mystery stitching! I woke up this morning to the sounds of kids playing outside at a time they shouldn't be and realised that the primary school across the road was having the end of school year activities. It made me wonder how they did stuff for the year eight students who would be going on to secondary (high) school in September. My kids went to that school so I know that normally they go on a week-long camp to the seaside, which was obviously not possible this year. The yearly play the kids did and the Gala ball with the students arriving in batches in fancy cars/on a Harley also couldn't happen. I am sad this year's kids will miss out on all that, not just at this school but all primary schools where most kids spend years looking forward to this stuff. Deep thoughts so soon after waking up. On to something brighter!

Sunday, 28 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 7

Welcome back for day seven of the eighth round of mystery stitching! We are at the halfway point of this mystery! Tomorrow the information post for the next mystery will go up - I think I set it to go up an hour after the daily pattern post. Then at the end of that mystery we get the Summer Magical Mystery - roughly three times the stitches per day for two weeks but it should be good fun!

Saturday, 27 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 6

Welcome back for day six of the eighth round of mystery stitching! Not much to say today really, all the excitement has happened for the week and my rheumatism is finally relenting a bit so with any luck I can sit and stitch today. No pond yet - first it was too wet, then too hot, and last night it rained cats and dogs - and I'm sure I saw a cow go past! - which of course means no digging today as the earth is too wet. Ah well... more stitching time for me!

Friday, 26 June 2020

NFSAL 2020 - June

Welcome to the sixth of this year's NFSAL posts! This month life happened and I had forgotten to check in with Carla till it was to late - I thought I had but with the way I'm feeling it's not too surprising that I hadn't.  I started with the backstitched outlines but I wasn't able to finish on time. So this month you get computer generated images - sorry about that.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 5

Welcome back for day five of the eighth round of mystery stitching! Sorry for being a little late, this took longer to write than anticipated. Yesterday the teachers of youngest's school finally showed up at midday - talk about making us wait! They did some set up before ringing the doorbell that included rolling out a red carpet and setting up an elbow height table. Then they rang the doorbell and started up some music on the portable speaker. Youngest got a face full of the contents of a party popper and a felt mortarboard put on his head. Then while he signed his diploma one of his teachers sang "you'll never walk alone". She can sing fortunately but as this was one of the songs played at my dad's funeral it always sets off the waterworks - it was a struggle not to cry and I'm sure if the teachers noticed then they probably thought it was proud mum stuff.

Thursday, 25 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 4

Welcome back for day four of the eighth round of mystery stitching! Today we will be getting a delegation of teachers on our doorstep to do the alternate method of graduation here: a folded table at least 1.5m/6ft away from our front door and the rest is shrouded in mystery as it's all a surprise. All we know it will happen sometime between 9 am and midday - so far we have been waiting 1 1/2 hours for them to show up. The shopping has fortunately already arrived (Thursday is the day my online shopping arrives) as youngest and I both had a nightmare that everything happened at once.

Wednesday, 24 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 3

Welcome back for day three of the eighth round of mystery stitching! Today I was able to get some stitching done - I'm not all caught up yet but that's because I wanted to get this post up on time. I'm pretty sure you can wait till tomorrow to see part two stitched up hehe. My rheumatism is still being mean but not as mean as it's been the last two days which is why I was able to sit and stitch. Yay!

Tuesday, 23 June 2020

A Blackwork Christmas - June

Welcome to the sixth edition of A Blackwork Christmas SAL! Since I have done most of a rainbow so far with my colours I decided to go with purple this month. As mentioned in this morning's Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 post I'm having a bit of a flare up with my rheumatism so sitting and stitching isn't really comfortable as a result. I did get *some* stitching done but it's nowhere near finished.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 2

Welcome back for day two of the eighth round of mystery stitching! I won't be showing any progress pictures today for the plain and simple reason that I wasn't able to start stitching. I'm currently having a flare up and sitting is too uncomfortable for me to sit very long - it's one of the many joys of having rheumatism. The good news is that posts can and will go up as per schedule - I can sit long enough to make them happen.

Monday, 22 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Part 1

Welcome back for day one of the eighth round of mystery stitching! It's been fun seeing the few people who have had time to stitch and share their progress - I'm starting to think that this project is slowly winding itself down as fewer people are stitching (or at least showing what they are stitching) but we will see - perhaps with the summer coming up more people will have time again. I hope so as its rather fun.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Final Post

Welcome back for the final post of the seventh Mini Magical Mystery SAL! Don't worry it's not over - the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 starts in an hour! This post is just a final post showing my stitching of part fourteen and it added to the ever growing chain.  I do hope you all had fun! I have loved seeing your stitching in the Facebook group! (Remember these are mysteries so belong in the Mystery group, even if you are also a member of the main SAL group). This time there were two possible endings - so you could choose which one you wanted to do.

Sunday, 21 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Part 14

Welcome back for day fourteen of the seventh round of mystery stitching! This is also the final day of patterns for this SAL - I'll be back one more time to show what I have made tomorrow (an hour earlier than usual). The next round of the Mini Magical Mystery will start tomorrow at noon as per the information post. That said today's post is a little different from the usual posts... there is a bonus part! I just couldn't squeeze all the stitches into a single part and not everyone may want to do the extra stitches so this is a choose your own ending version! However as always I won't be showing pictures of the stitching of today's part(s) till tomorrow.

Saturday, 20 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 8 - Information Post

Hi and welcome to the eighth information post for a Mini Magical Mystery SAL! With lockdowns easing, but still enforced/sensible for many people I'm continuing with another mystery to keep you stitching! This pattern is the same size as the other seven and has 300 stitches total. This mystery will start the day after the current mystery ends: 22nd June.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Part 13

Welcome back for day thirteen of the seventh round of mystery stitching! It's the penultimate part and tomorrow brings the final part of this SAL - I'm a bit late with the information post for the next one  so I'll get that and the ninth one written today (the ninth one will be scheduled to post in a week or so, so only one will show up today) so I can't forget again. Time has been flying by lately!

35 x 35 for 2020 - June

Welcome to the sixth 35 x 35 for 2020! I'm a lot later than planned with this post - first I made the incredible discovery that it's a bad idea to let your bead mat with beads already on it get caught in your embroidery hoop when you are rehooping. The resulting bead tsunami that flooded over my desk, keyboard, keyboard tray and floor, was not fun to clear up and slowed me down quite a bit. Then my computer decided it would join in the fun and gave me a Blue Screen of Death which put me even further off schedule than already was. I have to say that knowing that all of the patterns were safe on an external server made the whole thing a lot less stressful as I didn't have to worry I'd lost anything. I am however finally able to get this post up so am doing so!

Friday, 19 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Part 12

Welcome back for day twelve of the seventh round of mystery stitching! Today my pond arrived in a very, very big lorry (truck in the USA) - it was on a tiny pallet that was right at the back of the empty lorry - you could probably carry three at a time side by side on a forklift truck. Sadly it isn't an instant pond but digging will need to be done first - as soon as the earth dries up enough! One pond, some assembly required, water and pond contents not included.

Thursday, 18 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Part 11

Welcome back for day eleven of the seventh round of mystery stitching! Just three more days and you will see the end of this SAL! Much sadness but also much joy as I'll then see more awesome things people make with the patterns!  Some of the end results are *really* creative - like the person who stitched five of the SALs on the same fabric with the same thread and then stitched them onto a shirt/jacket! So, so pretty!

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 7 - Part 10

Welcome back for day ten of the seventh round of mystery stitching! When it's not raining it's been quite nice out but with the garden still a mess after the neighbours did their extension last year and me having to move all my plants for the new fence the year before it's not nice to go sit in the garden. I was planning on putting a pond in (well ok - drawing lines and making minions dig) but that too got delayed due to not being able to buy the materials needed with the money I'd saved up for the job. Now of course the rain is making the delays as digging wet earth is backbreaking so it's best put off till the earth is drier. It has however given me time to really think about size and shape - and how I want to include areas for plants that like damp earth and how to make that possible, so there is a plus to it all.