More Gifted Gorgeousness!

The gifts have been coming in thick and fast this week so I thought I'd dedicate a post to them.

First of all - a huge THANK YOU to everyone who posted for the Big Birthday Blog Hop on the 17th.  It was incredible to hop around all the blogs reading everyone's anecdotes and seeing what stitching they had chosen.  Not surprisingly there were a lot of spooky Hallowe'en designs, some dragons and some samplers.  People had obviously taken the time and trouble to look through my blog and see what I liked.

The first gift to arrive was from Margaret in New Zealand, she was worried about the international post so sent it early and it arrived very quickly!
Margaret does gorgeous hardanger work and this is just exquisite!

Cheryl made me a lovely card inspired by an alphabet design she's been stitching.  You can get the chart from her if you'd like to stitch me a card for next year.  Or for the Jo in your life!

Mini also made me a card, aren't the strips of fabric beautiful?  She also made a little stitched pouch which is so pretty.

Mouse sent some threads for my Chatelaine and a lovely piece of Polstitches fabric.  I haven't started my Chatelaine yet, I need to order the fabric for it using my Birthday money.  There's also a "friendship" needleminder hiding in the bag!

Julie sent me these lovely satin threads, they are perfect for adding a little bit of luxury when you're stitching fabrics.

Tiff also sent some threads for my Chatelaine and some Nora Corbett charts she scored in a  thrift store for extremely cheap bargain prices!

The extremely creative Jocondine excelled herself this year.  She sent me this beautiful vintage embroidery pamphlet, some dragon bookplates and a stitched gift-tag:

Look at the date on the pamphlet!

The piece de resistance is my board game!  Click on this photo and admire the details!

Close-up:

Jocondine has included all my blog hops (go forward 3 squares) and penalties if you miss them!  There are stitchy pictures, free charts and some of Jocondine's favourite characters from her blog.  When we were children my sister and I were always making games like this so it fitted into the theme of the blog hop perfectly!

And then there was this little wooden spool with a stitched message:

I unwound the fabric to read the message:

And then when I held it up to show hubby, I saw the reverse!

How adorable is that?

Nicola sent me a beautiful card featuring one of the samplers she has charted for Hands Across The Sea Samplers and this lovely kit to make a beaded scissor case and fob:

Preeti sent me an awesome hanging featuring the Superhero Unstoppable Jo!  She also included a gorgeous silk zipper bag with some buttons and charms and some pretty fabric which I thought was just the small plain turquoise flowers until I opened it out for the photo. Isn't it lovely?

Close-up of the hanger:

Bea sent me these three spooky needleminders from No More Lost Needles, I really need a metal board to display them when not in use:

Phew!  And Leonore sent me a Crafty Kitten voucher!

That's enough of the goodies from other people, what did I get for myself?

It was well-packaged!

There's approximately 20 feet of bubblewrap there!

A lockable display case for all the goodies I have been sent!

Kim's beautiful porcelain pencil tray inspired me to finally sort out some display space for the many lovely things I have been sent.  I needed something secure and with a glass top to protect things from prying fingers and dust.  This case is made by a company who make cases for antiques and collectors fairs and is lovely, very good quality and quick, safe delivery too.

We spent the day of my Birthday in Norwich which is our closest city.  I wanted to go to a craft fayre where my friend had a stall.  Unfortunately she was ill!  So I had to spend some pennies on other people instead.  

I bought a "cactus-you-cannot-kill".  Apparently crocheted cacti are a "thing", two stalls were selling them but this was the nicest.

I also bought some cards, a notebook, some wire ornie hooks and a lucky dip parcel.

Close-up of the lucky dip (chosen by my son)

How appropriate was that?

I had to tell the stall holder all about my Blog Hop!

The charms are all Alice in Wonderland themed which is perfect too.

Finally, one of the requests made to participants of the Big Birthday Blog Hop was to include a photo pof something stitched I would like.  Here they all are!

ps my Birthday Blog Hop post also saw my 12,000th comment!  From the lovely Rhona.  What great timing.  How serendipitous!

Celebrating my Birthday Month

Birthdays in the Blogoverse always last longer than the day itself.  There are people who send their cards and presents in early so you have to be patient; there are people who get reminded by FB and wish you Many Happy Returns on the day; there are people who see you mention your birthday on your blog and wish you Belated Greetings; then there are people who spend weeks making you something thoughtful and beautiful but don't quite manage to finish it in time (that pesky Real Life stuff getting in the way) and then there are the people who promise to send you a chart way back in the year and send a whole bunch of stuff to make up for it being late so it becomes a Birthday present!

Here are a selection of photos representing many of those people:

Card and Strawberry Pincushion from Nicola

The pincushion with the one sent by Lee earlier in the year

DIY present from Shebafudge

That fabric is called Chocolate Orange!

Lots of lovely fabric pieces for ornies, some ric-rac. some threads (including some silk) and a beautiful one from Nancy's shop

Pass the Parcel present from Karen (it was inside two outer bags too!)

The fabric is some 40 count called Rock-a-Bye

Julie went shares with Karen on the lovely stitching bags (which are made by Karen's own fair hands) and she included these two dragon needle-minders.  They will make a nice collection with the one Mouse sent me last Christmas.

And here is the pillow Karen made!!  Wyldstyle from the Lego Movie!

♪ ♫Everything is awesome!♪ ♫

And look, at the bottom it says "you're the Special" which is true.

There are no prizes for guessing who sent the next gift!

Yes, it's from Mouse, the clue is in the card.

I was only saying this morning that I wasn't sure which Just Nan to start next and now I have the perfect chart.  I wonder what it would look like on that Chocolate Orange fabric?

And this is the bundle of delights Kaye sent me!!  I won the Nora Corbett "E" from her and she generously included one or two more charts in the parcel!  I had admired the A Mon Ami Pierre one on her blog, I think it will look great on the same fabric as Noel Blanc.

I think that's everything!!  If I have forgotten anyone then I am mortally ashamed and will go hide.

Of course, the presents did not go one way.  Karen's Birthday is at the end of September and as agreed I made her a little something:

This is a little freebie chart called Automne 2009 designed by Tara.

Unfortunately the link to the blog no longer works,

This gives a better idea of the size and colour of the fabric

And here it is finished as a scissor fob.

And with the card I knew was perfect for Karen as soon as I saw it!

Plus some squirrelly fabric.

This week I have been making little tombstones for my Hallowe'en tree:

Day Three

Finally, I have made some more progress on the Frosted Pumpkin Hallowe'en Town.  Which started off as a mystery but I did not keep up!!

Stitched on 28 count Moondust evenweave from Crafty Kitten.

Birthday Review

Thank you all so much for the Birthday wishes, some on here, some on the Scarlet Letter, some on Facebook and even some in the traditional method of putting pen to paper and sending a card!  Whatever method you chose I really appreciated the wishes.

I thought I'd show some prezzie photos to show the kindness and generosity of my fellow stitchers.

This little collection came from the Mouse House and includes some goodies from the Harrogate show  and some Hot Chocolate to consume while reading Tales of a Stitching Mouse.  The fabric is a Sparklies FOM limited edition.  Hard to decide which is more yummy, the chocolate or the fabric and threads!

This parcel is from Shirlee, The Easily Influenced Stitcher.  Back in August she displayed a lovely pillow finish for the January Word Play she had stitched earlier in the year.  The ever-gracious Shirlee said:

"I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches,

Shove an ice pick under a toenail or two.

I'd rather clean all the bathrooms

in Grand Central Station with my tongue..."

Than spend one more minute ever stitching another WTN&T Word Play design again!"

So she offered it as a giveaway to one of her masochistic followers!!  Just to prove she does actually like me she also sent a lovely Just Nan chart, hoping it was not one of the many I already had.  She chose well!

 

Another Just Nan gift, this time from Sharon Shebafudge.  She saw that I'd finished my Autumn Typography and wanted to stitch the whole set, so just to help me on the way she sent me Winter.  Plus the only GAST used in this design.  We both noticed that Nan had used many different GAST for Autumn (which I converted to DMC) but this follow-up uses only one and DMC for the rest.  Do you think she got alot of complaints about the cost?

This is stash chosen by me and bought with my Birthday money.  There is a Mirabilia lurking at the back which I won't show because it's for Rachel's Round Robin and I want you all to play "Guess the Mira" along with her as I stitch it!  The Firewing is from my son and will probably be for him too.  The JBW features the kitten I already have plus the Mummy cat.  I plan to stitch the Mummy cat as a header for my alphabet kitties then do a giveaway for the chart.  Words just cannot describe the CD.  American stitchers will probably not understand just how exciting it is to be confronted with a 250 page document containing the Contents pages of ten years worth of a magazine which is hard to obtain here! 250 pages to browse before I even opened a magazine!!  Every Christmas ornie for the last ten years!!  I was quite breathless with excitement!!

Last year I instigated the first Joan Elliott RR with a lovely group of stitchers on the Yuku Board.  It was such a success they decided to do another.  However I already had the Large Mira RR and a Band Sampler so I declined.  Karen Stitchy Woman was so upset to be only stitching with me on two RRs we decided on a Birthday card exchange on a JE theme.  Note - a Birthday card.  Apparently this is what passes as only a Birthday card for some people, an entire parcel of goodies!!

A chart, a stitched bookmark, some fabric, a hand-made card, smelly soaps.

Plus this lovely hand-made project bag:

Here is a close-up of the bookmark.  Karen wracked her brains thinking of what to stitch and remembered how much I love dragons.  This one is from the Oriental Odyssey book by Joan Elliott which I don't actually have in my collection so there's no chance I could stitch it for myself.

 And here is the chart.  I have wanted this limited edition chart ever since I first learned of its existence.  Earlier this year I learned that a shop in America had acquired a number of the chart and were selling them (like hotcakes it has to be said!).  I mentioned it to Karen and asked if she would be able to try to get one for me.

I knew it was rare and limited so I wasn't surprised to see it had a number, but just look at what is under the number (9/1000 incidentally)

Yes, it is the signature of the actual Teresa Wentzler herself!!  Stitching Royalty!!

I really hope Karen wore those silk gloves they have in museums when they are handling rare and precious artefacts...

Oh yes, there was one more present, from Nicola.  But as I'm doing the extra draw she organised for my Birthday this month I'll leave the photos of that until I post on the Scarlet Letter Blog.

Finally, there has been stitching going on.  Notably on Trick and Treat and also a Challenge piece for Anna the Stitch Bitch's bi-annual challenge.  But I'm not sure of the rules about sharing photos before the competition so I won't until I hear from Anna.

Birthday Stash

It's been a busy week here, back to school means back to running my Toddler Group and Road Safety Club.  I also had a couple of appointment including a haircut!  So here we are, nearly a week after my Birthday and I still haven't posted pics.  In fact it is the Large Boy's Birthday today.  He was due on 28th August, then they changed the date to 11th September and he finally arrived on 23rd September, weighing in at 8lbs 3oz.  So 9 years ago to this minute I was puffing and panting having "an active birth".  He arrived at 12.50 lunchtime.

Back to the stash!  This is just a selection of what arrived on/before my Birthday.  The Just Nan is from the large boy, he chose it from my Wishlist on SewandSo's website, great idea, I select half adozen charts I'd like and he chooses one so I still get a surprise.
The charms are the small boy from an Ebay company called Ang's Attic, only 99p to £1.39 for a bag of 10.  Now there was some confusion here as some of the bags are mixed (the nautical and Christmas ones) and some said you could choose from a selection.  I picked and chose thinking I was getting 2 witches, 2 crows, 2 pumkins etc when actually I was getting 2 PACKS of each!  Luckily Ang was very understanding and deleted the extra packages for me, refunding the money.  It does mean I have rather alot of Hallowe'en charms so will be popping some into any stitching parcels I send out!
The books are from my brother, apparently werewolves are the new vampires.  He also gave me the Twilight plasters (band-aid to Americans), the way to wear them is on your neck to suggest you have been nibbled by a vampire!



My parents are paying for Bluebeard's Mermaid to be framed, so my brother chose mermaid themed wrapping paper for his presents, he cuts the tags out from the paper itself so they co-ordinate.  The paper is too lovely to throw away!

Here is my cake, it is a fruit cake with hard icing and marzipan, my favourite cake.  We used food-colouring pens to write on the cake.  The large boy decided we should use all my names and did the writing for me (except "daughter" and "sister" which I did).  The red splodges are icing sugar which I put too much food-colouring in, it looked great and tasted vile, glad we didn't do the whole cake!

My in-laws gave me money and I treated myself to a grab-bag from The Crafty Kitten (four random pieces of 9x12 fabric) and this chart: light-and-shadow-firewing-designs  Four silhouette dragons which fit perfectly onto the grab-bag fabrics!  Dawn has a small range of charts with a discount available if you buy the fabric at the same time.  She is testing to see what is popular and is very open to suggestions.  Particularly mine, which is why there are a number of Firewing Designs, I can't find them anywhere else in the UK.

I also have some fabric on order from Sparklies' sale which will hopefully arrive soon.  Hubby is paying for the frames for my Just Nan Seasons and also anything random I added to the credit card in September!

I almost forgot to add some stitching pics (blush):

Tree of Stitches:

 Gazette 94's Autumn Heart

 Joan Elliott Green Goddess:

 Periphaeria Star SAL:

These are all WIPS so I will talk more about them later, fabric, threads, links etc.

And finally, this week's random question (no prize!) is : 
Which are you:
a. Team Edward
b. Team Jacob
c. Haven't a clue what you're on about.