Martha who?

Hello again :-) Thanks for all the comments on yesterdays post, we really enjoyed our time away and I had great fun going through all the pictures we had taken and sharing some of them with you.
As promised, today I have a stitchy update. I did take some stitching on holiday with me but I forgot to take my q snaps so I didn't get any stitching done at all :-( on the bright side that meant that my evenings were spent beating DH at Scrabble :-) Before I left I managed to squeeze in this little finish.

Trick or Treat freebie found here

28ct Sadie dyed evenweave

DMC floss

My weekend evenings were somewhat back to normal so I was able to get some stitching in on a new start. I'll hopefully get this and the others awaiting finishing made into pillows for my halloween basket, before halloween!

Pumpkin Kitty by San-Man Originals

28ct Sadie dyed evenweave

DMC floss

Finally, Caitlin has been inspired by our trip to the Sealife centre and has been crafting up a sea creature storm the past few evenings. Last night she made a super cute jellyfish out of a yoghurt pot, coloured paper, string and cotton buds (q tips). I asked her where she had got the instructions from and she said nowhere, she made this up all by herself! Martha Stewart better watch out!
Happy stitching (and crafting!),
Sadie x

Away days

Last week we went away for a few days to Fleetwood. We had a wonderful time even though it was very cold, thankfully I had packed lots of warm clothes and also extra blankets, hot water bottles and an electric blanket too!
*Now might be a good time to get a cup of tea/coffee and a snack, there are lots of pics!*
We had some great day trips whilst we were there, first up was the Blackpool Sealife Centre, where I took the wheel :-)
Sadly, it seems that I am not destined for a life on the ocean waves, oiled with rum, as I managed to steer us into trouble! Firstly the kids were attacked by a shark.

And then Caitlin was chased by a fearsome sea monster.

On the plus side I did manage to get a decent pic of DH.

We also visited Chester Zoo, which was amazing!
The kids got to ride on a baby elephant.

And Cameron was reunited with his long lost twin brother :-)

Seriously, we had a great holiday. I can highly recommend both the zoo and sealife centre, they were such fun and the staff at both were friendly and knowledgeable. I did take some pictures of the real animals, not just my two monkeys! Here are some of my favourites.

I have a little bit of stitching to show but you'll have to come back tomorrow for that :-)

Have a great week,

Sadie x

That 70's pumpkin

This little pumpkin is just soooooooooooooooo 70's! It reminds me of the curtains that were in our bedroom when we bought this house :-)

Pumpkin freebie from cyberstitchers

28ct hand dyed linen

DMC floss

CUTENESS ALERT

The next two finishes pack a lot of cuteness into a small package :-)
First is this little witch and her familiar.

Freebie from cyberstitchers

28ct 'Fire' linen from Sparklies

DMC floss

And here we have quite possibly the cutest wizard I have ever seen.

Freebie from cyberstitchers

28ct black evenweave

DMC floss

Well that sums it up for my stitching so far this week, I'm currently working on something that I can't show just yet and I also have Bent Creek 'Autumn Row' kitted up and ready to go too. I can't wait to get started on it.
Thank you to everyone who left a comment or emailed me about my Spooky Row finish, you are all so very kind. I love to read what you have to say, so don't be shy about commenting or getting in touch through email :-) I promise that I don't bite.
Off now to sit beside the fire, and stitch of course, as it's rather chilly here today.
Have a great week,
Sadie x

Spooky happy dance

Yesterday afternoon I put the final stitches into Spooky Row :-)
Here is a picture of the whole piece.

Spooky Row by Bent Creek

28ct tobacco evenweave

DMC floss

And here are closeups to show the details better. All pics are clickable to make them bigger :-)

I really like the skeleton, his wonky eyes are awesome :-) This was my first time with colonial knots, they seem to give a more consistant result than french knots in my opinion, or maybe the problem is with how I do my french knots! Either way, I like colonial knots.

I LOVE the vulture, I think it looks like he is eyeing up the pumpkin for his next meal. Maybe he is a vegan vulture.

Thanks to a very generous loan from Cath, I will soon have Autumn Row to be getting on with :-) The piece of fabric I used for Spooky Row is big enough that I can stitch Autumn Row below it, so I will wait until I have it stitched too and then I will separate them and get them framed :-)

Last night I kitted up several more little halloween designs, so they will be keeping me busy for the rest of the weekend.

The kids are now off school for two weeks so they will be keeping me busy too!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend,

Sadie x

Winner

Thank you all so very much for the kind comments and congratulations on me reaching my second blog birthday. It really means a lot and I enjoyed reading through everything you had to say.
So, it turns out that all glamorous assistants are on strike this weekend. Something to do with being objectified I think. So I had to make do with DH Stuart. LOL
Here are all the names in the bowl.
And here is Stuart mixing them all up.

Drum roll please.

The winner of the blog birthday celebration giveaway is......................

Congratulations Deborah, an email is on it's way to you. Please get in touch with your mailing details and I'll have your prize out to you ASAP :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with a stitchy update :-)

Have a great weekend,

Sadie x

Row ho ho

and a bottle of rum :-)
Here is this weeks progress snap of Spooky Row by Bent Creek.
And a close up. You can click on the pics to make them bigger.

I haven't really done much stitching this week. I have printed off loads of new freebies to stitch though. I probably have enough to keep me going well into next year :-)

When I am finished with this piece I would quite like to stitch one of the other rows by Bent Creek, particularly the Christmas, winter and autumn rows. Does anybody want to do a little swap? My chart is care worn so if you want to swap and then swap back when finished that's fine. I would also consider any of the other alphabet rows :-)

Cameron had a great weekend of birthday fun. I didn't get a good pic of the birthday boy himself (that boy never sits still!) but here is a snap of his cake.

DD Caitlin helped and we decided to call it a 'Chocolate Extravaganza Cake' I bet you can probably see why we chose that name :-)

Tomorrow I will be drawing a winner for my blog birthday celebration giveaway. there is still time to enter. You need to go leave a comment here for your chance to win. Good luck.

Off now to see if I can get in a few stitches before I call it a night.

Only one more sleep till the weekend :-)

Sadie x

Huge smiles all round

First things first, this year Missy Ann has teamed up with Annette to host the 31 days of Halloween. That's a giveaway a day for the whole of October! How wonderful is that! For more info and details on how to enter go check this out. Spooktacular indeed :-)

I discovered a new to me blog this week. It's called Beadlework and is written by the lovely Ann. Go on over and say hi. It is a great blog and there is also a destash blog :-) I snapped up this BBD booklet for just £4 ( I know, amazing) , I ordered it on Monday evening and had it in my hot little hands by Wednesday. And just take a look at the extras that I found when I opened the package.
Ann, thank you so much. This really put a huge smile on my face, and on the kids faces too as they got the sweets! I have plans for just about everything already.

This weeks stitching time has gone into Spooky Row by Bent Creek.

I have done a little bit more since this pic was taken and I'm now about three quarters of the way done. I'm enjoying stitching this immensely, the colour changes and motifs are often enough that I don't get bored with stitching the letters, but not too often that I get sick of re threading the needle :-) I think I am excited about this one too as I have the frame for it already. I got it at Wilkinsons, and it was marked half price so it was only £5. The mount board that comes with the frame has five smaller apertures cut into it to hold photographs but I am going to cut out the middle to leave one large aperture. I really hope this works out as well as it does in my head! LOL

I spent an afternoon finishing off some of the pieces I stitched last week. The L*K freebie 'Spooky Patch' went into this little black, glass frame.

Being glass, it was impossible (for me anyway!) to get a good picture. That's my hands holding the camera you can see in the reflection :-)

L*K's Halloween Flip It was finished as a flat ornament. The fabric it is lying on is what I used for the backing.

Last up is part of the banner from When Witches Go Riding by Prairie Schooler. This one was also ridiculously hard to photograph. The flash kept causing loads of glare and turning the flash off got me really dark pictures. This is the best I could do. (you can click on the picture to go large if you want, as you can with all the other pics too)

I bought this papier mache form at my local craft shop. I then painted it black and artfully (!?!?!) splattered it with orange, yellow and green paint. I removed the twine hanger and attatched my own homemade one to tie in with the cording abound the design. This is my favourite of the three finishes, it is such fun, and brings a huge smile to my face everytime I walk past it.

Next week I am hoping to get some more halloween/autumn stitches finished and then maybe I will have a pic of them all in the basket I mentioned.

Thanks to DS Camerons birthday this weekend, my days will be filled with presents, relatives and friends, cake, bowling, pizza and hopefully lots of huge smiles and laughter too. I hope I have the energy to pick up my needle in the evenings!

Don't forget to enter my blog birthday celebration giveaway too. To enter, just go leave a comment here. The winner will be drawn on the 8th october. Good luck :-)

Have a great weekend,

Sadie x