I put the final stitches in to Grand Marquoir yesterday evening, but waited until today to take a photograph, hoping that it would be a nice, bright day.  Unfortunately it’s a dark, gloomy, very wet day here in South Wales so I did the best I could and spread GM on my lounge floor and stood on a chair to take the photos.

Unfortunately the photos don’t show the beautiful colour of the red too well.

I’ve been working on this since January this year.  On the one hand I’m relieved to have finished it, on the other hand I was sorry to put the final stitches in it.  I am so pleased that I managed to get it finished this year, even though I did fall behind with the SAL a couple of times

Whilst blog browsing the other day I came across another SAL which you can see here .  You can see parts 1 and 2 if you click Mon Marquoir at the top of the column on the right hand side of the page this link takes you to.   I really do like the parts that have been released so far, but the rest of the squares are a mystery at the moment so I will wait and see what the first few look like before deciding whether to take the plunge.

Sorry about the terrible picture, it was taken with my phone and it’s really dark in here today.

My progress on Grand Marquoir…..

Just three squares left!  Phill is out this evening so I know I can get a good few hours stitching in tonight and with the weekend fast approaching I’m feeling very confident of a November finish for this design!

Over on the LHN Ornament SAL blog, quite a few of us have been taking part in a “warm up” where we are stitching an ornament either from LHN or CCN from various Just Cross Stitch Ornament issues.

I chose to stitch Let it Snow by LHN.  I’ve never made an ornament before so it was a steep learning curve for me, but good practice for the real thing, which starts next month.

So here, slightly wonky, is my first ornament…

Other than this ornament I have been plodding away on Grand Marquoir, still aiming for a November finish (fingers crossed!)

….or at least trying my best to!

It’s becoming quite dangerous to browse the internet during my lunch hour lately.  First I spotted the LHN Ornament SAL which Vonna has organised, I just couldn’t resist that one and signed up straight away.

Today I’ve seen the most amazing chart, which immediately made me want to drop everything and start stitching it.

It’s from Victoria Sampler and is called Carol Singers Sampler, and I think it’s completely gorgeous.  You can see more information here.  I have already sent a link to Phill and have asked him to buy it for me for Christmas, I will order the thread packs as a little Christmas present to myself LOL.  The plan is to start this over the Christmas holiday (when I have 12 full days off work – yippee!!) and hopefully get it finished in time to hang on the wall next Christmas.

Stitching wise this week I’ve been stitching up a storm on Grand Marquoir.  I think I’ll have part 5 finished by the weekend and will definitely have the last part finished by the end of the month.  Here’s an extremely wrinkly progress pic for you..

Tonight is Bonfire night here in the UK, probably my least favourite night of the year.  I really don’t like fireworks, all our cats are already completely scared out of their wits and are following us around like stalkers!  Our neighbours always have huge displays of fireworks and if previous years are anything to go by they will have two or three firework parties, tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.  It must cost them an absolute fortune!!

Thank you all for visiting my blog and leaving such lovely comments.  They really are very appreciated!

Tonight we’ve spent the evening putting the final finishing touches to our new bathroom.  Phill decided that he didn’t want to wait until the carpet fitter could fit us in (I don’t think he really wanted the job as it was probably too small and not well enough paying for him) so he decided to do it himself.  I have to admit that I was very nervous, because it’s such an awkward little room with lots of “ins and outs”.  But every credit to him, he’s done a great job and we think it looks just amazing.  I’d just hoovered when this pic was taken so the colours look a bit patchy, it’s just the hoover marks.  The true colour, at least on my monitor, is the area in front of the loo.

I also bought some new towels at Next on the way home to tie in the red and black theme.

So, no stitching for me this evening, it’s just gone 10pm and we haven’t even eaten dinner yet LOL.  Stay tuned tomorrow though for a progress pic on Grand Marquoir.

Finally, I have joined a SAL for the coming year of Little House Needleworks ornaments, organised by Vonna.  The pic below is the first ornament in the series, to go to the SAL blog which Vonna has started click here.

I’m getting the charts auto shipped by Down Sunshine Lane, so hopefully by this time next year I will have 12 ornaments to hang on my christmas tree.

And a close up shot to better show the colours in the thread.

South Seas Lace by Debbie Draper Designs, featured in the May 2009 edition of The Gift of Stitching magazine.

Stitched on 28 count Jubilee fabric from Sugar Maple Fabrics called “Ocean Spray” using Hand Dyed Fibers silk thread called Paua Abalone.

Just a quick post this morning sent from my iPhone to show you the great progress I made last night on SSL. Phill was out last night so I spent the whole evening stitching!  (Sorry about the darkness of the photo)

After I posted my progress on Grand Marquoir yesterday I had an email from eagle eyed Claire who had spotted that the block I had half stitched, thinking it was part 5 of the SAL, was in fact from part 6 of the SAL.  I never thought I’d ever be glad to have been doing so much housework on a Sunday but if I had stuck to my original plan to stitch all day I would have worked on GM and would have been frogging a lot more than I now have to.

So, a BIG thank you to Claire.  Guess what I’ll be doing this evening …..LOL

It seems like forever since I posted to my blog, but things have been so busy around here the last few weeks I have barely put needle to fabric so haven’t had a lot to show you.

The bathroom renovation is more or less complete, the only thing left to do is to have the carpet fitted and we are waiting for a phone call from the carpet fitter to let us know when he can fit us in.  We picked the carpet up yesterday and it is absolutely stunning.  I can’t wait for it to be fitted as I think it is going to finish off the bathroom perfectly.

Here’s some pics of the 99% finished room.  Yet again Phill has done a fabulous job – he really can turn his hand to anything and everything.

You can see how small the bathroom is, but it’s surprising how much hard work he’s done to get it looking like this.  All I need to get now is some new towels to put in the towel holder which is above our very very shiny radiator.

I have done a little stitching the last couple of days and have finally finished part 4 of Grand Marquoir, so a very small happy dance for me!.  Parts 5 and 6 have been released for some time so I’m really going to have to get my skates on to finish this by the end of the year!

One final picture for you, my current progress on the South Seas Lace stitch a long.  I’ve had a gentle kick up the backside this afternoon from Claire on her blog LOL.  She’s racing ahead and is not far from finishing, so I will work on SSL this evening to see if I can catch her up.    Her SSL looks amazing – pop over to her blog to have a look.

I’ve had a very busy day today, housework this morning, baking this afternoon – I made an apple cake (for us) and a pumpkin pie (which I will take into work, it’s become a bit of a tradition that I bake a pumpkin pie around Halloween).  I’ve also got a Lamb Hot Pot in the oven at the moment for our dinner this evening which smells so good it’s starting to make my mouth water!

Congratulations to Lisa, who was the first person to email me at 14.47 today, closely followed by Tracey, Erica  and Dani.    I only wish I had more than one chart to give away!

I am planning on having a bit of a de-stash over the coming weeks/months so will have a few more giveaways leading up to Christmas!