Finally...The Wedding is Complete.

Well, as the title says it is done, finished, complete. Over a month of work, a few hiccups, running out of thread etc. But now it is done and ready to be sent off to the framers. He will be collecting it in a day or so and so I can move on now to other things.

What??? You want to see it?? Really?? 

OK here is the finished stitch

I don't think you can really judge the size of this properly so here I am holding it.

As you can see it covers me from neck to bum lol. Told you it was a big piece.

It would have to be to cover my bum lol.

So now what to do?? hmmm oh yeah, back to the Christmas stitches

I made a start on a new one here

But I made a mistake and had to do some frogging, here it is after the frogging

Gutted is not the word a good couple hours work down the pan.

I then started stitching again and got this far

Another night and this will be done. Fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is my 8th wedding anniversary, and so the hubby and I will be chilling out watching one of our fave programmes on DVD, kids in bed early we may even be able to watch 4 episodes. It''s a sad life isn't it lol.

We will go out to celebrate at the weekend no doubt too. I'm not that hard done to lol.

Anyway off to bed for me apparently I will be woken up early so I can have breakfast in bed. 

Speak soon xx

Knitting a scarf (with instructional videos)

For Christmas this year we are doing a handmade Christmas  This means that all gifts are handmade. The children are really looking forward to seeing what Santa will be bringing them and eagerly thinking of what they can make as gifts, so watch this space for all our makings.

Emily has been after a hand knitted scarf for ages now and so I have decided to give her one for Christmas, and of course once one wants something the rest follow and so now all three girls are wanting scarfs. So I thought about it and I have decided to make them all a hat glove and scarf set in the colours of their choice.

Emily wants purple, so please watch the video below to see how to do it.

Unfortunately the camera is on the wrong side so to watch you will have to tilt your head :( If anyone knows how I turn it please tell me

This one shows casting on and basic knit stitch

This shows casting off

This shows casting on, knit stitch and purl stitch

This shows how to cast off in purl stitch

And here is Emily's finished scarf.

And this is Jessica's

Double update

I haven't done much on 'The Wedding' over the last two days as  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  and Jade have been doing 'their bit'. It almost killed me letting them take over, I was not a happy bunny lol. Here they are giving it a go.

Thing is  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  really got into it and continued for a couple of hours, while I sat twiddling my thumbs.

Here is the result at the end of Friday

And this is it at the end of Saturday

As you can see, there is more of the white at the top done (that's all I would trust  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  to do without supervision lol.  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  managed around 150 stitches in 2 and 1/2 hours)

We took the girls to the cinema on Saturday to see Top Cat, they do a family special film where it costs just £1 per person (of course if you are like me you will sign up on line and get yourself a further 10% discount)

The younger girls loved it, Jade not so much and I fell asleep half way through.  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  was my pillow lol.

When we got home from the cinema we were greeted by these

Jessica liked the yellow one Emily liked the orange one. We made flags with them here are the girls doing just that.

 

 In other news Kerry has finished her cross stitch. She is very proud of it and I must say for her first one she has done very well. 

Can't wait for her to give it to Jade as she is so excited about it. 

I have also joined a group that takes photos of their waste jars, so you will see the label TUSAL and a picture like this.

For more information about what this is about then go here to read up more about it.

Anyway off now to cook a Sunday dinner! woohoo getting excited about it how sad am I?

Speak soon x

Family cross stitch day

The girls and I have been working together again today on our cross stitches, I love how my hobby has sparked their interest too.

Here they are ready for bed still stitching away. In fact they were so excited to get back to their stitching that bath time was a breeze they wanted to be in and out as fast as they could.

Jessica is 'finishing' a project started 3 years ago by our former lodger. I won't be finishing it off and so I gave it to Jess. She wants to get up early in the morning to finish it off.

Emily is putting colours on in her own style. You can see at the top in the green she is getting the hang of doing the actual crosses to make up a stitch. Once she understands this part I can move her on to an actual chart so she ends up with a finished 'proper' picture.

And last but not least, Kerry is doing a butterfly as a gift for Jade, who is coming over on Wednesday. She is really wanting to get it completed in time for the big arrival.

In fact all the girls  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  are excited to see Jade again. It's strange not to see her everyday. 

As for me, my stitching had had to take a back seat, as I have been helping the girls with theirs. Though Kerry is now getting really good at threading her own needle, I still have to help her occasionally. Jessica however, needs her needle rethreading after virtually every stitch lol. Emily just needs hers doing at each colour change.

Here is how 'The Wedding' is coming along.

This is a closer version of the one on the right.

I still haven't had any guesses for the 'prize stitch' here it is again for guessing. Just put your guess in the comments box!

Jessica is going to my Mum's for a couple of nights tomorrow, wonder what we will end up doing without her. The way it's going they will just want to stitch all day lol. Speak soon xx

Long walk home

I took the girls to my mums yesterday, thinking we could walk it home and give the dog a good run while we were at it.

Never again lol to be fair the girls did fantastic walking the 3.4 miles it took us. Here we are walking

This is the route we took, like I said they did very well.

We stopped off at MIL's for a rest stop and the girls ended up playing for an hour outside with their cousin Harvey.

With regards to my cross stitch, I have finally finished the polar bears, here is the final result.

I have also made a start on 'The Wedding' here is my preparations I have set out my area to stitch, I have also put masking tape all around the edge to protect it from fraying (left), you can see on the right how large this piece is as you can compare it to an A4 piece of paper. Below is the whole 9 page chart. Each of those pages are also A4. 

I have also had a day of stitching (well a little more than a day) on it too here is where I am up to.

It doesn't look like much but there is around 500 stitches there, so it will take me a while to get this one done. Though I do have a little help as I am getting the kids to do some stitches too so it really is a gift from the family. here they are doing a couple of stitches each.

 I will get Alan and Jade to do some at a later date too, in the meantime I'm going to get some more stitching done speak soon xxx

Come shine and rain

 

I had an amazing lay in today, (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)

When I eventually woke up we decided to take the girls and the dog to the park. 

We had loads of fun playing and sliding. 

 

 Here are the girls enjoying themselves with their cousin Harvey.

Even Benji joined in the fun by having a go on the big swing, his tail was going ten to the dozen once the swing started moving lol.

 

 

Jessica wasn't so keen on the zip line though as it went too fast and scared her a little. She was fine as soon as she got off though so don't worry.

 When we got home it started raining and so we decided to make some play dough. Emiliy wanted green and Jessica wanted blue, so we just split the dough in half before we put the colour in. Here's how we did it.

You will need, (I used one of my Pampered chef prep bowls as a measuring guide, which works out at one American cup size)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar (get it from the baking aisle in the supermarket)

2 tablespoons cooking oil

gel food colours of your choice

  

 Put all ingredients into a pan (I have one we use just for crafting so I don't ruin my cooking ones), cook on a medium heat stirring all the time!! (that is important!!) 

It is not far off being done at this point, so be careful. it took about 5 mins to get it here.

put the dough on to a floured surface we chopped ours in half at this point and add a small amount of food colouring, the more you add the more intense the finished colour, but you run the risk of the dye being transfered to the kids hands and/or clothes.

Then knead to spread the colour throughout.

You might want to wait a little for it to cool before giving it to kids to handle!!

 

If like today the rain stops while you are making it then send the kids out to play with it in the garden (save extra clean up in the house lol)

 I have also been doing some more of my cross stitch, OMG today is the first time I have used light shades. This is a type of thread that reflects light, but it is bloody awful to work with. It feels a little like plastic but snags like it has glitter attached. I must admit though it does look pretty good. You can kinda see the light reflecting in these pics.

Because I have done the light shade (which took so much longer to do than normal stitching) I haven't done much else on the rest of the pic but here is my work so far.

Not looking too bad, if I do say so myself lol. Anyway, time for me to go to bed, who knows what the kids will have me doing tomorrow, though I have a sneaky feeling Kerry will want to make more play dough, as she missed out today. Speak soon xx.