WOYWW 615 - caution warning, stitched spiders ahead!

 Greetings, Desk Hoppers!  Welcome to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday!  All the deets are here, provided by our Mistress of the Hop, Julia...  Just a quickie from me this week, so I hope you'll excuse the brevity of language throughout.

I'm back. A brief absence, but an absence nonetheless.  No real excuses, just time gets away from you.  Plus the next bout of Stitch Wars is on, and time is a premium when you need to be a-stitching... LOL

So what gives at Morti Mansions this week?

The desk is a mess.  A proper mess.  What you can see front and centre is a stack of cards we've received over the last 18-24 months, including New Home cards!  they've been left to pile up on the Welsh dresser (hutch for our American friends) downstairs until I've had enough.  At the very least they're up here to go through, decide if any require keeping (like from the olds) and which can be thrown.  And if there's anything to be salvaged from them to make gift tags or components for other cards.  Do like a good recycled card, me.

Speaking of which, I never posted the outcome of my last Rudolph day, so here you are...

and a second one

Inspiration from Pinterest.  The ornament stamps were by Stampin' Up!, and  I used a Sakura Gelly Roll pen in white for the strings and doodle border.  The tall card was made using paper and components from various magazine freebies.  Again, inspo from Pinterest.  The next Rudolph Day is next Thursday...

I made these on 25 Feb, the day after my last blog hop, and I had a stark reminder of just how long I've been a crafter.  When I made the ornament card above, and heat embossed the ornaments in white, I managed to put my thumb through the lid of the EP pot.  Now, you could say it's French quality that caused it, LOL, but I've had two other pots go that way, brittle with age.  I've worked out, based on the fact that the pot is all in French, that I probably bought it back in 2004/5. The other two were bought for me by my mother when I was 15 and heat embossing had just become a "thing", back when it was de rigeur to use a toaster and judicious placement of fingers to avoid burning oneself.

Stitching-wise, I've been stitchin' up a storm.

Siren's Lament has moved on considerably...

As has Mr Moose.  He's looking adorable.  Won't be long before I'm done with brown and can do some other colours!

I've finally picked up the Peppermint Purple Stitch-A-Long, and am almost fully caught up with it.  I say almost - a new square was released today and I've yet to stitch that, but as of last night I was up to date with all the released elements at that point.

March Mayhem has not quite gone to plan.  I've managed three of my kits so far  The big spider needs to be fully finished off yet, with snipping out around the legs and a hanger attached.  A bit dismal, that we're halfway through the month and I've only managed three, but I tell myself it's three more than before and we still have two weeks left!  The first one I did, the lovely blue background for web and spider, has about 1300 stitches in it which is quite a bit, I can tell you!  The other two have about 700 and 500, for comparison. Considerably smaller.

What other news haveth I?  Well, the re-enactment season is somewhat upskittled but provided everyone plays ball and campsites can reopen on April 12th, we have a re-enactment social weekend where we can camp and see our friends, and spend some time ensuring kit is ready for the rest of the season, such as it may be.  Many events have been moved or cancelled - certainly those in April/May/June, but the July, August and September ones all seem to be going ahead at present.

Mr B has fixed the car - we needed a new fan for the heating and air con - t'was rather horrid driving along without it.  The windows kept misting up which meant we had the windows open and in January, was not fun!  The fan cost us a whole £330 new from Renault, but fitting was free as he did it himself.  I'm not sure what labour is at Renault, but at the garage 300 yards up the road its £50 an hour, and the whole fit from removing the old to replacing the new took about 5 hours.  Quite a saving...

The offending broken fan

Anyway, this is turning into a ramble, so I shall leave you with a lovely photo from a couple of weeks ago, sunset up on Carn Brea, 

and a "and finally" in honour of our lovely Shaz.

WOYWW 612 - Rudolph Eve

Hello, deskers!  Welcome back to WOYWW - that weekly roundup of all things deskish, hosted by the lovely Julia.  Details can be found here if you'd like to join in, or want to go on a bloghop round the desks.

This week is more of the same (stitching, not crying!) with a random card thrown in for good measure...

The desk itself has had a bit of a tidy up, but there's a load of stuff sat on it ready for tomorrow's Rudolph Day, when I shall make a couple of Christmas cards, and maybe work on one or two other things.  I have Thursdays off at the moment (which will switch to Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri mornings off from next week.  Flexi-furlough, don't you know.

One of the other desks had a bit of a tidy up too.  It had been piled high with fabric and assorted oddments.  Now it has been cleared, but there's still quite a bit on it.  I've got a couple of projects on the go there, and also some stitchy stash waiting for me to film a flosstube where I can show off my recent haul.  There won't be much more purchased going forwards though!  Time to rein in the spending a little.... heheheh.

So, updates:

Siren's Lament

Mr Christmas Moose

Peppermint Purple's 2021 stitchalong - not much done to it but YAY! Patterns!

Also found lurking and needing love is this hardanger piece I started goodness knows how many moons ago (the needle had rusted into the fabric), and is worked from a pattern from an old Jane Greenoff Cross Stitch magazine.  I have no idea what issue number it is... I did try to find out when the magazine was last in print and know it was going until at least 2005, but couldn't find out any concrete information.

Next month is March Mayhem - a group on FB of stitchers who broke away from May-nia which was another group of individuals doing a crazy challenge stitch wise.  I think there may be a competition to see who can do the most new project starts, or how many WIPS you can be working on at any given time!  My foray into this world of craziness is that I'm going to do "March Mill Hill Mayhem".  Nicely alliterated, I thought.  But basically, I'm going to try and do as many Mill Hill kits as I can in the next month.  The idea being to do a bit of stash-busting and get them stitched and up on our craft tree this Christmas.  And Halloween.  We have a Halloween/Samhain tree too.  I have 5 more Halloween Mill Hill kits to do.  And about 16 Christmas ones.  Best guess is that I might get a quarter of them done if I'm lucky but if I persevere, maybe half.  Which will be ten more than I would have otherwise.  Apologies for the glare on the top three.  

So, back at the beginning of this post I mentioned a card, and I alluded to it last week when I said that I never thought I'd be kicking off my non-Christmas card making with this particular variety of card, but here it is.  

Needless to say, it was sent to Doug.  Forgive me if I don't tell you all I wrote in it, but the night before I wrote it, I was binge-watching Criminal Minds and they start and end the programme with quotes.  One episode ended with:

"Death ends a life, not a relationship", Mitch Alborn.

That quote has stuck with me, and I put it into the card along with our own sentiments. How very true.  

And in recognition of the lovely Shaz, I'm going to add a finishing funny:

Perfectly describes this household currently...

Happy hopping!

WOYWW 608 - and January comes to a close...

Good morning my fellow lovely WOYWWers!  Welcome back to the Mad Ramblings blog, and to another Wednesday's post.  For all the details head over to The Stamping Ground here where our lovely Julia will have all the deets....

So!  This week, progress on many fronts.

If you remember from a couple of weeks back, I mentioned Rudolph Day.  Well, that was two days ago and...ta-dah!  Two Christmas cards.

Second one is a more modern style...

Might not seem like much, but it's kind of a big deal here. Now to keep it going.

So, the desk itself is showing signs of a creativity aftermath - or craftermath as I've seen it referred to elsewhere.  LOL

Stitching wise, we have a lot of progress.  The spoon has gone home to the memorial maker.  Finished off the rose, added a few twisty vines and some freehand embroidery to look like handwriting at the bottom.

(If you're really interested, I have a Flosstube here where you can watch me being an idiot on YouTube)

Christmas Moose has moved on a little....

And we have started a Mill Hill charmed ornament, Dracula.   Hehehehehe.

The big movement is on the HAED (Heaven and Earth Designs) project, Siren's Lament.

I really disliked how untidy it looked, doing full cross stitches on such tiny fabric.  So, I swapped out to doing just tent stitch (half crosses) and am much happier with the result.  And as you can see, major progress.  I should get it completed in double time as well!

So the next couple of weeks will be about getting down to stitching and other creativity, see if I can't shift some of the lurking projects that are around.

Oh - and Morti Jr sent me a photo of her in her jumper, for me to share with you ladies...

Happy Hopping!

WOYWW 604 - Betwixtmas again...

Good morning, Lovely WOYWWers!  Welcome to the Wednesday blog hop, hosted by our equally lovely Julia.  You can find all the deets and other desks here.  Do join in if you haven't done so previously!

This week my desk is dull, much like the weather down here in Cornwall.  Nothing to report as being "in action" on it so to speak.

This year I will be re-instigating "Rudolph Day".  I'm painfully aware that some folks didn't get a card from me at all (hangs head in shame) let alone a handmade one (hangs whole of body in shame) and this is partly due to the year we had and the state the office/craftroom has been in.  Equally of importance is the complete lack of inspo and simply being out of practice!  I did manage to make a whole four cards for my Vampires (my Myth & Magic Stitch Wars team mates) and I think most of them have arrived by now but as two were going to the States, and they are having terrible postal trouble out there, I've a feeling at least one is still in transit.

I did two different designs...

Sorry, I digress.  Rudolph Day.  What this basically means, for those that haven't heard of it before, is that on the 25th of each month in 2021 (December excluded) I will sit and make a handful of Christmas cards, ready for Xmas 2021.  I know.  Terribly organised of me!  I do however feel that it's the only way to be organised enough as I can get far too easily sidetracked.  My patronus is a Sloth, you know.

I've even started a Christmas journal - not for diary keeping but to keep a record of to whom I've sent cards, who I've received from, what presents I bought for people.  Oh, and what we ate.  That way, next year I've got a record to look back on and to help ensure I don't double up on gifts.  And that at the very least, everyone who sent us a card gets one back.  Especially if they didn't get a card this year! oops.  I know that's not necessarily the spirit of the whole thing - no-one expects a card in return for sending one, and I certainly don't, but that's just how I roll.

I was going to say that I didn't receive a single item of craft related goodness this year, but I've just realised that is a lie.  Kat, one of my Vampires, sent a skein of Caron Wildflowers thread as a little gift.  It's rather poignant though - it came from her Grandmother's stash which Kat inherited, and she's said that she'll never use it all and thinks her Grandmother would approve of it being passed to another stitcher.  I've decided I'm going to make some simple blackwork Christmas ornaments with it.

Speaking of blackwork - the 2020 sampler is almost done.  I'm just finishing off the border which is now more than half complete, and then it can be washed and framed.  Peppermint Purple are doing a companion SAL for 2021 and I ummed and ahhed over whether or not to do it but have been duly enabled by Mr Morti to join in.  I'm just waiting for my fabric to arrive, and can then start it.  I'm going with purple thread for 2021.  There's a surprise.... hehehehe.

The Barn Owl was finally framed....

.... but I was unable to deliver as anticipated on the 20th December.  Essex was one of the areas that was placed into Tier 4 on that day, and our Round Robin trip to Essex and other areas in the south east for drop offs and pickups had to be very much truncated to just Exeter and Bournemouth for dropping off presents. It did mean that we didn't have to leave until about 9:30am, instead for 5am, and we were home by 10pm rather than 2am!  Rather civilised.  However, we still need to do the run as aside from the Barn Owl, I completed the silver memorial jewellery and that also needs dropping off, and we have a large oak overmantle to collect and pickled onions to deliver.  Santa ain't done yet...

The jewellery I made.....

There were 5 in total - the other four said "Nannie", and each had the deceased's birthstone alongside the recipient's birthstone, as a Swarovski crystal.

Morti Jr also got an Arctic fox charm, handmade by yours truly...

I did start another cross stitch in the run up to Christmas - A Christmas Moose, by Panna.  Haven't got very far but I will continue working on him so he's framed and up next year.  

What it’ll look like when done...

I also finally finished Morti Jnr's jumper.  It's taken me a good couple of years, but it's done.  It's also waaaaay too big, but she has professed that she likes a big slouchy jumper.  

I think the wool I used was more stretchy than that in the original, and I've never much been one for a tension test.  LOL.  I have different wool to crochet one the same for me, but I think I'm going to wait awhile on that.  Too many other projects on the go!  However, I will be doing a tension square with that wool...

So, that's that for now.  I think this is plenty long enough without boring you on all the current plans for the next year.  Watch this space for more crafting loveliness!  Also, I wish you all a most excellent 2021, although the dreaded C***d isn't going away so please do all take care of yourselves...

Happy hopping!

WOYWW 387

A quickie from me today!  For those of you not familiar with the worldwide (small scale!) phenomenon that is WOYWW, go here for the info....

My desk hasn’t changed much.  In fact it’s actually even more cluttered and the houses that were present last week are in fact still there.  Untouched.  I’ve had no time to work on them, but that will change this weekend.  It’s going to have to, as the Christmas Fair I’m going to sell them at is the following weekend.  Sigh....

 

The cards I made last week are showing up there as well.  Not quite finished, I’ve decided I need to add a greeting to the front, and one or two of the backs need a bit of work to cover up wet ink transfer – oops – but otherwise I’m very happy with them.

There’s about a dozen different ones but I won’t bore you with pictures of the whole lot!  I’ve managed to capture the glitter on one though, as they do twinkle beautifully.

So, that’s it from me – see you in a comments box near you!

WOYWW 386 - The Housing Crisis

Good morning fellow WOYWWers!  As I type this I’m firmly ensconced at my work desk – at work.  Boo hiss.... I’d much rather be at home crafting!

(and in case you’re new here, WOYWW is What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday, global phenomenon created by The Great JD who can be found here to explain it all – join in, do!)

I’d like to be home crafting because then I could do something about my housing crisis... heheheh.

 

Lots and lots of houses.  An avalanche of them in fact.  I’ve got a Christmas Fair coming up on the 12^th November, and thought I would make some Christmas decorations for it.  Fun!  there's also the contents of my crop bag as I had to empty out everything I didn't need so I could use it for other things......

such as hosting supplies for tonight’s crop in Ferndown, where I’m being rebellious and making Christmas Cards for the aforementioned fair.  Anything to earn a few pennies!

So how has your week been?  I look forward to hopping around and seeing what you’ve all been up to!

WOYWW 385 - mayhem....

Well, mayhem of a sort, I suppose.  I can't actually share my desk today, but I can share it from a couple of days ago, plus some finished things....

 

And why am I sharing - WOYWW of course!  Thanks to the lovely Julia as usual.  If you're not familiar with it, head over to the Stamping Ground and you'll find all you need to know about joining in!

So, onto my space....

 

Earlier this week my desk looked like this.  I've come to the conclusion that I need better storage.  And that I have a Die Habit.  I'm amazed I'm not in trouble, after Mr B took one look at it and agreed I needed help.  He was referring to the storage.... I think.....

 

 

After that mess came this.......

 

 

Swiftly followed by this!

 

 

 

I actually sold that card - it was a bona fide order, in so much as a work colleague said "I need an 18th birthday card".  Made using the Crafters Companion Die'sire oval accordion die and one of the overlays.  Sooo fiddly, I must buy Stick It! next time rather than try to glue the overlay on using PVA glue.... doh....

 

And a catch up on previously - the finished tissue box from a couple of weeks ago.  Some of you have seen it on FB already, sorry to bore you.  Hehehehe

 

 

 

I needed a dark purple card for the next box I'm making, but couldn't find it in town (Salisbury) anywhere.  It's arrived in this morning's post (thank you, ebay) so I should have  second box to show you next week. Yay!

 

So, I will see you all on the hop.  I'm a bit busy this week with trying to get my little business (Hare Moon Crafts) back up and running.  Meetings every other Wednesday with my web developer to sort the website out, plus we have a Christmas Craft Fair on the 12th November to prep for.  Sometimes I wonder why I do this.

 

TTFN - Happy Hopping!