WOYWW 619 - the wanderer returns

Greetings and salutations, lovely deskers. Welcome back to another round of WOYWW, hosted by the lovely Julia over at Stamping Ground.  For all the deets check here, but do have a read below first!

I have been somewhat AWOL for the last four weeks.  Sincere apologies. Life kind of got in the way, not least with the ailing health of my father in law which culminated in him passing away on Easter Sunday, the 4th of April. 

Bill had Alzheimer's, and was heading into the last stages of it.  He'd got to the point where he - like small children are wont to do - would spit out any tablets he was supposed to be taking, or would hide them in his mouth and throw them away.  This wasn't good for a man on heart medication, but became a much bigger issue when he needed antibiotics for a urinary infection.  He ended up in hospital on IV antibiotics, and did rally, but then as is all too often the case developed pneumonia.  As he had a DNR in place, he was allowed to slip away in peace with the nurses making him as comfortable as possible.  His funeral is on the 21st April.

Now, those of you who know my family (or indeed have seen on FB), will know that my in laws are up in Liverpool and we are down in Cornwall.  So there has been a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, and there will be next week.  Poor Miss B is at Uni in Exeter, too, and her dissertation is due in on the 28th April.  I believe she's applied for an extension, as Granddad was a special man in her world.  

RIP Bill

We've also got a camping trip coming up, a social with fellow reenactors in preparation for the re-enactment year slowly gearing up.  The dogs need breaking in to the whole concept of tents and campfires so this should be interesting!  It'll be good to meet up with our Domus Lunaris family, and a few others we know.  I'm sure I'll have some photos to share later!

Anyway - you've not come here to see me witter on about family news.  To the desk!

Oh dear.

Yes, not much has been done this month.  There's been a bit of stitching but not overly much.  Well, I say that...

In my last blog post I mentioned that the March Mayhem didn't go according to plan?  It failed miserably.  I finally finished off the sassy spider...

He now has a hanger. 

And started the next Mill Hill Kit....

And that was it.  Can you tell what it is yet?  LOL

I also finished the Hardanger!  Suggestions on what to do with it, please... It's too small for a tray cloth, too big for a scissor keep.  I could frame it but I rather suspect it's going to end up languishing in a box somewhere.

The Peppermint Purple SAL has moved on, but is still behind...

The Moose on the other hand has moved on a fair bit...

and Siren's Lament has had some notable work done on it!

The last round of Myth & Magic Stitch Wars really took it out of my team - it was stressful (but fun) and has left us debating continuing.  It doesn't help that FB isn't geared up for that sort of thing and was very glitchy, so the organisers are now trying to move it off FB and onto other platforms but we're not sure it'll work.  

It's Mr B's birthday on Friday, and I've made something for him but can't share it here for fear he'll see it.  I mean, he rarely looks at my blog, but this would be the one time, ya know?  I’ll share it next time!

I shall love you and leave you here.... Happy Hopping!

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 609 - February just slidin' in...

Happy WOYWW day, fellow bloghoppers!  All the usual deets are over here at the fabulous Mrs Dunnit's blog, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Not sure any random humans stop by any more, but heigh ho!

So, the desk this week looks much the same as last week.  I've not touched it at all.  So much so, I’ll just insert last week’s photo! LOL

But, that's cos we're still on stitchy duty with Siren's Lament :

And oh, woe was me on Monday night!  It had all been going along swimmingly, and then.... this....

Two near identical symbols (asterisk and sun) which despite a good light and a pair of magnifying readers, I got muddled up with.  

So I frogged some stitches - fortunately not many - and tried again, and made the same mistake but in a slightly different place and fewer stitches this time.  Definitely said "fudge it" a few times - and decided I actually would and no-one would notice if three stitches were steel grey instead of grey-green.

After that I dusted off my tablet, and loaded the charts into Pattern Keeper - a mysterious but genius app that allows you to zoom in, and pan, and highlight and mark off and KEEPS COUNT FOR YOU.  Oh happy day!  Wonder of wonders... It's been sat on my tablet for a good year, and I've been a bit "pish!  old school!  not cross stitch if you don't mark off in pencil on a paper chart!" since getting it and hadn't tried it.  Tonight I spent a few minutes marking off the 4,265 stitches (go me) already completed (didn't take as long as I feared it would), and tomorrow I'm ready to embark into 21st century stitching.  What an idiot not to have done it sooner!

Christmas Moose is looking a little pathetic by comparison - but he has received some love this week:

As has Dracula.  Nearly done!

I'm joining in with some other stitchers on March Mayhem, where we pick something a bit crazy to do during March.  Some are only working on WIPS, some are playing WIPGO (like bingo, but with works in progress), others are starting a new project every day.  Me, I'm going to work on my Mill Hill Kit Mountain - I have 16 small ornament kits and they keep multiplying, so I'm determined to bring that number down.  More on that come March!

In the meantime - keep well, keep smiling, do your very best to keep sane, and.....

Happy Hopping!