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 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 611 - the one without Her

 Good morning, lovely deskers.

As I join in with WOYWW today, I write with blurred vision and tears rolling down my cheeks.  I made the fatal mistake this morning of reading Julia's blog from Monday about Shaz, and it set me off again.  Sorry Shaz, I know you're thinking "idiot woman, it's all good...", but your departure has unexpectedly blindsided me, as it has many others, I do believe - no matter how much many of us were prepared for this to eventually happen. The lovely Donna (Doone) and I were comforting one another at stupid o'clock this morning as we both happened to be online, on Facebook, at the same time and managed to set each other off.  For newer WOYWWers who are not on FB, Donna used to take part in WOYWW before she moved to France a few years ago, and was part of the Crop Brigade up until that point, so knew Doug n'Shaz through Julia too.

I'll get to my desk in a moment, but first I'll do as Julia asked and share my Shaz story.  It's short, but no less poignant.  You see, Mr B and me, we're Metallers.  Rockers.  A lil' bit goth and a whole lot pagan.  And we craft.  So you can imagine our delight walking into that first crop and meeting Shaz and Doug for the first time.  Our tribe!  Wonder of wonders!  A like minded soul and an instant friendship. I have wondered if she felt the same... David and Doug got chatting as well, and although Doug is not known for picking up needle and thread or double sided tape and card, I hope he found some company and acceptance from our lot.  Cos Doug n' Shaz were..... Doug n' Shaz.  An entire unit. Shaz also struck me as being the perfect balance between Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg... generous to a fault but I wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of her.  Assuming she had one, I never saw it if she did.  

So, I will stop my maudlin and lachrymose meanderings, pull up my big girl pants and get on with the show.

Welcome back to my desk.  Apologies for not getting round folks last week but, ya know...I will however endeavour to respond to comments from last week in here.

First up - the desk.  A little bit of activity.  There's actually a finished card on there but I hope you'll forgive me not showing it until after the recipient has had it.  It's not the card I really wanted to kick off my non-Christmas card making with, if you follow...

Stitching - well...

Siren's Lament has a teensy bit of work done on it...

The PPSAL has moved on a bit as well, but the reason it's not further along is that I had to unpick the entirety of the border that you saw last week (plus the extra I did after that photo).  I'd forgotten to include the outer framing line before starting the border - and without that it affected the knotwork placement.  As it's supposed to be a direct pair to the turquoise one, I had to address that...

Regarding the problematic two shades of purple thread I had, Lisa-Jane pondered whether or not I could have blended the two colours.  Unfortunately not - this is all stitched with one strand of thread, and although even the single strands of thread are ultimately two ply, I love my sanity more than I love saving money.... 

Especially for Felicia, who was disappointed last week not to see Mr Moose, I made sure I worked on him for you this week and here he is....

He has eyes now!

Eagle-eyed Spyder spotted a "horse and stable" in my desk photo last week.  I think I may have shared photos a long time ago but they bear a second outing here.

My father - who passed away in 2007 - was a toolmaker and mechanical engineer by trade, and a model engineer by hobby.  I know for a fact that had he been alive when "book nooks" became a thing, he'd have been all over them.

He made so many things, and one of those was this little diorama, which I nabbed a couple of years back when Mum moved house and we had to re-home the myriad of trains, buses, cars, dioramas, paint, figures - you name it (and now I know where I get it from).  

So, the stable is not in fact a stable, but a farrier's cot/blacksmiths.   

The lid lifts off, and inside is a whole other world.  

From the other side:

Tools and all sorts!

I love that there is a rusted out bucket just outside by the tap.

And the other side...

It needs a little TLC where the glue has dried out and failed, as do a couple of other items of his that I have, and this is why it’s tucked on the shelf above my desk. When I’ve made the repairs it’s going in my curio cabinet in the dining room.  I shall try to repair them over the coming weeks and share them here.  Dad's most notable achievement was the dolls house he made for my mother in 1997.  I'll save that story for another day, but suffice to say here that she needed a whole room for it... I also have a pair of dolls houses - one of them was the last thing he worked on before he died and Mum had to finish it off.  Again, I'll save those for another time.

Anyway, enough waffle/ramble - I shall love you and leave you, and salute to the fallen....

Happy Hopping!

WOYWW 610 - simply not feeling it...

Today's blog is a tough one.  It's hard to write of fun stuff, and all the achievements you've made that week when a friend is in hospital, effectively fighting for her life.  But, Shaz is an indomitable spirit, and I'm sure if she were able to she'd give me one of her looks and tell me I'm being daft so....

Welcome to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday!  The usual weekly round of blog hops where we bare all to the world and show everyone what's going on with our desks.  All the usual information is here, over at Julia's place.

I actually moved stuff on mine.  Well, just about.  So here's a photo - I'll let you all play spot the difference! Hah!

As per usual, all the activity is on the stitching front.  No Mr Moose this week, he got some R&R on the back of the sofa.  However, we do have a finish in Dracula, who has been completed and fully finished off (FFO'd) with a bead hanger and felt on the back (not that you can see the felt).

Siren's Lament is progressing nicely.  Slowly, but nicely.  The section I'm working on at the moment is confetti hell, but we're getting through it.  After this there'll be quite a bit of solid colour work, including plain black, so that'll be quick to do ( I hope!).  5,385 stitches done so far, 2.6% of the total.

We also have a new start, LOL.  I finally got the Peppermint Purple 2021 stitchalong (SAL) under way - yay!  I'm about 6 weeks behind, but I'll catch up eventually!  Figured that as I know what the border will be (as this piece is to match last year's), I'd get it started while I wait for the filler threads to turn up.  Therein hangs a tale.  I had a skein of 3837 (mid purple).  I know I'll need two for this, so I ordered one.  Turns up, totally different shade, although if I showed you a photo you wouldn't see it but one is definitely more blue purple than the other. I should have known better, veteran stitcher that I am, and order two at the time because the dye lots would be different. Doh. So I've now had to order two more skeins in the hope that they will both match each other, cos it'll be just my luck to order one, and it not match either of the two I already have!  LOL. I'm sure I'll use what I already have, eventually.

And that's it for this week.  Short and sweet.  It snowed here yesterday, briefly, even settled for a time.  But now all that's left is tiny pockets in corners.  Hardly worth the effort, I say.  And it's cold - bitterly cold.  So I'm staying in (aren't we all) and keeping the heating on.

Happy Hopping, folks.

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!