Smile......

....... life is good.

I know I'm being a terrible blogger recently but life is so busy lately.  I hope to get back in to the bloggy habit soon, there are so many positive things going on here at angelcat manor at the moment I can't wait to tell you about it all.  I just need to find an extra hour or five in the day and I'll be set.

I miss chatting to you all and it's been ages since I've been able to catch up with your blogs too so hopefully I'll get some time for that soon.  Until normal service resumes hope you all stay happy and healthy.

Were you invited?

Unless you happen to live in a remote cave, if you're in the UK, and possibly anywhere else in the world, it won't have escaped your notice that there is a wedding today!

Did your invitation get lost in the mail, like mine? Will you be watching? I'm not really a follower of the royal family but we're making an effort to be patriotic today. Hector looks proud to be British anyway!! :)

Why is it...?

..that things that you have seen lying around at home for ages seem to disappear the minute you actually need them?

Yesterday I wanted my eyelet setting hammer, I was convinced that it should be in this pen tidy thing thats always on the desk. I was much perplexed when it wasn't there.

Could it have gone wandering of its own accord and be hiding amongst the stitching embellishments?

No, no sign of it there. Ah-ha what is that I see hiding behind the bead boxes...?

See I'm not completely mad, it was in the pen tidy as I thought, just not the one on the desk, lol.

Insomnia

Have been having some trouble sleeping the last few days and last night was the worst. I finally caught a few hours sleep at 6am!

Ever wondered what insomnia looks like? Well I guess everyone has their own particular brand but mine goes something like this....
Eggs and orange juice to stave off the munchies that kicked in at 4am. Lots of clock watching wondering when my brain would switch off and let me sleep.
Figured if I was going to be walking around like a zombie all day I may as well learn to act like one so not 1 but 3 zombie movies kept vigil with me :) My brand of insomnia of course involves some stitching......
....not as much as I would have liked though as the eyes start to play tricks on you and vision becomes blurred :) There is something to be said for all the extra hours of awake time. I'm trying to declutter and am being ruthless this time as I might need to move to a smaller place this year. This is 1 of 2 huge piles of stuff that I will be trying to find new homes for via eBay over the next few weeks.

Are there any other insomniacs out there? I'd love to see what your brand looks like :)
I'm happy to report that not everyone in the family has trouble sleeping and Pip took the opportunity of my absence from the bed to tuck himself in. :)

I'll be back.....

Wow I didn't realise how long it had been since I'd posted. I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has popped by and left comments and also to those who have emailed me from time to time to make sure I'm ok.

My workroom has been sadly neglected this year and my sewing machine has a layer of dust which has just never happened before!! From today I am going to start having a massive clear out and reorganisation of all my stitching paraphernalia so I'll be newly inspired and ready to go again in the new year.

In the meantime hope you all have a fabulous festive season.

The Simple Things

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted and I have plenty to share, I've been trying to take time to enjoy the simple things. So coming soon will be some pictures from my garden getaway, a couple of walks that I've taken and an update on the poppies that I have been working on, but, for the moment a bad back is keeping me from sitting at the computer for too long.

Now it's just a quick hello and a couple of pictures of some beautiful flowers that I was given by a new friend, a thoughtful and unexpected gift.

If you have been reading for a while you know that orange is my colour. These beautiful blooms make me smile to my very soul.

Resolutions Unresolved.

Well here we are already on the 6th day of the new year and I haven't mentioned anything about resolutions and goals yet. Mostly because I don't really have anything concrete in my mind yet!

I do have a few ideas brewing though. Toward the end of last year I was becoming a bit disillusioned with the creative things that I was doing, but now I realise there wasn't really anything wrong with what I was doing it was just where my head was at, I know now that I was stuck in a bit of a rut so I think I need to challenge myself to tackle some new things this year.

However, that doesn't mean I will be totally throwing out the old, the one thing I do know is that I will be carrying on with Mum's cross stitch UFOs and will also get back to tackling my own pile of miscellaneous UFOs. Starting with Janet's cat which I had promised myself month's ago I would work on.

I will also be cutting back on the postcard swaps. I have lots of books and magazines that I have bought over the years and never got round to playing with the ideas and techniques in them so I will spending time with my books instead of postcard making :) I really want to improve my stitching skills and hopefully this will be the way to do it. I'll be starting by spending a couple of weeks with this book.

I have a few other ideas rumbling round in my head and a couple of challenges that I hope to take part in but I've taken up enough of your time today with my ramblings so I'll chat about those another time.

Welcome 2009

Happy New Year to you all

I was hoping to write a super interesting post (grin) about all my fabulous plans and goals for the coming year, but dh is whisking me away to Cornwall for a few days for a wonderful New Year get away, so plans and resolutions will have to wait a few more days.

I have scheduled a quick post for tomorrow so things won't be totally quiet here.

Waiting for the week to end.....

Just thought I should pop in and say a quick hello...

I feel like such a bad blogger at the moment. It's not that I don't have anything to share, and it's certainly not because I don't want to blog. I'm still trying to shake off the lurgy and have just been feeling exhausted this week. It's busy at work and busy at home and everything is just catching up on me. Just one more day of work to survive and then I have a whole week off :)

And the Winner is .....

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who left a comment on my giveaway post. I'm always saying that I mostly blog just for me but it's nice to know that there are other people out there who take time of out their busy lives to visit a piece of my world from time to time.

I got DH to literally pick a name from a hat this morning so the winner is ......

oops someone forgot to turn the flash off!

Sue!

Although we get to meet in person at GWE I don't have your snail mail, so if you can send me and email I will get the card in the post for you :)

Frustration

My machine was supposed to be back from the shop today but it didn't show up :(

Hopefully tomorrow.

In the meantime stitching of all types has ground to a halt. Maybe it's just some lag from a busy couple of weeks and a manic weekend but I just haven't had the energy or the motivation to stitch this week.

Checking In

I have been back from the conference for a few days but have had a really busy weekend. No time for stitching that's for sure. Actually I did try doing a few bits yesterday but got really frustrated as my old sewing machine just wasn't playing nice. I'm going to have to wait for my regular machine to get better. So things my be quiet on the blogging front for another week or so.

As I don't like to post without a picture, here is one taken a few weeks ago. Please let me introduce you to Inspector Pip of the Quilt Police.

Look at that bad ass stare, no-one messes with Inspector Pip!

Packing

Tomorrow we are off to the Lakes for a week, the weather forecast seems to be rain and cold nights so if you can send some sun our way as we're camping :)

Of course one of the most important things about camping is making sure everything is packed (remind me to tell you about the time we managed to leave the tent pegs behind). I have no idea how much time I will have for stitching but let me tell you I'm going well prepared.I have this little tub which doesn't take up much room.
but now it's packed to the gills with 12 postcard tops waiting for some hand stitched embellishment, plenty of threads

My little UFO cross stitch that I told you about a couple of weeks ago

this cute little embroidery design (I'll find the blog link for you when I get back)and there are a few more surprises besides.

I've also stocked up with a few new magazines

and this great book that I picked up the other day.

It will be interesting to see just how much (or little) of this I will have done when I get back.

Hope you have a lovely week, I'll look forward to catching up on my blog reading when I get back. Before I sign off I thought I'd share this picture of Hector sitting on top of the cupboard door, he used to do this when he was little seems like he's having a second kittenhood!

See you in a week!

Feeling Grotty

Not a huge amount of stitching going on here at the moment. I've got the beginnings of a cold and my back is playing up. Yesterday I had planned on making a start on embellishing my row robin blocks but I just couldn't think straight.

Typically we actually have some sun this weekend for the first time all summer and I'd love to be out and about but I just don't have the energy. The only thing I managed to do yesterday was get in a few hours of work in front of the TV on Siberian Gold but even that was slow going as I couldn't really concentrate on the counting.

Today I've dosed myself up but am not really feeling any better. The main thing on the menu today is to try and tidy up this mess.

If I'm still standing after that who knows maybe some sewing will get done....

My weekend

I had a lovely weekend so going back to work today has been a bit of a downer. It was wonderful to stay up to silly o'clock watching the Olympics and then laze in bed late the next day. Dh and I went out and about on Sunday visiting a local country show(I'm mad that I forgot to take my camera so no pictures to share).

Oh and I also got my birthday present from DH. It's not my birthday until Sunday but we will be away for a few days so I got my present early. I'm always moaning about doing the dishes and our little kitchen isn't big enough for a dishwasher but dh found a mini version which sits on the counter top so that is what he surprised me with. Yay no more dishes which has to mean more stitching time right?

I spent a lot of time stitching this weekend too but on so many different things that I don't have anything finished to show but hopefully soon. In the meantime as I don't like to post without a picture here is one of me making an idiot of myself at the harbour festival last weekend!
Hope you all have a great week. Bottoms up!

Disaster Averted

Today it's raining outside, the perfect excuse to settle down to a days worth of stitching. Unfortunately I haven't been able to settle into any one thing and instead have seven different projects that I'm working on in a rotation.

Working in short bursts on lots of different things is fun but of course it means that nothing gets finished quickly so I don't have anything to share yet. Instead I thought I'd share with you my cautionary tale. I like to work with some scented candles burning away around me. This is what happens when candle and fabric get too close.

And boy once the flame caught it burst into life pretty quickly, luckily my house is tiny so a few steps to the bathroom and the flaming fabric was thrown into the sink disaster averted!

The one thing I love the most about the weekend is being able to please myself. It was fun to stay up until 3am watching the first few events of the Olympics and it felt naughty going to bed at midday to catch up on a couple of hours sleep! If only we could swap things round and have a 2 day week and a five day weekend that would make me happy!

Bristol Harbour Festival

There has been a little stitching this weekend but not much as most of the time was spent at the Bristol Harbour Festival, hanging out with friends, drinking, eating and generally having a good time.

I didn't really get any good photos but here are a few snaps to give you an idea of what the festival was like.On Saturday we had beautiful blue skies and as you can see the harbour was packed full of all sorts of sea faring vessels.There were rows and rows of stalls selling foods and crafts
This charming man made me some paella for lunch. And for those of you with a sweet tooth there was plenty of confectionery available!

This is one of the many stages around the event for displays of music, dance and acrobatics.

This is a close up of a beautiful beaded bracelet that my friend Paula surprised me with. I love it!

And even though the skies were grey on Sunday there was still plenty of colour to be seen around the harbour. I loved this collection of canal boats with their colourful flags and splendid flower displays.

An unexpected gift

Yesterday I got an unexpected gift, the best gift of all, some time. I had planned to work from home for the day but away from the constant ringing of the telephones and all the other general office distractions I got my work done in half the time I thought it would take so took a couple of hours off in the afternoon.

It was a beautiful afternoon, with blue skies, a few fluffy clouds and a nice light breeze. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get the sun lounger out and sat in the garden for a couple of hours stitching. As a result I managed to get all of the blanket stitch added to my owls. In the evening I also added the borders and most of the binding, but by the time I had got to that the light wasn't very good for pictures so I'll wait until the hanging is completely finished before I share.

I think I definitely had too much sun as at one point as I found myself wondering whether it is possible to get a thimble tan. You know just like one of those sunglasses tans that you often see where someone has been wearing their glasses all day and get the white panda rings around the eyes! So I'll be on the look out now for anyone with a white finger tip as I'll know they are a sun worshipping stitcher :)

Rockin' Weekend

Well it's been a few days since I last posted, honestly I don't know where the time goes to. Had a busy weekend doing this.

I wonder how many stitchers are also heavy metal fans? I know there are a few out there but I would guess not too many, not really two things that you would commonly associate, lol!

Moments of Joy: Waking up from a nap on Sunday evening to find the cats had all decided to snuggle up with me.

Happy days

I'm back from my holiday and feeling a lot less harassed and definitely more chilled out than when I left which has got to be a good thing, right?


I just want to thank everyone who left such positive and supportive comments on my last post, I've tried to reply individually to all who I can but not everyone has a public email address so I wanted to say thank you here too. As you all guessed I was pretty low before I went away and felt like I was stuck in a bit of a blogging rut as well as having lots of work and family drama to deal with. It really means a lot to me to have such supportive network of cyber friends.


We had a lovely week camping in Cornwall and stayed at a couple of great campsites here and here. We've been to St Ives Bay before and always go back for the views if nothing else, here is dh sitting outside the tent, who wouldn't enjoy waking up to a view like this every morning? (of course I mean the lighthouse and the dunes not dh, though of course I'm biased and think he's pretty cute too!)

Although I did take somethings with me we just had such a busy week drinking this ...

and eating these....

;) that I didn't get a chance to even think about picking up needle and thread let alone actually doing it. Of course we did lots of walking and sightseeing as well but I'm not sure that will have counteracted all the food and drink so I may be in for a shock at Weight watchers on Wednesday!

I'm feeling recharged and can't wait to get back to creating again. Hopefully I'll be back with another couple of posts later this week to share some more holiday pics and also some new projects that I want to get started on, and an update on where I'm at with the first of Mums cross stitch projects.

PS I just realised that this is my 400TH post. Wow I can't quite believe that I've been waffling away on my blog for such a long time. I think a celebration might be in order, watch this space.....