April IHSW

And so as Sunday draws to a close, April IHSW has reached an end. However, I've made some excellent progress over the course of the weekend. Do you want to see? (Silly question - of course you do!)

The first thing I did was actually go for a run on Saturday morning. Now, I'm no runner, and I am one of the laziest people I know, but I was invited by my friend Stella, the owner of The Hobbit pub down here in Southampton, to join her Race For Life team. This means I'll be running 5k in aid of Cancer Research UK in July, hopefully, so I've got to prepare. My legs are absolutely killing right now, though - I only did about 3k and I walked the vast majority of it, so I've got a loooong way to go.

I treated myself to a charity shop browsing session on the way back to see if there were any cross stitch goodies worth buying. Unfortunately, there were not. The only shop that had any was the Cancer Research UK shop, funnily, but they were branded specifically for the shop and didn't look like they came with good quality threads and whatnot, so I decided against it. By this point it was approaching 10am, so I came home for breakfast and a weekend of stitchery.

The first one I started with was the little swan card that, apparently originally came from Needlecraft magazine's June 1998 issue. However, I found it in a charity shop I worked in last summer. This is where I left off last time...

Swan card at end of spring term

Swan card, finished 20/04/13

Swan card (not yet taped, but how it'll look)

Yes, I had a finish! You may recall I left this at uni over Easter, though I don't know why, since I could've easily finished it in a day. It is now, however, done, and I look forward to sending it to someone!

Next was Peter Rabbit, which I'd almost finished by the end of its rotation day last Monday, and then Tuesday after I finished Nobody Loves You. When I left off, I'd just finished the cross stitching.

Peter Rabbit as of 16/04/13

Peter Rabbit, finished 20/04/13

I finished him! Boy am I glad. The back stitch was really getting on my nerves, almost more so than on Tatty Teddy - at least I can read those charts!

So then I moved onto the Janlynn flowers kit that had been sitting around untouched for a while. Turned out I hadn't actually made any mistakes, so I was free to continue stitching as I had before, though distinguishing the threads wasn't always easy. Here's how it was when I left off...

Janlynn flowers as of 06/04/13

Janlynn flowers as of 21/04/13

You might not be able to see, but the actual cross stitching is finished, so now there's only the backstitching to do. I've slotted this kit into my Monday rotation slot, so I'm hoping for a finish either tomorrow or by the end of this month. Here's hoping!

My household had its first ever roast this evening, and I now feel like it was well-earned. It was a chicken with oranges in the cavity, not as a stuffing but just so the orange flavour saturated the chicken, and with bacon on top - and booooy was it good. We also cooked roast potatoes, cabbage, broccoli and carrots, and finished off with a really gooey chocolate brownie afterwards. I think it was the first time we've ever cooked together, too, but it paid off and our kitchen was still sparkling afterwards.

There was, however, a minor incident. I got a knock on my door at about 8:10pm on Saturday while on the phone to my Dad. I opened the door to my sheepish housemate telling me we'd just had a small fire in our (lovely new) kitchen. The good news is that it wasn't really anybody's fault, and the only damage was done to a pair of oven gloves and a light. My housemate had thrown the oven gloves on top of the cupboards to get them out of the way, but unfortunately, lights are hot and that's where the temporary light fixtures happened to be. Needless to say the oven gloves didn't make it out of it intact, and the house absolutely stank - but it didn't stop us from teasing him about it, and after the incident itself, it was absolutely hilarious. We'll definitely be having words with our landlords about the positioning of the bulbs.

Before I go to bed to get myself ready for another week of uni, check out Brenda's giveaway over at The Rusty Thimble. It's not exactly stitching related, but I'm all for home-crafted items, and my American side is certainly coming out here!

Have a good week, everyone, and happy stitching :)

Heather x