Waaaaaaah.

Holy Jesus on a broomstick, it's been a while. Remember how I was like, "Exams are coming up and I think I might actually do some work for them this time so brb while I stress over nothing"? Well, that sorta happened and I disappeared off the face of the earth for a month to work, stress and (semi-successfully) fight off a major mental health relapse.

I'd love to say, "It's been a great month and I've accomplished loads!" But that would be a complete fiction. Would you like to know how many of my nine (entirely reasonable) May goals I completed?

One.

Yeah, it's not been a good month for stitching.

I bet you want to see what I did do, though, and it is good.

North and South, as of 8th May 2013

Well, would you look at that; it's Richard Armitage's face!

Yeah, I finished the first half of N&S. It got a bit confetti-heavy and that thing happened where I inevitably miss out a couple of stitches of some colours and then have to go put them in again. It really came together in the last few stitches, though - I was thinking how little it looked like what it should the night before I finished it...

North and South, as of 7th May 2013

Okay, so you can see most detail but I got a bit nervous that the rest wouldn't appear.

The other goal I worked on was the two Always Time for Tea stitches. One was on 14ct and followed the original pattern and threads (except for the dark blue because they forgot to put it in the kit, so it's a shade lighter and also Anchor). The other, which is unfinished, is on 18ct and used DMC variegated threads instead of the four main colours. It doesn't look quite as awesome as I'd imagined, but when I came back to it after a couple of weeks, I decided it actually did look quite cool. Picture time...

Always Time For Tea, nearly finished!

Cool, huh? I'm not sure if I mentioned but the 18ct one is going to be a bookmark for my sister for her birthday, to soften the blow of Nobody Loves You if she happens to be in a bad mood. Also she loves tea. I have until August to finish it, so that's puh-lenty of time.

Because I'm a bad child, I picked up H again instead of working on the goals as I should've been. I finally got that strip of black down the middle of the H itself for, though, and I polished off the black on page 2 pretty quickly. My aim is to have the black done mid-next-week...

H, as of 31st May 2013

I'm really enjoying this one, and it's been a great introduction to the world of HAED. They're having a sale at the moment, but I'm being good this time around (I also didn't get anything in the 45%-off Mothers' Day sale). I had a bit of a stash building splurge earlier in the month, but a lot of my stuff is at home, so I'll post about that when I get back on Tuesday.

I bought this kit part-started at the beginning of the month on eBay, and I just couldn't resist continuing it for a bit...

Orange Tree, as of 22nd May 2013

It's called Orange Tree, by DMC, and it's the only kit I've seen so far that features variegated threads. They haven't appeared yet, but I'm hoping they'll be pretty obvious when they do.

Now, the big news of the month is that I'm now officially Old. Yeah, I turned 20 on May 21st, which makes me no longer a teenager. Thanks to my dear Spanish teachers (hi Cristina and Marta!) I had an exam in the morning, which was not great. (Yeah, I know you don't organise the exam timetable, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna piss and moan about it.) I did get a couple of stitchy things from my mum, of which I've finished one...

Mouseloft's "Cockerel", finished May 24th 2013

Yeah, I was quite tickled by the idea of stitching a cock. Just because I'm now Old And Boring does not mean that all things penile are no longer funny. It's the kind of thing my mum would do on purpose, actually, but turns out she just liked the idea of stitching a cute chicken-type. Oh well.

Last but definitely not least, there is a giveaway I meant to post about a while ago. The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is giving away some thready goodness soon, so go along and enter if you haven't already - and please mention that I sent you!

I'll be back post-exams for a "yay I'm home/yay I'm done/lookit mah new stash/waaah I miss Southampton/oh dear god I'm moving to Spain soon/I love my life/I hate my life" post, so stay tuned. I may even do a belated birthday giveaway once I'm back, depending on how nice and not depressed I'm feeling, so watch this space.

Happy stitching!

Heather xx