Verdure Update

Finished column 3 sometime around midnight last night :) I am not sure whether I will continue on with column 4 tonight or perhaps pick up an older WIP. Shimmer has been persistently whispering in my ear the past couple of nights so I think I might spend some time with her to quieten her down! She doesn't look it but it seems she's the jealous type - lol!

Next up, thank you for all the lovely comments - I do so appreciate them :)

Kim, I haven't bought anything from the sale yet either :) I do like some of the new Linda Ravenscroft's and a couple of the new Molly Harrison's but I think I might wait and see what else is released before I decide what or even if I buy :)

For those of you who don't know Heaven & Earth Designs are having a 25% off sale at the moment - they've also released a heap of new charts!!

Nicki, I was glad to have enabled - lol!

Carol, thank you *blush* but you should see some of the work from the other talented ladies over at the HAED BB! They are very inspiring and I am still so very new to HAED stitching :)

Leonie, I started off stitching Snowflake in 10 stitch wide columns but then started wandering because I wanted to get to her eyes! Which then lead me to miscounting somewhere and having to frog a section! I've tried stitching by page but again I think the wandering gets me into trouble so I thought I'd go back to the 10 stitch columns again and resist the urge to wander - lol! So far I've managed to restrict my wandering to within that 10 stitch wide column and have only had one visit from the frog I think so far :) Ummmm, and as to how many HAED WIPs I have at the moment ... I think about seven ... gulp!

Nicole, I start from the top of the column, pick a colour and work all the stitches with that one colour within the 10 stitch wide column to the bottom of the page. I then go back to the top and choose the next colour etc and repeat the process until all the column is stitched. It depends on how many colours changes are in that particular column as to whether I change thread more frequently. HAED charts can have anywhere from 25 (for the "black and white" ones) to over 120 colours in them so you can imagine there would be quite a lot detail stitching! Some ladies (and men!) work row by row within the column and park their threads. I sort of do that but usually at the end of the column (as you can see in the pic). I will carry over threads to the next page rather than end them off.

Oh, and my new camera is a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 - 7.2 Mega pixels, 12x Optical zoom plus a load of other technical stuff - lol! My old one was a Sony Cyber-shot too but it only had a 3x optical zoom which is not much chop if you are at the back of the hall at assembly and your child is way up the front - lol! My new one is bulkier than my old one too - doesn't really fit in my handbag any more but it came with it's own carry case so it's no bother really. It has a heap of extra modes for taking photos too - like the "burst" (I think it's called the sequence mode on some cameras) and sports action modes and of course the macro mode. It even has a mode for taking photos of beach scenes!

I love it but the dog still hates it - lol!

End of school year madness is starting to hit us big time and things are starting to get busy. I somehow have to start packing for our summer holiday over the next 13 days too. I think it's list time - lol!!

Happy stitching!