The Treehouse

The Count of Monte Cristo Challenge

 I love talking books with Carole - sometimes it's expensive; she introduces me to somebody new I introduce Carole to somebody new; we share books; we join in bookrings, bookrays, bookspirals and goodness knows what else! It's wondeful to talk with somebody else who enjoys such a wide diversity of reading material though. Last week I think it was, Carole mentioned that she was reading The Count of Monte Cristo. Well, I LOVE that story. I watched Richard Chamberlain as the Count when I was young - my Mum had a soft spot for Richard and in recent years I've watched Jim Caviezel in a new film version of the story. Both great films and Catherine loves the film too. Now, I have quite a large TBR pile and I happened to mention to Carole that The Count had been lingering on this pile since before Catherine was born :o Carole responded with a challenge to read the Count. I think she was teasing - maybe. I started feeling a bit sorry for The Count though as I then realised that he'd been sitting on the shelf in excess of 13 years - I think I bought him after I read Les Miserables and I know for a fact that I read that in my lunch hours at work so...more than 14 years on the shelf :o

It's time for the Count to come down off the shelf and be properly read so in addition to the Everything Austen Challenge II, bookrings/rays/spirals, a gazillion sewing projects, library books, summer holidays and whatever else - I am going to read The Count of Monte Cristo before school starts back in September. I can report that so far he is down off the shelf and dusted off and the first few pages have been consumed :D

Everything Austen II

 Stephanie of Stephanie's Written Word is hosting the Everything Austen II challenge - I missed the first one but can't resist signing up for this 2nd chance. Sign ups are open until 15th July and there are 6 months in which to complete your chosen challenges. I've really challenged myself - I've included two lots of viewing - I'm not good at viewing - I only view when I've got some hand sewing in my mitts and no kids sports to attend! I was going to include a stitching project - I still would like to include a stitching project but really - I have an incalculable amount of stitching projects on the go as it is! Here are my choices, in no particular order of preference - 

1. Mansfield Park - book

  I've never read this one :o 

2. The Jane Austen Book Club - dvd

 This looks interesting. I'm thinking a girly night of tv and sewing with Catherine. I see Violet from Private Practice is in there, I like here and also Jimmy Smits...Mmm, I used to love him in LA Law!

3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - book

 This sounds like an absolute hoot!

4. Lost in Austen - dvd

 I recall seeing part of a random episode of this when it was on the television - I was curious to see more. I think Catherine may manage to keep me company for some of this...there is 3 hours worth of viewing though so good for stitching along to!

5. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - book

 rather irresistable once you see that POTC Davey Jones character on the cover!

6. Jane Austen's Sewing Box - book

 I had a little dip into this when it arrived from Amazon - it looks like a great combination of Austen info, history and little sewing projects. I might combine no.6 with the stitching of a huswife but like I said above, I have lots of stitching on the go so I may not get around to it.

Hoping to find some time to visit the blogs of other participants to see what they're doing.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Pear Tree

is finished...just stitched on the beads and given it a tickle with the iron. I LOVE it. 

 

Now to decide what sort of ornament to turn it into and what to stitch on this evening!

I rescued a missing bookring this morning...the postman had either left it with or mistakenly posted it through our nextdoor but one neighbours postbox quite a few weeks ago. I think they'd been waiting for me to go and collect and forgotten that they had it...I had no idea it was there because I'd not had a card through the door! Anyway, I've retrieved it now and I've decided to lay The Witching Hour to one side and get stuck into the latest Kinsey Millhone mystery...I'm absolutely ready for another one of her adventures :D so L is for Lawless had a little attention while I ate my lunch and it's going to get much more this afternoon!

SAL progress

Last week was a crazy busy week getting my DS ready to go away this week with school. I was in dire need of a pair of waterproof gloves for him...had been searching for them for 2 months and hadn't been able to find a pair anywhere. So...in addition to the extreme excitement about his week away there was the constant worry that he wouldn't have the correct gloves. I finally found a pair - phew! On top of that excitement, there was a tonne of documentation to be sent into DD's school for her trip to France in July. After all that was achieved and both lots of extreme excitement lived with I was ready for a bit of a holiday myself, lol! 

I did manage some stitching last week...when the excited ones had retired to bed and got a fair bit of the LHN Pear Tree ornament completed - it's beautiful, I love the colours. No photo yet, I'll wait until I've finished it - hopefully tomorrow. 

On the Blackbird stockings front I completed the Sweetheart Sampler a couple of weeks ago - I thoroughly enjoyed stitching it and it was such a quick stitch as well. I have one Feb stocking left to stitch now - I would have had all of the Feb ones done in Feb but I had done three in a row and fancied stitching something else after I'd done this one. Once the last Feb one is stitched I'm going to enjoy choosing some backing fabric for the first 6 stockings and then finish them off - perhaps at Marches crop.

 

I found some beautiful cross stitching blogs last week while having a little surf - many of them French. Of course, while I was hopping from blog to blog I came across another SAL that was just about to start - I signed up...oops! Below is the first week's stitching, I just completed it this evening. I always seem to be choosing pink and green so I went for a purple shade with a gorgeous shade of green this time. I've no idea what these threads were originally bought for now, they were lurking in my little thread drawer and now they're happy to be seeing the light of day.

 

This isn't a very good photo - I took it just now with the flash and you can't really see what a lovely shade of green it is at all. The design is by Marilyn of Le coin broderie de Marilyn S she has some lovely designs on her blog.

I also managed to get this month's My Little Heart chart stitched this week for Sylvia's SAL This is such a sweet design, I'm thinking that I'll give it to DD when it's complete as she is one of my own little hearts :)

                                                              
After all of my stitching and Plum waffle, I've not only 'encouraged' Carole to start reading Stephanie Plum books and take up her cross stitch again...I think I've also enticed her into starting this SAL as well :grin: 

Stitching on The Library ground to a halt a little while back and I'm eager to get some more stitches onto it...I've scheduled some serious time with it as soon as Pear Tree is finished. I need to get moving on it in order to keep Carole stitching...I've promised she can have the chart when I'm done! Well...a fellow book lover simply must stitch The Library and The Bookshelf, I think it's probably mandatory!

I think that's covered all of the SAL's that I'm stitching. Some super exciting news on the stitching front is that I am all signed up to make Mary Wigham's wardrobe. I cannot wait to begin this. In fact, the first part of the chart has already been given to us and I'm just awaiting a delivery of fabric and thread and then I can begin. Do click on the link and take a look, I think it's the most lovely and clever bit of stitching and crafting. I think the class lasts for 6 months.

I've not had my date with the February snowman block yet - I'm thinking I might catch up with him when I have my finishing week for the stockings :)

On the reading front I am now Plum-less :o I've read all of the Stephanie Plum books that are currently in print and am eagerly awaiting Sizzling Sixteen. I had been looking forward to reading Audrey Niefenegger's new book as I enjoyed The Time Traveller's Wife so much and I finished it a couple of days ago...I'm sorry to say that it wasn't a patch on TTTW at all. I'm now reading Anne Rice's The Witching Hour which I ordered up from the library simply ages ago...it's taken a while to arrive, it must be popular. I ordered after I had finished reading Angel Time which I thoroughly recommend. So far so good with The Witching Hour although I'm not too far into it having had a bit of stitching madness over the last couple of days - it's definitely caught my interest though.

Anyway, time for some beauty sleep - I've a date with a Pear Tree tomorrow afternoon!

 

A little update...

I seem to have been AWOL for a while :o In my spare time, I've either had my nose in a book or been stitching away like mad just lately. 

I've worked on my Tail Feathers quilt - I can see the end in sight now and am glad I didn't leave all of the log cabin blocks until the end! Not much has happened with the Bluebird quilt at all, in fact - I've decided that I'm going to concentrate on finishing Tail Feathers before I launch into anymore Bluebird blocks.

Matthew's quilt is finally all quilted. I was finding it such a chore of a job and really wished I hadn't started stippling it. However, it's all done now and does look nice...just need to sew on the binding. He keeps asking me if it's finished yet and finally I can say...almost!

 

Dear Jane has taken a bit of a back seat lately. I'm itching to sew some more of these little blocks though, I love them. I did make a triangle a couple of weeks ago but that's all the progress I've made this year :o I quite enjoy making the triangles :) I treated myself to the Dear Jane cd and have played with it a little - printing out foundation patterns. Gosh, it makes things much easier! This is TR2.

 

The latest Snowbound block was posted at the end of last week. I'm itching to get started on this - it's a skiing snowman, lol! Also, I spotted a lovely new BOM on the blog of Erin Russek - I just cannot resist hand sewing you see :) It's on my list of things to get around to.

I've done quite a bit of crosstich that last couple of weeks. I finished another Blackbird Designs stocking - I love these. This one though, I wasn't so keen on really when I started it but now it's done...I really like it! 

 

Here's the first one that I finished - it's called Winter Carnation. Once the first 3 are stitched, I'm going to have a little stocking finishing session.

 
I have started the next one which has a birthday cake on it and then stopped stitching it while I contemplated whose initials and date of birth should go on the stocking...these are serious matters after all and one must ensure not to stitch too many of one person's initials and not enough of another person's initials otherwise war may break out! While I was mulling this little dilemma over I did some surfing...big mistake! I stopped by at Annette's lovely blog and while I was perusing all her lovely stitches I spotted a link...to a SAL...with birds and hearts. Of course, I clicked upon the link and it took me here to Sylvia's blog. I visited a few times. I looked in my tiny stash of crosstitching fabric. I visited again. I looked again at my fabric and low and behold I had a piece of 28 count evenweave in cream that would do the job nicely.

 

This is how far I've got. I had thought to finish the boxes this weekend but I didn't get that far...that was Stephanie Plum's fault! Or maybe it was the Library's fault for calling up to let me know that they had a couple of Stephanie Plum books ready for me to read :cough:

I did finish off my FaLaLa a few weeks ago though :D I did a little frogging on the ladies. I had stitched them plumper than they should have been and I didn't think that was fair at all so I whipped out those extra stitches and finished them off. It's quite a big ornament but I really like it. I would have preferred braid to the pom poms really but couldn't find it in the correct shade. The pom poms are quite fun though.

 

I've taken a photo of this twice now and both times it's come out blurred but you get the general idea :)

As I mentioned, I spent a lot of quality time with Stephanie Plum this weekend. I've seen people say these books are not so good but honestly, I laughed until I cried! A very good bit of light hearted humour along with a good bit of detectiving and a few hunky chaps thrown in for good measure. Just perfect for in between some serious reads. I've read the first 5 and will be going on to read more as soon as the library can provide! Last weekend I spent some time with the new Jasper Fforde...it took a bit of getting through to be honest but I was determined to get there. There are more books to come in this series and I'm thinking that a lot of time was spent setting up the new 'world' in the book so I will definitely give the next ones a go. I also read a book by LL Bartlett yesterday - she writes the Booktown mysteries under a different name. It wasn't bad at all...a little bit 'Medium' like but with a hero as opposed to a heroine. I do have the next one in my pile to read and look forward to seeing how Jeff gets on with his new found abilities. I have rather a fine stack of books to read at the moment....I spotted the new book by Elizabeth Kostova while I was in the library the other day...that may be next to get devoured!

I've promised myself NOT to spot anymore SALs or BOMs or the like, I must surf with my eyes closed. Particularly as I'm feeling the need to make a bag...it's been a while since I did the last one, lol!

 
 

Happy New Year

I'm a little late with new year wishes now that we're five days in to the new year! After one day back at school/work we find ourselves to be snowed in again! Schools are closed, salt boxes are empty, dustbins are overflowing and so we're having another day of holiday :D

 

and as you can see - it's still coming down thick and fast. The sleigh is being ridden but I'm staying indoors where it's all warm and snuggly and am going to fire up my sewing machine in a short while in order to work on my Tail Feathers quilt. The end is nearly in sight for this quilt and I'm so excited about that...just worrying now that I'll mess it all up with the quilting :o

Lots of sewing plans for this year and I had just finally convinced myself to take on no more new projects when I checked on Bunny Hill's blog this morning. There is a lovely new applique BOM full of snowmen, called Snowbound (how appropriate) just beginning and of course, I have downloaded the pattern!

 

I think I may squeeze it in somehow, I do happen to have some pretty white fabric that would be just perfect for the snowmen, lol!

I joined a SAL in order to get my Blackbird Designs stockings stitched now that I've found somewhere to supply me with small pieces of the fabrics used and have started the first one from the January set. I think they'll stitch up quite quickly and have enjoyed the sewing on this first one so far. I'm doing the one with the pink flowers on it first...very pretty.

 

I'm also in a SAL for the Little House Needleworks monthly ornaments and am awaiting the arrival of the second one - these are lovely to stitch although they do turn out quite large...good job our tree isn't a small one! Next year's Christmas tree is going to be decked out in a fabulous fashion is the stitching stays on course :D 

 

The last SAL that I'm in is for The Library, also by Little House Needleworks - I had that on my list of things to stitch and when I saw that there was a SAL beginning it was too hard to resist, lol! 

 

I really should make a WIP list I think as I also want to stitch the Beatrix Potter sampler. Reading that list I also need to stop sleeping as I've not even started to list my quilty things yet and that is really quite a long list. Good job I like to have more than one thing on the go at once really :grin:

I bought some Rouenneries fabric during the Christmas holidays - finally. I had been wanting to buy some since I first saw it but when I went to my LQS the lady there had decided not to order it as she wasn't keen on it. The need was too great though and I finally succumbed to a layer cake (it was a bargain price too so even better!) and am going to make Drunkard's Path shapes with it using Inklingo. I've never been keen on the Drunkard's Path pattern until I saw them in a different arrangement on Cathi's blog and then started giving them a little more thought. Originally, I was going to make octagons from the Rouenneries but now I have a whole new design plotted out in my head involving the Drunkard's Path. I'll need some yardage at some point so hopefully it will continue to be available for a while and in the meantime I'll enjoy sewing these little curved pieces together once I've printed them out.

I had been hoping that the postman would come today but that's not looking too likely with all this snow. I'm awaiting delivery of Jinny Beyer's new book, The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns from The Book Depository I had been waiting quite some time for Amazon to have it in stock but it still wasn't there just after Christmas so I went for a mooch on The Book Depository and there it was, just waiting for me to come along and order it up. 

This is quite a long post so it's probably time for me to go and sew now!

p.s. vampire book fans - see my Just Read list for some rather good vampire reads by Jennifer Rardin. Lent to me by my nephew over Christmas and both Catherine and devoured them in the space of 2 or 3 days, lol!

 
 

Back from holiday...

and time for a review of books read! Things are a bit mixed up on the book lists as I didn't keep them updated during the summer holidays. During August I polished off a couple more of Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilters books which I enjoyed very much - the library have been able to provide me with a steady supply of these books I'm pleased to say so I have more in my 'pile' to read. I also finished off the Aurora Teagarden series by reading the last two books...again, provided by the library. Although murder stories they're a definite comfort read and I enjoyed them and was pleased that Roe got a happily ever after :D I also read the first book that Charlaine Harris published entitled A Secret Rage...another good comfort read and also provided by the library. Next up was the latest Sookie Stackhouse (another library book!) which I devoured the day before we went on holiday - interesting developments there, a bit of a shame as I rather liked the angle that seems to be disappearing...I suppose that nothing is set in stone though!

So August turned out to be a bit of a Charlaine Harrise fest!!! I took 4 books on holiday with me that I had been saving just for that occasion. I caught up with Karen Chance by reading the latest Cassie Palmer and then went on to read her Midnight's Daughter...glad I read them in that order but I will not elaborate further in case there are any Karen Chance fans reading this who haven't read these two books yet. Next one was The Girl Who Played with Fire which I've been bursting to read since I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I was not disappointed, it was smashing and now I'm bursting for the last one of course! I think it'll be quite a wait until the paperback is out though. Now, the fourth book that I had taken along - the latest Harry Dresden in paperback - Small Favor, I let the dh read. We had both been really, really looking forward to this and I felt it only fair that as I had 3 other smashing books to read he should get to read Harry first. 

What I hadn't remembered was that the dh is a slow reader...he didn't finish it until after we got home :o which left me stuck for a read then. Fortunately, he had taken along my recommendation of The Eight so I re-read that! This was a good thing really as it's one of my all time favourite books and I have The Fire to read so a good refresh of events will stand me in good stead when I start that one.

A Kinsey Millhone bookring arrived on Friday - I finished that on Sunday. Good but such a swift ending - I'm looking forward to receiving J next.

Dear Fatty arrived in the post this morning - a bookray. Although I'm reading The Book of Shadows (super good witchy stuff) I have made a start on this Dawn French book. I've only read about the first 20 or so pages, I'm not sure how I like the idea of it all being written as letters but I will persevere.

Plenty of sewing adventures to update on but I need to get the pics off the card first of all. I did take a heap of stitching on holiday with me and then I spent the time I wasn't either reading or going off on adventures doing crochet! Got my bag finished though...I'm delighted with it and it just needs lining and then I can put it to good use.

Not crafted in a while...

not since I was at the February crop! Inspiration has been very, very lacking but now it's come back a bit. This week I have got on with and enjoyed making my entry for Hilary's fabric cj - here it is...
Hoping to get on with more things now - a stamp cj has arrived in this morning's post so after completing the dolly and my Easter bunny that is next on my list!