*Sigh*

I'm a bit disillusioned with cross stitching at the moment. I'm not actually particularly good at it. As a result of which I have not been blogging for the past week or reading anyone elses blogs which is bad. Sorry!

Celtic Christmas is not going well.

(I'll add a picture in here later)

I stitched the face .... then realised it was one stitch out of line so had to frog it all. So I re-stitched it, now it is in the right place but doesn't look good. It is comprised of three different shades of pink - the darker 2 look exactly the same. I've checked them against my bobbins and I didn't make a mistake and use the wrong one, maybe one of the bobbins has the wrong shade on it? Who knows. I also think the face lacks definition, it would look better one-over-one. Not sure if the linen would stand up to another batch of stitches being frogged out, the holes are already on the big side. I'd have to be inventive if I did re-do it one-over-one, not an idea I relish, non-creative me - will have to dig out some of the charts from my stash & see if I can find a similar size & shape face that will help. I know that TW's R&J faces are over-one but they're pointing the wrong way. This one needs some thought.

The candle tips took forever .... I did them individually using loop starts with that horrible metallic thread. They simply refuse to lie flat and look terrible. I am going to pull them out and try a different metallic thread, just for the candle tips. I have some petite treasure braid I bought for Celtic Spring .... maybe that will be better.

My last point of discontent. The 'floating' beads .... the ones around the head I put on with the lightest shade of green thread. They look terrible, and need to come out. The ones around the candle wreath I did with invisible thread, which is the most horrible type of thread I've ever had the misfortune to work with - and I don't like the result, the holes in the fabric around them have been pulled too big. I am going to remove all of these beads .... the plan is to re-do them using the closest green I can find to the colour of the fabric.

But for now Celtic Christmas has been tossed aside ..... I simply don't have the patience.

The Castle Sampler seems suddenly uncomplicated. I'm on the large border now which so far is very simple, although there are some more tricky bits to come.

In better news ..... I finally got my ebay act together and now most of my unwanted magazines, kits and patterns are finally listed. Hopefully later I'll sort out the various bits of fabric I don't want and get them up too. Its clear-out time! Whether or not they actually sell is a different matter but at least I've made the effort.

In better news still .... the large town where I work, which has no stitching suppliers other than the woefully inadequate Coats Needlecrafts Bargain Basement, has a branch of Hobbycraft opening up soon! I do have a Hobbycraft locally, its in one of the 3 towns my village is equally distant from, but it does require a special trip since I don't have any other reason to go there. It will be very useful to have one near to work so I can go visit in my lunch hour. I rarely actually buy major stitching supplies from Hobbycraft since everything is full price but it will be very useful for the odd skein of thread or whatever I have run out of and nice to browse at something interesting in my lunch hour.