House-selling frustrations

Weeks ago, probably about 4 or 5 weeks by now, I accepted an offer on my house. I don't think I blogged it at the time, for fear of jinxing the sale.

Time has passed, and we're no nearer completing the sale. The buyer has been having trouble getting a mortgage. There had been a mark on his credit record from a late payment on a mobile phone bill, which has apparently now been sorted out with Experian, but it seems he still doesn't have his finances fully in place, and we haven't heard anything about a surveyor coming round to value the property. I'm getting worried - the longer it goes on, the greater the chances he'll pull out of the sale regardless of whether he gets a mortgage agreed.

Aaaargh!

On the plus side, we spent yesterday at Lovely J's house. We mooched around the house, garden and the neighbourhood. We went for a walk round some of the villages, had a very nice meal out in a local chinese, and sat in the conservatory with some music playing to enjoy the last of the day's sunshine as I carried on with my stitching. I gotta tell you, I can't wait til my house is sold and we can move in to his!

Here is my cross stitch as it was yesterday afternoon. Nearly there! If I keep at it I might be able to prepare it for framing by the end of next weekend....

French, Kewpie and photos

This week I am taking French lessons. I'm doing a 2 week french conversation summer school at the university, 3 hours a night, 3 nights a week for two weeks. So far I've had two classes, and am thoroughly enjoying it. I'm finding it much easier and much less stressful than Japanese!

The end of my mammoth Kewpie cross stitch is in sight! Nearly. I have a lot of stitching ahead of me , still - but, look....



See! I'm definitely getting there!

Also - d'you remember a while back I mentioned that some Schamp, an online travel guide, was considering using one of my pics? Well, they did. You can see it here - mine's one of the pics of Blenheim Palace.

How awesome is that? But wait - it gets better... I had another email from them, letting me know that they're considering including another of my pics. Yay me! It's this one of Barry Island...

(Doesn't Barry Island look lovely!)

I have a shop!!!!!

Look - I have an Etsy shop! There's a button / widgetty-thing over there on the right, if you fancy having a bit of a nosey.

I don't quite know what I'm going to make to sell there yet - I suppose that'll be whatever I'm fadding about at the time...

I have many, many fantasitc ideas... and I'm excited!

I've already put up one of my cross stitch patterns to sell (a Kewpie pattern, naturally) - the same pattern in two versions (b&w for easy printing, or colour for easy reading).

I haven't done a banner yet. But that'll be awesome, too.

From now until October, all income generated from my shop sales will be donated to my sister's Patagonia Trek in aid of Mencap (a UK learning disability charity).

More cross stitch, some Japanese and a slice of cake

The mega-cross stitch is still plodding along, here is is so far:

There's still loads left to do - I'm not even half way through it yet - I have at least another 2 or 3 months stitching ahead of me, assuming that I don't get fed up and abandon it part-way through in favour of new, more exciting and faster projects.

I've got to say though, she's looking good!

I've also been hard at work learning my Katakana (a japanese alphabet) following my first Japanese lesson on Tuesday. It was brilliant and has got me all enthused. So far I can write 8 of the 46 characters without cheating. Yay me! This is my homework so far...

In other news - I have discovered a fantastic blog that deserves a mention... Cake Toursim is a fantastic blog dedicated to cakes. We like cake. Here is a pictuer of cake. I've blogged it previously, but I have no other cake pictures yet. I will have to take some.

Happy New Year

I seem to have done nothing but cross stitch this holiday - and it's starting to make me cross eyed. Not least because I keep being inspired by other quick, easy and colourful crafting ideas... I really fancy making a softie or two, and I want to experiment with needle felting, and I want to cover my diary with pretty fabric. But I won't. Not yet anyway. I have too many half-finished projects cluttering the house, and this won't be one of them!

Here's a picture of it so far...

I'm very pleased with it, but am a little concerned that the colours aren't as bright as I'd intended, and that it looks a bit like a Victorian cherub - which is really not what I was after. It's a pattern generated from this photo of Kewpie in my strawberries.

Still, at least it's moved away from beige (I've used pink and brown as well!), and fairly soon I'll be on to green. Which will be brilliant!

I went sale shopping yesterday. I bought some recipe books from Borders for casseroles and stuff (slow cooking's my current favourite) at half price, and a notebook which I'm thrilled to pieces with.

I've already used it to compose a shopping list, copy down a recipe for Cawl, make a note of picture frame sizes and prices, and to price and plan the layout of how I'm going to frame the robot cross stitches. I can't put it down - it's too lovely. There has been nothing particularly impressive of inspired put into the book as yet, but it's only a matter of time. In years to come I expect it to be auctioned for a kerjillion pounds, after I earn my fame and fortune doing something good and interesting. I haven't decided what that thing will be yet. In the meantime, here's a sneaky glimpse of the notebook you might find yourself bidding on in the dim and distant future...



I also bought a lamp. It wan't in the sales, but it was very reasonable (an Ikea purchase), and I'm loving it. You might have noticed that the pictures of my front room in this blog are a bit dark. This is because my front room tends to be a bit dark. This might have something to do with the dark yellow I chose to paint it when I moved in. I'm starting to think about painting it a lighter colour, like white - but definitely not (never) magnolia.

The dark cross stitch in a dark room was starting to strain my eyes a bit - but not any more. Behold, my lovely new lamp!

The room is still dark (this photo was taken at 2pm today), but my corner is gloriously bright and lovely.