More Progress on Santa, and 2 owies

I stitched on a little bit on Orlaith's stocking this weekend - Santa now has all his backstitch on his person completed, and is carrying his star-topped staff. This week, I'll plough on and do the swirls and moons above him - and then I'm nearly there! Now I need to start thinking about what I'm going to line and back the stocking with, and find some fabric quickly. Orlaith's birthday is the 16th December, so I'm hoping to have this stitched, finished and posted by the 10th December at the latest. It sounds like I have so much time, but I'm quaking in my socks about the finishing, so I'm hoping to steam ahead with the stitching, and leave myself plenty of time to do the rest.



The rest of the weekend, I stitched on my piece for the Cross Stitchers' Lottery. Now, I'd like to know what you all plan to do - are you going to show progress photos? So far I haven't, and I think I'm leaning towards keeping it a secret until I post the final photo on the Lottery blog - I think a surprise would be nicer - do you? So, for now, it's all on the QT.

In fact, I wasn't going to do a lot of stitching this weekend; instead I had a number of plans involving visiting friends, clearing out the garden and planting my spring bulbs, and going on a shopping trip for lots of lovely finishing bits and bobs in Reading. But two owies have prevented my doing any of that. First, I sprained my ankle in my hockey game on Saturday - I was going to post a photo, but even I was slightly taken aback by the photo H took - it really does look as if my ankle is afflicted by elephantiasis, so I think I'll just leave the swelling and beautifully emerging purple and green colour to your imagination! So Sunday was spent hobbling about and muttering 'ow, ow' constantly under my breath, but I might still have managed the shopping trip (at a very slow pace!), had not the second owie involved our poor car. After doing the shopping (rather heroically and despite being temporarily crippled! LOL!) on Saturday evening, I got back to the car, loaded in the bright orange Sainsbury's reusable shopping bags, got behind the wheel and...nothing. I immediately thought battery, but the lights and radio seemed to work, so I called the RAC, waiting a suprisingly short time (only 15 minutes!) and he eventually got the car started. Not fixed though, so that's another job for this week. But it left us rather stranded at the weekend, as I wasn't able to walk all the way to the train station, and there is no shopping to speak of in our little village! But nevermind, I can't claim to be too disappointed, since I got to stitch all weekend, and I'm really loving stitching on my secret Lottery project (tantalising you, I know!).

Well, I'm off to ring the garage now and sort out the car's owie, and I need to get my feet back up (it's difficult at my desk at work, but I'm giving it my best try!) to try and heal my ankle speedily. Thanks for dropping by!

Happy stitching!