I have had a lovely day with my friend Carol today. We visited two quilt shops and a cross stitch shop and had a wonderful lunch together. I had a list of threads that I wanted to buy today, mostly DMC and four Gentle Arts Sampler Threads. I managed to buy all the DMCs that I wanted but only two of the four GAST were available, grrrrr! Never mind, I have all the threads and the fabric to join the Drawn Thread Sampler Gameboard stitch along, so I will endeavour to get that put onto a frame this weekend. I also have two exchange pieces to put together this weekend and once they have been received I will be able to share photos with you! I have had a couple of parcels of stitching stash this week so, when you add those to the goodies I bought today, I think we can all agree that I have failed miserably at my 10, 25, 50 challenge! Oh well, not to worry.......... :-)

I have a couple of pictures to share of this weeks stitching progress and I love both pieces, I hope that you do too. Before I finish I would like to thank everybody who has visited this blog, but, most especially, those who have left comments. I have really enjoyed hearing from everyone and you have all been very kind! Thankyou very much indeed.........

I am really looking forward to having a record of my stitching thoughts, aims and achievements over the coming year. I have been looking at the 10,25, 50 challenge on the hasturtorres site and whilst I am not sure that I can agree not to buy more stash until I have finished a certain number of projects, it has spurred me to look at my stash and decide which items I would like to stitch from it first.

For the last week or so I have been stitching various exchange pieces, but I cannot share any of those photos with you until they have been received. However, here are a couple of photos to keep us all going. One is Merry Christmas by Carriage House Samplings, which I stitched for my good friend Carol and the other is of one of my UFOs. The UFO is 'My Son' by Indigo Rose. I love it but I made the mistake of putting it into a drawer a couple of years ago "just to keep it clean" and it hasn't seen the light of day since......

In spite of saying that I would be continuing to stitch the alphabet needle case I decided to stitch some more on another UFO, Garland Fair by Blackbird Designs. I spent three hours stitching the bird in the garland, only to discover that I had miscounted and placed it wrongly! I spent the next hour unpicking the stitching, which means that I have no photo to show you of that!

This week I received a couple of fabulous things from the Sampler Guild, including a little book about Ackworth School knitted pin balls. The photography and the colours in this little book are just wonderful. It is a pleasure to own even if I never get around to stitchi

This is the next UFO that I plan to work on. It is called Alphabet Needlecase by Hillside Samplings. I have worked on it a bit during the past few days and now need to chart the personalised text for it. I'll let you know how I get on.......

Welcome to Arwens Thread!

Hmmm, this is really by way of an experiment to see how I get on with having my own blog. I have been inspired by some of the other very pretty stitching blogs that I have seen. I love to cross stitch and thought that a blog would be an excellent way to chart my stitching thoughts and progress.


As part of my quest to become better organised I have taken several photographs of my works in progress and recently finished items. Here is a photo of my recently completed 'Little Witch' by Shepherds Bush. I hope you like it!