The World of Giveaways, Exchanges, Wipocalypse, and Extravaganza

It is a very long time since I have posted ... missed an entire week's worth of Extravaganza, but hopefully my excuses are good enough to warrant lack of blogging/stitching.

I have now officially graduated! And here is proof:

me outside the Cathedral

So now I am a Master of Mathematics with a 2:2 in the subject from Durham University. A little disappointed in the grade, but it is life and there is nothing I can do about it now. Things could have been worse after all. I missed my offer for the graduate course at Newcastle University, but they gave me an interview and decided to take a chance on me. So I am going to study for another year in an    ex-Durham college. (Newcastle used to be part of Durham, but have gained independence sometime in the past.)  

I have now also moved out of my Owengate room:

my old room

I am going to miss it very much, along with the view out of my window:

view of opposite roofs

to the right

to the left

and to the right again

And there is even the Durham Cathedral in the background.

From my room photo you can guess that I have lots of things. More than 3 car loads ... and since I haven't managed to convince anyone to help me move I had to hire a van. Two hours and bit later I had moved out (though it took an entire day to pack). And sadly now I cannot find most of the things that I own. Since everything is packed up in bags. Luckily I have located my camera and some of the stitching, but not all.

Giveaways:

First of all a thank you to Thea of the Gizzimomo's Stitchy Place for a wonderful gift I have won on her 200 followers giveaway. I wanted to include a photo, but the gift is packed away. It was a 'My Memories Suite 3' software, which I am excited to try out ... once I manage to clear out my poor little MacBook from the junk on it. Fairies, and Angels cross stitch booklets, fabric, cross stitch kit, a knitted pincushion and some stitching bits and bobs. This the first blog giveaway that I have won, so I was very happy to receive the package.

When I was showing off my gift to friends over lunch, someone pointed out that it is now my turn to return a favour and do a giveaway myself. I think I'm going to make myself a promise to do one once I reach 100 followers, but that is still in a distant future.

Exchanges:

I have participated in a Margaret Sherry's Summer Exchange. Which is what I spent stitching most of my free time... but I am unable to share it since it is still in the post to its final destination.

But I can share with you what I received from Marcinha (a big thank you):

front

back

I love the snail so much! I have seen it previously on MSherryLovers blog and was planning on getting a chart myself. I haven't decided yet on what I will use it for. I will probably need to unpack everything before I can decide what this will be used for.

Extravaganza: 

My HAED stitching is still stuck on the first page:

part 3

So I have finished almost all dark blue (I now realise I missed a little) and started purple. This was the progress I was meant to post last Tuesday for the Extravaganza update ... but miss located camera etc ... and now the stitching too ... so one update short:

part 4

And finally onto ...

Wipocalypse:

The progress on the HAED:

June 

July

And then as I lost it in the move I have picked up John Clayton's Venice:

June

I was a little annoyed that the stitching is at the top and bottom, so far way, but if I want to wind up on bobbins the leftover thread I should stitch all the combinations of it first: 

July

And the closeups:

I have furniture arriving today ... so maybe a little more unpacking and I can find more stitching.

Until next time,