Good afternoon  my friends 

I hope you are all well and stitching away. Im back on board for the time being and would like to thank you all for your kind thoughts and cards. I've managed to down load some pictures on to webshots they aren't brilliant but ok. 

 
I've also sorted out some slots for next years themes I will add more when the polls close in December but for now we have a few, I'm not expecting you all to start stitching these now honestly but i do need to get every one chatting on line as I plan to be away from my pc for a while ....  quilting

If you should need a special chart then please do ask Katy, Liza or myself but before that please check out the free charts links where theres 1000s of free charts.
 
Which brings me on to my next usless bit of information lol - you are allowed to add free charts links to the free charts sections but please check first with Liza,Kate or myself.

(A) That it is legal - I dont want our charity group closed down
(B) We dont already have that link
(C) That it is suitable for our group use ...and for babies or young children ....
 
As you may have seen, Liza has opened a new hand made cards section on group, please get chatting on there! I'm more than pleased with what the card makers are doing so much so that ive ordered the first batch for myself!  I will be sending some money to Liza this coming weekend.

Liza has already sent a whole stash of cards to me for fund raising these are planned for a charity stall later, not for my own use. I'm going to print out some sentiment sheets too. This is why I've also pre ordered loads of extra cards. My family and friends love to receive hand made cards and I dont have enough hours in a day to make them.
 
I think Liza is about right with costs. I'm more than happy to send her £10 for 5 cards and also provide some prizes for her competition. Thats far cheaper than Susan can make them for in France so please do send your donated cards to Liza they will all be used i promise. 

Finally, please promote our group as much as possible! I know its difficult but without our much valued stitchers and knitters we really cannot survive for another year. We have had a great year this year but times are getting much harder!! Please help me to help the kiddies who most need our help hugs Jane xxxx

Wow, it's been a while since I've been able to update our blog pages due to ill health on my part, so there's an awful lot here for me to update you all on.

WOCS ARTICLE

The big news this month is that the World of Cross Stitching magazine are doing an article about our 'hanny's hearts of love' project. We are very excited about this. You will find the article in either issue 140 (June) or 141 (July) the actual date hasn't been decided yet. Please remind all your friends and families to buy their copies, and don't forget yours too!!!!!

New Members

Our member count has now grown to a staggering 94!! Welcome to all our newbies, I'm sure you'll love it here, we all do It won't be much longer before we welcome our 100th member!! YIPPEEEEEE

AN URGENT REQUEST

Now that our membership is growing, and we are stitching for so many more charities, we are in desperate need of members who can quilt and would be willing to help make up some of the blankets. At present Jane has been doing this on her own, but things have reached a point now where she is in urgent need of some help.

If you know anyone that can quilt, why not encourage them to join our group??

Anyone able to help with this should contact Jane at jane5kipper@hotmail.com

NEW CHARITIES

We have a few new charities that we are stitching for so here goes:

• Bonnie Babies This is an ongoing project, we require knitted garments for prem and new babies please. Contact Jane for further details about this worthwhile cause.
• Frimhurst This project is to make up 12 quilts for boys and girls of all ages. Frimhurst is a family holiday home run by ATD, who offer support for families on very low incomes. Frimhurst provides them with a very cheap holiday.
• Hanny's Hearts of Love I think I can safely say that this is our most prominent project at the moment, We are making 5 blankets, to be donated to a cancer charity, these blankets are being made in memory of our dear member Hanny, who sadly passed away in February.
• Babies blankets this project is for 7 crib sized blankets for a hospital in gibralta ..... we are using 6x6 inch squares with any baby related things on them........ this is a one off project

HANNY'S HEARTS OF LOVE

I am giving this project a special mention as it is so important to us at the present time. We have now completed the first 3 blankets, and the other two are well on the way. Although we still need stitchers to help us to complete them please, you will find a copy of the heart chart on our free charts page

HOB MOOR OAKS SCHOOL

These are our original project, and the blankets are coming on very fast!! full details of all the themes we are stitching for the children are available in the Forum, and photos of squares received, along with completed photos, are available on our photos pages.

FIRST PAST THE POST COMPETITION

We run a competition every month for a themed square to reach Jane first. Jane announces the theme of the square, on the forum, around the 25th of the month, then the first person to email her a picture of their completed square, wins (provided the actual square arrives with Jane before that months closing date)

NEW FREE CHARTS

We have had a donation of three more free charts from Johanna at the Purple stitching company. thank you to Johanna. Please remember that, as with Lucie's charts these have been made available for use of our blankets only.

If you are a budding designer and would like to donate original charts for our use, then please contact Liza on brightspark1970@yahoo.co.uk

POPCORN CHARTS

A link has been added to our links page, in the animal section, for a popcorn club site, where I believe you can get free popcorn charts. (I haven't checked this, so please let me know if this is wrong)

Phew that was a lot of information, hopefully I have remembered everything

Happy stitching guys

Hi guys, well hasn't it been a busy 2 weeks!! We now have 65 members on the forum!! Welcome to everyone that has joined us recently. Don't forget to sign up for blog updates!!!

There's loads of news so here goes:

Publicity

Jane has had a photographer visit her today, and they have taken photos of our first completed blanket, and are doing a write up about us in her local paper. WTG Jane!!!

Liza has been busy posting links on a number of Multiply groups and Yahoo groups. If any of you know of any groups not already aware of us, then please make us a known to them!!

Blankets

Our first blanket is now completed and a photo has been added to the photos pages. Our second blanket is well on it's way to completion now too! Thank you to everyone who has sent in squares for these so far, Please remember some squares have a deadline, so if anyone has any of these stitched and ready, please could you mail them to arrive no later than 28th February!! Thank you

Quilters needed please

At the moment, Jane and Helle are the only 2 people, making up the blankets. If any of you guys are able to do quilting and willing to help them, please contact Jane as soon as possible.

Round Robins

We have 2 round robins at the moment. The around the world round robin, already has it's members and is about to start it's journey. This is to be a wallhanging for the school, showing the children where we all come from. We have 1 stitcher from 11 different countries!!!

Our second RR is a cover kits project, you can still sign up for this over on our new forum. We are happy to provide cover kits if you don't have any, but please be aware that all stitched pieces from these would need to be donated to the group. If you provide your own kits, we ask that at least one stitched square be donated. So come on over to the forum and take a look!!

Monthly competition

We have started a monthly competition over in the new forum. Each month Jane will choose a theme, and the first member to send a photo of their completed stitching will win a prize. Provided that piece of stitching reaches Jane by the closing date. This months theme is FROGS and closing date is 1st April.

Hearts of Love

A new theme has been started for blankets, Lucie Heaton has very kindly designed a heart motif for us, this can be completed in one of three colours as described on the chart. There is a space within each heart to stitch your own design or message. I hope we will be able to make up many blankets with these charts, thank you once again Lucie!! Liza will upload the chart to the freebie charts page soon, but if you would like a copy now, please email Liza and Jane, who will both be happy to send it to you. Please remember that, as always, this and all our charts are for use on our blankets only.

Logo Kits

Lucie has also designed our group Logo, chart is available on freebie charts page. Jane has put together some kits for this too, If you would like to stitch one or more for us, contact Jane and she'll happily send you the necessary kits. We would like to be able to add one of these squares on ALL our blankets, so the more the merrier please!!

Phew, I think that's about it!! so until next time -

Good bye, thank you and happy stitching!!!!

Wow, I can't believe it is a week since we launched this new site!! And it's going really well too

There where a few problems at the beginning of the week, when members founnd it difficult to access the forum, so I have now removed the need to activate their accounts, and guests can now view the forum posts WITHOUT the need to login. You do however need to register and login if you wish to post on the Forum.

The photos and free charts pages have now been sorted out too, the photos section works in a similar way as the yahoo site, you click on an album and you will be taken to the webshots album, just use your back button to return to site.

As for the free charts - click the download link to see a better picture in PDF format, you can then decide if you want to save chart to your pc or just click your back button to return to site.

The FAQ page now has answers to ALL the questions we are generally asked, including a section for using the website, so please check it out.

Some members have commented that their pc freezes when they are on site. I'm afraid this is an uncommen problem that I am unable to rectify as it is NOT a site problem. (mine freezes regularly on WOCS forum) My best guess is that it is a bandwidth issue as we are currently using FREE hosting. I could move our hosting over to a paid host which would offer us more bandwidth, but that isn't an option yet as we are not receiving any regular funding through our paypal account.

Well I think that about covers it all, enjoy the new site!!!!

Hi Guys and welcome to our site, this is our very first blog entry!!! You will be able to visit here regularly to catch up with any news we have.

We will include special requests for blankets, details of the children and the school where possible, and any other updates that we think you will enjoy.

Please feel free to take a look around and send in any feedback.