First post, and first contest piece begun!

I've seen so many other stitchers with blogs, and I have decided that it is high past the time that I actually made my own to document my stitching journeys.  Since I've just finished one project (a fun tribute to the greatness that is Terry Pratchett's Discworld) I thought now was the time to start the blog. I'll take a photo of the Discworld one when I get it back from the framers on Saturday.

I've just started my first piece for a contest.  I came to the contest about a month late, so I'm just doing a relativly small piece, but one from my huge stash of charts.  It's from a magazine, and I would take a WIP shot, but at the moment I've been stitching white on white, so there's not that much to see.  I have finally been able to put that sparkly evenweave I won on ebay to some use though.  There's going to be quite a bit of fabric showing at the end, so I wanted something with a bit of shimmer to it.  The contest is the Puppy Love Spring Contest at the Stitching Pirates group on Deviantart.  I hope it fits the brief:
1) Any animal that is domesticated and can live as a pet. 
2) It should have a spring time motif (We could all use a pick me up after this winter, seriously, this winter was awful). 
3) The pets in the image are not required to be babies, just in a spring-like setting.

And I'm doing a kitten peering out from a teapot with roses on it..... not sure how spring-like it is, but I hope it goes down well with the judges! 

Some alterations have been made to the original pattern - obviously I've chosen evenweave instead of the recommended 14hpi aida, and I've changed the colour of backstitch from DMC pearl to a satin thread instead, to give it a bit more shine.

Back to the blog - I'm not sure how often I'll update, but I'd like this to become not only a place for me to blog about my own stitching adventures, but a place to collect tips, tutorials, free charts, and general stitching thoughts, ideas and inspirations.