Nimble Thimble stitching meet-up

It's that time of year again when a few of us get together at the Nimble Thimble for a day of stitching, chatting and to enjoy the lovely food that Chris puts on for us, in fact I think it's fair to say that we all look forward to the buffet just as much as the day's stitching and stashing.

Although the Nimble Thimble is only about an hour away I decided to make a weekend of it this time and booked into a lovely little B&B 20 minutes away in Oswestry on the Friday afternoon.

This place looked good on line, but it was such a treat I've already decided that if I stay over again this is where I will stay.

My room for the weekend

And once I'd got my bags in I was bought a lovely cuppa and a home made ginger biscuit.

The fridge had complementary treats

And breakfast was bought to my room by way of a hamper.

This was such a lovely treat! I was even bought a pot of tea as well.  Just look at all the goodies,

the granola was homemade and was delicious.

So after my lovely breakfast I set off for the Nimble Thimble, the scenery in this part of the country is lovely and I have to make frequent stops just to enjoy it, even in the rain it is stunning, and although the day started and ended rather wet, in between we did have some lovely sunshine.

Here we are in the studio above the shop, looking very intent on stitching

There is Hazel (of the blog Quietly Stitching)  sitting at the back sitting on the left concentrating on her work

And Michelle, AKA Mouse, (tales of a stitching mouse blog), on the right, showing us her birthday quilt which some bloggers kindly stitched her some pieces for.

Pat (no blog) is on the left, she was trying to hide behind the quilt, I think they are laughing because I said something like "Pat come out from behind the quilt!"

As I said, Chris, (the shop owner) always puts on some lovely food for us, and this time was just as good.

We finish the afternoon off with more cake which we are usually too full to eat so we take it home to enjoy later.

In between stitching, chatting and eating we all visited the shop downstairs to put by our purchases to pay for later, I was very good and only bought 3 charts :-)  

To be honest I didn't intend to buy any because I haven't stitched the ones I bought on our last trip in November, but when you are in the shop it is very hard not to give in to temptation!  

After a lovely day that went by far too quickly we all set off on our various journeys home, or in my case to my little B&B, because my weekend treat wasn't over just yet.

When I got back Jo, (the B&B owner) had been in and left me a little cupcake, how sweet and such a surprise :-)

The little mat under the plate is what I made up on the Friday night.

I've wanted to make a Mandala for a while and I saw this little booklet on Amazon last week

I used Rico cotton and chose one of the easier patterns and I'm really pleased with how it came out for a first attempt.

Next time I'll show you what new charts I bought and what I did on my Sunday travels.

Until then

-X-