So that was January

Is it too late to say Happy New Year?  Perhaps it is, but I hope you had a good January and the year ahead will continue to be kind to you.

The weather has been pretty miserable here, a little bit like my mood actually, which is probably why I've not been around much.
I've got away pretty light with the dreaded menopausal symptoms but lately I don't know, I can get so down about the silliest thing, and I have days when I'm so grumpy and crotchety that It's just not worth talking to me.  I'm best left alone when I'm like that, I come out of it in my own good time, but it does come across that I'm a right funny old cuss, (as my ex MIL would say).

Still, I suppose all will come good, eventually, It's the people that around me that are suffering really but at least they know that it's not them personally I'm having a go at,  it's my hormones ranting!

Anyway, with that little moan out of the way lets have a little look back to the end of December and my last couple of finishes

Another little corner to corner baby blanket, I love these garter stitch blankets, they are so lovely and squishy, and the bunting I made for Bonnie.

This was my first attempt at making bunting, it's not perfect but it came out ok, (better than the dreadful photo, sorry)

Over the Christmas period I joined in with the SAL that Priscilla and Chelsea were running for LHN Forest Snowfall. 

The SAL started on December 28th with the idea that it was a quick (ish) stitch, and somewhere in my fantasy mind I thought I would have it done in a week and it could be on display for the rest of January.

Yeah right, like that worked!

I managed to finish stitching and the framing on January 20th , so it took 24 days, I didn't stitch on it every one of those 24 days though, so I suppose that's not too bad, for me.

The fabric is a mystery piece of 32 count linen which Sharon at my LNS kindly gave me because I couldn't make my mind up over fabric, the threads are as recommended except for the writing which I changed from the listed Deep Fennel to  Blue Corn, as many other have done too, although, I seem to have got a skein that didn't have much variegation.

The frame is just a photo frame I picked up at the Range, I took the glass out and glued some fabric to the backing board and mounted the stitching onto another piece of board added some ric rac then attached it to the fabric covered board with some velcro, that way If I want to I can use the frame and  backing for another finish later.  The little snowflakes are some I saved from a garland that I no longer used and they are only attached with a dab of hot glue so would easily come off.

Tina (no blog) told me about the Priscilla and Chelsea podcast last October, i'm so glad she did, it's such fun to watch, they are mother and daughter, Priscilla blogs here  and she does the most amazing things to her finishes, even if you are not a stitcher I think you would enjoy looking at her blog.

This is the only stitching podcast I regularly watch, generally I find stitching podcast just a little bit boring, (sorry, just being honest!) but I do look forward to watching Priscilla and Chelsea on Saturdays, they are entertaining and funny and the viewing length is just right, typically less than 30 minutes.

This next piece of stitching I started at the Beginning of December and I just love it so much!

The chart was a birthday present in 2016, it's En retard by Madame Chantilly 

There are so many lovely chart in her etsy shop, I've got my eye on a few more that I'd like to stitch.

I'm using the recommended DMC threads except for the rooves, (roofs??) for which i'm using Threadworkx 1089

I really do like working on this one and hoping for a finish before too long.
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On January 1st I set my Goodreads challenge for 2018, I just managed to complete my 40 book challenge last year and have set my goal as 50 books this year just because I think that now I've started listening to audio books in addition to actually reading I might get through more, we will see.

I've started the year off with some good books in January

You can find them all on Amazon or Goodreads if you would like to find out more.

My favourite book this month has to be Time and Time Again, this one has been sitting in the bookcase waiting for quite a while, I don't know why I didn't pick it up sooner!

The book I enjoyed the least was The Perfect Summer.  It started off well enough but I sort of lost interest about half way thorough with all the high society goings on.

There seems to have been a theme running through January's books, all of them set in the past with three of them having wars as the main topic.  I didn't consciously do that, it just happened that way, but it got me thinking that I might quite like to have a monthly theme to my reading so I've been looking at ideas for February and have come up with a list of 4 books, more of which I will post about at the end of February.

This year I do want to make more of an effort to read the books that I have so I've cancelled my Kindle Unlimited membership for now, (you can cancel and rejoin whenever you please) as there are quite a few physical books on my to read list at the moment, although I am still keeping my Audible subscription because I quite like settling down with my stitching and an audio book.

I hope you don't mind indulging me in Just another quick look back at Christmas before I go

with a couple of photos of Oliver and Bonnie at Christmas.

Oliver looks so grown up!  He wasn't aware of half the presents he had, just ripped off the paper, passed what was inside to mum and was onto the next one, lol

Bonnie, bless her, she is such a pleasant little girl, and she absolutely loves her jumperoo, she has just started sitting up on her own this week, she's growing up so fast!

And I just have to show you want the girls bought me for Christmas. (Again please excuse the terrible photos)

I have wanted a record player for a long time, and they got me a perfect one :-)

I just love it!! and have been enjoying listening to some Beatles records that Mark got me for Christmas and also a Whitesnake album I got for my birthday.  I'm looking forward to adding to my record collection when we visit some vintage markets :-)

If you made it to the end of my mega post, thank you :-)  I've been trying to catch up on blog reading, but If I normally leave you a comment and I haven't for a while, I'm sorry, hopefully I can catch up and normal service will resume soon, I do love to see and read about what you have all been doing.

That's it, I'm done :-)

Take care, have a good February and I'll see you soon!

-X-