Three things

Last year I got a bit bogged down with the stitching and knitting I had on the go, It seemed to take me ages to get anything finished.  This year I didn't want this to happen so I resolved to try and have only two pieces of stitching and one knitting, or crochet on the go at time.

It seems to be a trend, especially with stitching, to start lots of things and work on them in rotation, I admire you if you can do that, but if I had multiple projects sitting in bags with just a few stitches in them, it would drive me insane, besides, I haven't got the space to store them all.

I hope that by keeping it to three things it will keep me motivated and I will see more finishes.

Easter Parade by Blackbird Designs

February Calendar Girl by LHN 

I stitched on this one on Sunday so i'm now further along than this photo shows

My knitting is the Betwixmas Shawl

The free pattern can be found on Ravelry and was offered up by Black Sheep Wools in December, you may remember that I posted about buying the yarn in December.

Obviously I didn't get it finished in the timescale but I did have a few problems and had to rip it back a couple of times before I found my rhythm.  

Not much left to do now so perhaps I might get it finished this week.

I do have a finish of sorts, I made another project envelope to keep my second stitching piece in.  This one is a little bit taller than the one I made for my Calendar  Girl stitching so it will accommodate the larger clip frame.  

As before, the fabric is from stash and something I've had for a while.

I had some lovely post this month.

Andrea (who's blog is The Craft Room) had offered up a giveaway on her blog of nine Farmhouse Christmas charts by LHN.  I put my name forward and won!  I never win anything, not even on the tombola, lol so I was very happy when my name got drawn from all the entries :-)

I'm looking forward to stitching these and will do my best to fit them into this years stitching.

Thank you so much Andrea :-)

Once I've stitched them all I will be paying the kindness forward and offering them up here on my blog in a giveaway.

I think that's me all caught up for now, I've been trying to find time to post for the last two weeks but life keeps getting in the way.  I've been sorting some care out for my mum, she's 91 and doesn't get around very well anymore, she wanted help in the mornings but the emergency care package they put her on was four visits a day, she didn't like all the comings and goings so we have cut it down to twice a day now, mornings and lunch time.  She is still finding it hard to adjusting to having help, it's a case of her needing help but not wanting to give up doing anything, It's hard work. 
Up till now she has been sorting her own tablets out every day but it's getting to the stage that she can't see what they are unless she holds the packet right in front of her eyes (she has macular degeneration) and has a hard time even opening some of the packaging, now the chemist will supply all her medication in a blister pack that will be set up for morning, afternoon and evening for the week.  The first pack will be delivered tomorrow so after work I will go up and make sure she knows what she's doing.  Something else for her to get used to and she won't like it but it is the safest option I think.

There is always something to do and someone to worry about isn't there?  Fingers crossed she will settle into this new routine and get used to the people going to help. 
Mum does have a lot of help from us besides this care, there are four of us and we all help her in one way or another, my cousin also visits and does a few jobs for her once a week, she is very lucky really compared to a lot of elderly people.  Anyway, I'm sure we will all get back to some routine soon.

-X-