BlackCountry Wench

It's A Good Job He's Working Away!!!!!

2012-01-24T23:14:00.001Z

Skip back to Sunday morning and i ask DH (who so doesn't deserve the title right now!) to move the freezer and sweep under it, our freezer, a large chest freezer, is in the cellar, which I might add I spent at least an hour after work every day last week clearing of the duplicated amount of things we seem to have acquired over the last few years and also disposing of said rubbish, anyway...

He reports that jobs is done, and I think no more about it.

Until tonight...when i go to get mince beef out to make spag bol tomorrow night.

You just know what coming don't you?

The stupid $%&**$ hadn't plunged the freekin freezer back in!

I'M SO ANGRY I COULD SPIT!!

I just fired a text off to him letting him know what I'm thinking, (and I can't write that down here or you would just not speak to me again!)

So, it's 11'O'clock and I'm going to throw everything out of the freezer before i go to bed - 2 joints of meat, 3 lots of stewing beef for casseroles, bags of salmon, cod, haddock, pies, bread and numerous bags of (what was) frozen veg, i stopped counting the waste after the first bag was full!

All I can say is that it's a good jobs it's bin collection day tomorrow because I've go two extra bags FULL of food for them tomorrow.

Speak soon when i can get my breath

Chat Noir - A Review

2012-01-10T23:35:00.002Z

A couple of weeks ago Yiota, the owner of Yiotas-XStitch.com contacted me to ask if I would like to do a review of one of the cross stitch kits from her website.

I had a good roam around the website, (which, by the way is very easy to navigate your way around) and this kit caught my eye

When I went to Paris with daughters #1 and 2 a couple of years ago the Chat Noir picture was everywhere and being the crazy cat lady that I am, it appealed to me :-)

I have absolutely no idea no idea what the original picture was for but don't you just love that cats smiling face?

Once I'd made my choice and emailed Yiota back I received the pack very quickly.

The kit contains, the chart, threads, 14 count Aida and a needle, a key for the symbols and instructions

The stitch count is 127 x 159 with whole stitches only and the chart is spread over four A4 pages, the black and white symbols are a decent size and easy to read - here's a section of the chart

The kit contains Madeira threads which are pre-wound onto nice sized bobbins and clearly marked with the thread number - In this instance the chart only calls for three different colours, but I really liked that the threads were pre-wound :-)

Madeira pre-wound threads, aida fabric and needle

The instructions & Tips page clearly sets out how to get started and how to read the chart, very handy if you are a novice stitcher. The key to the symbols, a list of threads, stitch count and instructions are contained on a separate page

If you are interested in this particular kit or any other then please follow the link above.

Thank you Yiota for giving me this opportunity, I can't wait to get started on my smiling Chat Noir :-)

Looking Forward, Looking Back

2011-12-31T17:31:00.000Z

(Sorry, rather a longer post than i anticipated, lol)

As we approach the end of 2011 and the beginning of a brand New Year I want to wish you all a Healthy and Happy 2012!!

I'm not one to set New Year resolutions, after all if you really want to make big changes why wait until New Year, changes can be made whatever the time of the year :-) However, I am going to make an effort to do certain things. This past year I've not read as many books, I've collected more than I've read, so there's one goal and, it sort of goes hand in hand with something else I've promised myself, which is to have more 'me' time. I spend a lot of time doing things for other people so I'm making a effort everyday to set aside some time just for me, no interruptions, no putting it off, just me and a book or whatever I want to do!

I wasn't very productive with stitching last year either, but, if I'm setting some 'me' time aside in 2012 that should change - in theory, lol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 2011 Something I've kept quiet about is the fact that a few months ago I joined Slimming World, and to date I have lost 1stone 3lb, it goes without saying really that the new year will see me trying to loose a few more pounds, not too much, I think another 6-7 pounds will be enough so that i can maintain it without denying myself a little of what I fancy ;-)

I'm already enjoying feeling more comfortable in my clothes and this weekend I actually fit into a size 12 jeans! Wow, been a while since I've done that! Stevie joined along with me and she also reached her one stone target Christmas week! at 5' 9" she doesn't need to loose too much but it has been a great way to make her aware of the rubbish she was eating, getting her off McDonald meals, getting her to eat wholemeal bread and more fruit and yoghurt :-)

2011 was also the year in which my husband finally gave up smoking! like all smokers he has tried several times, but it never lasted long, this time it's been almost 6 months since he quit, what's made a big difference this time is the fact that he did it because HE wanted to, no nagging from me, and I've been very careful not to keep asking if he's had a cigarette, he has said this makes a difference because he is not reminded of it all the time. Fingers crossed that he has kicked the habit for good this time - he and his clothes smell so much nicer, lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was fantastic to read all your birthday wishes on my milestone birthday, it meant a lot to me that you stopped by:-)

There was a really great surprise from Elaine. With everything she has going on at the moment she still managed to remember my birthday and sent me a $25 gift certificate to spend at Wasatch Needlecraft, thank you so much Elaine your thoughtfulness really touched me. I'm really looking forward to a new start when my charts arrive :-)

I can't go without showing you my Pandora bracelet that Jenny bought me

She also bought me the present charm to go with it, Joanne bought me my birthstone with the turquoise stone and Mark bought me the cross stitch charm, (with a gentle reminder from me, i knew i just had to have that one when i saw it, lol)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you to everyone who follows my blog and take the time to leave me a comment, I really do appreciate each and every one :-)

See you all next year!

**** HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL ****

Wednesday December 27th 1961

2011-12-27T14:42:00.000Z

A couple of post ago I said there was another special celebration today

~~~~~~~~

The UK Prime Minister was Harold McMillan

The US President was John F Kennedy

The Christmas No. one was Danny Williams with Moon River

The big film was Breakfast at Tiffany's

The average house price in the UK was £2.7k (UK Stirling)

The Berlin Wall was constructed

The first man in space

And

It was also the date my mother gave birth to her 3rd child, a second daughter - me!

Yes, today I celebrate my 50th Birthday!!!

The girls are coming round later for a bit of a shin-dig and i will get my presents then, (I know Jenny has bought me a Pandora bracelet, can't wait to wear it!) I will show you all next time.

We are cooking a joint of pork to have pork & stuffing sandwiches when everyone comes.

Mark is becoming an expert at making stuffing, he made it for Jo's Christmas dinner and it was very tasty, so I'm going to leave it to him :-)

Speak soon

A Lovely Christmas Lunch (& Jo's Boys)

2011-12-25T23:27:00.000Z

This was Joanne and Gavin's first time cooking Christmas lunch

and it wonderful :-)

Neither Jen nor Jo were big on cooking when they lived at home, but since they have had homes of their own they have both turned into kitchen goddesses, lol

We had turkey & beef and everything tasted beautiful!

I thought today that I've never showed you pictures of Jo's 'boys', so i took a few photos of them while we were there today.

This is Tinker

And this is Scruffy

Aren't they just the cutest little boys!

~~~~~~~~~~

The girls loved all their presents, and i had some lovely things too, one of which was a Kindle from Mark - total surprise as we had agreed not to buy each other this year :-)

I hope wherever you are you had a wonderful Christmas day too!

I'm just about done in for today, tomorrow i intend to do nothing except sit and stitch :-)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2011-12-24T19:25:00.000Z

Just stopping by to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I hope that you get everything you wish for :-)

I am hoping to get some stitching time in over the holiday, we don't go back to work until 3rd January, so a nice long-ish break from the usual alarm clock going off and the ground hog day routine that is common place on work day mornings!

We are having lunch at daughter #2's tomorrow - looking forward to that and as usual seeing the girls faces when they open their presents!

Even though they are all grown up and two of them with their own houses now i still keep up the pretence of Santa and they are never allowed to see any presents, wrapped or unwrapped until the day! that's just the way it is in our house.

I will leave you with a few photos of our trip to Prague, there are more on flickr if you would like to take a look. It was a wonderful trip and i think everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves :-)

Thank all so much for the Anniversary wishes, the flowers are still going strong and gracing the sitting room.

There is another special celebration this week - but i'll tell you about that on Tuesday, because that's the day :-)

Have a good one whatever you are doing this 25th!

A Surprise Delivery

2011-12-20T21:46:00.000Z

Today is our wedding anniversary!

I know, who gets married this close to Christmas, mad, eh?

But we did and here we are 25 years later!

My hubby is not one of those that buys flowers often, but these arrived for me today with a box of chocolates :-)

To say i am surprised is an understatement,

gobsmacked more like, lol

He had arranged to have them delivered to work for me this morning but the delivery got messed up and he had to have them re-directed to home this afternoon - bless him, i think he has earned his brownie points this week :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, 25 years, where on earth does the time go?

Does this mean I'm getting old now? (don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question, lol)

The Prague Tunic Finish!

2011-12-11T22:15:00.000Z

Just a very quick post tonight as it's getting late, I finished my Prague Tunic from my last post about two weeks ago now, but you know how it is this time of year, busy busy busy!

Anyhow, here is the afore mentioned tunic

I was dreading the sewing together, but I found several great videos on You Tube that were a great help.

And best of all, it actually fits and I wore it shopping yesterday, I was surprised how warm it kept me!

And just to prove it, I've even dared to post a photos of me wearing it, all be it a very grainy one.

I enjoyed knitting this so much that I've got another jumper started, i'll show you the 'weekend jumper' next time.

I haven't picked up any stitching for a few weeks except for the small amount i did at the stitching club two weeks ago. By the time i sit down at night knitting is so much easier to pick up and do a few rows rather than getting threads, hoops and magnifier out. But i have by no means given up the stitching, i have plans for over Christmas when we have a lovely break from work and i can at least get a decent amount of time at something :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speak more next time, right now i have to get some shut-eye because tomorrow morning we fly to Prague...Whoohooo, can't wait to see this lovely city again!

Hope you all have a great week whatever you might be up to, and thank you so much for you comments and encouragement, it really means so much to me x

Christmas Ornies & The Prague Tunic Part 1

2011-11-21T23:07:00.000Z

Seeing as we are hurtling towards Christmas i got a move on and finished off two of this years LHN ornaments.

Last year I managed to keep up with all of them, I don't know what happened this year, I just couldn't seem to get going despite buying them as the were issued in the UK. I chose two that I liked the most for now and will carry on with the rest throughout next year.

Little House Needleworks Gingerbread Village

Stitched on a scrap of mystery 28 count

using DMC threads

~~~~~~~~~~

And my personal favourite is this one -

Little House Needleworks Baked Goods

Stitched on a piece of Mystery 28 count fabric with DMC threads

~~~~~~~~~~

When i made them up this time i used a piece of iron-on interfacing to back them, it made a real difference to how they look and made it easier to stitch the whole thing together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've put the stitching to one side this week in favour of knitting. I used to knit years ago when the kids were small but nothing in a long time. I'm an OK basic knitter, nothing fancy, but when i came across this pattern it quite appealed to me.

This is the back all stitched up. I was quite impressed that I managed to get this done in 3 evenings. It's chunky yarn so that helped. On Friday I started the front and after a couple of false starts, (mainly due to me not being able to count and increase!), I made it up to the arm hole shaping last night. It's pretty gratifying after not having many stitchy finishes this year to get something near completion in such a short time!

So why the Prague Tunic? Well on December 12th we are all going to Prague for a week, daughters, boyfriends (or in Stevie's case, friend from College), me and Mark, and I want to get this finished to take with me. I think it's just about achievable, as long as i don't have any mishaps with the putting it together bit, lol.

Until next time,

take care and thanks for your visits and comments, they really make my day :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's November..

2011-11-03T22:21:00.000Z

And It's a horrible damp and rainy night here, a perfect night to be sat indoors stitching:-)

DH has been here for the last 2 weeks since his last contract finished, getting under my feet and general doing..well, nothing really. Don't get me wrong, he works really hard, but when he gets time off that's exactly what he has, time off...from everything - I swear if I have to sit through another cookery programme I'll cut the TV cable! I really wouldn't mind but this is a man that never cooks, never, EVER!! So why the fascination with cookery programmes?beats me!

So, not a lot of stitching, just been taking myself off to bed early with my book and my hot water bottle :-)

Right, now I've got that little moan out of the way i do have photos to show you, photos of a finish no less!

It's Molly

Carriage House Samplings

It's been a while since I started this, and then started again because I didn't like my stitches

(yes I obsess that much!)

Don't you just love that crazy eyed fat cat!

And the not so little bird perched atop her head

( i decided it's a she cat :-)

I love the frame

Mark at Betty's did yet another wonderful job.

Here's a close up of it

And finally the whole thing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Wednesday was our second stitch club meeting. Unfortunately our numbers dwindled a bit and there was only six of us this time around, but it was actually quite a good night, being such a small number we got to know each other a bit better and it made for some good conversation.

One of the ladies was interested in my snap frame last month and this time she had bought one of her own :-) she said she went straight up to Sharon's shop (Betty's) the day after and treated herself to one, along with a magnifier. I happened to mention while we were talking that i railroad all my stitches, she wasn't familiar with it, but when she tried it she was amazed what a difference it made. I've got a feeling that the next time we meet she will be cursing me for slowing her up and causing extra work, lol.

~~~~

Thanks for visiting me today and leaving me a comment, i really appreciate it :-)

October 1st - Really???

2011-10-01T23:18:00.000+01:00

My blog posts seem to be few and far between of late, a bit like my stitching. I've picked up this and that but don't really have anything to show for my efforts. I have almost finished stitching a couple of Christmas ornaments for dd's #1 & 2, maybe this week I will surprise both you and me by getting them finished finished :-).

The first stitch group meeting went well on Wednesday. There were 20 people interested, 4 of which couldn't come this time because of other commitments, and a few changed their minds, but in the end there was 9 of us on the night, which wasn't bad because to be honest if all 20 had turned up we would have been pretty pushed for space in that room! There was a good mix of people and I'm pretty sure all the ones that showed this time will show again - so that's good.

No stitching for me today the weather has been so glorious that it was really a crying shame to stay indoors, so took myself off for a drive to Bourton-on-the- Water, in the Cotswold's. It's only just over an hours drive from us and such a pretty place.
I'll leave you with some photos of Bourton and people enjoying this very un-seasonal weather.
(It's been like this all week, with temps of 28 and 29 degrees! I've never had the air-con on in the car in October before :-))

Finally, some lovely English contryside

Thank you for visiting me today and leaving a comment, have a wonderful week. x

2011-09-23T23:53:00.000+01:00

Hey Ladies long time no see! sometimes life in general gets in the way of blogging and stitching, hopefully there will be a finish of some sorts to show you soon, and we have our first meeting of the newly formed stitching group this Wednesday, fourteen people have put their names forward so it should be fun :-)

oh, and i've joined Goodreads, a few of you have been kind enough to accept my invitation to become a friend - thank you :-)

if you would like to follow me I've put a widget thingy in the side bar.

*******

I was browsing the wonderful thing that is the World Wide Webb this morning while at work, (shush, don't tell, it was a quiet time ;-)) and i came across THIS it gives a whole new meaning to "A Sampler Wall" don't you think?

See ya soon x

A Christmas Ornament & a Summer Flower

2011-08-16T23:32:00.001+01:00

I bought some flowers last Friday, i thought they were never going to open but then this is what greeted me when i walked in after work at lunch time

Such a beautiful colour, so intense

I stitched this free design a while ago but only got round to putting it together at the weekend, and yes, I'm blatantly exploiting the beautiful flower to show my stitching!

Summer, and Winter in harmony ;-)

Finished with a beaded edging

~~~~~~~~~~

Last time i mentioned a new stitching group i was trying to get going. I left flyer's in all the local libraries, Sharon at Betty's put one up in her shop and took names of anyone interested and finally we have around 11 people who have shown an interest. I've been in touch with a local community centre and there is a room free on Wednesday evenings, so it's looks like it is going to happen at last!

So my question is, do you have a regular stitchy/craft group that you go to, or organise? What sort of things do you do, (apart from the obvious stitching that is), do you have raffles, birthday lists? I just need to pinch some ideas if i can.

Thankfully all the pointless rioting has stopped, but not before countless £'s of damage was done and well over a thousand arrests. I saw on the news tonight that for those that are not given a prison sentence there may be community service, lets hope they follow through with that, it might do them good to put right some of the damage they caused. DD is still on working 12 hours shifts and will have worked 15 days / nights without a rest day, but she has stayed safe, which is the main thing. Thank you to those of you who left messages wishing her well.

Until next time..x

Why?

2011-08-09T16:46:00.002+01:00

At the risk of sounding like one of the grumpy old women, what on earth is going on with the young people today that they think that this is OK? The same thing has been going on in London for 3 night!! Last night Bristol and Liverpool were also targeted by rioters. You would think to look at the pictures we lived in a

war-torn country!

Tonight the local shopping centre is under treat and my daughter had to shut her shop early, daughter #3 works near there also and i won't let her go to work tonight. Daughter #1, well i have mentioned what she does before, i have asked her to text me when she is on her break (if she gets one) and when she gets home so i know she's ok.

As i type i hear more police cars on the main road

I won't say any more, once i get on my soap box i'ts hard to get me off!

The (not so) Quick Catch Up

2011-08-02T23:36:00.000+01:00

I know that you have heard it all before, but I really didn't intend to be MIA for so long. I kept thinking about blogging but that's as far as it got, something else always got my attention. I feel a bit bad because i had lots of wonderful comments about my sampler wall in my last post, and i want to thank you for that, they really made my day :-)

I'll catch up quick about what's been keeping me away from you all (don't want to bore you all to death now i'm back ;-)

~~~~~

At the beginning of July me and DH went to Skiathos for a week and spent a very relaxing time at this pool, drinking copious amounts of wine and gorging ourselves on delicious Greek food.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and we came home to rain and a mountain of washing the girls had kindly left.
On the following Monday the workmen arrived early to start the new patio, in fact, Monday was the only day they arrived early, late starts and early finishes seemed to be their way of working.
After the digging out

I suppose I'm just being picky, but starting at 9am and finishing before 3pm (most days) when they could clearly carry on with things is a bit much (or not much) IMO. There were other issues with what they did which i wont go into, lets just say a one week job took them two weeks and would have taken longer if DH hadn't got on the phone and insisted they come the next day and finish off, otherwise he was going to get someone else in to finish and charge them... strangely enough they were knocking my door at 7.30am the next day!
This was no fly by night company, they are quite well known in this area and always seem to have lots going on, perhaps we were just unlucky with the team sent to us. Anyway, it's done and it looks OK.

DH has been busy re-coating the shed and the walls where the ivy is has to be painted which DD#2's boyfriend is coming to start tomorrow afternoon

Talking of Jo, she and her boyfriend have moved into a place together. They are renting a lovely house that has recently had a make over so everything is new, kitchen, bathroom, decorated and new carpet throughout. Although that wasn't without problems, they had a bit of a leak in the bathroom which came into the kitchen, no real damage but there may be some water marks left when it's dried which the landlord has said he will get re-painted if it does. There was also no plug to connect the washer, but he got that fixed right away. So now we are 3, and boy is it quiet, lol.
Stevie now wants to move into the bigger bedroom so we have a decorator coming next week to strip the paper off and re-paper.
~~~~~
Stevie has a new part time job too, she is working at a hotel, the hours are very unsociable and because college is finished for the summer she is working lots of extra hours, the poor girl is shattered, although she did brighten up when she picked up her wages last week, she could very well be one of the richest students at college in September because the hours she works don't allow for much of a social life!! It also means that mum and dad, (but mostly mum) have to be available at 4.30 to do the taxi run to work, dad will fetch back unless she is on after 12.30 then a lift if provided for staff. I'm thinking of getting a taxi sign for the top of the car and charging by the mile!!
~~~
You can see why computer time is limited, when I did manage to get some stitching in last week I worked on Sampler aux Chat. I didn't show an update last month because of our holiday, so this is two months progress.

Molly got in on the act when I took it into the garden to photograph

I'm using Threadworx 1089, but I'm not sure I like the stripey effect it gives on the cat, what do you think? Should I change the thread to a non variegated just for the cats?

I was going to show the cakes I've been baking and a wonderful coffee set that my sister gave me, and tell you about the stitching group I'm trying to set up, but I'll save that until next time because way back at the beginning of this post I did promise a quick update and now I think I've just about outstayed my welcome ;-) so If you have made it this far, thank you for staying with me!
Until next time x

Sampler Wall In Progress

2011-06-23T22:12:00.000+01:00

Thank you so much for the wonderful comments on my Little House Neighbourhood finish, i really appreciate each and every one of them!
In the absence of any progress stitching to show and because my LHN has now been framed by the very talented Mark at Bettys i thought i would show you my sampler wall with it's new addition.

A little bit of shuffling was required as i wanted this one to be in the middle, DH was in charge of the hammer and hooks with me shouting instructions of 'up a bit, down a bit', i think we got it about right in the end, although Joanne's boyfriend, was laughing at us from the kitchen and said it was like watching a comedy sketch of The Chuckle Brothers!

I think perhaps Rubie needs moving a little, but I'm happy with how it looks, for now anyway.

I know quite a lot of you display your stitching on your stairwell, my stairs are not open (they are through that door you can see in the photo below), so that wouldn't be a good place for me, it would be claustrophobic.

So my beginnings of a sampler wall are in my dining room, and as you can see i still have plenty of wall space left to hold more ;-)

I do have other pieces in other parts of the house, but this is my main wall.

**********
Sandra and Sheila were kind enough to let me join them in a SAL, this is what we are stitching, and i think we have all opted for using red thread. We are going to share photos of our progress at the end of the month, so no photos from me until then.

That's it from me for now, till next time...take care x

Little House Neighbourhood

2011-06-04T15:53:00.000+01:00

While the Whitsun Bank Holiday Monday was a washout the sun was shining on my finishing and i managed to get the last stitches into my Little House Neighbourhood

I've had this chart for quite a while, and i don't know why it took me so long to get around to it because i love it and enjoyed every stitch

The blue house was my favourite while i was stitching although blue is not my favourite colour, strange that!

Now that I've finished the red house is getting my vote,

although in this photo it looks bendy it's just the way the fabric is lying

I used the recommended DMC threads and the only changes i made was to use the English spelling for neighbour and to put the little heart at the end of the saying to balance it up

Until next time,

Have a fabulous weekend xx

Tour of Venice

2011-04-27T20:29:00.000+01:00

Venice

~~~~~~

After the plane comes the water taxi

For someone who does not "do" water i managed the 45 minute trip quite well, clinging to my seat - what an experience!

Luckily there were more pleasant things once we arrived.

~~~~~

We didn't take a gondola ride (they were too expensive at €80 for 40 minutes in my opinion) but lovely to see all the same, although in parts it was a little funny to see several gondolas all navigating the same path and trying to avoid collision!

Some very pretty less crowded places

The building below is the hospital, i bet there are not many places that can boast that their hospital is housed in such a beautiful building. I wonder if they have a five hour waiting in A&E, lol

I was not prepared for how busy it would be, just to give you an idea, cruise ships drop off their passengers at St Marks Square, and some days we were told that three ships will drop off and there could be around five thousand people in and around the square - mad!
We saw one cruise ship pass at St Marks Square, how strange does this look? it filled the view to the square, quite a sight, if you can click on the photo you will see all the people standing looking to the square....crazy!

The Rialto Bridge - see the crowds?

This was just one side, the other side was just as bad, all the time.

To tell the truth, i was a little disappointed with the Rialto Bridge, apart from the very large banner announcing the popes visit (surely they could have sited this somewhere else?)

See the boards to the rear of the shops on the photo below? they all have graffiti on. Now call me picky if you like, but this is the most famous bridge in Venice, and is in effect where it all started, the centre, so you would think that there would be a little more pride at keeping it clean and tidy - Just my opinion.

You can see how busy the Grant Canal is, this is the best photo i could get of the bridge.

This is looking under the Rialto

I have another little gripe.

The Bridge of Sighs. Everyone who visits Venice wants to see the Bridge of Sighs, this is what greets you

They have covered the sides of the Doge's Palace (on the left) and the prison (on the right) with this horrendous cloud/sky boarding. There is restoration work going on and i know that these building have to be maintained, but come on, surely the advertisers who are paying for the restoration could have come up with something better than this?? And who agreed to such an eyesore? Most disappointing.

See the small bridge in the middle of the photo, the one groaning under the weight of all those people? That is facing the Bridge of Sighs, when prisoners were lead across into the prison their families would stand on that bridge and be able to wave farewell to their loved ones.

OK, you are probably thinking by now that i didn't enjoy Venice, i did enjoy it and there were some lovely things to see.

St Marks Church being one of them

Some pretty views

And to end with the obligatory night photo, this was a bridge quite close to our hotel

I have put a couple of photos here and i will add more there over the next few days if anyone wants to take a look.

Normal service of stitchy updates will follow soon :-)

Little Square Houses

2011-04-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

I hope you are all enjoying this glorious weather we are having, isn't it great to be able to have the doors and windows open and hang the washing on the line, lol

~~~~~

Just a quick update from me tonight to share the progress on my Sampler Game board, the SAL Judy and I are stitching together.

We are stitching on Fridays or over the weekend when we can and are on week 3.

And the other way up so that you can see the upside down squares

And this is the whole thing so far

Judy started at the bottom whereas i have started at the top left so you will be able to follow our progress from both ends :-)

Although this looks like a huge project, i think it's going to stitch up fairly quickly as those little house grow pretty fast :-)

~~~~~~

No stitching for me this weekend though, me and DD#1 are going on one of our city breaks, we will be jetting off to Venice on Friday morning, back on Monday evening. I have holiday from work until May 3rd so i plan on going down to Weymouth to visit Mark for a few days before his job finishes. If the weather holds out it should be really nice.

~~~~~~

I'll be back with updates and tales of Venice as soon as i can.

Until then, have fun and enjoy our extended Bank Holidays :-)

Happy Days!

2011-04-08T20:18:00.001+01:00

Phew, some sunshine at last! after the winter we had it's lovely to see the big round yellow ball in the sky!

Those in the UK will know that we have to make the most of it because it changes so fast, lol.

I want to thank all you lovely people who stopped by and left get well messages for me and my foot, and my mother too! Mum is OK, on medication, for life now to thin her blood, but is being monitored at the hospital, she has to have a 24 hour ECG monitor on the 20th and go about her normal daily activities so they can get a more accurate reading. I think she was really frightened on that Sunday though.
Oh, someone asked the question, how we managed to get locked in mums house, well there is a deadlock on the door and my sister turned the key all the way round and apparently that puts the deadlock on and when we shut the door it wouldn't open again. I know mad, and how mum has managed to never do it i don't know, something we will really have to get changed.

My cast came off and they decided that the break wasn't as bad as first thought, it was near my big toe, so no need for a cast, just keep my foot elevated as much as possible. The swelling went down after a few days and i was able to get a shoe back on again. I went back to work on Tuesday (I'm only sitting at a desk anyway) I did learn a few things whilst in plaster with my foot up -

1. getting around on crutches or with the aid of a stick is much more difficult than it looks!!

2. Some people i work with who i considered as friends are only work colleagues, (with the exception of one), not one of them phoned me to see how i was or what I'd done.

3. My off spring are capable of doing household chores and cooking, and if left to get on with it make a very good job of it:-)

4. DH on the other hand is completely hopeless at either of the things in #3, he is however good at supplying endless cups of tea :-)

5. When the cast is off and everyone can see that you are mobile again no one puts their hands up for chores!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Last Friday was the start of my Sampler Game Board SAL with Judy and seeing i had plenty of time to sit on my butt and stitch i made good progress

Don't panic Judy, i don't always stitch this fast, I'm sure you will overtake me before long :-)

I put quite a lot of stitches into Little House Neighbourhood too, but you will have to take my word for it because i didn't take a photo.

~~~~~~~~

I was going to end with a couple of photos of my feline babies enjoying the sun, but now I've uploaded one photo, blogger won't let me do any more (why?? , do i now have to upload all the photos I want to share in one go???)

There are a couple on my photo blog (of Molly) if you want to look...go on, no one has been to visit me there in a while :-(

(There is a link in the side bar)

Until next time, have a good weekend x

Getting Plastered!

2011-03-28T15:47:00.001+01:00

You really couldn't make this up!

~~~~~~

It turned out to be a day and a half yesterday. I started the day by falling down the stairs, top to bottom, wrenched both arms backwards trying to stop myself and banged my foot. It did knock me for six but i carried on...as you do, with the weekly ironing.

Then i get a text from my eldest sister to say they have taken mum to the hospital because she was having palpitations and trouble breathing, she'd been given a ECG and was waiting to see the doctor. So off i go to the hospital, my foot was hurting but not too bad, i could walk.

We waited 5 hours in A&E, yes you read right, they gave an 82 year old woman an ECG then left her in the A&E waiting room for 5 hours, i did go and ask how much longer, a couple of times, but you know A&E, makes no difference. When she was eventually seen by a doctor he did a thorough examination and he was very nice with her, they checked her blood, that was OK but the doc didn't like the look of her ECG so she had to stay in over night. My eldest sister stayed with her while me and my younger sister went to her home to collect overnight things. By then my foot was starting to hurt more. Took mums things back to hospital, i was having trouble walking then but got on with it. Another couple of hours with mum in the Emergency Assessment Unit waiting for yet another doctor to come and check her over and confirm that she was to stay in, yes, she had to stay in and have another ECG in the morning then they would compare them.

We had to ask 3 times for a blanket and pillow for mum, she had had nothing to eat or drink since about 2 o'clock that afternoon, a nurse said they would bring a plate of sandwiches and a cup of tea, which never arrived and the shop had nothing left except some muffins! We asked again and she was bought a packet of sandwiches with a choice of ham or salmon, nothing to drink, so off again in search of a vending machine!

So by this time my foot is really killing and by the time we left at 12 o'clock i was having real trouble walking at all, but i was the one driving. We went back to mums to feed her cat and turn off lights etc. Went to open the door to go, it wouldn't budge, we were locked in the house!. Julie, my younger sister said, I'll climb out of the window and unlock the door, no can do, the windows are locked and we didn't know where the key was. We then had to call my BIL to come up and let us out!! He had to help me to the car and off home i went, Joanne took one look at my foot and said, mum i think you should go back to the hospital (my foot was a funny colour and swollen by this time) So off we go again, Joanne drops me and Stevie by A&E and goes to park the car, but i can't walk at all and am trying to hop across the car park, Stevie trying to hold me up without laughing to much! There was a guy stood outside the door who came to our rescue with a wheelchair, bless him, i don't know how we would have got to the door if he hadn't come to rescue us.

This time, thankfully, we didn't wait too long before i was seen, but while i was waiting for my xray the doctor who had seen mum earlier walked past and did a double take and came back and asked what I'd done and went away shaking his head, lol. After xray i was wheeled back and the same doctor came past again and asked if i had been seen yet, (no i hadn't) he said he had finished his shift but would get the Doctor to have a look at me and my xray. The doctor on duty didn't come, but he did and looked at the xrays himself and examined my foot coming back with the news that it was indeed broken!!

So now i look like this..

I have an appointment at the fracture clinic on Wednesday afternoon to have this plaster off and another xray and then they will decide whether to put another cast on.~~~

~~~

On the upside i will have plenty of stitching time over the next couple of weeks (insert big grin here!)

I put a lot of time into LHN last week, i love this one :-)

And the whole thing so far.

Mary Glover had an outing at the weekend. How pants is stitching over one!! I think i stared at it for ten minutes before attempting a stitch, then when i did manage some stitching i ripped them out again. Finally i think i got it sorted, i still have the alphabet underneath the words to do and i will grit my teeth and get around to that this week.

Saturday was a better day than yesterday with the Hobbycraft and Sewing for Pleasure, i had a lovey day out and gsome goodies which i will share with you another time. For now I'm going to catch forty winks as i didn't sleep very well last night.

Take care

2011-03-01T21:23:00.000Z

I'm happy to say that the rain eventually cleared on Saturday and the sun came out long enough for us to have a brisk walk by the sea. Photos to show later, but first i must show you what Elaine sent me as a belated birthday gift.

First a lovely stitched and finished pin keep - so cute :-)

A great chart, some needles and a pair of scissors, she also included some coloured pins but they must be on the very edge of the photo

Thank you Elaine, i love everything :-)

I made a start on Littlehouse Neighbourhood back at the beginning of February (wow, where did that month go!!) As you can see not a lot of progress, but i enjoyed putting in what stitches are there.

I have Siobhan to thank for my next new start because i first came across it on her blog, you must have seen it on endless blog posts by now but here is my start on Mary Glover anyway.

So lovely to work on. I'm almost caught up the first three parts now, just the verse over one to stitch, should be interesting, i have trouble counting at the best of times and to go from over two to over one might tax my little grey cells.

So, back to the weekend in Weymouth, i didn't get any shopping done in the end, we opted just to walk and look around, i did drag Mark into a tea shop to partake of a cream tea, not really the thing that builder blokes go for but he knows i can never pass up on the opportunity for a warm scone with jam and clotted cream, in fact i can very rarely pass on the opportunity of cake of any description:-)

See how the wind wipped up the clouds, aren't they great, i love big fluffy clouds, lol

Here's some more over the Harbour

I've only been to Weymouth once before, when the girls were smaller, but i remember the clock, when i mentioned it to Mark he said he couldn't remember seeing a clock although he has been there since January and must have driven passed it several times, i swear he goes around with his eyes shut, lol, i mean, how could you miss something like that!

The Jubilee Clock - built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

I would have loved a photo of the whole thing but there are some major road works going on and they chose the base of the clock to store that horrible orange netting and barriers.

Here is another fantastic building on the sea front

This church is just at the back of the holiday park Mark is working at, a really lovely place, and the grounds are kept very neat. Don't you just love that entrance!

I cropped the next photo down and it does look a little squashed but i liked it because it shows the horse on the hill in the background, can you see it?

I was told, rightly or wrongly(someone may be able to confirm or dispute this perhaps?) that the horse was put there because George III used to ride his own house up and down that hill.

And on that note i will leave you, i have to get into my own chariot now and collect my daughter from work

I will share a few more pictures on my photo blog over the next couple of days.

Blasted British Weather

2011-02-26T10:58:00.000Z

DH is working on building a new swimming pool on a holiday site in Weymouth, so yesterday i came down to spend the weekend with him. He said there is a pretty village just up the road complete with a village green and a duck pond, I'm still sitting here waiting for the rain to stop so i can go and have a look!! I had planned on some retail therapy today too, Weymouth has some lovely shops, so I'm hoping this blasted rain will stop before lunch time.

I have been very neglectful of my photo blog too, if the rain clears enough i might be able to get something good enough to update it after the weekend. After a 3 hour drive to get here i don't intend to go home without seeing the sea!

Hope the weather is better wherever you are :-)

Upgrade Difficulties

2011-02-14T18:09:00.001Z

Dear Tech Support

Last year i upgraded from Boyfriend to Husband and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the Flowers and Jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend.

In addition Husband uninsulated many other valuable programs, such as Romance and Personal Attention, and then installed undesirable programs such as, Rugby, Football and Continuous TV. Conversation no longer runs, and Housekeeping simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can i do?

Signed Desperate

*******************************************************************

Dear Desperate,

First keep in mind that Boyfirend is an Entertainment Package, while Husband is an Operating System. Please enter the command 'http: I Thought You Loved Me.html' and try to download Tears.

Don't forget to install the Guilt Update. If that application works as desired, Husband should automatically run the applications Jewellery and Flowers, but remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband to default to Grumpy Silence, Garden Shed or Beer. Beer is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, do not install MOTHER-IN-LAW (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources. Also do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend program, these are unsupported applications and will crash Husband.

In summary, Husband is a great system, but it does have limited memory, and cannot learn new applications quickly. It also tends to run better running one task at a time. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food and Hot Lingerie.

Good Luck

Tech Support

********************************

Normal stitching chat will resume later in the week when i have progress, a new start and a lovely received gift to share.

Until then, i hope the "Upgrade Difficulties" made you chuckle :-)
(It made my day when i received it in an email at work this morning :-))

A Quick Update

2011-01-31T22:22:00.000Z

Before i head off to bed for an early night i wanted to share a quick update with you.

This is where i left Molly last week, more or less finished off the tree.

See that little blank space bottom right? I had to un pick that bit as i stitched it in the wrong colour!

I had to have a rest from all that brown stitching so i picked up BP and stitched, errrr, more brown, lol

I finished off the motif on the left, completed the large one on the right and the small one above that. I'm going to finish off the one i started next the the bird before putting it away for a few days.

I need some colour in my stitching life with all this brown so there may be a new start to share next time ;-)

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post. Changing the background for your own image was not that hard, although i had to re-size the photo. For those who asked to know how, go into Design Template then Background and there is a little box called Background image, select the the drop down arrow next to that box and it will give you an option to Upload your own image (or there are loads of different backgrounds on there to choose from instead) It does suggest the size to make your photo so that it will fit.

I mentioned last time that i was going to start a 365 photo blog. I made my first post tonight, i hope you will pop over and take a look and maybe a comment to start me off?

Until next time x

Playing Around

2011-01-15T17:52:00.000Z

I've been in a bit of a slump this week, missed stitching at least three nights, just can't seem to get going.

So last night i was sitting here browsing all your lovely blogs and beautiful stitching and i thought I'd have a play around with my blog.

I've changed the layout a little and best of all discovered that you can upload you own image as a blogger background! How cool is that? I suspect this is not news to the more techie (is that the correct spelling!) minded, but to me it was a revelation and I'm so impressed with myself that i managed to do it, lol.

So how does it look, my new LHN background? I know, i know it's a bit 'red' and a bit 'Christmassy looking' but we are still in winter, and that is my favourite LHN ornament finish :-)

Talking of photos, have you seen some of the new photo a day blogs out there? What a great idea, and yes i am thinking of making another blog, I'll let you know when it's up and i hope you will come visit me there too :-) If you have started a photo a day blog please let me know where you are so i can come visit you :-)

While my stitching has been a non starter this week i have been reading. I finished Wideacre last night, I've updated my 2011 reading page (at the top of my blog) with my take on the book (I've never written a review before and felt a bit silly doing so), but i thought it would help me remember the book and help to exercise my aging brain! I kept it short and to the point till i get the hang of it.

I have made a little progress on Molly, very, very little, still working on the tree so i won't bother showing you more brown/green stitching this time. Off now to try and make more headway on said tree.

Until next time x

It's Official

2011-01-07T23:06:00.006Z

December 2010 was the coldest in the UK..... EVER, well in the last one hundred years anyway. And just to prove that it's still not over we woke to snow again this morning. Within half an hour everything was covered in the white stuff. As it was such a nasty morning i dropped Stevie off at College before work, the round trip would usually take about 20 minutes, this morning it took me an hour, the traffic was backed up all the way, I'm not a patient driver so was pretty miffed when i got into work (half an hour late!!). By mid morning the snow had turned to rain and things were back to normal on the roads. Good job too as Joanne has her second driving test tomorrow afternoon, could you please keep your fingers crossed for her? She has her little KA all ready, plus it's costing a fortune for all these lessons and tests!!

~~~~~~~~~~

I made a start on Molly on 1st January

Quite a lot of brown going on at the moment, but i love the way it's looking so far. Most of this was done whilst watching repeats of Downton Abbey. Did anyone else watch it? What a great series, I'm having Downton withdrawal, and we have to wait until the Autumn for the next one to air! The house that was used in the series is Highclere Castle, it looks wonderful, you know me and historic houses, i can already feel a little trip coming on in the summer, lol

~~~~~~~~~~

I had to order some more threads for Molly from So and Sew this week and this chart found it's way into my basket.

I just love it! but whats not to love? it has a house and an alphabet, two of my most favourite things : -)

Talking of Sew and So, have you visited their site lately? If not take a look, it's been revamped and browsing is much easier, now you can set up a password and save your details, review orders, create a wish list and, i noticed they have gift certificates too. I wish i had ordered them over Christmas now though, i could have avoided the VAT increase that happened on 4th Jan, missed out on saving myself some pennies there.

Thank you for your visits and your lovely comments and encouragement, I'm glad there are such lovely people out there:-)

Edited to say that Joanne just got back and she PASSED her driving test!!

Until next time...x

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

2010-12-31T09:51:00.010Z

It's almost time to say goodbye to 2010 and welcome in 2011, we will take the decorations down on Sunday, they will have been up since 1st December. In years past i have been one of the last to put my Christmas tree up and the first to take it down, the years must have mellowed me, i have enjoyed my decorations and appreciated the time I've spent at home this holiday. I have a friend who itches to go out at any opportunity and just hates to hang around her house, not so me, i love pottering around home, and I'm comfortable with my own company, i suppose it wouldn't do for us all to be the same.

~~~~~~~~~~
So by tomorrow i hope these have all been eaten so as not to tempt me

Because it's back to sensible eating for me, although i have tried to moderate myself i will still need to do a few hours step up's on the Wii to compensate for my indulgence ;)

~~~~~~~~~~

I've enjoyed seeing everyone's round up of the years stitching, there are some lovely slide shows out there of the most beautiful finishes, you are all such a talented bunch! I had 15 finishes this year a couple were carried over (the larger ones), if you scroll back to the top of my blog there is a slide show at the top right so i won't put up another one. I really enjoyed the LHN ornament SAL this past year, and it gave me the chance to have a go at finishing, I'm still not perfect but at least now i have some idea and not so afraid of having a go :-)

For 2011 i have a few charts i would like to stitch like these...

And these
But that could be subject to change if something else takes my fancy, lol. I've also got a stack of 'freebies' that i want to stitch too.

One i do want to finish is Beatrix Potter

This is the first time I've shown BP, when i started it i was reluctant to share it because i wasn't sure i would carry on with it, being such a big project i thought i might loose interest, anyway i picked it up again this week and I've decided that it's a keeper, so watch this space!

~~~~~~~~~~

As i don't make resolutions the only other thing apart from stitching goals is to carry on with my reading. I fell behind in my list keeping last year but i read 25 books, not bad going for me :-) I've had quite a few books for Christmas so I've got plenty to keep me going for now.

~~~~~~~~~~

We are having a quiet New Years Eve. We will be going for a curry early this evening then coming home to see the New Year in. I hope you all have fun however you are celebrating :)

Thank you for your visits in 2010, they have been very much appreciated :-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T21:56:00.003Z

Before i get caught up in Christmas activities i thought I'd stop by and wish you all a very Merry Christmas, i want to thank you all for your visits to my blog over the last 12 months, i know that i have enjoyed visiting you all and seeing your wonderful stitching, finishing and getting getting to know you. I have a few things to share, namely the last of my LHN ornaments, i have really enjoyed these, i can't believe it's been 12 months since we started this SAL! The only one i didn't get finished into an ornament was the Pear Tree, i cut the fabric too close when i finished stitching and the only thing i think it will finish as is a pinkeep and as yet I'm not brave enough to try that finish. Any how here are the last two:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My favourite out of these two is definitely All is Calm, so cute!

I did one last trip into town today and there was a half price sale of Christmas decorations, amongst other things i couldn't resist this metal tree

Isn't it perfect for stitched ornies :-)

It will hold 15, so I'll have to get busy for next year, but I'm also thinking it could be used for seasonal ornies too as it's not a Christmasy looking tree, what do you think?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last but by no means least is a lovely gift i received from Elaine, such a pleasant surprise to receive this lovely stitched and finished snowman ornament (there were also some chocolate Santa's that got eaten right away :-) and some lovely hand and body lotion which is now in my treatment basket in my bedroom:-)

Thank you so much Elaine, everything was appreciated and your snowman will always have a special place on my tree :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well the presents are all wrapped and ready and i will be heading of to bed soon, tomorrow i have the day off preparing food as we are going out for Christmas lunch this year, Yipeeee no cooking, lol. My mum, sister and brother in law and my Niece and her boyfriend and their daughter are coming too so hopefully it will be a good day. After lunch we are going to my eldest daughters for more nibbles and present opening.

Boxing day will be my day to sit and stitch and play with my presents :-) and then the day after will be my birthday! 2011 will be my last year in my 40's ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have fun whatever you may be getting up too - Until next time - have a good one!

2010-12-13T19:21:00.004Z

Time has just run away with me again, i suppose it has something to do with the time of year but also to do with the fact that i have been a lazy blogger!

I owe a long over due thank you to Mylene, i won a give away on her blog a while ago and this is what arrived in the mail....

...My very first pyn keep! It is stitched and finished so beautifully, thank you so much Mylene, it will always have a special place on my tree xx.

My own stitches have be few and far between, i have managed to finish another LHN ornament and put it together at the weekend

Only one more of these ornaments to finish off now and i can proudly say that i kept up for the whole 12 months (that's a first for me!!) The little angel is almost stitched and the two little houses are stitched up but i have yet to finish them into anything (forgive me for not giving the charts their proper names, i have a mental block when it comes to remembering chart names!)

Daughter #2 had a birthday while I've been absent, she turned 23 on 2nd December

She took her driving test last Thursday but unfortunately didn't pass, she managed to get a cancellation this morning for January 8th, so lets hope she has better luck 2nd time around.

Today has been one of those horrible dark, cold and damp days, but for a couple of weeks we did have snow and ice causing havoc on our roads (if you know the UK then you will know how what little snow it can take to cause havoc, and keep us talking about it forever!! LOL) Personally i would rather have the snow and ice back, to me there is nothing better that a lovely crisp frosty morning :-) I took myself and my camera off to the park after work one afternoon last week so I'll leave you with some of the results.

****************

***************

The guy in the red coat and the bike just happened to walk up as i was taking the photo, how lucky was that!

***************

I didn't realise until i looked at the photos on my computer that there was a couple sharing a kiss under the tree...how sweet.

***************

The last two photos are of a couple of friends i made that day ;-)

***************

My blog header photo is also at the park that day.

I owe quite a few of you blog visits and comments, i will be trying to catch up this week.

Thank you for stopping by today, and have a great week whatever you may be up too xx

Boxes, Baskets & Calendar Cats!

2010-11-09T15:24:00.012Z

Millie & Molly would like to send you all a BIG thank you for your lovely comments about their photos :-)

The calendar came into the shop on Friday and i went to pick one up straight after work
Introducing the calendar girl of 2011!

Apparently there were almost 200 photos entered in the competition, didn't she do well to get chosen! I can report that the fame hasn't turned her head one bit, she is still the same self assured Molly who gets her own way with everything :-)

The local paper that featured the competition are doing a follow-up on it so my mug shot will be in there in the next couple of week (I'm preparing myself for the comments from work about that!)
~~~~~~~~~~

Last week i was in and out the house for one thing and another and couldn't settle into stitching except for finishing another LHN ornament.

This is Peppermint Twist made up into yet another puffy pillow (are you getting fed-up seeing this type of finishing yet!)

I left off the button, i didn't think it added anything to it.

While i was out and about last week a few things made it home with me. My LNS had this limited edition DMC box in, it's on sale with 40 threads included but Sharon said if i wanted the box she would knock off the price of the threads, how could i pass a chance like that!

Isn't it great! (you will have to tilt your head to one side now because i just couldn't get blogger to co-operate!!)
It fastens with rustic string a a little heart toggle. I think i only ended up paying about £6 for it, bargain!

Continuing with the bargain hunting, i came across this little box in a local department store

It's all shabby & chic and i love it! When i get round to sorting more of my threads out this is where they are going :-)

I've saved the best bargain until last, while i was collecting "the calendar" i spied this

How gorgeous is this shopping basket!! It cost me all of a fiver! I said to daughter #2 that i felt like i should be walking in a picturesque village somewhere do my shopping, she said, i think you look like you should be skipping along in a wood wearing red cloak, lol - kids what do they know!

Until next time x

Whoooohoooo Our Very Own Super Model!

2010-10-14T17:09:00.007+01:00

No, I'm not talking about cars, I've had it up to here with cars, lol (but thank you all for you good wishes and sympathies, i'll update on news another time)
I want to share some happy news with you this time.

A couple of days before we went on holiday i saw a competition advertised by the Cats Protection League in our local paper, they were looking for photos of cats for their 2011 calendar.

Despite much snickering from my family (they think I'm the crazy cat woman) i entered a photo I'd taken of Molly.

It had slipped my mind, what with one thing and another going on but i got an e-mail last night telling me that Molly's photo had been chosen to feature in the calendar!

I was over the moon :-)

but, it gets better

I emailed them the photo as they asked, and today i got reply to say that Molly has actually been chosen as the overall winner and her photo will appear on the cover of the calendar, and we also get to choose which month she will be! How cool is that!!!

Even better still is that she has also won a photo session with a professional photographer who will come to our house and take a set of photos which i will the be given on a disc (insert big grin here!)

Here she is the super model herself in her winning shot

And because i have 2 beautiful girls i can't leave without showing a photo of Millie too, after all a mother has no favourites ;-)

I wish now I'd got a better photo of Millie too, then i could have entered them both, although It's harder to get a good shot of Millie because she is so fast and she thinks everything is a game, and being all black makes it harder

Millie

I can't tell you how much we love these two little faces, they mean the world to us.

Until next time x

Things That Go Bump..

2010-10-07T18:27:00.005+01:00

Into my car! While we away last week i was phoning home every day just to check up everthing was OK, as you do, on the Thursday night my daughter asked me if i wanted the bad news.. as you can imagine everything raced through my head at those words, what i wasn't expecting was "someone's run into your car mum" That would have been bad enough, but i have had this car (a super duper Mini Cooper s, bright yellow in colour and complete with racing stripes!!) for less than a month.

~~~~~~~~~~

This is the best photo i could come up with which resembled my car. The difference being, mine has white wing mirrors and normal alloys, not silver.

(this one i've uploaded though looks more like a dinky car, don't you think?)

Luckily (if you can call it that) it was the fault of a neighbour 2 doors up and she wrote all her insurance details, date and time it happened down a gave them to Stevie.

Now, we live on a very steep hill, so i assumed she had parked behind my car and rolled when she pulled away, but no, she had parked outside her own house, gone in home and when she looked out of the window, no car, she must have forgotten to put the handbrake on and it rolled down the hill colliding with the back end of my car on the way!

The damage is not too bad, the bumper will have to be replaced and the little black grill, but apparently the damage on hers is much worse, i haven't seen.

However, as if that wasn't bad enough, i needed to go and get some food supplies in on Tuesday afternoon after getting back from the airport very early hours Tuesday morning, but my car wouldn't start, after calling the dealer we got the car from, and an AA man being sent out i was told that the starter motor would need replacing and it would have to be towed to the dealer garage the next day. Another AA man arrived the following day and tried it again before loading it on the truck, right away he said it was not the starter motor but the timer chain, much more serious and as far as i can make out is a big job, we are talking getting the engine out and stripping it down job!

I mean, this car is not old, 3 years is all! I've had a right game trying to get the dealer to give me a courtesy car (they were all out, yeah right!) when i asked about a hire care they said yes, you will have to pick it up from Stafford though, a 45 minute drive away..HELLO, I HAVE NO TRANSPORT HOW DO YOU SUGGEST I GET THERE??!!!

no answer came the reply.

Several phone calls later and after me ranting & raving like a woman possessed and telling them that if they didn't sort it out they could keep the car and give me my money back they said they would send someone out to pick me up and take me to Stafford to fetch the hire car.

Goodness knows when I'm going to get my car back, they won't commit themselves to a time yet, but at least i will have some sort of transport while it's in. The damage done to the rear end will have to wait until this episode is over.

Apart from coming back to this we had a lovely week away in the sunshine and i will post some photos next time so you can have a look see, for now though i really can't get in the mood for anything.

A happier update to follow soon i hope, until then take care and have a good weekend.

2010-09-26T23:39:00.002+01:00

The nights are drawing in and there is a definite chill in the air here in my part of the UK, a reminder that Christmas is just around the corner :-0 and it will soon be time to decorate my tree with all those lovely LHN ornies i have been stitching, i can't wait!

So i got a move on and completed another 2.

Here's the Red House. I didn't have the required red for the house so i used my favourite red, Threadworx 1089

I do love little houses, and i think this one is my favourite ornie at the moment.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next is another cute little snowman, i wasn't too kean on this when i first saw the chart but he has grown on me since stitching him.

Again i substituted the green because i didn't have what was called for, i used a Weeks thread instead.

~~~~~~~~~~

Not in the Christmas theme but, i do have another finish, Souvenir de France which was a freebie doing the rounds a while ago.

Finished as a pin pillow using DMC 4140 (variegated thread). It's a little big for a pin pillow really but at least i now have somewhere to stick my needle when i finish stitching for the night :-)

~~~~~~~~~~

I have been working on Yesteryear a little too but it got abandoned in favour of all the above, it's on my list to get finished off by the end of October though if i possibly can.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'll be MIA for the next week, we are going on our last sunshine break of the year, we shall be in Gran Canaria by this time tomorrow night, hopefully i'll be sitting somewhere warm with a glass of Sangria in my hand, lol.

Thank you for your visits and comments, they really make my day :-)

Have a great week whatever you may be up to. xx

Catching Up & Finishing

2010-09-02T17:59:00.006+01:00

My week off was over all too soon and 7am Tuesday morning rolled around too quickly for my liking, it's sods law that the week i had off the weather was pretty rotten the whole, and this week we have glorious sunshine! We had our day in Bath as planned non the less and apart from a couple of quite heavy (but short) downpours the day turned out not too bad. As none of us had been before we did all the touristy things, the Jane Austin Centre, the Roman Baths, Pulteny Bridge, Royal Crescent (the setting for Jane Austins Persuasion if i my mind serves me right) and Sally Lunns tea shop, where i sampled a Bath Bun (the girls opted for cake). We had gone there for their Cornish Cream Tea but there were no scones left!! can you believe that?? our faces must have been a picture because we had been anticipating this cream tea all day! Apart from that we had a fantastic time, it's a great place and we will defiantly go again perhaps to do a tour of all the wonderful shops.
All the links above should be clickable, do go and have a nosey around there are some

great web sites.

Here's a little collage of our visit.

See Joanne top right? that's her, large as life and twice as loud, lol. They both tried the hats on in the Jane Austin Centre, somehow i don't think they fit the image of Lady's who lunch, lol.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I managed to get quite a bit of stitching done while i was at home, i started and finished the design of Primitive Bettys.

Olde Pewter Letters

Stitched on 28ct with DMC 169 & 535

Not to sure if i should frame it or finish it some other way, any suggestions?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found a forgotten piece and have been working on getting this finished, this is where it was at when i abandoned it.

Now almost another 2 blocks completed, so hopefully a finish soon, and it's a fitting piece to hang in my 100 year old house :-)

LHN Yesteryear

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, i collected Rubie from the framers last week, here she is all dressed up!

She now has pride of place on my sampler wall, which is a work in progress but i am working hard to get it filled ;-)

Phew! I've waffled on again haven't i! you'll be Glad to know that all for now, thank you for visiting my little space today, i really appreciate all you visits and comments. Till next time - have a great weekend. x

The Winner Is......

2010-08-23T18:04:00.003+01:00

Elaine !!

This is what Elaine said in her e-mail.....

This really dumb Scotswoman would love to enter your give-away. I sat here for about an hour tonight driving myself nuts trying to work out where these photos were taken. Then it dawned on me maybe it was places you had visited so I started to look through your blog. I found most of them on your blog but was a bit stumped with the ones in Paris but eventually I got them.. I think.

And so you did!

Starting at the top left to bottom left they are:-

~~~~~~~~~~

Fountain at Hampton Court Palace

Blenheim Palace

Notre Dame

Beatrix Potter's House

Middle:-

~~~~~~~

Windermere

Leicester Square, London

The Astronomical Clock at Hampton Court Palace

Right hand side:-

~~~~~~~~~~

Westminster Abbey

The Louvre (That DD#1 pushing it!!)

The Seine in Paris ( That's DD#1 & 2 walking along)

Charts of Rubie Owl and Stories To Live by, Eve will be on their way to you as soon as you send me your address.

Only two others had a guess, Loraine (you didn't leave me a link to your blog) you had 7 right so i will send you the other copy of STLB Eve.

Hazel i'm afraid you only got 3 right but as you were the only other person to have a go i am going to send you something anyway:-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've had a break from the computer this week and given myself more stitching time, Rubie is in the shop being fitted for a frame and i have a small finish and a blast from the past to show next time :-)

Hope you all have a great week, i know i will as i have the week off work, yayyyyy for lie-ins, lol, tomorrow me and the girls are off to Bath for the day, lets hope the rain stays away, then the rest of the week is just for me to chill and stitch as i wish :-)

Almost There

2010-08-10T18:05:00.006+01:00

A few more nights and Rubie should be finished. I really wanted her to have a face to show you tonight but as the weather was nice yesterday afternoon when i came from work i spent 3 hours in the garden, weeding, hoeing, pruning and generally giving it a tidy up, by the time I'd had something to eat and a shower i was so knacker i headed up to bed at 9.30. It's true what they say, the older you get the longer it takes, lol, I woke up this morning and had to lie there a few minutes and decide what part of me ached the least, lol.

No such silly antics going on today, I've got a stitchy / TV night planned

Wrinkly Rubie!

I really appreciate all your lovely comments and encouragements on this piece, especially when i had a mass invasion of frogs and could have cheerfully thrown it in bin, but all your kind words and lovely thoughts made me carry on, and I'm glad i did!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because of my imminent finish there will be a give away as promised.

The give away is- Plum Street Samplers charts -

Rubie Owl & Stories To Live By Eve

(Sorry, but blogger won't let me upload a photo of th charts!!)
Now, did you notice my header photos? how is your geography? because in order to win the charts I'm going to ask you to name as many of the places/buildings (or river in one case) as you can, the person who gets the most correct wins, simple as that!
If there is no outright winner then the names will be thrown into a hat and my daughter will draw a name.

Please do not leave your answers on the comments page, e-mail me at

hydenseek61@yahoo.co.uk

mention 'Rubie' in the subject line
And i will post the winner on August 23rd, so you have plenty of time!

This is open to everyone, regardless of where you live.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm off to put bum to sofa and get some stitching done,

hope you all have a great week :-)

A Long Overdue Post (And a Future Give Away)

2010-07-26T17:15:00.006+01:00

I didn't intend to leave it so long between posts but sometimes there are not enough hours in the day, or any progress to show ;-) But I'm back with finishes and progress and a bit of catching up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had a lovely time in Halkidiki, the tan has faded and it is all but a distant memory now (even the sunshine as we have none of that here at the moment!) but, it was very relaxing and i managed to do nothing much but sit by the pool and read, getting up for the occasional dip in the pool to cool off - just what holidays are made for really :-)
Everything felt a bit 'flat' when we came back, even though we were only gone for a week, getting back into some sort of routine was hard, it took a while for me to pick my stitching up again at night and at work i was finding myself resenting being there. Anyway, all that's passed, my mood has lifted and I'm stitching again and, i have proof!

LHN The Merry Skater

Isn't she cute? I had done the stitching on this before we went away but finished it off into a little hanging ornie when we came home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next up is something that had been thrown into a corner to await reverse stitching after my inability to follow a chart.

Rubie Owl

The offending part (on the left) re-stitched, and I've finished stitching all those leaves on the tree, even though i think they have left me with a permanent twitch and the paranoia that i may have left one out or miss counted and they are all off. Please, please do me a favour and keep me in ignorant bliss if you spy a mistake, because i ain't ripping anymore out!, lol.

Here's the whole wrinkled thing so far

I'm now at the mindless filling in stage, but after all the mishaps with this chart i care not a jot and shall happily, mindlessly fill in! (note, i did not say mindlessly stitch, as that's what got me in trouble last time, that and concentrating on Without a Trace instead of what i should have been doing!)

Right, that's me just about caught up, but just before i go the last bit of my title -The Give Away will be the Rubie Owl chart when I've finished with it, so stay tuned and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll post it up.

Thanks for visiting me and have a fantastic week whatever you are up to :-) x

Catch up Friday

2010-06-25T18:00:00.009+01:00

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my Christmas Tree ornament, i really appriciate your visits. I'm really getting into these cute little finishes :-) My LNS had The Merry Skater and The Red House LHN charts in last week so i made a start on MS, i should finish it off tonight and will share photos next time. Rubie Owl is still banished to the cupboard waiting for me to rip out my mistake, still can't face it yet!

~~~~~~~~~~

The weather here has been lovely again this week, hot enough for Molly to do her thing in the garden~~~~~~~~~~

Seriously, she can only manage a few steps out there sometimes and then she flops, legs akimbo, lol. While Molly lounges in the sunshine outside, Millie, (who is much 'posher' and more refined!!) prefers my bed, she will venture out when it's cooled down, though not at night, I'd never let them out at night.

That's it for this week then, we are going on holiday on Monday, to Halkidiki, just for a weeks R&R, can't wait for a dip in that pool and time lounging on a sunbed with my book and a glass of something cold:-)

Until next time x

I Should Pay More Attention!

2010-06-12T08:49:00.006+01:00

Not a lot to show this time, I've hardly sat down to stitch at all this week, Marks at home and i find that by the time dinner is over and cleared away it's too late to get anything out. Having him at home these past few weeks has upset my routine, lol. Having said that i pulled out Rubie Owl last Sunday intending to devote all afternoon

to her only to find i had made a mistake, a HUGE mistake, in fact 2 Huge mistakes!! first off, as soon as i put her in the hoop i noticed this -

See the Rubies section? can you see any Rubies? no, because i happily went on filling in that section!! i also carried on with a full border at the bottom which should not have looked like this! Mistake #2 came to light as i was looking at my thread colours, I've been using Buttercup when the chart called for Butterscotch DOH!! Where was my mind! clearly not on my stitching!! OK, so the colour doesn't matter too much and I'm not going to change it, but i will have to take out the section and stitch the 'rubies' because that will bug the hell out of me! If I'm in the mood i may start to rip it out tonight, or i may just carry on with the leaves and do it when I'm in a better frame of mind, i has put me off a tad i can tell you, not looking forward to ripping out stitches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a happier note, i did have a finish the week before last but neglected to show it so here you go.

Christmas Tree 'freebie' from Claire stitched on a scrap of 28 count using Threadworx 1089

I added beads to the edging and i think it turned out pretty cute :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If i can motivate myself i could get loads of stitching in over the next few weeks, the World Cup has kicked off this weekend, with England's first match tonight against the US. There again i might be sitting shouting at the TV like the rest of the country, lol

Thank you for your continued visits and comments, they make my day:-) Have a great weekend whatever you may be up to!

How Much Can You Fit Into One Weekend?

2010-06-02T17:02:00.018+01:00

We had a lovely time in London at the weekend, although Saturday it rained for most of the day by the time we went to have afternoon tea it had cleared up. This time we sampled the delights at Fortum & Mason and came out completely stuffed, lol, because I've been trying to eat more healthily it's been ages since i have eaten cake - but it was wonderful! Not such a 'dressy' place as we went to last time but that was OK. I think it's just so decadent to dress up and have afternoon tea! not something that we do very often so it feels very special.
This was our little appetizer, bread sticks with cheese & pesto, salmon and some sort of pastry we couldn't quite work out what but decided it was a 'posh' sausage roll.

We opted for the afternoon tea which consisted of a selection of rolls and finger sandwiches and a lovely selection of cakes, together with a glass of champagne and a pot of tea each.

We had to go for a walk afterwards to work some of it off!

Sunday we caught the train to Hampton Court and spent a great day out, and the weather was kind to us. I was really looking forward to this visit being a recent convert to Tudor novels and everything Henry VIII and i wasn't disappointed, If you are English you will know that usually it cost a fortune to get into these Historic places, although lovely they may be. We spent all day at Hampton Court and the admission was only about £14 absolute bargain! there was lots going on from jousting to demonstrations in the Tudor kitchens, which i must say had THE biggest fireplace i have ever seen - and it was alight. We took advantage of the headset (no extra charge) which gave us a guided tour of everything inside.

Walking to the entrance of Hampton Court Palace

The astronomical clock which is in base court & is 400 years old. This clock has been mentioned a few times in the book I'm now reading so it was nice to place it.

The Grand Hall
Which was lined with the most amazing tapestries

The Palace from the side showing one of the beautiful gardens. Jenny liked the fact that it was symmetrical!

This is a newer part added on by William of Orange.

Apparently he wanted to knock Hampton Court down and start again!
Thank goodness he didn't!

Fancy having this view from your back door!

On Sunday evening we had a table booked at the Ivy, this is the place to celeb spot, not much to look at from the outside is it?

Very nice inside though and the food and the service was excellent, unfortunately we didn't spy any celebs :-( They have a policy of no cameras or mobile phones in the restaurant so no photos of our food!

To round off our weekend we went on a walking tour of Westminster Abbey on Monday morning - if you are ever in London and thinking of doing this tour it's well worth it, our guide was great very knowledgeable, and quite funny with it. I didn't realise so many people were buried there including Henry VII, Elizabeth I & Mary Tudor (Mary & Elizabeth are buried together, strange as they were complete opposites!)

So, how much can you fit into one weekend? well quite a lot it seems! I'm glad i booked yesterday off work to recover, i was, as they say, knackered!!

Hope everyone had a fun Bank Holiday, thank you for stopping by and all your wonderful comments, i really do appreciate them:-)

Sunshine & Winter Sheep

2010-05-24T19:35:00.005+01:00

The UK has been basking in summer sunshine for the past few days, how long it will last is anyone's guess, but as anyone in England knows we have to make the most of it while it's here!

Everything is growing like mad in the garden including these beauties

As i think i may have said before i love Hostas! My husband thinks they are boring plants, but what does he know, he just mows the grass ;-) I took these photos about a week or so ago and they are even bigger now. Last year they were plagued with snails and slugs, but this year they have been free so far, i have my defences in place, #1 defence - is copper band around the tubs, (electrocutes the little blighters if they try to climb the tub!) #2 defence - is wood pellet cat litter sprinkled around the base of the plant, (the slimy suckers can't crawl across it!) #3 defence- apparently they like cheap larger! don't laugh, it's true! poured into small containers just sunk into the soil, they party all night and you have a collection to dispose of the next morning!

I haven't been idling my time away in all this sunshine, i have been stitching.
LHN Winter Sheep Monthly Ornament - stitched on a scrap of 28 count even weave with DMC threads substitute was made for writing as i hadn't got that particular number.

This stitched up really quickly, it probably took me longer to make it into the ornament - something i still struggle with, that's why they will all most likely be hanging pillow ornies as I'm more comfortable with that finish and the tree I'm planning on putting them on if big enough to take them.

That's all for now - next week is Bank Holiday weekend so an extra day off work again (yippee!) and I'm off to London with my eldest daughter for a few days for our 'posh' weekend, afternoon tea and dinner at the Ivy restaurant mingling with celebs!! so hopefully lost to share with you next time. In the meantime lets hope for the sun to continue to shine so we can all spend more time in the garden like this -

Molly the sun worshiper - unfortunately she forgets she sports a rather heavy fur coat!

Until next time x

ABC Framed & Prom Photos

2010-05-10T17:54:00.004+01:00

Stevie had a wonderful time at the Prom on Friday, it was great to see all the kids dressed up, they all looked really glamorous:-) and thankfully the rain held off. Here's Stevie and two of the lads in all their finery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I collected my ABC from Betty's on Saturday.

Abecedaire free chart from here

Stitched on 28 count with Anchor threads 1013 & 1014

I was surprised when i looked back that I've been working on this on and off for a year - eek! time flies when your having fun, lol

The past week has been very busy with other things, so not much stitching done, hopefully I'll do some catching up this week and I'll have some progress on Rubie Owl to share with you next time.

So that's it for this time, short and sweet!

Speak soon x

Just Another Bank Holiday Monday And It.....

2010-05-03T18:04:00.003+01:00

Was a very typical one for the UK, not very warm and ending in rain. I knew i was being optimistic when i bought a new patio set last week, might be weeks now before we get to use it! Being Bank Holiday we had an extra long weekend so we decided to drive out to a car boot sale and have a rummage - i love a good rummage, do you? I was to be disappointed today though, nothing worth rummaging in, seemed like everyone was just getting out last years 'un sold's' and my only find was another Tudor book - The Queen's Sorrows, Suzannah Dunn, (yes, i know, I'm becoming obsessed!) If only I'd known how interesting the Tudors were when i was taking History at school i might have fared better than a C in my exams (or was it a D? been so long i forget!) either way it was not good.

Wednesday this week bought on another throat infection which really knocked me for six, i went into work only to come home again mid morning because i lost my voice, not a good thing when you work on a switchboard, Thursday i managed to go to work but absolutely had no life in me whatsoever and come Friday morning i woke up as a mutant with a second set of eyelids, the result of something that did not agree with me again, so instead of going to work i made a trip to the doctors. I'm to take antihistamines for a month to try and settle it down (whatever 'it' is).

Anyhoo..you didn't come here to read about my ailments so how about a stitchy photo?

LHN Snowy Pines

DMC Threads on a mystery piece of linen

I don't know what count the fabric was i used but this one came out smaller than the others, and i think now i do prefer them a little bit bigger. I also managed another finish on my ABC, no photos until it comes back though, i was so eager to get it up to Betty's for framing i forgot. I hadn't realised how long this one had been going until i looked back through my blog, it was last April i started it, where does the time go!!

Stevie has her School Prom this Friday so a busy few days ahead being filled with hair, nail, tanning and makeup appointments. I'm not going to sit down and tot up how much this Prom has cost, it's just a lot, an awful lot, but i am so looking forward to seeing her all dressed up, I'm sure it will be worth every last penny:-)

So, next time hopefully lots of photos of Stevie in her glad rags and my long awaited ABC finish, which incidentally i have dedicated to Stevie as it will mark some milestones in her life, she turned 16 in the week i finished it, officially left school last Friday and of course her Prom.

Well that's all folks, except to say that i have added some swaps / trades and some freebies on my other blog, the link is in the sidebar if you want a wonder on over to see if anything takes your fancy...if it does, give me a shout.

As always, thank you for your lovey comments which really do mean so much to me as do your continued visits to read my ramblings. x

Sweet Sixteen

2010-04-20T15:41:00.010+01:00

On Thursday 21st April 1994 at 11.27pm my youngest daughter Stevie-Leigh made her arrival into the world, weighing in at a hefty 9lb 11oz, (can i hear a collective 'ouch'!!).

It must have been something to do with the craving i had for milk when i was pregnant, i drank gallons of the stuff, not in the normal way, it had to be put in the freezer until little ice crystals formed and i would eat it with a spoon! glass after glass went in the freezer day after day, funny thing is, before i got pregnant i didn't really like milk and would never ever drink a glass, and it goes without saying that after the event i have never drunk milk!! I had a similar relationship with raw carrots, couldn't get enough of them! until i read something about carotene poisoning, i remember going to my doctors for an antenatal appointment and asking him in a panic if i was going to have an orange baby!! He laughed and said 'No, he didn't think so' (whilst giving me a look that said 'we have a right one here!')

This is Stevie at about 3 or 4 months old with a rather puzzled look on her face!

As you can see, i didn't have an orange baby! She is really tall though, at 5' 9" she is way taller than most of her friends

Happy 16th Birthday Stevie!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you all for your kind comments on my LHN ornie and the congratulations and well wishes for my #1DD. Her passing out ceremony went well, (i have since learnt that the official name for this is an Attestation), she will be in training now for the next 17 weeks before she is let loose on catching criminals! there is lots to learn, she is getting tons of reading/homework but is loving every minute.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've given this week up to finishing my ABC and thanks to the frog hopping it and an almost all day stitching fest on Saturday I'm primed for a finish for the weekend.
No stiching tonight, as we went out for a meal in honor of the Birthday Girl, but I'll be getting a numb bum on Thursday & Friday night to get that finish :-)

Speak soon. x

He's A Flake - He's A Finished!

2010-04-12T21:34:00.006+01:00

Here's the little guy all stitched up and finished off!

I must say that he looked nothing special from the chart but now he's all done i just love him!!

LHN Monthly Ornament - 'He's A Flake'

Stitched with the recommended threads

Linen - mystery piece from my stash

It's a pity he's got to be hidden away in a box until Christmas, i want to show him off now!, lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I dug out my ABC to work on this weekend, I'd forgotten that i was so close to finishing this one. I was happily stitching away yesterday afternoon on the border until i noticed that i was one stitch off, this is the offending bit

I started one stitch too high, i can't ignore it because it will throw the rest off, but i was too disheartened yesterday to rip it out and started over on the other side instead, I'll take out the little blighters in a couple of days when I've got over it!

Only two sections to go on this piece so I'm going to keep going this week and see if i can get done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My other exciting news to share tonight is that my eldest daughter has started her training as a Police Constable today and we will be having a 'Proud Parent Moment' tomorrow night watching her at her passing out ceremony, i can't tell you how proud we are of her, she is such a hard worker and always gives 100% in everything she does and so deserves every success :-)

Right, that's me caught up for a few days, off to settle into bed with my book and a cuppa :-) Until next time xx

Rubie Owl

2010-04-05T22:33:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow morning is back to work, I've had four lovely days off and since Bank Holiday weather is notoriously bad here in the UK i had nothing more energetic planned than sitting and stitching and catching on TV programmes I'd recorded. (I've become addicted to Anthea Turner's Perfect Housewife). It's on the 'Home' Channel between 1am-3am, which only goes to show how sad i am as the programme doesn't even warrant prime time viewing!! What can i say, the woman has some great cleaning and storage tips!!

I've also been playing about with my blog colours, again! i can't seem to find something to stick with, these will do for now though. My header is a photo i took of the daffodils in my garden, me and my daughter planted over 200 of them last year and i am thrilled so many made it to flowering :-) They bring a lovey splash of colour to the garden even when it's raining.

Anyway, here's the progress i made on Rubie Owl.

I really love the way these colours jump out at you, but does anyone else have a problem with Belle Soie silks knotting? I usually work with about a yard of floss but have had to reduce this to less because of knotting.

The fabric is more of a sandy colour, which is refusing to show up true in the photos.

the weekend was spent stitching mostly leaves, and after a while I lost the ability to count! i must have frogged as many as I've stitched!! I need to order a couple of colours to finish off the tree, and because of the Bank Holiday they will be a few more days yet.

I'm putting Rubie back in the bag this week and working on the LHN monthly ornament, He's A Flake, it feels like ages since i had a finish and this looks like it will be a quickie. Until next time, have a great week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just Catching Up

2010-03-30T18:42:00.010+01:00

Hello Peeps! Ive been poised to do a blog entry since last week but somehow other things keep getting in the way. We had a great break in Poland, apart from DH completely driving me nuts, lol, you've heard the saying 'less is more', well let me tell you, that saying definitely applies to time spent with my DH. Perhaps it's because I'm only used to his company at the weekends (and let me tell you I'm quite happy with that!) but i had forgotten how he can sulk and take offence at the smallest thing!! Oh well, i suppose we all have our crosses to bear, and he's mine, lol.
While in Poland we visited Auschwitz which was something else, there really are some horrific tales from that place, and also the salt mines which was OK but not as exciting as i thought it would be. The weather was kind to us, not cold like i thought it would be, in fact when i phoned home they told me it was wet and miserable in the UK whereas Poland was basking in sunshine! I haven't managed to upload any photos of the trip yet, perhaps over the Easter break I'll have time.

Saturday just gone was the Hobby Craft show at the NEC in Birmingham so i took myself off there for the day on Saturday, just me myself & I, it was heaven! here's a few stitchy goodies i bought home with me.

The plastic thread keeper i bought before i came across the wooden ones, i much prefer the wood. The thread heaven i haven't used yet but have heard good reports.

And because a girl can't have enough handbags, this beautiful Italian bull leather handbag found it's way home with me :-) I also treated myself to a new phone case & specs case in a funky purple colour.

I bought the little charm on the bag on Saturday too. The bag was way, way (like a week of my wages expensive!!!!!) but the little charm is cheap & cheerful!

I knew my DH had his good points :-) one of them being he never ever complains if i spend money, nor does he ever ask how much anything costs, just says, 'yeah nice' so he's not so bad ;-)

When i was catching up on blogs last week i found out Sherry had left me my first award! Thank you so much for thinking of me Sherry. I'm supposed to pass it onto 12 bloggers but I've been looking around and most of the blogs i read have already been awarded this, so I'll cheat a little and say that if i read your blog or you are on my blog roll and have not received this award then consider yourself Sunshine awarded!

Another lovely surprise was to find out that i had won a consolation prize from Felicity i shall eagerly await the post man!

Well that's about it for now, you will have noticed that there are no stitchy pics, I've been stitching, honest! and to prove it an update of Rubie Owl will follow soon. Until then, take care x

I'm Still Here - Honest!

2010-03-15T21:27:00.005Z

Bet you thought seeing as I'd been MIA for so long that i would have lots of little x's to show, you will be sorely disappointed my friends, there are no stitchy updates for this post, sorry to say that there is hardly anything worth showing. I have some purchases from the Bay of Evil which i will share next time & a new way to store my WIPs' which I'm pleased to have found, also to be shared next time :-)

My photography class is going well, still really enjoying it (thank you for all your wonderful comments on my 'Love of Books' photo) they really did boost my confidence & for me it was definitely my best shot yet! I have signed up for the Spring term classes so hopefully will have more shots to share. We've been working on Cyanotypes, a form of early printing and i was extremely pleased with my print, so pleased I'm intending on getting it framed! I'll show that over the next few weeks too Sorry to be such a tease ;-)

I'm still on my health eating 'none diet' and (drum roll please) i have now lost 15Lb's. I can't tell you how good it felt when i took a pair of size 12 jeans (UK sizing) in the changing room on Saturday and they FIT!!! I have tried loosing weight in the past but never stuck to anything and i don't know why this time should be any different, it just has, i really think the eating breakfast at 'breakfast time' has helped. Also not labeling it as a 'diet' has helped, i have not bought any special diet options of anything, just cut out the crap and learnt to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full! and obviously that's what's working for me so I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, what i came here to say is that we are off on one of our little sight seeing trips again on Wednesday, Krakow in Poland this time, we will be back sometime the following Monday and if time allows i will update stitching and such after that.

That's it for now, off to sort out my waterproof jacket as the weather forecast for Poland is still showing little snowflakes!!

Have fun whatever you may be up to x

Wordless Wednesday (not)

2010-02-24T22:22:00.003Z

Greetings Peeps! thank you all so much for your well wishes for my mammogram and scan on Monday, I'm happy to report that all is well, nothing at all to be worried about, thank goodness :-) I had both scan & mammogram and the conclusion was that it was 'glandular' probably caused by hormones. The consultant recommend taking Angus Castus which can be bought from the health food shop, it's taken in liquid form, added to water and sipped throughout the day and supposedly helps to balance out the hormones. I'm giving it a go anyway to see if it will make a difference. so, big sign of relief and i feel much better in my mind this week :-)

I enrolled on another photography course in January and thought it would be nice to show off some of my photos, sort of like Wordless Wednesday, except of course this Wednesday i haven't shut up yet, ;-) I'd love to hear your comments and/or criticism on my efforts. So, if you're reading this please take time to let me know what you think.

Without further blabbering here's Wendnesday's photo

~~~Love of Books~~~

Rubies, Diamonds & Golden Pears

2010-02-19T22:11:00.004Z

For the past few weeks I've been suffering with very tender 'boobs' more than usual even taking the time of the month in consideration, the doctor could feel nothing but could tell how tender i was, i went to see the consultant today who believes it's just a thickening of the breast tissue and is nothing nasty to worry about. She suggested a scan & mammogram just to have a look see, so I'm taking advantage of the health insurance we have at work and have an appointment at a local private hospital on Monday morning. At least my mind is a little easier now, you know how it is worrying about these things, I've just plodded through the week to be honest. So, now I'm more 'myself' I'm ready to share some updates :-) First i finished stitching the LHN ornament Pear Tree this afternoon, in my mind when i started this SAL was going to finish them all as hanging ornaments, but this one is HUGE!! too big to be a hanging ornament (me thinks) and i don't know how to finish it..any and all suggestions will be gratefully received!

I Stitched it on a scrap of 28 count and it measures 4" x 5" it turned out much bigger than i imagined but i do like it, i still have the beads to put on and I'm sure i had some somewhere, but at the moment can't lay my hands on them.

My first new start i thought would be quicker to stitch, ha, ha, famous last words! i didn't take a very good look at the chart, there are lots of colour changes!! so this is going to be a while in the making. Welcome Quaker Diamonds for the first of what may be many outings ;-)

I may need motivation with this one so if anyone knows of a SAL or would like to get one going, do let me know.

And just because i needed something that would be a little faster i started Rubie Owl, i had to wait for my LNS to get the threads in for this one, so again not too much to show. I splashed out on different fabric for this one (more expensive) I'm not going to name it because i know that lots of people love this particular linen and I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that i cannot say that i love it, it's OK, but no way does it justify the price i paid. Just my opinion ;-)

Meet Rubie Owl,

I've been reading more than stitching this week and have finished up another Philippa Gregory book, i started the next one, The Virgins Lover last night. Only one more to read and then I've finished the Tudor Court series but i did read on line somewhere that her next series will be on the Plantagenet's, if they are as good as the Tudor's i can't wait! When i was leaving the hospital on Friday there was a book sale in reception, i took a few minutes to browse and came across these for 50 pence each!

I already read The Lovely Bones a few years ago but it belonged to my daughter and i would like to read it again. I couldn't believe i found The Concubines Secret for 50p! i already have the Red Scarf (bought from Amazon) and The Russian Concubine (bought from the charity shop for

45 pence!!) so this completes the set which i plan on reading when I've finished the Tudor series, has anyone read these? The other two i read the blurb in WH Smith some time ago and wasn't too sure about so couldn't justify spending the money on them, but at a give-away price like i got

them at i don't mind if i don't want to keep them afterwards!

Phew, i think I've about made up for my none blogging, and if you're still with me, thank you!! and if your not that's OK too ;-) I'm off to plonk my bum on the sofa and get some stitching done, have a great weekend whatever your up too :-) see ya soon xx

Quaker Row All Framed Up

2010-02-04T21:48:00.002Z

Hello Peeps! Thank you for all your wonderful comments on the results of my first attempt at tea bag splodging! Being the conservative type i did feel rather reckless but as i love the results, especially when i saw it framed, you can be sure I'll be trying it again :-)

I picked Quaker Row up this afternoon, and once again Sharon & Mark at 'Betty's' did a great job!

As I've been plagued with a migraine for the last couple of days not much stitching has been done, two days running i had to come back from work and go to bed for a few hours, thankfully this afternoon i have finally got a clear head, such a great feeling after migraine pain.

********************

I finally got myself organised enough to have a sort out and decided to start a 'swap / trade' blog if you want to have a wander over the link is in the right side bar, I've put some charts up for now but i have loads of magazines that i will be sorting through over the next couple of weeks and adding too, and I'm certain there are other charts lurking somewhere. I've added some wishes, likes & dislikes too.

********************

For my birthday at Christmas amongst other things my eldest daughter bought me Quaker Diamonds with the required Valdani threads and i made this my new start last weekend, this is not going to be a 'quick stitch' and i haven't made enough progress to show, I'll share it next week when I've been able to fit more stitchy time in.

********************

I'm thrilled that so many of you enjoy Philippa Gregory books too, I'm getting blank looks when i mention them at work and a sort of wrinkling of the nose when i say they are about the Tudors. I seem to be on a bit of a history fest at the moment and was chuffed to bits today when i came across two books in the charity shop, 'Elizabeth The Great' by Elizabeth Jenkins about

Elizabeth I and 'Mary Tudor' by H.F.M Prescott, about Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary.

They both look brand new and a bargain at 90pence each!

I'm behind on my blog commenting because of the 'head thing' but i will get to you all this weekend to see what wonderful things you have been up to :-)

Until next time xx

Quaker Finish

2010-01-27T14:31:00.009Z

Greetings Peeps :-) first up is my second finish this year, finished within a month, i can't believe that i finished something so quickly, but here's the proof.

You may recall that i wasn't too sure of the thread colour, it has grown on me and i had several comments saying that you liked it so it stayed. As i put the last stitch in yesterday evening i spread it out on the table to admire (and pick faults with, as you do!). I can't say that i immediately loved it but then i had an idea, now I'm not good with original ideas and i don't mind saying that i nicked this one!! i had read on Siobhan's blog that she had aged her her stitching of 'semi naked' people by rubbing with wet coffee grounds. We only have instant coffee in this house I'm afraid, but off i went and make a strong cup of coffee and a cup of tea and mixed the two together, squeezed out the tea bag and dunked it in the cocktail, squeezed again took a deep breath and rubbed it on my stitching - this is a closer look at the effect.
What do ya think? I'm loving it!! I just went to have another peek at it when i came in and i defiantly think it's improved the piece, so i want to say a big "Thank You" to Siobhan for her post which gave me the courage to try my own ageing process!

It'll be the weekend before i can get it to the framers now and I'll share another piccy with you when i get it back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four of us girls at work have got together to participate in a healthy eating/fitness plan and today was our second weigh in, two girls stayed the same, one lost 2lb but i am so pleased to say that i have lost 5lb. Remember i said it was one of my goals to loose some weight this year? this weight loss is just the result of me not eating crap, no chocolate, no cake, (tell a lie, I've had one egg custard!) and the one that i think has helped most I've started to eat breakfast as soon as i get to work at 8.30 (can't face anything any earlier) and I'm sure it has curbed my hunger. I'll let you know if there is less of me here again towards the end of February.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've put a reading / read list in my side bar now as i discovered a 'new to me' author just before Christmas - Philippa Gregory, I'm so enjoying reading these historical novels of hers that i ordered all of them off Amazon, I'm finding she really brings the characters such as Anne Boleyn (what a naughty girl she was!!) her sister Mary Boleyn (what a tart!!!, lol) and Katherine of Aragon to life. If you've read any of her other novels I'd love to know if you enjoyed them.

And finally, i have a blogging question, I've tried to add more blogs to the ones i read but blogger won't put them on my list, anyone know why? is there a limit to the number you can put on i wonder?

Thank you for all the lovely comments you take the time to leave, they are wonderful and very much appreciated x..till next time xx

New Start, Snow & Daft Cats!

2010-01-13T16:44:00.011Z

School was out again today because of snow over night so Stevie had yet another day of sledding. Last night was only about the 2nd time I've parked in our street in a week because of the weather, just my luck, i managed to inch my way down this morning, sliding the last bit, luckily there were no parked cars for me to hit towards the bottom of the road! The main roads weren't much better, I'm sure the gritters haven't been in our parts. This afternoon after work i left my car out of the street again, just in case!

I know this is a pathetic amount of snow compared to other countries but believe me, even this amount causes havoc in the UK, we are just not used to it and don't have the resources to cope with it, no snow ploughs and we are running out of salt and grit!

~~~~~~~~~~

When i was uploading some photos i remembered that i hadn't shared my framed Zippity-do-da with you, so here you go. Hard to get a photo of all of it with my small camera, but you get the idea, the frame i chose in the end was a white-ish distressed one which matched Stevie's room.

~~~~~~~~~~

My new start for 2010 was actually started on Boxing Day

Quaker Row by Midnight Stitching
I'm stitching on 28 count with Threadworx 10342. Still not really sure about the colour but it's staying put now! I just realised that i haven't quite finished the squirrel stitching. (does anyone else think that squirrel looks a little crazy?)
~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, this is my snow cat, molly, insisting on going out to catch snow flakes

She didn't wander too far from the door though i can tell you!
That's it for now, except to thank every one for their lovely comments on my last post and Fa-La-La, even though the stitching caused me so much greif i'm glad i stuck with it now, it's still sitting on the mantle in my bedroom just to remind me, and i did get the beads up of the floor, well, most of them anyway :-)

New Years Day Finish

2010-01-01T10:37:00.009Z

Happy New Year! The first morning of the new decade was a frosty one here in my part of the UK, we were promised snow a few days back, but it never arrived, am i the only one who was disappointed??,lol.

Looking back over December it was, (as it is every year) a very busy time in this house, we have celebrated 5 birthdays and a wedding anniversary since the beginning of the month, starting off with my Niece on 1st December quickly followed by my DD#2 who turned 22 on the 2nd, my DD#1 turned 27 on 22nd, little ole me celebrated (not sure that's the right word) my 48th birthday on 27th! and my brother turned 55 on 28th (omg, my family is getting old, lol) and just to add a bit of variety it was my wedding anniversary on 20th, what ever possessed us to get married so close to Christmas i do not know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not a fan of making New Year resolutions, but this year i am setting myself some goals, the first of which is to have a healthier lifestyle and get fitter, notice i didn't say the dreaded 'diet' word, i have in the past rushed to join Weight Watchers or Slimming World in January only to have my interest wain by February, so this year I'm doing neither, i know what i need to do in order for the scales to go down, eat less crap and take more exercise! i just need to put it into practice and I've already started on the second one (come on its Christmas, I'm allowed to eat some crap for now!) so to combat some of that Christmas food I've been going for a brisk walk everyday over the holiday, it's a start and I'm not looking for any 'quick fixes' this year, it's taken me 4 years to put on this extra weight so I'm being realistic this time that it will take me a while to shift it! My aim is to loose 18lb, that will make me just 7lb heavier than i was 4 years ago, (I'm older now so i figure that i need some fat to help plump the wrinkles out! I'll post my progress here more for me to keep track, but i wont bore you with it at every post, promise :-)

So, here is my very first finish of 2010 and I'd like it to be known that more than once it was flung to the other side of the room in utter frustration and very nearly consigned to the kitchen bin on several occasions! i don't know what happened, i must have lost brain cells or something with all the lounging around over the holidays, Christmas may be over but this is staying where i can look at it and show it to everyone who will look, lol.

LHN, Fa-La-La on 28 count with DMC threads

I added beads around the edge and finished it off with red organza ribbon, the beads were a first for me, and boy did i make a mess with them!

I want to thank you for visiting me in 2009 and i hope that you will continue to do so in 2010, i look forward to visiting all your blogs and seeing all the wonderful work you do, i love to read the comments you leave for me here, they truly make my day :-) Have a fantastic New Year, I'm going to finish off the first day of the new decade by picking all those dropped beads off the carpet, lol...wish me luck (or i may just get the vacuum out!)

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T20:59:00.004Z

I have no new stitchy finishes to show, i just wanted to wish all my blogging buddies a merry Christmas! I finished work this afternoon and can now look forward to 12 lie-ins, lol, no alarm going off at 7am, nothing to rush for in the mornings, bliss :-)

It seems ages since i had any stitching to show but I'm hoping to get plenty of stitching time in and maybe finish off a couple of ornaments over the holiday so i will be able to prove that i do still stitch, lol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here in my part of the UK we are still experiencing quite a cold spell, we had a dusting of snow last weekend which amazingly is still with us, which just goes to show that the temperature has not been above freezing the whole week, i know that in some part of the world that's not unusual, after all it is December, but for us in the UK it is rare! I must say that i much prefer this cold, crisp weather, give me this over rain any day! We may, fingers crossed be in for a white Christmas after all, it's been snowing a little again this afternoon so lets hope so.

That's it from me this side of Christmas, i will be another year older the next time we speak :-0

Till then, have a very Merry Christmas

And may Santa be very kind to you all. xxx

Beatrix Part 2 & a Stinking Cold!

2009-12-08T20:49:00.020Z

I didn't mean to leave it so long before posting the rest of the photos of our weekend break. Much to the amusement and relief may i add of my DH, i woke up on Sunday morning to find i had lost my voice in the night, the rest of this week i have been battling a stinking cold and coming in from work at lunch time just to go straight off to bed for a couple of hours. Finally tonight i think the worst is over, thank goodness.

Anyway, here are the promised pics - first up are some i took of Windermere, very pretty village and it was nice enough on the Saturday for us to go on a boat trip on Windermere itself, although by the end of the trip we were both chilled to the bone lol.
Love these houses right on the edge, but apparently this area was quite badly flooded the week before, you can still see that the water is quite high

This is looking towards the town
Taken while we were on the boat trip, the little orange boat caught my eye and you can just make out the snow on the hills in the background
I love the next 2 photos, it looks so peaceful, don't you think?
This is the entrance to the garden of Beatrix Potter's house, Hill Top. The garden is still set out as a very cute veggie garden
And this is Hill Top, looking every bit the English cottage

This was taken from the garden

Some bits & bobs in the garden

The path leading up to Hill Top, you reach this via the shop, which was open but unfortunately the house closes to the public from November 1st - a good excuse for another visit another time!

I remember reading somewhere that when Beatrix P died there was a stipulation in her will that no one should live in Hill Top after her death so i assume that her furnishings are still there, pity we went so late in the year i would have like to have seen inside.

A few weeks ago you will remember that in the UK we were having lots of rain and there was major flooding in many parts (including the Lake District), below is the sort of weather we had to drive home in.

Good job DH was driving, the motorway was like this until we almost reached home and I'm sorry to say that we have still had much of the same horrible damp weather since!

Because of my stinking cold and fear of stabbing myself with the needle every time i sneeze and the fact that i could not see through my streaming eyes, there hasn't been much stitching time this week. Before the bugs attacked me i did finish off another Santa and picked Zippity up from the framers, but i show you those next time.

Thanks for stopping by and all your lovely comments, i really do appreciate them:-)

See ya next time x

Beatrix Potter

2009-11-30T18:26:00.018Z

I've been MIA yet again, busy stitching away on Santa's but not this weekend. This weekend i was 'Living the Dream as Seen on Screen' For those who do not know, this is a UK TV programme dedicated to showing us how the other half live in houses that have been used in film or TV.

The house we stayed in now belongs to the National Trust but was once owned by Beatrix Potter and was the very house that was used in the Miss Potter film!!

If you re familiar with the film you will recognise this porch. Can you see just on the floor they have still left the slate Hill Top name plaque?

Hill Top house in the Lake District was the first house that Beatrix Potter bought with earnings from her books and she did live there. When it came to making the film Hill Top was totally impractical for filming and a search was made to find somewhere suitable. Yew Tree Farm was chosen for the job and it was here that we stayed this weekend.

Yew Tree Farm in Coniston was owned by Beatrix Potter, she bought it when the National Trust could not afford too as she did with many, many properties in the lake District, she eventually sold them back to the National Trust when they could afford to buy. She helped set up tea rooms at Yew Tree Farm and she picked out the furnishing and bought them with her own money.

Isn't it the most idyllic looking place you could imagine?

On Saturday morning when we got up there was snow on the hills, making it even more picturesque, if that's possible!

This is the view from the dining room, taken on Sunday morning when it was teaming down with rain and impossible to take more photos outside.

A view of the dining room through the mirror. This is where the furnishing that she chose now live. It's very cosy, there are just 3 tables as there are just 3 room to let here, the log fire was lit for us in the morning. Can you see the lovely dresser with the plates and the corner cabinet? So lovely!
There was a gorgeous sitting room, again the log fire was lit for us and a bottle of port sitting on the window to help yourselves to (yes i did partake in a glass!!)
Lovely panelled wall and leather Chesterfield

Cosy corner with local magazines to browse and a collection of old books, there was gentle music playing in the background too, not a TV in sight...bliss!
Warm fire, just what you need on a chilly night

another view of the sitting room, how cute is that little window!

The next few photos are not the best but i had trouble with the light.

Now i now where the saying 'Up The Wooden Hills' comes from, the house had lovely wooden stairs and panelled walls leading up to the bedrooms.

Our bedroom was call the Tarn Hows room and was just lovely, there were 2 windows like this, one on each side of the room.

And a fabulous four poster bed

The door way you can see on the other side of the room leads to the bathroom, the doorway was very low and there was a sign above saying 'please mind your head' but guess who banged his head at least 3 times? yes DH has a sore head to go back to work with!!

I have just too many photos to show in one post so I'll show more next time of Hill Top and our boat trip on Windermere. If you want to click here to visit Yew Tree Farm website and have a browse, there is a bit on there about the filming of Miss Potter and how Yew Tree Farm came to be chosen to portray Hill Top.
In the meantime, i have one more day holiday from work tomorrow so will be having a lie-in tomorrow and plan on some sitting and stitching..Until next time x

Pere Noel x 2

2009-11-06T19:55:00.003Z

I love Friday evening, the house work is done, i can sit down and relax and there is no getting up early for work tomorrow! Saturday is a day for 'me'! Mark will do the grocery shopping in the morning and i will spend a lovely couple of hours at my photography class in the afternoon, the weather forecast is not good for tomorrow so i think any photos will be taken in the hot houses.

My evenings this week have been taken up with stitching some Christmas ornaments, the Santa's from Gazette94 blog are so cute! hopefully i will get them all done and ready to hang on my tree this year

Can you see the fabric frayed on the one above? I made a bit of a boo boo and trimmed it too close, i might just get away with making into a hanging ornament if I'm very careful.
Next week I'm going back to working on Zippity to try and get that finished.

Thanks for stopping by and i hope you all have a great weekend whatever you are up to!

Gouls Night Out

2009-10-31T22:18:00.005Z

Just when us mear mortals are thinking of getting some sleep my DD#2 and friends are going to a Halloween Party - this is them in their costumes

Jo is the one in the black & red. They will probably be coming in as i get up in the morning...Oh to be young, lol. My big night out (well in!) will be a cup of coco and bed in a while!

Happy Halloween! Have a great week x

Zippity do da

2009-10-23T22:45:00.005+01:00

It's getting late so i will keep it short and sweet tonight, Friday is my 'downstairs' cleaning day (Thursday is 'upstairs', yes i have set cleaning days!!) and yes, people think i am quite strange because i quite like housework! I even, (dare i say this) like ironing (shock horror!!) i can hear a chorus of "OMG the woman is MAD" echoing around the world, lol. Anyway the point is I'm shattered and will be off to the land of nod soon, but before i go here is my progress on

La~ D~Da Zippity do da

Remember the excellent The Time Travelers Wife? This is Audrey Niffenegger's new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry. It's been my bedtime reading this last week. It's set around Highgate Cemetery in London and without giving anything of the story away it's essentially a ghost story and although i enjoyed it it's nothing like TTTW, but that is a hard act to follow!

Right, i promised it would be short so I'm gone...till next time, have a great weekend! x

I'm All Behind!!

2009-09-27T17:56:00.009+01:00

No ladies, I'm not referring to my posterior, although some might be inclined to say otherwise :O The behind i am am referring to is the blogging & blog reading, where on earth does the time go?? I've been full of good intentions but something always gets in the way. Last week i tried my hand at scrap booking, a completely new thing for me but my friend who is into scrap booking in a BIG way asked me to go to her crop as they were having a 'taster' session, all i was to bring along was a 6x4 photo and £1 for materials. I thoroughly enjoyed the night and my friend gifted me with a scrapbook to put my first page in:-) We got the chance to try our hand at stamping, (the bird & the flower thingies) and the little frilled edge under the photo was done with a cool little tool that did the frilly bit for you!. I dread to think how much could be spent on this hobby and I'm a little reluctant to go down that road, but it did make a really pleasant change. Stitching has been a bit hit and miss, most nights i really haven't felt like getting anything out. This is my pathetic progress on my ABC

I think the roses motif is the only section I've finished since i last showed it

I think perhaps i am getting a bit fed-up with the same old, same old, so to try and get back a little enthusiasm i made a new start yesterday - on this

I've had this ready to do for a while now and it seems to be stitching up quickly (famous last words, lol) no photos today though, I'll show next time.

My photo class is going well, really enjoying it so far, i was a bit worried i was going to be stuck with a load of men, but only 2 men in the class the rest are a mixed age range of women, all it seems with more or less the same objective, to become a brilliant photographer and earn loads of money, lol. I will try and get around to posting my photos somewhere so you can all have a good laugh for next time, but i took this today in my garden, trying to bring together what we have covered up to now

Thanks for stopping by & have a great week whatever you may be up too x

Wanna Join Me in a Happy Dance?

2009-09-25T20:10:00.013+01:00

Because today i picked up my AT from the framers! I really love the way it's turned out and so glad i went for the red frame

Alla Turca Available from Stitchers Heaven Yahoo group

Designed by Pelin Tezer

stitched on 28 count with threadworx 1089 (Bleeding Hearts)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next up is something i haven't shown in a while, my ABC. Since i came back from holiday i haven't spent quite as much time stitching, but the times i have stitched has been on this.

I'm quite close to finishing, but way, way behind most that started this SAL, i keep thinking that i will get it finished by the end of next month, but at the snail pace that I'm going lately that's probably a bit ambitious!

This is also on 28 count, with Anchor threads 1013 & 1014. Please excuse the slightly washed out photos! And, speaking of photos, I've enrolled on a photography course this week, I've been looking around for a course for a while and came upon this one happening at the Botanical Gardens near Birmingham. I'm quite excited about it! The course starts next Saturday afternoon, so it also gets me out of the grocery shopping, lol. I shall bore you all with how it went next time, lol. For now, i hope you all have a lovely weekend whatever you are up to :-)

Catching up & I Have a Finish!

2009-09-13T16:21:00.005+01:00

It's been a while, but there hasn't been much stitching going on here to show, except i finished AT up when i came back from holiday It's still waiting to be framed though. It has a small mark on the fabric at the bottom, not too noticeable but i know it's there therefore will always notice it! As the threads are not colourfast i cannot wash it, i have some carpet & upholstery wipes I'm going to try later and hope that works. and then i can take it to the framers in the week.

This past week I've spent my afternoons after work in the garden because the weather here has been absolutely beautiful every day, I've chopped & trimmed everything in sight, lol and it now looks so much better, most of the bushes we planted had somehow taken on a life of their own, it was like The Day of The Triffids in parts!

The right hand side on the corner there was a huge bush which although lovely when it was in flower had gotten just too big, all that's left now is the trunk of it and i have filled that area with daffodil bulbs and covered it in bark, so hopefully i shall have a lovely display next spring :-)

I've planted up my hanging baskets and window boxes with winter pansies too.

Now I've got the garden in order i shall hopefully be able to get some stitching in next week although i have to finish off my Power Point for the I.T NVQ I'm doing at work because the assessor is visiting the week after and i really want to get it out of the way (the assessor has been a bit of a nightmare from the beginning). Talking of work, we have had a series of shock redundancies. Back in April when we had the end of year review we were told that although things were tight (like most companies i suppose) they were going to save money through things like cutting back on spending, tighter reigns on expenses and there would be no spending on company fun days, but they were not going to make redundancies. Well that was then! so far, one of the girls has gone from Sales and one of the service engineers, then a week ago 8 of the design and CAD lads had letters and they made the decision this week to make two of them redundant, one of them was past retirement age anyway but the other one was a young lad, he and his wife have a young baby, it was him i felt most sorry for, he got upset when he was saying his good byes, i hate it when people get upset and could have cried with him!! We don't know if there will be any more, they never even announced these last ones! It's all made worse because all the lads are a really great bunch and everyone gets along, but i suppose with the economy being they way it is it can't be helped.

Thank you all for visiting and all your lovely comments, it makes my day to read them and visit all your lovely blogs :-) Have a lovely week whatever your getting up to. x

Home again Home again!

2009-08-24T15:16:00.016+01:00

Back safe and sound last night from holiday, I've had a lovely relaxing time doing nothing much but reading, a bit of stitching and dipping into the pool to cool off every now and then:-) Just the kind of rest i needed to re-charge my batteries. I'm back to work in the morning, although I'm not really looking forward to it, but as my lottery numbers still haven't been drawn i suppose i will be up at 7am, (sigh).

Here's a little look at the in laws house in Cyprus - i spent my days sitting in the peace and quiet reading my book here

This is the side looking towards the pool
and again looking towards the front

This is where i sat to do a little stitching, it's part shaded so was perfect, believe it or not I've never stitched outdoors before ........

...............but i could get used to it with this setting!
Here's a little glimpse through those trees
Towards the hills...there is actually a proper tarmac road over there now, years ago it was just a dirt road and of course Mark just had to drive over there! it doesn't look much but believe me it is high up and there were boulders everywhere at one point which we had to keep stopping to move out of the road! Below is looking right and towards the sea, although i think it is just about out of view from here.
Although i didn't stitch as often as i would have done at home i did make some progress on MW

The majority of part 2 is complete, although that little critter caused me some trouble! i think i stitched him 3 times before i got him right! the little mystery motif above the squirrel kept us guessing, lol, to my mind now it's stitched it looks like a turtle with something in it's mouth, Stevie thinks it looks like a (tiny) camel, lol. From this photos it just looks like a splodge! I'll take a better one next time and you can see.

I'll save some photos for my next post and just leave you with a couple of Stevie-Leigh for now.

These two were taken at the harbour in Paphos

and eating out one night.
I have been reading your blogs while I've been away but didn't get around to commenting, I'll catch up with you all this week, have a wonderful week and thank you for all your lovely comments, they are truly appreciated :-)

I'm Goin Where The Sun Keeps Shining!

2009-08-09T05:05:00.003+01:00

I'm so behind with blogging & blog reading, i had every intention but the last few weeks just haven't been flowing right for me, i seem to be continually on catch up mode and have been generally out of sorts with most things, it happens sometimes though i suppose we all get fed up! I really had my heart set on finishing AT this week and at the framers this weekend but that just didn't happen, how can such a small amount of stitching take so long, i swear the chart was growing the more i stitched! As for Mary, well she was abandoned this week in favour of AT, but because i neglected her I'm taking her on holiday with me (hence the title of the post lol) she is as i type sitting in my suit case ready to travel. this is where i got to, page one all finished.

A couple of people wanted to know what threads I'm using, well it's good old DMC, 3777, 839 & 840. I'm stitching on 18 count with one thread. It's a bit strange stitching with one thread but I'm slowly getting used to it.

So it's off to Cyprus for me & Stevie this morning, it was a bit of a last minute thing, only booked it last week, our flight is at 9am, we are staying at mother & father in laws for 2 weeks! Mark isn't coming with us this time, he won't be able to have time off now until the end of October so it's just a girly thing this time. I will have Internet access while I'm away so may try and catch up a bit in the next 2 weeks.

Right, I'm off, we have to be out the house by 6.30, see you all after the 23rd, have a great weekend / week whatever you are up to and thank you all for your lovely comments, i really do appreciate them :-)

A Win, The Eagles & Mary Wigham

2009-07-14T18:51:00.005+01:00

A few weeks ago Ginnie (Jayne) held a blogoversary give away, and guess who won :-) As a rule i don't win anything so it must have been my turn :-) The funny thing is that Jayne lives just a few miles away from me! and for her daughter to draw my name out of entries from far flung places was amazing. This is what the postie bought on Saturday morning .

Bent Creek's Summer Basket which she made into a cute little hanging ornament , thank you Jayne, it is now sitting in my fairy light sticks :-)

Last Wednesday was the Eagles concert, it was a good job Mark checked the tickets because I'd been telling him it was at the NEC and it was at the NIA!!! same sort of venue but in a completely different part of Birmingham, lol. It was better really, the NIA is a bit smaller and the acoustics are better. We were actually sitting in the gods we couldn't have been any higher up, but it made for a great view and considering they are pensioners (or almost!!!) they were brilliant! I hadn't played the 'Long Road Out of Eden' CD more than once before we went, now it's my new favourite CD :-)

After much browsing of all the Mary Wigham's out there i finally made a start, but not with the threads that i bought on my visit to The Nimble Thimble a few weeks ago, I've gone for something completely different - well a girl's allowed to change her mind isn't she ;-)

I came across this colour combination from one of the Ladies across the channel and thought how well it would go in my house so I'm afraid i am guilty of plagiarism, lol. I have no idea what DMC numbers they used so i just went in search of 2 browns and a red (ish), I'm really pleased with the way it's looking at the moment. There is one thing that's worrying me though, if your stitching this are you correcting the mistakes and making it symmetrical? or are you stitching it as it comes? I'm a bit scared of making changes, so mine will probably be stitched as it comes, or it will for now anyway :-) Right, I'm off because Mary is calling from the corner of the sitting room, your visits and comments are much appreciated so thank for stopping by :-)
Till next time - Tara-a-bit x

Chart Is Ready For The Off - Names Sorted

2009-07-04T15:02:00.013+01:00

Thank you for all the lovely comments left on my last post :-) It's now time to pass on this Simply Live chart, i will enjoy seeing it travel around and all the lovely stitching, amazingly it's only visiting 1 person from the UK!

I put all the names in the Randomizer and this is the order it came back with:-
1) Cindy
2) Mylene
3)Kathy
4)Eliza
5)Loraine
6)Lena
7)Gillie
8)Karan

Congratulations Cindy, your first up to stitch! the chart will be winging it's way to you on Monday - Karan, as you are last on the list to stitch and i have no further use for the chart you will get to keep it when it reaches you! I will e-mail everyone early next week with addresses and what not, in the meantime i have put a list in the side bar of the order of stitching so we can keep track - If when you have stitched you could e-mail (or leave a message on here) that it's ready to go to the next person and i can update the list in the side bar :-) The list of names above should be clickable.

Remember the quiet week i was looking forward to with Mark being away? well the best laid plans and all that! my bum has hardly touched the seat to do any stitching, lol. I had to pick Stevie up from school at lunch time on Tuesday, she had been having pains down her right side, they recommended taking her to the docs, which i did, the doctors then sent us to hospital to get her checked out for appendicitis!! I'm happy to say that i was not appendicitis but they kept her in over night so they could give her a scan on Wednesday (the doctor explained that sometimes girls of her age can get small cysts on the ovaries that can cause some pain and the scan would tell us) If she stayed in overnight she would get a scan next day as an in patient, if she went home she may have to wait up to a week for a scan. Of course we opted for her to stay in overnight to get it over with, we waited all day on Wednesday but by 4pm we were told there was such a back-log of scans that she wouldn't be done that day after all! (none of the 4 young girls on that ward were done either!) So we were told she could come home, she still had a bit of pain, but not too much. We are having to wait for a letter now booking her an appointment for the scan, which will end up being about a week later anyway! She has been fine since, isn't that just the way.
I had one of Marks bosses at my door on Monday Night desperately trying to get in touch with him, he had a job that he wanted him to start the week he comes back and to go to a meeting in London this Monday and Marks phone wasn't set up to receive calls abroad. I felt such an idiot, i didn't even have his parents phone number in Cyprus, how bad that must have sounded! they are all on Marks mobile and i never thought to write it down before he went, he was going to phone me everyday as it's cheaper to make calls from there to here. I ended up going to his sisters house and getting the number off her at 9pm on that night, and no, i didn't have her number either! Marks family are not ones for keeping in touch with each other, lol.

Hopefully next week i will not be playing catch up all week and will be able to get some stitching time in. Me and the girls are going for lunch tomorrow and i will be meeting Mark at the airport tomorrow evening. The only other thing i have planned for next week is a concert on Wednesday at the NEC near Birmingham to see the Eagles, how cool is that!, i can't wait! we've had the tickets for ages and they cost an arm and a leg, so they had better be good, lol. I shall let you know next time, for now I'm off to stitch!
Thanks for visiting, take care - Tara-a-bit x

Simply Live - All Framed Up!

2009-06-27T12:53:00.010+01:00

I always get in a tiz choosing a frame, but with Sharons help at my LNS i went for a simple green one in the end, i think it works well though as there's quite a lot going on in the design. I was a bit fed-up with sitting in so yesterday Mark took me a ride out to visit the Nimble Thimble Nr Oswestry, it was quite a jaunt but the journey is through beautiful countryside. Unfortunatly i didn't take my camera, i wish i had then i could have shown you how beautiful and green everything was.
The shop is not really in a town, it's in a setting with some other crafty like units, well more like log cabins really, on the edge of a village, in fact we could see no shops in the village at all, it was just outside a place called Knockin which had a little shop called The Knockin Shop!...well what else could you call it, lol.
I had a good old rumage around and came back with a couple of charts, The Weathered Garden, Bent Creek and one called Five Cats & a Canary from M Designs, which i'd never heard of but was quite cute!I also ordered Cirque des Triangles which i first came across on Sandra's blog, hers looks fantastic in red, (i may steal your colours for this one Sandra, lol.) when i get around to it.
The world and his wife seem to be starting Mary Wigham and i don't know weather to jump on the band wagon or not. What i won't be doing is stitching it on 32 count as i wouldn't be able to see the holes lol, so we'll see what else i can come up with. In the mean time i did buy the threads, i'm a couple short, but they will be following with my Cirque des Triangles next week.The sun was shining lovely here but as i type i can now hear thunder rolling in! so looks like running to get the washing in before the rain starts!
I've got a lovely quiet week ahead as Mark is off to Cyprus tomorrow morning to stay with his mum & Dad for a week, so that means i can spread out in the bed and no need to wear ear plugs at night, and whatever we fancy for tea, yayyyyy! Whatever gave you the impression i'm looking forward to next week!!
Until next time Tara-a-bit x

A Day at The Hospital

2009-06-24T15:54:00.006+01:00

Thank you to those who wished me well with my hospital appointment today, it was very much appreciated as i was a bit apprehensive, mainly thinking of where they were going to put the camera :-o Apparently i have a polyp, which has been causing my body to do strange things each month, (ladies you know what I'm talking about here, lol). My daughter found it very funny last night that i was shaving my legs (along with.... ahem, other bits) and slapping cream onto my feet! The reason behind which was that they would be 'on show' while i was out cold in the theatre, Joanne was quick to remind me that "they're not going to be looking at your feet and legs mother!" at least i was knocked out with the knowledge that i was smooth footed and hair free :-) Anyway, i feel fine, went to the theatre at 10am and was back on the ward by 11am, they even fed me while i was there!, shepherds pie, roast potatoes & veg with apple sponge & custard to follow!, I've been in as a day case before and only ever got a slice of toast, so i was pleasantly surprised. To pass the time i finished reading Stephanie Meyer's New Moon, I'm still not altogether sure about these books, i enjoyed it & Twilight but I'm not completely sold, yet. There is a bit too much waffling at times, that said i do intend to finish the series.

~~~~~~~~~~

Right now I'm off to watch what is left of afternoon TV and stitch on my ABC which has been neglected in favour of Simply Live the last couple of weeks. Speaking of which, thank you Karen & Kathy for e-mailing your addresses for the Travelling Pattern, if anyone else is still interested in this you can read all about it in my last post.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'll leave you with a photo of my ABC, hopefully i will get lots more done on this over the next couple of days as i have the rest of the week off work :-)

Friday will be a happy dance day as my Simply Live will be back from the framers :-) so till then, happy stitching & take care...Tara-a-bit x

Edited Note: should have mentioned that the polyp was removed and so everything should settle back to normal, the camera is so they can have a proper look around and take a sample to analyse. I won't have to have any further treatment.

Simply Live, Travelling Pattern Almost Ready For The Off!

2009-06-20T19:57:00.010+01:00

Its fantastic that so many people are interested in a traveling pattern, i wasn't sure when i put it out there but it seemed a better idea than just sticking it in a drawer never to see the light of day again when I'd finished with it! I will be all stitched up by tomorrow, it's been a joy to stitch and I'm glad that i can pass it around to you guys - I'm sure you'll love stitching it as much as i have!

We have 9 girlies who wanted to play, they are:

Eliza - Take One Stitch At A Time

Sherry - Blog It

Mylene - Mylene's Blog

Karen - Karen's Craft Corner

Kathy - Kathy's stitching and Other ramblings

Loraine - Sew Be it

Cindy F - Lonestar Stitching and her Ramblings

Gillie - Random Thoughts From Abroad

Jane in WV - Who signed Anonymous, so I'm guessing no blog?

So, this is how i see it working - i will draw a list up of everyone who wants to stitch SL and put the names through the Randomizer, i will then mail it to the first person on the list who will then (when they have stitched it, obviously!) send it onto the next person on the list and so on until everyone has stitched it! As Gillie pointed out, wouldn't it be great if we could travel with the chart too! oh how i wish, LOL!

If you still want to be in the game can you either leave a comment with your e-mail address so i can get in touch with you, or you can e-mail me (address in the side bar) with your snail mail address using Simply Live in the subject line. Please can i ask that you give me a week to get back to you, i have to go into hospital on Wednesday for a small procedure (nothing to worry about) but i am having a general anesthetic so will be sort of out of it for a couple of days! But i do get the rest of the week of work, Yayyyy!!! I think i should be sufficiently rested up by next Sunday so i will post the order of the names then.

Till then - Tara-a-Bit x

Vampires & Chart Travel

2009-06-10T14:07:00.010+01:00

I've never been one rush to see the latest film releases, (usually I'm the last to see anything)! but one in particular kept coming up when i was blog and group surfing - Twilight. I must have been hibernating because i missed the release of the book too! Anyway, Intrigued i put the film on my Blockbuster rental list and joined the rest of the world! I was not impressed, it was OK, i thought it started slow, it did get better but i was left wondering what it was all about. I know some of you will be reading this and thinking "stupid woman, doesn't know what she's talking about" (or something to that effect!) but let me redeem myself now - i have almost finished the book and i am loving it ! it's the best thing I've read in ages! I guess I'm better at suspending my disbelief with my nose in a book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Between vampires I've finished part 6 of AT - the section on the left of the beasties.

This has been put away now until the beginning of July when the next installment is due out, so i have been working on Live Simply the last couple of nights, this is my progress.

A few people expressed a liking for this chart, so i was thinking, (i do sometimes, honest!) would anyone out there be interested if i started a traveling pattern?? It would be fun don't you think to see how far this chart could travel! Please leave a comment if you are interested and i will sort out more details in my next post.

Until next time then...Tara-a-bit

Days Out & New Starts

2009-05-29T23:13:00.000+01:00

My week off work has finished, it will be back to being awakened by the alarm in the morning, i could so get used to getting up when i feel like it and pottering around the house, and the weather have been very good to me too. i don't do sitting in the garden really, much prefer there to be a pool i can dip into to cool off when it gets a bit much. On Monday we went to Blenheim Palace, which as you probably know is the birth place of Sir Winston Churchill, and a very impressive building.

How about this for a back garden! don't think I'd fancy the job of mowing and edging though!

Capability Brown designed the gardens, which are huge and very beautiful. We didn't look round them all, this is the water garden.

And i was dead jealous of the Hostas in the Secret Garden - they were HUGE!
Inside the rooms were very large, as you would expect, no photographs were allowed (why i don;t know) i usually get around this by disarming the flash and holding my camera in front of me then no one can tell! best not to share those photos though, i don't want to get done for breech of copyright! We were able to exchange our 1 day pass for a 12 month pass on the day we went so we will definitely try and go back again - I'd love to go again at Christmas time and see the rooms decorated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've been getting lots of stitching time in this week too, usually i only stitch in the evenings but I've been parking my butt down in the afternoon and getting a few hours in! I made good progress on my ABC, which I'll show you next time, this time i wanted to show you my new start. i bought this when i went to the Craft show at the NEC in March

The Primitive Needle -Live Simply

I'm using 28 count with Gentle Art threads - I'm loving the way the threads are giving it a faded subtle look & I'm surprised at how fast it's stitching up. I now have 4 WIP's, and this from the woman who not so long ago said that she couldn't cope with more than one project at a time! I blame you lot out there leading me astray, LOL. The next part of AT has been released so I'll be working on that for a few days next week. Hope you all have a great week, the sun is shining beautifully again here but i am going to sit in the cool of my sitting room and stitch, i may venture out into the garden later with the hosepipe and give everything a good dousing. Thank you for visiting me and all your lovely comments, see you soon..Tara-a-bit x

Phew! What a Scorcher!!

2009-05-24T17:07:00.000+01:00

I think we finally have a taste of summer here in the Midlands, it's scorching!! but shhhhhh, i don't think the sun is aware that it' Bank Holiday weekend, so lets not say anymore in case it changes it's mind!!
I didn't see too much of the big round yellow thing in the sky yesterday except through the window, i was painting my daughters room all day, didn't come up for air until around 6.30 and was in bed for 10.00, knackered! Mark picked up all her stuff from uni yesterday, it's all now in boxes in the cellar waiting to be sorted. she has come home earlier than planned that's why we've had the rush with the bedroom, she had a falling out with one of the girls that she shared with at uni, I'm not sure what exactly happened, and to be honest, i haven't gone into it in great depth. Sorry if i sound a bit un sympathetic, I'm not, it's just that Joanne is a bit of a drama queen and i don't want to get involved in the argument, they are adults after all, Joanne is 21 and the other girl is 22 or 23, so big enough to not have school girl fallings out - you would think!

The last 2 weeks I've redecorated 2 bedrooms and i can tell you i ache in places i didn't even know i had! Do you ever wonder how one family can accumulate so much stuff?? I'm through with hording, so the local charity shop is going to get some new stock in the next couple of days!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have managed so stitching in amongst the chaos that has been my house this week - This is AT with part#5

I love working on this piece! part 6 is due out around the 1st of June i think. I was in a slight panic about the threads but i'm happy to report that i have gotten my eager little mits on 3 more skeins from Sew and So. I had to wait a couple of weeks, it seemed that as fast as this colour came in it was delivered out in back orders, obviously I'm not the only one in love with Bleeding Hearts 1089!! I can see no difference in the shade either now that Threadworx have taken over NN, good job! as much as i love this piece i don't think i could have gone back to the start!

I've also finished part 2 of the ABC SAl - this is how that's looking.

It's not a great photo, it looks as though there is a staining on the fabric, there's not, i think it just must be shadow from the thread. I think there have been 6 parts released for this one now so I'm going to be way behind on the finish.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my Paris photos in my last post, i've still yet to make a album of the others, i may get around to it this week as i have the week off work Yayyyyyy!! so looking forward to that, a whole week at home to just please myself!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Bank Holiday, and enjoy the sunshine, (shhhh) Tara-a-bit x

Bonjour Mes Aimees

2009-05-10T21:30:00.000+01:00

Don't panic I'm not about to start speaking French, anyhow from what i remember of my school taught French i would be hard pressed to utter a complete sentence let alone write it down!, how embarrassing is it when us in the UK visit France and have to resort to asking people on the street if they speak English? very i can tell you! and the reason i know this is i have just come back from a visit to Paris!

It was Joanne's 21st birthday in December so this was her belated present from us, Mark stayed at home with Stevie, so it was Joanne, Jenny & me who hit Paris on May 1st.
We did all the usually touristy things, first on the list was the Eiffel Tower, Joanne was a bit disappointed because it was a brownish colour and not the silver colour she was expecting! The ques to go up were stupid so we didn't bother, just had a walk around and took quite a lot of photos.

This is what Joanne meant by the colour, i don't think it looked too bad, if you look close though you can see green netting, there was work of some sort going on, maybe that's why the ques were so long.

We walked up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, i didn't realise that you could actually go to the top until we got there, you have to climb a billion steps though. OK slight exaggeration but by the time i reached the top it felt like it! Well worth it though for the view of Paris.

The Sacre Coeur was well worth a visit, the church is the second highest point after the Eiffel Tower and yet again there were more steps to climb to get to the church, my legs and bum have not had this good a work out since i stopped going to the gym!

You can also climb to the top of the dome, 300 steps!! and yes i did do that too! Again, great views and worth the pain!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We had to que to get inside Notre Dame and i must say that i was not blown away by the inside. It seems that you can climb to the top of all the buildings in Paris and this one's no different, however i didn't feel inclined to join the que this time so can't tell you what there was to see. there were several beggars around this area too; 2 women on either door of the church, one approached us while we were queuing, others were around the bridges.

The famous Moulin Rouge, it would have been nice to see a show but at €150 a ticket we gave it a miss! Something else that i didn't realise was that all along this strip there were lots of adult shops, if you know what i mean ;-) But not in a tacky way, they were just there.

And just to put a face to a name this is moi outside the Louvre.

This is Joanne picking said pyramid up. There were these little stands all around and we could only think that they had been placed there for people like us to pose for silly photos like this!

And Jenny doing this!

Back to a full week at work tomorrow, only did two days last week so that will be shock to the system, plus i will have to get the bus a couple of days while my car is in the garage, it failed the MOT and has to have some work done, nothing major but i hate the inconvenience of not having a car to jump in. I have a dental appointment on Wednesday too, the dentist was able to save the tooth i broke and is fitting a crown which i am expecting to be diamond encrusted going by what I'm having to pay for it! Hope you all have a good week whatever you may be up to, thanks for stopping by, Tara-a-bit