Chart buying and visiting a castle

Saturday was our April meet-up at the Nimble Thimble, there were fifteen of us this time, It was a lovely day of stitching, chatting, shopping and of course eating, Chris and her husband always put on a lovely buffet lunch and afternoon cake for us to enjoy too.

These are my purchases, didn't go overboard but I'm happy with what I got.

A few of the ladies bought Hoot in A Boot last time and once I'd gone home I kept wishing I'd bought it too.  Luckily Chris still had a few in stock.  Halloween stitching is not my thing but with the pumpkins I think this can be more of an Autumn piece.  I might try and get this one and the Autumn Cottage stitched this year, the others will be project for next year. 

The weather has been kind so far this week, yesterday was really lovely, a perfect day for a visit to Conwy Castle.   The castle was built between 1283 and 1287 by Edward I during his conquest of Wales.  You can read more about the history here, if you are interested.

  What a great place!  Navigating all those narrow steps to climb to the top of the turrets, (I think I climbed all of them), is well worth it, the views are just amazing, It's extremely high, as I think you can see from the photos.

Great views of the LLandudno Flyover, on the left, in the middle is Thomas Telford's suspension bridge. The bridge was one of the first suspension bridges in the world and is a grade I listed structure, now taken care of by The National Trust and is passable by foot.  

On the right is the tubular railway bridge, it was built between 1846 and 1848 one of the first examples built of this type of bridge, and the only one left, it too is now grade I listed.

I'll share my walk along Conwy town walls another time.

Enjoy the rest of your week

-X-

Catching up, again

I always seem to be catching up with blog posts at the moment, I say that I don't go anywhere or do much, but lately there have been a few outings and things going so I thought I would try and catch up with some of them today.

Saturday was our Autumn meet up at the Nimble Thimble.  I do enjoy these get togetherness, It's a chance to catch up with lovely people and stitch all day with none of the distractions you get at home.  When we met up in April I didn't buy anything, I just didn't feel the need, however, this time I did succumb to temptation.

Putini Putini and Cottage Garden Samplings have some lovely charts and I love stitching Christmas and Autumn designs

I'd never heard of The Bee Company but just had to have these two cuties.  They both come with the little houses shapes, buttons and fabrics for finishing too.  

A couple of weekends ago I went to the Creative Crafts show at the NEC in Birmingham.  

I had intended going by train as it's way cheaper than the £16.50 parking charge, but there was a train strike that weekend so I ended up driving anyway.  I did save some money on the parking charge by pre-paying, still, £12.50 is still a fair amount for parking when you have to add the price of the show ticket on top.   Luckily I got a discounted show ticket which only cost £9.50.

My intention was to look for fabric for my new make at sewing class and also some sewing supplies.  I didn't get fabric as I thought they were on the expensive side and as I'm still learning I want to keep the cost down.  I did buy a few things though.

Pattern for place mats and table center, the fat quarters were purchased to make the table mat, I won't be making place mats.

A couple more patterns, both reduced, and a fat quarter of plastic coated fabric.

I also bought some tartan fabric and a fat quarter of fur fabric with something Christmasy in mind, and while it was still fresh in my mind I got on and made these last week.

I couldn't find a stocking pattern online so drew one myself, that was the hardest part of this project, I think I could have made the foot section a bit more boot shaped, but that's me being picky,  I am happy with them.

There was a bit of fur left over so I blinged up a plain red sleigh I'd bought from Home Bargains.

I just love how it looks now 🎅

Sunday was the Remembrance Day parade, many years ago when I was a Brownie this was a huge event, roads were closed and the parade went through the streets ending at the local church where there would be a service.  Nowadays our local parade and the service are held in the towns park, I suppose it's more to do with money saving than anything else, road closures and policing cost money.  There was still a good turn out nonetheless, although I didn't see any Brownies or Guides, no idea why.  

I took Oliver as Jenny was working and James' car was in the garage, thankfully the weather was dry and the temperatures are still very mild here.

-X-

Happy Bank Holiday

 It's been a very busy Bank Holiday Weekend, starting with our meet up at the Nimble Thimble on Saturday.  There was a meet up last year but I didn't go to that one so I haven't seen these ladies in at least two years, maybe longer.  There was ten of us this time and It was lovely to be in the company of like minded people again and just to enjoy some uninterrupted stitching time.

The Nimble Thimble is situated on the Welsh boarder and just over an hours drive away, it's a lovely drive, mostly through beautiful countryside.  The shop itself is in a lovely place by the river, with beautiful views all around.

The shop is packed full of wonderful stitching goodies, you really are spoilt for choice, although on this particular visit I didn't buy anything, can you believe that!  I have been feeling a little overwhelmed of late with the amount of things I have and to buy yet more charts to just put into stash just wasn't sitting well with me, so I came away empty handed this this time.

I did save my new start for Saturday though,  Wildflowers by The Blue Flower is a chart I purchased last year, the fabric I got at my visit to the NEC in March and as part of my Christmas present my daughter, Jenny had bought me all the threads for it.

I managed to get the first five words stitched while at the meet up plus a bit more over Saturday evening.

My fabric is 28 count and I think it's looking on the large side, the recommended fabric is 40 count, there is no way I would see the holes on that high count, an alternative was 36 count, which I can see but my eyes get tired when stitching on it and I'm not a fan of 32 count.  I'm hoping it will look better when I start adding the flowers.

Stevie and Darren's wedding is getting ever closer, only a little over four weeks until we fly now!  The girls had organised a hen party for her on Saturday so I drove straight from the Nimble Thimble to meet them all at a local Greek restaurant where we had a lovely meal.  Following the meal they were all going on to a cocktail bar, I opted out of that part of the night and left the younger ones to it.

Day two of the Hen weekend was The Bear Grylls Adventure at the NEC.   As the name suggests it's a place to take part in various activities and challenges, there's rock climbing, an assault course, swimming with sharks, zipwire, and indoor sky diving, plus others.

Stevie had said she would like to do some kind of activity but some of the 'hens' couldn't be persuaded to join this part of the weekend so just six of us went yesterday.

The activities are pre-booked and some of them we couldn't do because they were booked up, I would have liked to try shooting, but there were no places available yesterday.  The girls opted for the height ropes.  I'm not a fan of heights so sat and had a coffee while they did this one.

Standing at 65 feet this is the tallest high ropes course in Europe.  It really didn't look very high from the ground but the girls said it certainly did from the top!!

We did archery next and guess who excelled at that, lol.  I really enjoyed archery and would quite happily have carried on for longer than our allotted time.

The girls did hammer throwing next which I sat out but wish I'd done now as they said it was really good then lastly we did the escape room challenge.  I thought I might like this but in reality It was too many people with ideas all talking at once, it wasn't for me.

In between we went on the assault course and I've confirmed that my legs are no longer as strong as they once were, lol, although the instructor said we were the best group he had ever had and had given him a laugh, and we all had a great day.

-X-

We all made it through the rain and floods

The rain continued this morning making for some scary moments on the roads leading to the Nimble Thimble.  The main roads were fine but once you got onto the lanes there were some pretty big floods to negotiate.  

Wales is a series of hills and valleys and so when it rains to the extent that we have had over the last couple of days of course the water runs down the hills and fields faster than the drains can cope with and there is no where for it to go, so you end up with these mini lakes in the roads.

I had to turn around at one coming back this afternoon (not this one) because is was just too deep to drive through.  It must be terrible for the people who live near to where it floods like this, it must take weeks to drain off, especially this time of year.

Thankfully everyone managed to get to and from the meet up without any mishaps.

I've probably shown these same photos before from previous meet-ups so I apologise for the sameness.

Chris always decorates the shop for Halloween

She specializes in American charts and also stocks a lot of Shepherds Bush and The Drawn Thread.

As I have bought quite a few charts recently I went with the intention of buying threads to kit up a few charts that are already in my stash, but of course, it's inevitable that you will come across at least a couple of charts that will just have to come home with you :-)

Isn't that snowman cute!?  He was a last minute find (by Mouse), just as I was going to pay for my things, well I couldn't leave him could I? :-)

My selection of over-dyed threads

Suzannah, by Carriage House Samplings came on the outing with me today, she hasn't seen the light of day in quite a few months.  I got some more done on her right arm and started on her skirt.

When I got back to the hotel the rain had cleared so I went for a walk, I needed to stretch my legs seeing as I'd been sat on my bum all day :-)   The river drew me again, I think I've said before that although water, as in rivers and the sea scare me I am fascinated to watch it, from a safe distance.

I don't think I would fancy living in that white house with the river like it is at the moment!  It's up quite a few feet to what it usually is

I wanted to show you how fast the river was running so made this little video, if you look closely at the beginning you can just make out the heron hiding in the trees on the far side.

This is my first attempt at a video, it's not brilliant but you get the idea

You can view the video on here, but is better if you click to watch it on You Tube.

I've got another day here tomorrow, hopefully the rain will keep off long enough for me to go for a walk along the canal.

See you soon

-X-