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.

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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.

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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 :-)

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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.

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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

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.
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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?

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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

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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......

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:-

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Fountain at Hampton Court Palace

Blenheim Palace

Notre Dame

Beatrix Potter's House

Middle:-

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Windermere

Leicester Square, London

The Astronomical Clock at Hampton Court Palace

Right hand side:-

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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:-)

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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

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!

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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.
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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)

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.

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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.

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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

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!

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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!

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.

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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 :-)

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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!