Everythings Coming Up Hostas!

Well at least in my garden! I love these plants, i have two fairly large variegated ones planted in the garden and 3 containers, i managed to pick up some of the dark green ones at the farmers market last week, someone was selling them for a £1 each, bargain! so four came home with me

and have now been planted in tubs. They all have a fair bit of growing still to do, but this is them

today.

Last year the slugs and snails feasted on them, i have to be careful what i put down to stop them nibbling because of my cats but a friend recommended egg shells because apparently they don't like or can't crawl over them, so that's what I've done this year and so far so good...bye bye beasties, lol.

It's a lovely day again here in the Midlands so Ive planted up some hanging baskets ready for our scorching summer, (yeah right!). It's still not warm enough to leave out all the time so they will be put in the shed every night until probably April is out at least.

I'm having one more go this year with tomatoes and if they don't happen this time i will give up, last year i think i was just too wet for them outside and i don't have a green house. I'm having a go with some peas too, it says 'patio peas' so I'm assuming they won't grow too big. This is how the rest of the garden looks at the moment.

Everything looks very green but the dandelions in the grass add a bit of colour! now these i can grow without even trying and they don't need any maintenance at all! there will be splashes of colour come the summer from plant too...i promise.

I have been stitching this week but I'm not going to post any photos this time as i only have Alla Turca and Grand ABC to show and you must be fed up with seeing those right now ,so I'll be showing my progress another time. I do want to say a BIG 'thank you' to Sandra though, she sent me some NN thread for my AT so at least i can carry on until my LNS has more in stock. Soibhan, thank you for passing on the message you got (you didn't say what her name was) but Sew & So was my first stop for the NN thread, they had been waiting for it for 3 weeks when i phoned but i may give them another call this week, thank you.

I've nothing else planned for today except to sit and stitch and watch Twilight, it came last week from the DVD club and i haven't got around to it. Wishing you all a lovely weekend whatever you are doing & thank you again for visiting me and leaving your comments, they are very much appreciated. Tara-a-bit x

New Start & Updates

So what's been keeping me quiet? My laptop, that's what! it was my own fault, i installed a new programme not realising that i should have uninstalled the version i didn't want first, and it caused a few problems but luckily it's been righted by the guy who sorts out our laptops for work and everything is fine now. I'll know to ask before i do anything again!

We had a very pleasant Easter weekend, my family came round for lunch on Sunday, what started out as being 5 of us ended up being 10 of us! It was nice to have everyone together but i can now understand why the air is blue in restaurant kitchens! We had the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and everyone presented me with a clean plate :-) and no one has got in touch to say they suffered any adverse affects, lol, Dessert was home made Key Lime Pie, (the first time I've tried this and i was surprised at how easy it was!) it went down particularly well so i will defiantly attempt again, my eldest daughter contributed with a lovely Easter cake made with whole cadbury caramel bars which was really yummy, even the weather was unusually kind to us seeing as it was Bank Holiday. I really should have gone for a nice long walk on Monday to try and burn off a few of those calories but my sofa and stitching was calling me and i couldn't ignore them! This is my progress on Alla Turca, the fabric looks lighter on this photo, it's actually more of cream colour.

I've still got part 4 to stitch to be caught up, but think i should manage that this week. I'd been trying so hard not to be wasteful with the NN thread i'm using because my LNS only had 2 skiens, she didn't think there would be a problem getting more and i thought i wouldn't need much more anyway, i should have known my inability to count would have tripped me up, I've had to un-stitch one bit, well, actually rip it out while muttering under my breath how stupid i am would be more accurate. knowing i will need some more thread i go in search the next day only to find that NN is now Threadworx and the name & number have changed, fortunately they are still dying the same as NN so shouldn't be a problem, except the particular one I'm using is not to be found anywhere in the country! i have tried several place in the US too with no luck, one place told me that Threadworxs was having trouble obtaining the thread from Anchor that that is used as the base for this particular colour and it was not expected for another 2-3 weeks. Last week my LNS said that their supplier is due a shipment in 2 weeks and she will let me know as soon as she gets it in. Fingers crossed that i won't have to start all over again with something else, i prefer not to think about that at the moment so we'll say no more for now!

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I made a new start with the Grand Abecedaire SAL on Gazette94 blog, this is how far along i am this week. I am using Anchor threads 1013 & 1014 with 28 count evenweave (again) i seem to get on better with evenweave than linen, it's kinder on my eyes too, lol.

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My evenings have been turned upside down a bit at the moment, my husband, Mark (bless him) who usually works anywhere in the country and who i am used to seeing from Friday night to Sunday night is working closer to home for about the next 2 months! (that's 8 weeks, or 60 days!!!), you get the idea, he is here EVERY evening and i have had to resort to wearing my earplugs every night because of his snoring!, if anyone has found a good remedy to stop snoring please, please, please share it with me i would be eternally grateful!

Tonight I'm having a night out with some girlfriends so off now to get ready, hope your weekend is great whatever you are up to, thank you for taking the time to visit me and leave a comment, i love to read them :-)...till next time, Tara-a-bit xx

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