A Christmas Ornament & a Summer Flower

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

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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?

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

 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 ;-) 

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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.
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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!!
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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