A round up of makes for 2018

Just wanted to pop in with a quick round up post for 2018.

Now I look back there have been more finishes than I thought, so here they are, in no particular order.

There are a couple of project bags I made in this last month and I also knit a couple more dishcloths but no photos.

I failed to read my pledged 50 books on Goodreads this year, I managed 39, still not bad.  My reading really slowed down the latter half of the year, I started some books and just couldn't get into them and time is too short to waste time on books that don't hold your interest.  I will set me challenge again tomorrow and go though my bookshelf and choose one to start off 2019.

I haven't got a lot to do today, I tided the garden up yesterday when it was dry and Mark cleaned the windows.  I'm pretty much up to date on all my jobs seeing as I'm been off work for almost two weeks.  I've been binge watching Luther (again) because the new series starts Tomorrow, (at last something worth sitting down to watch!)  This afternoon I will plonk myself on the sofa and start watching series three :-)

We are going to have buffet tea tonight with a glass of something alcoholic.  I will be stitching on something I started over Christmas which I will show next time.

Happy New Year to you all, thank you for following and commenting on my posts, I know blogging has fallen out of favour with lots of people, it seems that Instagram is the place to be now, and although I do like Instagram (and post there quite a lot), I still prefer reading a blog post, I feel like I get to know the person more through a blog, and there are some lovely bloggers out there:-)

Keep on blogging! 

 I wish you a happy and healthy 2019

see you soon

-X-

Christmas ornaments

I finally managed to get the kids ornaments finished off

For Oliver

For Bonnie

For Arthur

I also finished this Heart In Hand 2018 Santa

This was going to be for Oliver but it turned out too big to hang on his tree so he chose the snowman one instead.  I have to confess that i'm happy to have this Santa staying with me because I absolutely love him!!  I already had the frame and he fit it perfectly, so I laced him onto some foam board and luckily the back still fit on the frame too.

Below is a five minute craft from last week

The picture is from the box my Christmas cards came in and I already had the box frame and coloured bells.  I just thought the picture was too lovely to throw away and It makes a nice decoration.

I've managed to get quite a bit done this week not being a work, including almost all of the present wrapping.  I've run out of paper for Olivers so will have to get some more tomorrow and get those done.  I have a hair appointment tomorrow afternoon then a good tidy up of my little crafty space is on the to do list.

See you soon

-X-

Stitching for Arthur

Arthur's birth sampler

First Christmas ornament

And little Arty himself :-)  He will be 8 months old tomorrow!

I finished Arthur's sampler a few weeks ago and collected it from the framers on Monday, I'm pleased with how it came out, framing is not cheap but a good framing job makes all the difference to something special.  

I've stitched this same Bent Creek chart for all three grandchildren now, I love that it's not too babyish and will not look out of place in their rooms as they grow up.

His first Christmas ornament is also finished.  Again, I've stitched this same one for all three of them on their first Christmas.

Jenny hasn't gone back to work yet so I don't get to spend much time with Arthur on his own yet but on Saturday they took Oliver to the cinema and out for tea so I got to spend all afternoon with him, he was no trouble at all,  he is such a lovely pleasant little boy, and he loves to be snuggled :-)

I finish work tomorrow, so I have a lovely extended Christmas break to look forward to, and I need it!  

It's our Christmas 'do' next Friday but i'm giving it a miss again this year.   Years ago we used to have a proper sit down meal, which was nice and fairly civilised, but for the last few years it's been a buffet at one of the local pubs, not really my thing at all to be honest.  

Tomorrow is Christmas Jumper day and I was tasked with organising it, not that it needs much organising, more a case of putting up posters and sending emails round letting everyone know.  

The MD is giving a £25 gift voucher to the silliest creation, but the response hasn't been good I have to say, so we will see tomorrow.  I will be shaking my collection tin at them again in the morning, the money collected will go to Save the Children so it's all in a good cause.

Hopefully I will have a little more time next week so I'll try and catch up with you all again then.

Take care

-X-

Busy, busy, busy

I finished stitching Bonnie's Christmas stocking a good few weeks ago now, and finished it completely the weekend before last.

 Joanne is pleased with how it came out, and it's another heirloom treasure for one of my grandchildren.

I  got my stitched ornament tree up at the weekend too

I'm afraid that this skinny tree has seen better days, for the last two years I've been saying we should get another.  I would like a taller, fatter one, I just have to persuade Mark that we should get one :-)

We have also had a bow put on the front door this year, I'm pleased with how festive this looks

It's that time of year when we could all do with more hours in the day and more days in the week to get things done isn't it?  I have got a lots of things ticked off my list, a lot of my present shopping is done and I want to start wrapping this week otherwise that turns into a mammoth chore, I've been buying extra bits of food in with the normal weekly shopping, and anyway I don't do a big food shop like I used to do, it only goes to waste and we are all going out for Christmas lunch, so no veggies or meat to buy this year.

Thank you to everyone who sent get well wishes to  Bonnie after my last post.  Her cold and eyes had got better and then on Friday she had signs of conjunctivitis again and yet another cold!  

The doctor told Joanne to keep her dosed up on calpol to keep her temperature down and some cream again for her eyes, but on Saturday tea time her temperature shot up again and as Joanne was on the phone to me she had another convulsion.  

Joanne said Gavin kept really calm and did exactly what they had been told to do by the hospital, while she called the ambulance, they arrived really quickly and said they would take them to hospital just to get her checked out but they were sure it was temperature related again.

Thankfully her temperature came down to normal after a couple of hours of being monitored in A&E and they were sent home.

I never experienced this with any of mine, the doctors will tell you it's quite common and they do grow out of it by the time they are five, even so, it really is so scary when it happens.

Fingers crossed she can avoid catching colds for a while, Joanne is a nervous wreck!

See you soon

-X-

A weekend of highs and lows

We had tickets to the Festive Gift Fair at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday, I had not been into work for two days previous because I wasn't feeling too well, (sore throat and cold)  and to be honest I still didn't feel great on Saturday but Joanne had pre-booked the tickets and I had been looking forward to it, so off we went.
It was very very crowded but we did manage to get quite a few new Christmas decorations, including these furry reindeer's which just had to come home with me :-) 
I bought a few presents too, so all in all it was a good shopping day.

Joanne had left Bonnie at home with Gavin as she had come down with a cold too and had got up with conjunctivitis that morning, it was a good job she had left her at home too because as we were nearing home Jo called Gav and he said that a couple of minutes before Bonnie had gone all limp and stopped breathing!!  It never occurred to any of us that it was a convulsion, mine never had one as babies and I didn't know anyone that had.
Anyway they took her to A&E where she had another one, which of course totally freaked Joanne out! her temperature was really high which can apparently cause these convulsions but because of her age and the fact she had two in less than 24 hours they kept her in hospital.

She has a slight chest infection which they are treating with antibiotics and also treating her eyes, her poor eyes are so red and look so sore, she is really full up with cold and not herself at all but thankfully there have not been any more convulsions. 

She was allowed home this afternoon and Jo said she was happy to be home and see all her toys again, (nanna had been round yesterday and sat all her dolls and teddys up to have a picnic ready for her to come back) Joanne said Bonnie thought it was funny when she saw them , especially the little dog that was sat reading a book ;-) 

I'm just glad it made her smile when she came home.

Because of one thing and another, (including rain), I've not been able to get out in the garden and clear up the leaves like I usually do this time of year.  Sunday's weather forecast was dry and sunny so we planned to have a morning out there and get them cleared.

I posted some photos on Instagram in the week of how many leaves had come down but
when I got up on Saturday and pulled the blind up on the kitchen window my mouth dropped open!

There are more leaves in my garden than up the park, lol

It does look rather pretty though when the sun is shining :-)

Much greener looking after

 The compost bins are full now and there is also a small leaf mountain at the side of the bigger bin which I will gradually put into the compost bin as it dies down.

Fingers crossed the weather will stay dry and we can do round two of clearing this weekend, there are still quite a few leaves to come off the old oak tree yet.

Next time I might be able to muster up a crafty post.

Have a good week

-X-

A new stitching start at the meet up

We had a great time at the Nimble Thimble meet up on Saturday, it was nice to catch up with everyone and I managed a fair bit of stitching .too.

I stitched Oliver and Bonnie a birth sampler for their first Christmas and Arthur will be getting the same too.  I'm a bit late starting this one but I know that it's a straight forward one to stitch so I'm confident It will be all stitched and framed well before Christmas.

I put the first stitches in on the Friday night sitting while sitting in my little hotel room.

I'm really happy with my progress, I haven't really had a lot of stitching time recently so it was nice to get stuck into a project without and interruptions.

As I mentioned last time, I stayed at Ye Olde Boot in Whittington, which is just a few miles outside Oswestry town.  Friday was a horrible wet miserable day but I did stop off in Oswestry and have a wonder round  and the rain kept off until I got back to the car, which was good.

While I was there I picked up a few things to decorate for Christmas which I will show you once they come out again when I decorate.  I also bought  quite a few charts from Chris at the Nimble Thimble, again, I will show you another time as I haven't had time today to sort them out and take photos.

I have finished a few of the twelve (!!!) things I had on the go, I showed you two on the last post so this is the third of those.

When we went to Yarndale in September I also made Bonnie this little poncho.  This wasn't a WIP counted in those twelve, this is a bonus finish, lol

My aim is to start 2019 with fewer things stuck in bags so I will have to try and keep focused now.

I do have another couple finished up and I will sneak those into future posts.

For now I'll finish with a few photos of Whittington Castle which sits on the opposite side of the road to the hotel where I stayed at the weekend.  On Saturday morning it was only 3deg but the sun was lovely, a perfect Winter morning :-)

That white building you see is where I was staying

See you soon

-X--

A couple of finishes

I feel like I'm constantly playing catch-up lately, there are not enough hours in the day to do everything that I need to do let alone the things I want to do, but this weekend I'm going to the Nimble Thimble meet up with some lovely stitching peeps and I'm going to relax and stitch, talk and eat and not think about what needs doing at home or in the garden.

I'm stopping at  Ye Olde Boot Inn at Oswestry for two nights so I will have plenty of time to relax and stitch, or just put my feet up and read.  I do love to get away by myself, I think I could quite happily go on holiday on my own, lol

Anyway, I thought I would show you my October finish before it's time to pack it away.

October Curls Bent Creek

This one I found, half done, when I was having a clear out after my In the making confessions post a couple of months ago, (see told you there were more tucked away, lol)

And here is the mantle all done up for October with a few Halloween touches

Arthur's cardigan was finished

I have to say that this cardigan did not fit him for long, he is much bigger than I imagine when I'm knitting, lol

I also had a couple of nights knitting dishcloths

I must say that I used to wonder what the big deal was with knitted dish cloths, but now I'm a convert.

Right, I'm all packed up and ready to go now, just going to have some breakfast before setting off to save me stopping on the way, there is a market in Oswestry today and I want to be there before lunch time to have a good look around :-)

See you soon

-X-

It's been all about the cake this week

I haven't really had the time or the inclination to write a post for the last month.  

I do want to keep this blog of mine going, if only for a record of what i'm up to as it's nice to look back on, so here i am again with a catch up of this past week.

Yesterday was Oliver sixth birthday and as he is into Halloween I made him a spider cake with Halloween sweets inside.

It wasn't perfect, I just winged it with the decorations after looking at some pictures on Google, but Oliver was well impressed,  but then, six year olds don't tend to look too closely for imperfections and mistakes do they?

We also had our Macmillan Coffee Morning at work on Monday, so my Sunday was spent mostly in the kitchen.

There was only myself and two other ladies who volunteered to make anything, it's surprising how some people suddenly become good at avoidance tactics when they think they might be asked to contribute something Isn't it?

I made the cupcakes, carrot cake and pastries, another made a Victoria sponge and the third made some bacon pastries, which went down really well, as you might expect.

We are still selling the coffee pods for the fancy coffee machine we have in the kitchen, and the game card is still running until Friday to guess the length of the veggie roll, I'm hoping to catch people to collect their change when they order their Friday breakfast sandwiches, again, getting people to make a small donation, even when it's for such a good cause is harder work than you think, but I'll be rattling the collection box at them anyway and counting our total on Friday lunchtime.

See you soon with another catch-up post :-)

Take care

-X-

In the making

Everything I'm making at the moment is at the 'almost' finished or 'needs to be fully finished' stage,  then there are the projects that have been started but were abandoned in favour of new starts, (most probably the ones that are almost finished!!).

 I suppose that's the downside of starting too many things.

Arthur's cardigan needs sewing up

Bonnie's cardigan needs the last bit of sleeve knitting

Dolls blanket about half done

Bonnie's Christmas stocking.

I really need to get this done very soon!

There is just the bottom border and her name to add to the top and the charms to add.

Two Christmas ornaments, one for my tree and Arthur's first Christmas ornament.
Stitching is all done on these they just need finishing into ornaments.

Projects put to one side.

A scarf I started early in the year

I still like this and want to finish it, scarves can get a bit boring though can't they?

My cotton summer top.
I still love this too, so do want to finish it.

Then there are the two pairs of socks I started

I really really want to knit socks and eventually these will get finished I suppose, I find them so fiddly though.

Then there is the Crofter blanket I started.
I found this out just a few days ago, I've done about 30 squares, I think the pattern calls for 80 square but I'm just using up the yarn I've got.

And the scrappy blanket

 (Although this one I can be forgiven for because I am using up scraps)

I could probably definitely find a few more cross stitch pieces in the drawer upstairs which I started and put to one side, plus, there are at least two pieces that are more than half way done that i'm almost certain I will never finish and what do I do with with those??

I don't want to carry lots of WIP's into next year, I would like to start the year with a clean slate, (realistically that's not going to happen!) but having lots of things on the go like this does make me feel uncomfortable and a bit overwhelmed.  

It's hard isn't it not to get distracted by new things to make, especially when there are so many lovely projects posted on blogs and Instagram, not to mention those on Podcasts!!

So what do you do?  Do you stay faithful to one project or just have a couple on the go at a time?  Or are you like me get carried away with starting something new?

-X-