Come walk with me and finishing a couple of ornaments

I have to be in the mood to take on the ornament fully finishing process, no matter how many times I do it I still don't find it easy, so best not leave it until I have more than a couple to do.

If you recall I wrongly thought I was stitching on 32 count for my January ornament, the one on the left, and It was larger than I wanted so for February's ornament I found some polka dot linen in my stash that I knew for certain was 32 count.  I am much happier with this one.  I shamelessly copied the lovely Carol, of Stitching Dreams and omitted the section he was standing on  so that it would fit into the oval shape.  If I stitch any more from that booklet I will definitely be doing the same again, they look so much better and the process is easier.

Both are from book No.80 of The Prairie Schooler Old World Santas.

(That red bow looks quite bright in the photo, it's really not the bright, must be the light today)

I can't call myself British if I don't mention the weather and seeing as It was the main topic in the news I have to show you what greeted me when I opened the curtains last Thursday morning, yes we had some more snow.  What a pretty sight, unfortunately it didn't last, by mid afternoon it was all gone, I've never seen snow disappear so fast, lol.

Since then we have has a mixed bag of rain, sun and wind.  It was dry on Saturday morning though so I went for another jaunt along the canal, this time taking the opposite direction to the one I shared in my last post.  This one is the Dudley No 1 canal which is on the opposite side of the road to the Stourbridge canal walk I did last week.  

I did a bit of reading after last weeks walk, as you do, and thought I'd share a bit of history of this particular section of the canal

There was an original plan in 1775 for a single canal but that bill was opposed and so the the project was split in two and resubmitted to Parliament and were authorised separately.  They were opened in 1779 and following a joint restoration project between Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Society and the British Waterways Board, were reopened in 1967

My walk started at the end of the Dudley No. 1 Canal and is the boundary to the Stourbridge Canal. 

There are eight locks on this section, (there were originally nine) but locally are still called the nine locks.

I was very happy to see this fella sitting on the wall at the start of the locks

At the top of the locks looking back

Still walking along the canal, there is a good view here of part of our huge local shopping centre.  Built on what was farmland The Merry Hill Centre has around 200 shops, a retail park, food court and cinema as well as the usual fast food places and 10,000 parking spaces!  I avoid going unless absolutely necessary but unfortunately all the bigger stores moved here from surrounding towns so sometimes you have no choice.  

The building work started here in 1985 and 1990, despite local protesting over building work being carried out on green space instead of the adjacent former Round Oak Steel Works site.   Since then there have been several extensions and alterations.  In the beginning we thought it was great, there was even a monorail! (which went bust many years ago and was dismantled), but it has been the downfall of all the surrounding towns as no shops want to go to the small towns anymore, if you want anything you have no choice but to brave it.

At little further along is the Marina or the Waterfront as it's now called.  There are some pubs and restaurants along here, there used to be a couple of night clubs too, not sure if they are still there today.  

There is a lot of office space. The West Midlands Ambulance headquarters and control room are here, also HMRC (the Tax Office) and Black Country Radio, as to what else is there and what they do in all those offices I have no idea.

This area used to be The Round Oak Steel Works and was founded in 1857 by Lord Ward.  

During the Industrial Revolution the majority of iron-making in the world was carried out within 20 miles of The Round Oak and It was the first in the UK to be converted to natural gas supplied for the North Sea.  The History of The Round Oak steel works is a story all of it's own, I don't know a lot about it but I remember when it closed in 1982 and the affect it had on the area, so many people lost jobs, it was a sad time.

The steel works made use of the canal that ran though it, I'm sure it looks a lot prettier now than it did back then.

Not such a picturesque walk now we're are past the marina.  The land behind the fence is also where the steel works used to be and is undeveloped but has been left like a wasteland.

I only went a little further over that bridge, there wasn't another person in sight and I started to feel a little bit vulnerable, also it had started to drizzle, so I decided to turn back.  I remembered to bring some bread for the wildlife this time, not so much on this section but this little fella made me laugh.

He deserved a treat after that :-)

I hope you enjoyed walking with me and weren't too bored with the little potted history.  Where we live is full of interesting things if we take the time to investigate, don't you think?

-X-

Some finishes & my February mantle

Hello again, I hope you survived storm Imogen without to much trouble.

Saturday was an awful day here weather wise, the rain and the wind were horrendous.  

I only popped out for a few bits late Saturday afternoon, it wasn't a day to be walking about town.

The rest of Saturday I spent stitching and catching up on some missed TV programmes, mainly Endeavour and Midsomer Murders, (Midsomer for all it's prettiness must be the most dangerous place to live in England, good job it's fictional)

I see lots of people joining in with the Joyful World SAL and who can blame them, the first two patterns are so cute!

I started with February because we were already at the end of January.

My little duck looks like he's got a deformed beak doesn't he?  Unfortunately the stitching ended just by a 'snowflake' and with the yellow thread its making it look a bit strange, I'm hoping it won't be so noticeable when it's all done.

Not sure yet if I will finish it as a flat ornament or look about for a frame and change the months around.
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I've also finished my first Christmas ornament of 2016.
The fabric is a little darker than this photo is showing, (night-time is not a good time for taking photos).

Just a simple gingham backing

This is  a free design from 2013 offered from The Nebby Needle, which you can find here 

I changed the thread colours to some that I already had.
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I was browsing Pinterest last week, (as you do) and came across some various ways that stitching hoops had been used, there was one in particular that featured red buttons and a heart that I particularly liked, well, I didn't have many red buttons but I did have some left over red/pink fabric from my February ornament and lots of white and opaque buttons :-)

It actually came out much better than I expected, to be honest I was just going to sew on one layer of buttons but didn't arrange them too good and there was quite a bit of fabric showing between them so I just kept adding layers until I thought it looked ok.  I think it's made a nice addition to my February mantle.

I wanted to get some pink candles but couldn't find any, so these cream ones had to do this time.  I happened to meet with this little jug in Home Sense just at the right time, don't you think it's cute, and just the right colour!

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

Time has just run away with me again, i suppose it has something to do with the time of year but also to do with the fact that i have been a lazy blogger!

I owe a long over due thank you to Mylene, i won a give away on her blog a while ago and this is what arrived in the mail....

...My very first pyn keep! It is stitched and finished so beautifully, thank you so much Mylene, it will always have a special place on my tree xx.

My own stitches have be few and far between, i have managed to finish another LHN ornament and put it together at the weekend

Only one more of these ornaments to finish off now and i can proudly say that i kept up for the whole 12 months (that's a first for me!!) The little angel is almost stitched and the two little houses are stitched up but i have yet to finish them into anything (forgive me for not giving the charts their proper names, i have a mental block when it comes to remembering chart names!)

Daughter #2 had a birthday while I've been absent, she turned 23 on 2nd December

She took her driving test last Thursday but unfortunately didn't pass, she managed to get a cancellation this morning for January 8th, so lets hope she has better luck 2nd time around.

Today has been one of those horrible dark, cold and damp days, but for a couple of weeks we did have snow and ice causing havoc on our roads (if you know the UK then you will know how what little snow it can take to cause havoc, and keep us talking about it forever!! LOL) Personally i would rather have the snow and ice back, to me there is nothing better that a lovely crisp frosty morning :-) I took myself and my camera off to the park after work one afternoon last week so I'll leave you with some of the results.

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The guy in the red coat and the bike just happened to walk up as i was taking the photo, how lucky was that!

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I didn't realise until i looked at the photos on my computer that there was a couple sharing a kiss under the tree...how sweet.

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The last two photos are of a couple of friends i made that day ;-)

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My blog header photo is also at the park that day.

I owe quite a few of you blog visits and comments, i will be trying to catch up this week.

Thank you for stopping by today, and have a great week whatever you may be up too xx

Just Another Bank Holiday Monday And It.....

Was a very typical one for the UK, not very warm and ending in rain. I knew i was being optimistic when i bought a new patio set last week, might be weeks now before we get to use it! Being Bank Holiday we had an extra long weekend so we decided to drive out to a car boot sale and have a rummage - i love a good rummage, do you? I was to be disappointed today though, nothing worth rummaging in, seemed like everyone was just getting out last years 'un sold's' and my only find was another Tudor book - The Queen's Sorrows, Suzannah Dunn, (yes, i know, I'm becoming obsessed!) If only I'd known how interesting the Tudors were when i was taking History at school i might have fared better than a C in my exams (or was it a D? been so long i forget!) either way it was not good.

Wednesday this week bought on another throat infection which really knocked me for six, i went into work only to come home again mid morning because i lost my voice, not a good thing when you work on a switchboard, Thursday i managed to go to work but absolutely had no life in me whatsoever and come Friday morning i woke up as a mutant with a second set of eyelids, the result of something that did not agree with me again, so instead of going to work i made a trip to the doctors. I'm to take antihistamines for a month to try and settle it down (whatever 'it' is).

Anyhoo..you didn't come here to read about my ailments so how about a stitchy photo?

LHN Snowy Pines

DMC Threads on a mystery piece of linen

I don't know what count the fabric was i used but this one came out smaller than the others, and i think now i do prefer them a little bit bigger. I also managed another finish on my ABC, no photos until it comes back though, i was so eager to get it up to Betty's for framing i forgot. I hadn't realised how long this one had been going until i looked back through my blog, it was last April i started it, where does the time go!!

Stevie has her School Prom this Friday so a busy few days ahead being filled with hair, nail, tanning and makeup appointments. I'm not going to sit down and tot up how much this Prom has cost, it's just a lot, an awful lot, but i am so looking forward to seeing her all dressed up, I'm sure it will be worth every last penny:-)

So, next time hopefully lots of photos of Stevie in her glad rags and my long awaited ABC finish, which incidentally i have dedicated to Stevie as it will mark some milestones in her life, she turned 16 in the week i finished it, officially left school last Friday and of course her Prom.

Well that's all folks, except to say that i have added some swaps / trades and some freebies on my other blog, the link is in the sidebar if you want a wonder on over to see if anything takes your fancy...if it does, give me a shout.

As always, thank you for your lovey comments which really do mean so much to me as do your continued visits to read my ramblings. x